4. BIOGRAPHY OF “i
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erhays, an Englishman, was considered in our neigh- borhood, a prodigy of learning. After I had continued with him for four or five years, he pronounced me a finished scholar, and such indeed was I considered gen- erally in the neighborhood. This, with my natural love of letters, fired my mind and increased my exer- tions to rise to eminence, Being naturally ambitious to excel, the praises lavished unsparingly upon me,swelled my vanity, and caused me to think myself a little above mediocrity. From the time I was able to read, I took great de-light in books, and preferred them to any company, andoften retired from my young companions to indulge inthe pleasure of reading. But books of science werethe rarest articles in our country, and in fact were notto be found in our back-woods. Nothing but a fewnovels, as Peregrine Pickle, Tom Jones, Roderic Ran-dom, and such trash, could I obtain. These were poorhelps, and yet from reading these, my ardent thirst forknowledge increased. The Bible we had; but thisbeing the only book read in our schools, had becomeso familiar by constantly reading it there, that I wished‘variety. Here I wish to leave my testimony in favor‘of making the Bible a school book. By this means\the young mind receives information and impressions,which are not erased through life. The Bible, not‘read in school, is seldom read afterwards. To this, aslone leading cause, may be attributed the present growthof infidelity and skepticism, then scarcely known, andnever openly avowed in all our country.
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