ON BOYHOOD DAYS 



The long-smouldering antislavery fires were pre- 

 paring to burst forth. And just at the time when 

 the great civic conflict was becoming more and 

 more obviously inevitable, an intellectual and 

 religious turmoil of world wide scope was evoked 

 by the pronouncements of Darwin and Wallace, 

 which seemed to shake the fundamental notions as 

 to man's creation, his past history, and his destiny. 



These disturbing questions of national policy 

 and intellectual and spiritual welfare were part 

 and parcel of our everyday life in Lancaster dur- 

 ing the years when I was passing from boyhood 

 into adolescence. 



As a child, I listened eagerly to the discussions 

 long before I could more than half understand 

 them, when on not rare occasions a visiting min- 

 ister or lecturer was entertained at my father's 

 table. Only the eager desire to hear these discus- 

 sions overcame the awe of a strange face that led 

 me always to dread the coming of a stranger even 

 though I longed to hear his message. 



In my earliest boyhood, as my sister and 

 mother in later years recalled with amusement, I 

 was likely to shun the table when a place was 

 laid for a strange guest, assuring my mother that 

 I did not care for dinner, and running to the fields 

 to escape being seen by the newcomer. Even a 

 boy's appetite could not master bashfulness. 



[23] 



