ABSTRACT
Religion was a sore trial. It was difficult to avoid the certainty that I would be a sore trial to God if he knew about my existence. Sometimes, as when I laughed at Freddie treading on the feet of boys saying their prayers, I thought He might suppose that my involvement was more active than in fact it had been. Dean Farrar contributed to my suspicion of God, and my suspicion of God—"I haven't done anything; really I haven't"—gave ghastly reality to Eric's school in which the mortality should have attracted the attention of authority.
