WITHOUT FEAR OR FAVOR

I remember the first long trousers I had. How proud I was! I was now a real man. I was sixteen. I dressed up in the best fashion of the day, which at that time included a stiff "stand-up" collar and tie. It was Sunday afternoon, at which time all the young people paraded around town and down the main thoroughfare to be admired of the opposite sex.

Winnipeg was a comparatively small town in those days, yet it affected a metropolitan air. Though years have passed, to this day the whole event is clear in my mind. As I walked down Main Street, I thought I was the subject of much favorable comment and smiles, and I smiled back the best I knew. I was definitely pleased with myself.

In Winnipeg entirely different religious conditions prevailed than in Denmark and I received another religious shock. By that time I had decided that religion was not for young people to understand, that the best they could do was to accept what their elders said without question. I was a Christian, and I had been confirmed, and that was the end of all controversy.

But in Winnipeg I suddenly found myself confronted with several denominations, no one of which, had any use for the others, but believed them to be heretical. This was news to me. I had known of only, one Lutheran church, and now I found that there were a dozen different kinds. It was no longer merely

I had thought that my religious difficulties were over. But I saw now that this was not true. Whatever denomination I should decide to join, somebody would be sure to warn me that I was making a serious mistake. I wondered how a boy, and a mere layman, could decide upon the right church, when learned men differed.

At this time I made the acquaintance of some Baptists. When I casually mentioned this to my consulting priest, he was visibly horrified. Bad as were some of the branches of his own church, their error was as nothing compared to the Baptist heresy. Their whole religion, he assured me, centered in the amount of water used in christening. They believed that much water would assure salvation in baptism, while mere sprinkling would avail little. What good purpose could such a "water religion" serve? It was the rankest of heresies.

That closed this avenue for me. Baptists would not do. They believed too much in water. And yet, as I heard their side, they seemed right to me. But, then, they were probably wrong. The priest had much more education than the Baptist minister. I had better be careful.

Then there were the Methodists. They seemed to have solved the question of baptism. In that church a person could be sprinkled with a little water or baptized in much water. That was a happy solution.

Having considerable leisure time, I read a great deal, especially atheistic literature. I was greatly delighted whenever I found something that might be used to puzzle or disturb the primitive faith of some of the good people in the neighborhood. Among them was a young minister in whom I was particularly interested. I believed him to be honest and sincere. He was a great stickler for the inerrancy of the Scriptures.

I well remember when I first noted in the Bible that God not only fed the Israelites manna during the forty years they were in the wilderness but also preserved their clothing and shoes so that they did not wear out. The reading is:

"I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot" (Deut. 29:5).

Some such arrangement would, of course, be necessary, for there was no opportunity in Israel's forty years of wandering to replenish their wardrobes. But I had never known of this arrangement before, and it seemed an excellent opportunity to harass my young ministerial friend.

"Does it say that in the Bible?" he queried.

We read the statement.

"Well," he said, "I do not know anything about how this was done, but whatever the Bible says, I believe."

"You really believe that neither the shoes nor the clothes of the Israelites wore out for full forty years?" I asked, to make sure I had an unqualified statement from him.

Then came my crowning argument. I had conceived a bright idea, and out it came.

"Do you mean to tell me that you believe that their clothes did not wear out for forty years? What happened to the clothes of a baby newly born? Am I supposed to believe that as he grew older, and his clothes did not wear out, they grew as the boy grew? You don't really mean that the garments grew with the boy? Tell me, do you believe that?"

"I suppose so," he answered weakly, his faith dimming a little.

I went away happy. I had gained a great victory. I had shown the fallacy of unquestioned faith in the Bible. I was a hero.

Then, as I began to think, a queer, sinking feeling suddenly overpowered me. I remembered how it had been in homes I knew. When the older boys outgrew their clothes, the smaller ones inherited them. Might the Israelites not have followed the same custom? Instead of the clothes growing with the boy, were

they simply handed down to the next smaller one? My "smartness" which I had so much admired did not look so smart now. Had I simply made a fool of myself? Apparently.

I was not as happy as when I started out. But I had learned a lesson, an effective one that I would not forget. And the solution to this particular problem was so ridiculously simple! Perhaps in the future I had better not be so sure of my own smartness;

I went over to Neche and went into a saloon, that being the most likely place I would get the information I wanted.

In a little while a man came over and started a conversation with me. I was evidently a stranger in town, he assumed, for he had not seen me before. And what might have brought me over this time? I told him all I knew and how crooked the men had been with whom we dealt, and how they had defrauded us. I told him all about our smuggling, not having a very clear idea that it was an unlawful business. He seemed to be interested, and I told him everything. What were the names of the men I was after? I told him the names they had given us, but that we suspected they were not the right ones.