At this time he was quite a doubter,--really a young skeptic.
In the printing office he drifted in that direction faster and faster.
He was a kind of speculator from childhood. He loved to argue. He
enjoyed being on the opposite side, to indulge his propensity to
argue. After he learned the Socratic method of reasoning, he was more
inclined to discuss religion with different parties. Perhaps he did it
to practise the method, rather than to show his aversion to religion.
But, judging from what followed, in the next three or four years, he
grew decidedly unbelieving. We can discover his lack of reverence for
the Christian religion, and want of confidence in it, in articles he
wrote for the _Courant_. Nothing very marked, it is true, but some of
his articles lean in that direction.
Besides, Benjamin was one of those talented, independent boys, who
think it is manly to break away from ancestral creeds. When he was
eleven years old he was assisting his father to pack a barrel of pork
for winter use. When the work was done he said to his father:
"Father, it would save time if you would say grace over the whole
barrel now, instead of saying it over a piece at a time."
Whether his father flogged him for such irreverence, we are not told;
nevertheless, the fact is suggestive of an element in the boy's
make-up to which the ingenious skeptic may appeal with success.
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