“Anan, sir.”
“She don’t understand me. Have you been taught to read and write?”
“Oh no!”
“But I suppose you have been taught, at least, to say your catechism—and you pray sometimes?”
“I have prayed to father not to beat me.”
“But to God?”
“God, sir—what is that?” *
* This ignorance—indeed the whole sketch of Alice—is from the life; nor is such ignorance, accompanied by what almost seems an instinctive or intuitive notion of right or wrong, very uncommon, as our police reports can testify. In the Examiner for, I think, the year 1835, will be found the case of a young girl ill-treated by her father, whose answers to the interrogatories of the magistrate are very similar to those of Alice to the questions of Maltravers.
Maltravers drew back, shocked and appalled. Premature philosopher as he was, this depth of ignorance perplexed his wisdom. He had read all the disputes of schoolmen, whether or not the notion of a Supreme Being is innate; but he had never before been brought face to face with a living creature who was unconscious of a God.
After a pause, he said: “My poor girl, we misunderstand each other. You know that there is a God?”