“Now,” said he, “out of that prayer I can teach you all the letters, and if you pay attention, you will learn to read.”
The whole morning was passed in my telling him the different letters, and I very soon knew them all. During the day, the Lord’s Prayer was gone through, and as I learnt the words as well as the letters, I could repeat it before night; I read it over to him twenty or thirty times, spelling every word, letter by letter, until I was perfect. This was my first lesson.
“Why is it called the Lord’s Prayer?” said I.
“Because, when our Lord Jesus Christ was asked by his followers in what way they ought to address God, he gave them this prayer to repeat, as being the most proper that they could use.”
“But who was Jesus Christ?”
“He was the Son of God, as I told you yesterday, and at the same time equal with God.”
“How could he be equal with God, if, as you said yesterday, God sent him down to be killed?”
“It was with his own consent that he suffered death: but all this is a mystery which you cannot understand at present.”
“What’s a mystery?”
“That which you cannot understand.”