“Is the Scout Law your religion—if I may put it that way?”
“No,” said Timothy. “But ‘a Scout is Reverent.’ Once I tried to study the churches and find out what was the truth. I wrote letters to pastors of all denominations—all those in the phone book and the newspaper—when I was on a vacation in the East, I got the names, and then wrote after I got back. I couldn’t write to people here in the city. I said I wanted to know which church was true, and expected them to write to me and tell me about theirs, and argue with me, you know. I could read library books, and all they had to do was recommend some, I told them, and then correspond with me a little about them.”
“Did they?”
“Some of them answered,” said Tim, “but nearly all of them told me to go to somebody near me. Several said they were very busy men. Some gave me the name of a few books, but none of them told me to write again, and… and I was only a little boy. Nine years old, so I couldn’t talk to anybody. When I thought it over, I knew that I couldn’t very well join any church so young, unless it was my grandparents’ church. I keep on going there—it is a good church and it teaches a great deal of truth, I am sure. I’m reading all I can find, so when I am old enough I’ll know what I must do. How old would you say I should be, Peter?”
“College age,” replied Welles. “You are going to college? By then, any of the pastors would talk to you—except those that are too busy!”
“It’s a moral problem, really. Have I the right to wait? But I have to wait. It’s like telling lies—I have to tell some lies, but I hate to. If I have a moral obligation to join the church as soon as I find it, well, what then? I can’t until I’m eighteen or twenty?”
“If you can’t, you can’t. I should think that settles it. You are legally a minor, under the control of your grandparents, and while you might claim the right to go where your conscience leads you, it would be impossible to justify and explain your choice without giving yourself away entirely—just as you are obliged to go to school until you are at least eighteen, even though you know more than most Ph.D.’s. It’s all part of the game, and He who made you must understand that.”
“I’ll never tell you any lies,” said Tim. “I was getting so desperately lonely—my pen pals didn’t know anything about me really. I told them only what was right for them to know. Little kids are satisfied to be with other people, but when you get a little older you have to make friends, really.”
“Yes, that’s a part of growing up. You have to reach out to others and share thoughts with them. You’ve kept to yourself too long as it is.”
“It wasn’t that I wanted to. But without a real friend, it was only pretense, and I never could let my playmates know anything about me. I studied them and wrote stories about them and it was all of them, but it was only a tiny part of me.”