“That’s it, Walter. I guess you’re getting the hang of the house. How—how do you come on since—” Uncle Boardman hesitated. He felt the pressure of a certain amount of responsibility, as he stood in the place of Walter’s father and mother, and he wished to ask about his religious life.
“Since—since you were confirmed, Walter?”
“I—I try to do right, uncle, and—”
“You stick to your prayers and your Bible?”
“Oh, yes. I miss my church, Sundays.”
“Well, Walter, do the best you can, your duty toward God and toward man; but do it naturally.”
“What, sir?”
“Why, I mean by that—let me see how I shall put it? It seems to me that I might—of course I don’t intend it—be too—too conscious of my religion. Seems to me a man may be painfully so, going round with a kind of holier–than–thou way. Do you understand me?”
“I think I do.”
“Just be natural. Let your religion just take possession of you, and then come out just—just as song comes out of a bird. I don’t see why it shouldn’t, for religion is the happiest thing in the world. Sometimes, I find a man, and he makes me feel that he is so dreadful good, why it would be taking a liberty, to laugh in his presence. Now that man is sort of painfully conscious of his religion, all the time a–worrying about it and a–fussing over it; and makes the people uneasy all round him. Just be natural, Walter, and without your fussing over it, it will come out easy and smooth as a bird’s singing. I tell you, Walter, a good kind of religion is one that says when you weigh a thing, ‘Sixteen ounces make a pound;’ and when you talk, ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor;’ and when it comes to our no licensing, that says, ‘Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that puttest thy bottle to him and makest him drunken also.’ Do you understand, Walter? Be thorough in your religion. Pray, but act as you pray.”