Genre:

Short Fiction

Subjects:

Piety, Reading, Exploration

    Albert had been brought up religiously, but on leaving home he occasionally associated with young people who 'argued for liberal opinions, and recommended plays, balls, and concerts, as highly rational and instructive [...] and asserted that attention to these things was necessary to keep pace with the "march of intellect"'. Albert began to lose his veneration for sacred things, and was discovered by his friend Philip shamefacedly reading on a Sunday what he called 'a very interesting well-known publication, Cook's Voyages round the World'. Philip considered that Albert's parents would applaud his taste and approve his industry on any other day, 'for certainly the information derived from intelligent travellers is improving and valuable', but observed that, on Sunday, reading 'should be confined to what is adapted to improve the mind in sacred and divine things'. (3) After further discussion on the subject, the friends embraced and went to church, Albert observing: 'The ways of God are always pleasant and profitable, and the path of duty is the path of safety' (5).