This
story caused me to pause and think. Hitherto I had taken all for
granted.
"It had never occurred to me that the sun might stop shining, that the
stars might go out. I had scarcely thought that I myself might stop,
might die.
"'What happens to me when I die?' I asked people. 'God will judge
you,' they said. 'If good, you go to heaven; if evil, to hell.' That
did not satisfy me. How did people know? No one had ever come back to
tell us how things were done after death.
"I had never thought at all before, but now I began to think so hard
that I could not go about the ordinary things of life, I was so
wrapped up in the mystery of my own ignorance.
"People said I was under the evil eye. But that again was nonsense.
'Whence comes man?' I asked. 'Where does he go? Where was I before I
was born?' I was part of my ancestors. Very well. 'But where shall I
go when I die? What shall I be?'
"I nearly learned to disbelieve in religion. You must know I began to
go to church every Saturday evening and on all festivals. I listened
intently to all the services and the sermons, and I read all that I
could find to read, and I asked questions of priests and of educated
people--all with the idea of solving this mystery of life. I tried to
be good at the bidding of the Church, but I gave that up.
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