I should tell you at once that he thoroughly agrees with the eighth commandment.

But he got hold of some unsettling works, the New Testament among others, and this loosened his views of life and led him into many perplexities.

As he was the son of a man in a certain position, and well off, my friend had enjoyed from the first the advantages of education, nay, he had been kept alive through a sickly childhood by constant watchfulness, comforts, and change of air; for all of which he was indebted to his father's wealth.
At college he met other lads more diligent than himself, who followed the plough in summer-time to pay their college fees in winter; and this inequality struck him with some force.

He was at that age of a conversible temper, and insatiably curious in the aspects of life; and he spent much of his time scraping acquaintance with all classes of man- and woman-kind.

In this way he came upon many depressed ambitions, and many intelligences stunted for want of opportunity; and this also struck him.
He began to perceive that life was a handicap upon strange, wrong-sided principles; and not, as he had been told, a fair and equal race.