In my early childhood I received no formal religious education. I did, of course, received

that ethical and moral training that moral and conscientious parents give their children. When I was about ten years old, my parents decided that it would be good for me to receive some formal religious instruction and to study the Bible, if for no other reason than that a knowledge of both is essential to the understanding of literature and culture.

As lapsed Catholics, they sought a group which had as little doctrine and dogma as possible, but what they considered having good moral and ethical values. After some searching, they joined the local Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. Although my parents did not attend Meetings for worship very often, I went to first Day School there regularly, eventually completing the coarse and receiving an inscribed Bible.

At the Quake School, I learnt about the concept of the "inner light" and it has stayed with me. I was, however, unable to accept the idea of Jesus Christ being any more divine than, say, Buddha. As a result, I be came estrange from the Quakers, who, though believing in substantially the same moral and ethical values as I do, and even the same religious concept of the inner light, had arrived at these conclusions from a premise which I could not accept. I admit that my religion is the poorer for having not revealed word and no supreme prophet, but my inherited aversion to dogmatism limits my faith to e Supreme Being and the goodness of man.

Later, at another Meeting of Worship, I found that some Quakers had similar though not so strong reservations about the Christian aspects of their belief. I made some attempt to rejoin a Meeting for Worship, but found that, though they remained far closer to me than any other organized religious group, I did not wish to become one again. I do attend Meeting for Worship on occasion, but it is for the help on deep contemplation which it brings rather than any lingering desire m rejoin the fold.

I do believe in a "Supreme Being" (or ground of our being, as Tillich would call it). This being is ineffable and not to be fully understood by humans. He is not cut off from the world and we can know him somewhat through the knowledge which we are limited to--the world. He is interested and concerned for humankind, but on man himself falls the burden of his own life. To me the message of the great prophets, especially Jesus, is that good is its own reward, and indeed the only possible rewards that ark intrinsic in the actions themselves. The relationship between each human and the Supreme Being is an entire personal one.

It is my faith that each person has this unique relationship with the Supreme Being. To me that is the meaning of the inner light. The purpose of life, insofar as a human can grasp it, is to understand and increase this lifeline to the Supreme Being, this piece of divinity that every human has. Thus, the taking of any life by choice is the closing of some connection to God, and unconscionable. Killing anyone not only denies them their purpose, but corrupts the purpose of all men. (553)

If offered a reward for doing a good deed, the author would ______.

A．spurn the reward indignantly

B．accept it only as a token of the other person's feelings of gratitude

C．neither take nor refuse the reward

D．explain to the offerer that rewards are blasphemous