“And at midnight there was a cry made: Behold¹, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. . . . And they that were ready went in with him to the marriage; and the door was shut. Afterward² came also the other virgins³, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.  
“But he answered and said, Verily, I say unto you, I know you not.
 
“Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.”
 
After reading these verses in a loud voice, my father closed the Bible; in the room where we were assembled there was a sound of chairs being moved and we all went down upon our knees to pray. Following the usage in old Huguenot families, it was our custom to have prayers just before retiring to our rooms for the night.
 
“And the door was shut. . . .” Although I still knelt I no longer heard the prayer, for the foolish virgins appeared to me. They were enveloped⁴ in white veils that billowed about them as they stood before the door holding in their hands the little lamps whose flickering⁵ flames were so soon to be extinguished, leaving them in the gloom without before that closed door, closed against them irrevocably and forever. . . . And a time could come then when it would be too late; when the Saviour⁶ weary of our trespassing⁷ would no longer listen to our supplications! I had never thought that that was possible. And a fear more terrifying and awful than any I had ever known before completely overwhelmed me at the thought of eternal damnation. . . .
 
For a long time, for many weeks and months, the parable⁸ of the foolish virgins haunted me. And every evening, when darkness came, I would repeat to myself the words that sounded so beautiful and yet so dismaying: “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.” If he should come to-night, was ever my thought, I would be awakened⁹ by a noise as of the sound of rushing waters, by the blare of the trumpet¹⁰ of the angel of the Lord announcing the terrifying approach of the end of the world. And I could never go to sleep until I had said a long prayer in which I commended myself to the mercy of my Saviour.
 
I do not believe there was ever a little child who had a more sensitive conscience than I; about everything I was so morbidly¹¹ scrupulous<............