Re-read the passage below.  What tone does Twain take toward church and religion?  What is Tom's opinion about church?  How do you know this?  What other passages does this one connect with?  Pick a group member to read the passage aloud.

      How many of my readers would have the industry and application to memorize two thousand verses, even for a Dore Bible? And yet Mary had acquired two Bibles in this way -- it was the patient work of two years -- and a boy of German parentage had won four or five. He once recited three thousand verses without stopping; but the strain upon his mental faculties was too great, and he was little better than an idiot from that day forth -- a grievous misfortune for the school, for on great occasions, before company, the superintendent (as Tom expressed it) had always made this boy come out and "spread himself."  (p. 36)

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