'If your sympathies do not run in that direction, then I know better than to change your mind, at least where Free Will versus Predestination is concerned,' says Wait Still. 'But I know that when you were a boy you had the privilege of sitting at the knee of men such as John Wilkins, Gregory Bolstrood, Drake Waterhouse, and many others of Independent sympathies – men who preached freedom of conscience. Who advocated Gathered, as opposed to Established, churches. The flourishing of small congregations. Abolition of central dogma.'