She had become Stevenson's nurse when he was still an infant. Cummy preached strict Calvinist beliefs to Stevenson and read him Old Testament scripture. By the time Stevenson was a toddler, she had read the Bible to him several times over. Her religious convictions were combined with a belief in the supernatural. Among the stories she told him were numerous tales of ghosts and body-snatchers.
As a result, young Stevenson had an active imagination and was profoundly religious. He was writing devotional stories by age four and liked to play "church." At night, he wept for Jesus and suffered from nightmares about hell, damnation, and evil. Stevenson was being raised to believe that "there were but two camps in the world; one of the perfectly pious and respectable, one of the perfectly profane, mundane and vicious" (McLynn, p. 19).
Yet as an adult, Stevenson rejected literal Calvinism. The religious background, however, came to permeate his writings. The concept of good and evil locked in combat is, for example, a central theme in The Strange Case of Dr. Jehyll and Mr. Hyde. Furthermore, Dr. Jekyll's resignation and acceptance of his progression into vice and evil reflects the Calvinist belief in destiny and predetermination.
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