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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who made no new friends while living in New York for almost twenty years?

2. What is the title of the first autobiography written by the author?

3. In the Introduction, the author tells us that this is his ___ venture into autobiography.

4. In what month during1936 did the author's father commit suicide?

5. The author's mother lived to within how many days of her ninety-second birthday?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the author describe God loving us, and loving his daughter?

2. What is the most sacred function of memory?

3. What was on the stained glass pieces in the author's office?

4. How did the daughter being sick affect the author?

5. How do ministers lose touch with God?

6. Why did the author feel like a dwarf as depicted in C. S. Lewis' "The Last Battle?"

7. Why does the author write "The Wizard's Tide" and what differs in the book from his childhood memory of his father's death?

8. How did author's mom respond to his fictionalized version of his father's death and how did her reaction to this fist telling affect the author's writing about the death later?

9. Why/how does the author identify with one of the stained glass images?

10. What illness did the author's daughter have and how did it affect her?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

At the end of Part One of the book, the author talks about ministers losing themselves and setting aside their own experiences when they preach. Explain this position. Then discuss how the author views such behavior is detrimental not only to the ministers, but their congregations as well. Why does the author include these observations at this point in the book?

Essay Topic 2

Why is the author's daughter sick? How did she get well? How did the increasing wellness of his daughter, help the author to realize that he was not well? How does the author explain what happens to someone who after being sick for so long is suddenly well? How does this new "freedom" affect them?

Essay Topic 3

The author introduces us to the Tower of London, specifically the the oldest part, the White Tower. What is the White Tower? Why does the author include this information in the book? How does the author connect the details he provided about the White Tower to himself, to his life?

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