![]() ![]() ![]() More specifically, Baldwin recalls the transformation that occurred in his peers. All of these changes alarmed and unsettled the young Baldwin. In his immediate environment, most of his friends began to drink, smoke, and become sexually active. This fear stemmed from his growing awareness of the evil both within and without: his own pubescent thoughts, and the criminals and prostitutes he saw in his neighborhood. Baldwin also explains that he turned toward religion in the first place because, at this age, he first developed an acute sense of fear. He was drawn to a Christian interpretation of God because America was a Christian country, and this seemed to him like the only possible explanation. Baldwin clarifies that he means by this that he discovered the common Christian ideas: God, saints and angels, and hell. He introduces the setting as the summer that he “became fourteen,” during which he experienced a religious crisis. Baldwin begins a new essay, also referred to as a letter this one is not addressed to any one in particular, but rather from “a region in my mind.” Baldwin begins the essay by referring to an event in his own life, instead of summarizing his family history as he did in his letter to James.
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