Is your question refering to the way that Tom has to learn
some verses from the Bible in this chapter? This amusing chapter begins as Aunt Polly
starts the time of family worship after breakfast. As part of this time, Tom has to
recite the verses that he has learned in front of the family to show how hard he has
been working on them.
Tom bent all his energies to the memorising of
five verses, and eh chose part of the Sermon on the Mount, because he could find no
verses that were shorter. At the end of half an hour Tom had a vague and general idea of
his lesson, but no more, for his mind was traversing the whole field of human thought,
and his hands were busy with distracting
recreations.
The stuttering
response that he gives when asked to recite the verses and his attitude towards learning
the Bible clearly shows that to Tom, religion is something of an irrelevance.
Ironically, he shows that he is able to learn the Bible verses, but only after Mary has
promised him "something nice" as a reward if he can learn them quickly. This makes him
exert himself and he learns the verses in record time, clearly indicating that he is
interested in the Bible only as a source of what he can extract from
it.
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