When he heard that the Huguenots were despicable, that Charles I.
was a saint, that the Old Pretender was James III., that the
Revolution of 1688 was a crime, and that the Non-jurors were the
true confessors of the English Church, it did not seem to square
with his reading, or his reflections. Perhaps, after all, the
infallible Hurrell might be wrong. One fear he had never been able
to instil into his brother, and that was the fear of death. When
asked what would happen if he were suddenly called to appear in the
presence of God, Anthony replied that he was in the presence of God
from morning to night and from night to morning. That abiding
consciousness he never lost, and when his speculations went furthest
they invariably stopped there.

Left with his father and one sister, the boy drank in the air of
Dartmoor, and grew to love Devonshire with an unalterable affection.
He also continued his reading, and invaded theology. Newton on the
Prophecies remarked that "if the Pope was not Antichrist, he had bad
luck to be so like him," and Renan had not yet explained that
Antichrist was neither the Pope nor the French Revolution, but the
Emperor Nero. From Pearson on the Creed he learned the distinction
between "believing" and "believing in." When we believe in a person,
we trust him. When we believe a thing, we are not sure of it. This
is one of the few theological distinctions which are also
differences. Meanwhile, the Archdeacon had been watching his
youngest son, and had observed that he had at least a taste for
books. Perhaps he might not be the absolute dolt that Hurrell
pronounced him. He had lost five years, so far as classical training
was concerned, by the mismanagement of the Archdeacon himself.
Still, he was only seventeen, and there was time to repair the
waste. He was sent to a private tutor's in preparation for Oxford.