Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet - An Autobiography by Charles Kingsley
page 284 of 615 (46%)
page 284 of 615 (46%)
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dogs?"
"I am the dog, then?" I asked, half amused, for I was too curious about his state of mind to be angry. "Not at all, my dear fellow. But those great men to whom we (or at least I) owe our conversion to the true Church, always tell us (and you will feel yourself how right they are) not to parade religious feelings; to look upon them as sacred things, to be treated with that due reserve which springs from real reverence. You know, as well as I, whether that is the fashion of the body in which we were, alas! brought up. You know, as well as I, whether the religious conversation of that body has heightened your respect for sacred things." "I do, too well." And I thought of Mr. Wigginton and my mother's tea parties. "I dare say the vulgarity of that school has, ere now, shaken your faith in all that was holy?" I was very near confessing that it had: but a feeling came over me, I knew not why, that my cousin would have been glad to get me into his power, and would therefore have welcomed a confession of infidelity. So I held my tongue. "I can confess," he said, in the most confidential tone, "that it had for a time that effect on me. I have confessed it, ere now, and shall again and again, I trust. But I shudder to think of what I might have been believing or disbelieving now, if I had not in a happy hour fallen in with Mr. Newman's sermons, and learnt from them, and from his disciples, what the |
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