And it was in this manner that I first took to the paths of knowledge.

About this time I began to be somewhat impressed with religious feelings.  My parents were, to a certain extent, religious people; but, though they had done their best to afford me instruction on religious points, I had either paid no attention to what they endeavoured to communicate, or had listened with an ear far too obtuse to derive any benefit.  But my mind had now become awakened from the drowsy torpor in which it had lain so long, and the reasoning powers which I possessed were no longer inactive.  Hitherto I had entertained no conception whatever of the nature and properties of God, and with the most perfect indifference had heard the divine name proceeding from the mouths of people—­frequently, alas! on occasions when it ought not to be employed; but I now never heard it without a tremor, for I now knew that God was an awful and inscrutable Being, the Maker of all things; that we were His children, and that we, by our sins, had justly offended Him; that we were in very great peril from His anger, not so much in this life as in another and far stranger state of being yet to come; that we had a Saviour withal to whom it was necessary to look for help:  upon this point, however, I was yet very much in the dark, as, indeed, were most of those with whom I was connected.  The power and terrors of God were uppermost in my thoughts; they fascinated though they astounded me.  Twice every Sunday I was regularly taken to the church, where, from a corner of the large spacious pew, lined with black leather, I would fix my eyes on the dignified High-Church rector, and the dignified High-Church clerk, and watch the movement of their lips, from which, as they read their respective portions of the venerable liturgy, would roll many a portentous word descriptive of the wondrous works of the Most High.

Rector.  Thou didst divide the sea, through thy power:  thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.

Philoh.  Thou smotest the heads of Leviathan in pieces:  and gavest him to be meat for the people in the wilderness.

Rector.  Thou broughtest out fountains, and waters out of the hard rocks:  thou driedst up mighty waters.

Philoh.  The day is thine, and the night is thine:  thou hast prepared the light and the sun.

Peace to your memories, dignified rector, and yet more dignified clerk!—­by this time ye are probably gone to your long homes, and your voices are no longer heard sounding down the aisles of the venerable church—­nay, doubtless, this has already long since been the fate of him of the sonorous ’Amen!’—­the one of the two who, with all due respect to the rector, principally engrossed my boyish admiration—­he, at least, is scarcely now among the living!  Living! why, I have heard say that he blew a fife—­for he was a musical as well as a Christian professor—­a bold fife, to cheer the Guards and the brave Marines, as