Yet this was a great
advance upon former Confirmations, and the Bishop met my father
afterwards, and inquired most kindly after his lame son.
We were disappointed, and felt that we could not attain to the
feelings in the Confirmation poem in the Christian Year--Mr.
Castleford's gift to me. Still, I believe that, though encumbered
with such a drag as myself, Clarence, more than I did,
'Felt Him how strong, our hearts how frail,
And longed to own Him to the death.'
But the evangelical belief that dejection ought to be followed by a
full sense of pardon and assurance of salvation somewhat perplexed
and dimmed our Easter Communion. For one short moment, as Clarence
turned to help my father lift me up from the altar-rail, I saw his
face and eyes radiant with a wonderful rapt look; but it passed only
too fast, and the more than ordinary glimpse his spiritual nature
had had made him all the more sad afterwards, when he said, 'I would
give everything to know that there was any steadfastness in my
purpose to lead a new life.'
'But you are leading a new life.'
'Only because there is no one to bully me,' he said. Still, there
had been no reproach against him all the time he had been at Frith
and Castleford's, when suddenly we had a great shock.
Parties were running very high, and there were scurrilous papers
about, which my father perfectly abhorred; and one day at dinner,
when declaiming against something he had seen, he laid down strict
commands that none should be brought into the house.
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