My little book had no literary value, and the publisher said that only thirty-nine copies were sold; however, on being asked to produce the remainder of the edition, he said he was unable to do so, as the copies had been "mislaid." The printing and binding having been done at my expense, I compelled the publisher to reprint the book, but this brought me no pecuniary benefit, as the demand, such as it was, had been satisfied by the first edition.
To this day I do not feel certain in my own mind whether the publisher was dishonest or not. It would be quite natural that a book on heraldry should have a very small sale, but on the other hand it is inconceivable that more than four hundred copies of a book should have been simply lost. [Footnote: There is a third possibility: the sale may have been exactly what the publisher stated; but he may have had no belief in the success of the work, and have printed only one hundred copies whilst charging me for five hundred.]
It was a very good thing for me that the printing of this treatise on heraldry was a cause of loss and disappointment, for if it had been successful I might easily have wasted my life in archaeology, and corrected pedigrees—those long lists of dead people of whom nobody knows anything but their names, and the estates they were lucky enough to possess.
The reader will see that up to this point my tastes had been conservative and aristocratic. Then there came a revolution which was the most important intellectual crisis of my life, and which deserves a chapter to itself.
CHAPTER XIII.
1850.
Political and religious opinions of my relations.—The Rev. James Bardsley.—Protestant controversy with Rome.—German neology.—The inspiration of the Scriptures.—Inquiry into foundation for the doctrine.—I cease to be a Protestant.—An alternative presents itself.—A provisional condition of prolonged inquiry.—Our medical adviser.—His remarkable character.—His opinions.
All my relations were Tories of the most strongly Conservative type, and earnestly believing members of the Church of England, more inclined to the Evangelical than to the High Church party. In my early youth I naturally took the religion and political color of the people about me.
There was at Burnley in those days a curate who has since become a well-known clergyman in Manchester, Mr. James Bardsley. He was a man of very strong convictions of an extreme Evangelical kind, and nature had endowed him with all the gifts of eloquence necessary to propagate his opinions from the pulpit. [Footnote: Since then he has become Canon and Archdeacon.] He was really eloquent, and he possessed in a singular degree the wonderful power of enchaining the attention of his audience. We always listened with interest to what Mr. Bardsley was saying at the moment, and with the feeling of awakened anticipation, as he invariably conveyed the impression that something still more interesting was to follow. His power as a preacher was so great that his longest sermons were not felt to be an infliction; one might feel tired after they were over, but not during their delivery. His power was best displayed in attack, and he was very aggressive, especially against the doctrines of the Church of Rome,—which he declared to be "one huge Lie."
Of course a boy of my age believed his own religion to be absolutely true, and others to be false in exact proportion to their divergence from it, as this is the way with young people when they really believe. It was my habit to take an intensely strong interest in anything that interested me at all, and as religion had a supreme interest for me I read all about the Protestant controversy with Rome under Mr. Bardsley's guidance, in books of controversial theology recommended by him. My guardian, with her usual good sense, did not quite approve of this controversial spirit; she was content to be a good Christian in her own way and let the poor Roman Catholics alone, but I was too ardent in what seemed to me the cause of truth to see with indifference the menacing revival of Romanism.