"I continued, with my brother Frederick, who was twenty months older than myself, under the instruction of this same governess, till we went to Eton School. I do not remember the least difficulty in receiving as true whatever I was taught of religion at that time. It never occurred to me to think that objections might be made to it, though I knew that different religious persuasions existed. I remember being told by our governess, and being pleased in the idea, that the Church of England was peculiarly excellent; but I remember no distinct feelings of opposition or aversion to the Catholic religion. Of serious impressions I was at that time, I believe, very susceptible; but they must have been most transient. I remember, more than once, distinctly saying my prayers with fervour; though, generally, I suppose, I paid but little attention to them. I was sometimes impressed with great fear of the Day of Judgment, as I remember once in particular, at hearing a French sermon read about it; and, perhaps, I did not knowingly offend God, but I could not be said to love God, nor heartily to embrace religion, if, as I suppose, my ordinary feeling must have corresponded with what I remember well crossing my mind when I was about seven years old,—great regret at reflecting on the sin of Adam; by which I understood that I could not expect to live for ever on the earth. Whatever I thought desirable in the world,—abundance of money, high titles, amusements of all sorts, fine dress, and the like,—as soon and as far as I understood anything about them, I loved and longed for; nor do I see how it could have been otherwise, as the holy, severe maxims of the Gospel truth on these matters were not impressed upon me. Why is it that the truth on these things is so constantly withheld from children; and, instead of being taught by constant, repeated, unremitting lessons that the world and all that it has is worth nothing; that, if they gain all, but lose their souls, they gain nothing; if they lose all and gain their souls, they gain all? Why is it that they are to be encouraged to do right by promises of pleasure, deterred from evil by worldly fear, and so trained up, as it seems, to put a false value on all things? How easily, as it now appears to me, might my affections in those days have been weaned from the world, and made to value God alone? But let me not complain, but bless God for the care,—the very unusual care, I believe,—which was taken of me, by which I remained, I may say, ignorant of what evil was at an age when many, I fear, become proficients. This blessing, however, of being wonderfully preserved from the knowledge, and consequently from the practice, of vice, was more remarkably manifested in the four years of my life succeeding those of which I have been now writing."
The instilling into young minds religious motives for their actions was a frequent topic of conversation with Father Ignatius in his after-life. He was once speaking with some of our young religious on this subject in general; one of them remarked how easy it was to act upon holy motives practically, and instanced his own childhood, when the thought that God would love or hate him kept him straight in his actions: this was the simple and perpetually repeated lesson of his mother, which he afterwards forgot, but which finally stopped him in a career of ambition, and made him a religious. The old man's eye glistened as he heard this, and he sighed deeply. He then observed that it confirmed his opinion, that parents ought to instruct their own children, and never commit them to the mercies of a public school until they were perfectly grounded in the practice of virtue and piety. The next chapter will show why he thought thus.
CHAPTER II.
Four First Years At Eton.
"The 18th of May, 1808, was the important day when first I left my father's house. With a noble equipage, my father and mother took my brother Frederick and me to the house of the Rev. Richard Godley, whom they had chosen to be our private tutor at Eton. He lived, with his family, at a place called the Wharf, about half a mile from the college buildings, which we had to go to for school and chapel across the playing-fields. Oh! how interesting are my recollections whilst I recall the joys and sorrows of Eton days; but I must not expatiate on them, as my own feelings would lead me to do with pleasure. What I have to do now is to record how the circumstances in which I was then placed have contributed to influence my religions principles, and formed some links in the chain of events by which I have arrived at my present state, so different from all that might then have been anticipated. Mr. Godley I consider to have been, what I believe my parents likewise regarded him, a strictly conscientious and deeply religious man; and I must always account it one of the greatest blessings for which, under God, I am indebted to their wisdom and affection, that I was placed in such hands at so critical a time. I do not intend, in all points, to declare my approbation of the system which he pursued with us: but how can I be too grateful for having been under the strict vigilance of one who did, I am convinced, reckon the preservation of my innocence, and the salvation of my soul, his chief concern with me? I remained with Mr. Godley till the Midsummer holidays of 1812. My brother left Eton and went to sea in the year 1811.
"Those who know what our public schools are, will reckon it, I believe, almost incredible that I should be four years at Eton, and remain, as I did, still almost ignorant of what the language of wickedness meant. Mr. Godley's yoke I certainly thought at the time to be a heavy one. Several times each day we were obliged to go across the playing-fields to school, to chapel, or to absence (which was the term by which Etonians will yet understand the calling over the names of the boys at certain times); so that during the daytime, when in health, we could never be more than three hours together without appearing with the boys of the school. Mr. Godley, however, was inexorable in his rule that we should invariably come home immediately after each of these occasions: by this we were kept from much intercourse with other boys. Most grievous then appeared my unhappy lot, in the summer months especially, when we had to pass through the playing-fields, crowded with cricketers, to whom a lower boy, to fag for them and stop their balls, was sure to be an important prize, whose wrath we incurred if we dared despise their call, and run on our way; whilst, if we were but a few minutes late, the yet more terrible sight awaited us of Mr. Godley's angry countenance. We had not exemption from one of these musters, as most boys had who lived at a distance from the school, yet none of them were bound like us to a speedy return home. It seemed like an Egyptian bondage, from which there was no escape; and doubtless the effect was not altogether good upon my character. As might be expected, the more we were required to observe rules and customs different from others, the more did a certain class of big bullies in the school seem to count it their business to watch over us, as though they might be our evil geniuses. A certain set of faces, consequently, I looked upon with a kind of mysterious dread; and I was under a constant sense of being as though in an enemy's country, obliged to guard against dangers on all sides. Shrinking and skulking became my occupation beyond the ordinary lot of little schoolboys, and my natural disposition to be cowardly and spiritless was perhaps increased. I say perhaps, for other circumstances might have made me worse; for what I was in the eyes of the masters of public opinion in the school, I really was—a chicken-hearted creature, what, in Eton language, is called a sawney. It may be, that had I been from the first in free intercourse among the boys, instead of being a good innocent one, I might have been, what I suppose must be reckoned one of the worst varieties of public-school characters, a mean, dishonourable one. Whatever I may have lost from not being trained, from the first of my Eton life, in the perfect spirit of the place, could I possibly have escaped during that time in any other way the utter corruption of my morals, at least the filling of my mind with familiar images of all the most foul iniquity? For, alas! where is the child from the age of eight till twelve who, without one compassionate friend, already strong in virtue to countenance and to encourage him, shall maintain the profession of modesty and holiness against a persecution as inveterate and merciless in its way as that which Lot had to bear at Sodom? Was not the angel of God with me when He preserved me for so long from all attacks of this kind in such a place as Eton was in my time? How can I remember Godley but with veneration and gratitude, who, though, it may be, not so considerately and wisely as might be possible (for who is as wise as he might be?), kept me, I might say, almost alone untainted in the midst of so much corruption.
"Yet, till the last year of my stay with him, I did not learn decidedly to love religion. It was still my task and not my pleasure. At length, my brother Frederick being gone to sea, and two other boys, Mr. Godley's stepsons, who were with us under his instructions, being sent to school elsewhere, I remained his only pupil, and, I may almost say, his chief care and joy. He felt with me and for me in the desolation of my little heart, at being parted from my first and hitherto inseparable mate, and I became his almost constant companion. It is not difficult to gain the confidence of a simple child: he spoke almost continually of religious subjects, and I learnt to take his view of things. I certainly did not begin to lose my pleasure in life. Death was an idea which still was strange to me; and I did not come to an understanding of the great doctrines of Revelation. I remember not to have taken much notice of any peculiar articles of faith; but still believed implicitly, without argument or inquiry, what I was taught. I can now hardly give an account of what were the religious ideas and impressions which began so greatly to engage my mind, except that I took my chief delight in hearing Mr. Godley speak about religion, that I had a great abhorrence and dread of wickedness, thought with pleasure of my being intended to be a clergyman, as I was always told I should be, and admired and loved all whom I was taught to look upon as religious people. All these simple feelings of piety, which were often accompanied with pure delight, were greatly increased in a visit of six weeks which I paid, with Mr. Godley, to his mother and sisters at Chester. He was a Prebendary of that cathedral, and of course had to spend some time there every year in residence. Usually, when he went from home, from time to time, he was used to get one of the other tutors at Eton to hear my brother's and my lessons, and to look over our exercises; but in the last summer I staid with him, with my father's consent, he took me with him. Mr. Godley's sisters, who showed me great kindness, like him, I suppose, had no wish concerning me than to encourage me in becoming pious and good, and I got to read a few pious books which they recommended. 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' Doddridge's 'Life of Colonel Gardiner,' Alleine's 'Alarm,' were some which I remember taking great effect upon me; so that when I returned from Chester to Eton, though I cannot recall many particulars of my feelings, I know that the chief prevailing one was, an ardent desire to keep myself untainted at Eton, and to keep from all fellowship with the set of boys whom I knew to be particularly profane mockers of piety. I bought a book of prayers, and during the three weeks that I yet remained with this tutor, after our return from Chester, and when first I went home to the summer holidays, I took no delight like that of being by myself at prayer. Ah! how grievous would be the thought if we could but understand how to lament such a calamity as it deserves, of a pious child's tender, pure soul denied, made forgetful of all its good, and hardened. O God, grant me wisdom to understand the magnitude of such an evil, grant me a heart now at length to mourn over the devastation and uprooting which it was, at this time, Thy holy will to permit, of all those fair flowers of grace which Thy hand had planted in my heart; and grant me to mourn my fall, that I may now once at last recover that simplicity of childlike piety, the feelings of which I now recollect, indeed, though faintly, but never have since again enjoyed. Oh! God, if a child's love, pure through ignorance of sin, is never to be mine again, oh! give me at least that depth of penance for which my fall has given me such ample matter.
"It occurred not to my mind to consider whether the new thoughts which occupied my mind, and the books in which I took such pleasure, would be approved of at home. I took them with me to the holidays. It was judged, as was to be expected, by my parents, that Mr. Godley's views of religion were not such as they would wish to be instilled into me; and it was determined that I should leave his house and be placed with one of the public tutors at Eton. It is a difficult thing to classify religious Protestants, and so I do not here pronounce Mr. Godley and his sisters to have been Evangelical, or Calvinistic, nor give them any distinctive title. They did not, as far as I remember, inculcate upon me any peculiar notions of religion, but they certainly were not in the way which is usually called orthodox Church of England religion, though indeed it is difficult to define exactly what this is. It was likely, or rather morally certain, that while with Mr. Godley, I should follow his guidance, and take his views; so I was to be placed among the other boys, as I imagine with the idea likewise, that I should gain in this way more of the advantages supposed to belong to the rough discipline of a public school. I do not understand how it was that I received the intimation of this change with so little sadness. Distant evils, as we all know, lose their sting strangely; and, having the holidays before me when this change was declared, I felt no trouble about it then. It is easy to talk a docile child into agreement with any plan made for him by those whom he is used to confide in; and so I remember no difficulty when my books were taken away, and I had no more persons by to bring my former thoughts to remembrance, in quietly discontinuing my fervent practices."