“Said I didn’t care a straw for them,” said Tom; “there was no right or wrong in the matter, and I had as good a right to my opinion as Pugin—or whatever his name is—and the rest.”
“What heresy!” said Hardy, laughing; “you caught it for that, I suppose?”
“Didn’t I! They made such a noise over it, that the men at the other end of the table stopped talking (they were all freshmen at our end), and when they found what was up, one of the older ones took me in hand, and I got a lecture about the middle ages, and the monks. I said I thought England was well rid of the monks; and then we got on to Protestantism, and fasting, and apostolic succession, and passive obedience, and I don’t know what all! I only know I was tired enough of it before coffee came; but I couldn’t go, you know, with all of them on me at once, could I?”
“Of course not; you were like the six thousand unconquerable British infantry at Albuera. You held your position by sheer fighting, suffering fearful loss.”
“Well,” said Tom, laughing, for he had talked himself into good humor again. “I dare say I talked a deal of nonsense; and, when I come to think it over, a good deal of what some of them said had something in it. I should like to hear it again quietly; but there were others sneering and giving themselves airs, and that puts a fellow’s back up.”
“Yes,” said Hardy, “a good many of the weakest and vainest men who come up take to this sort of thing now. They can do nothing themselves, and get a sort of platform by going in for the High Church business from which to look down on their neighbors.”
“That’s just what I thought,” said Tom; “they tried to push mother Church, mother Church, down my throat at every turn. I’m as fond of the Church as any of them, but I don’t want to be jumping up on her back every minute, like a sickly chicken getting on the old hen’s back to warm its feet whenever the ground is cold, and fancying himself taller than all the rest of the brood.”
CXIII.
I have spoken of that which I cannot believe; let me speak to you now of that which I do believe, of that which I hold to be a faith, the faith, the only faith for mankind. Do not turn from it because it seems to be egotistic. I can only speak for myself, for what I know in my own heart and conscience. While I keep to this, I can speak positively, and I wish above all things to speak positively.