the
London working classes, he was one of the very numerous thinking men
who have never needed to cast aside a faith of childhood; from the
dawn of rationality, they simply stand apart from all religious
dogmas, unable to understand the desire of such helps to conduct,
untouched by spiritual trouble--as that phrase is commonly
interpreted. And it seemed that Jane closely resembled him in this
matter. Sensitive to every prompting of humanity, instinct with
moral earnestness, she betrayed no slightest tendency to the
religion of church, chapel, or street-corner. A promenade of the
Salvation Army half-puzzled, half-amused her; she spoke of it
altogether without intolerance, as did her grandfather, but never
dreamt that it was a phenomenon which could gravely concern her.
Prayers she had never said; enough that her last thought before
sleeping was one of kindness to those beings amid whom she lived her
life, that on awaking her mind turned most naturally to projects of
duty and helpfulness.
Excepting the Bible, Snowdon seldom made use of books either for
inquiry or amusement. Very imperfectly educated in his youth, he had
never found leisure for enriching his mind in the ordinary way until
it was too late; as an old man he had so much occupation in his
thoughts that the printed page made little appeal to him.
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