erformed the operation more delicately, if he were only brushing a fly
off the down of a lady's cheek. _He_ never made me cry.

CHAPTER SIX.

THIS CHAPTER SHOWETH, IN A METHODICAL MANNER, HOW TO FIND A FAITH AND
LOSE A RELIGION; ALSO, TO PROCURE A CALL FOR PERSONS OF ALL MANNER OF
CALLINGS.

I had, as I have related, been encouraged in fits of passion, and had
been taught to be pugnacious; my mind was now to be opened to loftier
speculations; and religious dread, with all the phantoms of superstition
in its train, came like a band of bravoes, and first chaining down my
soul in the awe of stupefaction, ultimately loosened its bonds, and sent
it to wander in all its childish wildness in the direful realms of
horrible dreams, and of waking visions hardly less so. I was fashioning
for a poet.

My nurse was always a little devotional. She went to the nearest chapel
or church, and, satisfied that she heard the word of God, without
troubling herself with the niceties of any peculiar dogma, which she
could not have understood if she had, and finding herself on the
threshold of Divine grace, she knelt down in all humility, prayed, and
was comforted. Old Ford was a furious Methodist: he owned that he never
could reform; and, as he daily drained the cup of sin to the very dregs,
he tried, as an antidote, long prayer and superabounding faith. The
unction with which he struck his breast, and exclaimed, "Miserable
sinner that I am!" could only be exceeded by the veracity of the
assertion. Mrs Brandon only joined in the prayer-meetings that he held
at our house, when Ford himself was perfectly sober--thus she did not
often attend--Brandon never. Whilst he wore the top-boots, he was an
optimist, and perfectly epicurean in his philosophy--I use the term in
the modern sense. When he had eighty pounds odd a year, with no family
of his own, no man was more jovial or happy. He had the most perfect
reliance on Providence. He boasted that he belonged to the Established
Church, because it was so respectable--and he loved the organ. However,
he never went in the forenoon, because he was never shaved in time; in
the afternoon he never went, because he could not dispense with his nap
after dinner; and, in the evening, none but the serving classes were to
be seen there. He ridiculed the humble piety of his wife, and the
fanatical fervour of his lodger. He was a High Churchman, and
satisfied. But when he was obliged, with an i