" Just at those points, scholarship attains
something of a religious colour. And in that place, religion,
religious system, its claim to overpower one, presented itself in a
way of which even the least serious by nature could not be unaware.
Their great church, its customs and traditions, formed an element in
that esprit de corps into which the boyish mind throws itself so
readily. Afterwards, in very different scenes, the sentiment of that
place would come back upon him, as if resentfully, by contrast with
the conscious or unconscious profanities of others, crushed out about
him straightway, by the shadow of awe, the minatory flash, felt
around his unopened lips, in the glance, the changed manner. Not to
be "occupied with great matters" recommends in heavenly places, as we
know, the souls of some. Yet there were a few to whom it seemed
unfortunate that religion whose flag Uthwart would have borne in
hands so pure, touched him from first to last, and till his eyes were
finally closed on this world, only, again, as a thing immeasurable,
surely not meant for the like of him; its high claims, to which no
one could be equal; its reproaches.
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