“Why too late? You want to be confirmed now, don’t you?”
“I think so,” said East. “I’ve thought about it a good deal: only often I fancy I must be changing, because I see it’s to do me good here, just what stopped me last time. And then I go back again.”
“I’ll tell you now how ’twas with me,” said Tom warmly. “If it hadn’t been for Arthur, I should have done just as you did. I hope I should. I honour you for it. But then he made it out just as if it was taking the weak side before all the world—going in once for all against everything that’s strong and rich and proud and respectable, a little band of brothers against the whole world. And the Doctor seemed to say so too, only he said a great deal more.”
“Ah!” groaned East, “but there again, that’s just another of my difficulties whenever I think about the matter. I don’t want to be one of your saints, one of your elect, whatever the right phrase is. My sympathies are all the other way; with the many, the poor devils who run about the streets and don’t go to church. Don’t stare, Tom; mind, I’m telling you all that’s in my heart—as far as I know it—but it’s all a muddle. You must be gentle with me if you want to land me. Now I’ve seen a deal of this sort of religion, I was bred up in it, and I can’t stand it. If nineteen-twentieths of the world are to be left to uncovenanted mercies, and that sort of thing, which means in plain English to go to hell, and the other twentieth are to rejoice at it all, why—”
“Oh! but, Harry, they ain’t, they don’t,” broke in Tom, really shocked. “Oh, how I wish Arthur hadn’t gone! I’m such a fool about these things. But it’s all you want too, East; it is indeed. It cuts both ways somehow, being confirmed and taking the Sacrament. It makes you feel on the side of all the good and all the bad too, of everybody in the world. Only there’s some great dark strong power, which is crushing you and everybody else. That’s what Christ conquered, and we’ve got to fight. What a fool I am! I can’t explain. If Arthur were only here!”
“I begin to get a glimmering of what you mean,” said East.
“I say now,” said Tom, eagerly, “do you remember how we both hated Flashman?”
“Of course I do,” said East; “I hate him still. What then?”
“Well, when I came to take the Sacrament, I had a great struggle about that. I tried to put him out of my head; and when I couldn’t do that, I tried to think of him as evil, as something that the Lord who was loving me hated, and which I might hate too. But it wouldn’t do. I broke down; I believe Christ Himself broke me down; and when the Doctor gave me the bread and wine, and leant over me praying, I prayed for poor Flashman, as if it had been you or Arthur.”
East buried his face in his hands on the table. Tom could feel the table tremble. At last he looked up. “Thank you again, Tom,” said he; “you don’t know what you may have done for me to-night. I think I see now how the right sort of sympathy with poor devils is got at.”
“And you’ll stop the Sacrament next time, won’t you?” said Tom.
“Can I, before I’m confirmed?”
“Go and ask the Doctor.”
“I will.”
That very night, after prayers, East followed the Doctor and the old Verger bearing the candle, up-stairs. Tom watched, and saw the Doctor turn round when he heard footsteps following him closer than usual, and say, “Hah, East! Do you want to speak to me, my man?”