"
Ideala was fourteen when she refused to be confirmed for conscientious
scruples, and although she made light of it in this way, she had
suffered a good deal and been severely punished at the time for her
refusal, but vainly, for she never gave in.
In after-life she held, of course, that Christianity was the highest
moral revelation the world had ever known; but when she saw that legal
right was not always moral right, I think she began to look for a
higher.
By baptism she belonged to the Church of England, but she seems to have
thought of the Sacrament always with the idea of transubstantiation in
her mind. She spoke of it reverently, but had never been able to take
it, and for a curious reason: she said the idea of it nauseated her.
She felt that the elements were unnatural food, and therefore she could
not touch them--and this feeling never left her but once, when she was
dangerously ill, and yearned, as she told me, for the Sacrament more
than for life and health. Day and night the longing never left her;
but, not having been confirmed, she did not like to ask for it, and as
she recovered the old feeling gradually returned.
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