wn by the Brighton
coach, and he entered the school on November 10, 1836.[50] The school,
says Fitzjames, was in many ways very good; the boys were well taught
and well fed. But it was too decorous; there was no fighting and no
bullying and rather an excess of evangelical theology. The boys used to
be questioned at prayers. 'Gurney, what's the difference between
justification and sanctification?' 'Stephen, prove the Omnipotence of
God.' Many of the hymns sung by the boys remained permanently in my
brother's memory, and he says that he could give the names of all the
masters and most of the boys and a history of all incidents in
chronological order. Guest's eloquence about justification by faith
seems to have stimulated his pupil's childish speculations. He read a
tract in which four young men discuss the means of attaining holiness.
One says, 'Meditate on the goodness of God'; a second, 'on the happiness
of heaven'; a third, 'on the tortures of hell'; and a fourth, 'on the
love of Christ.' The last plan was approved in the tract; but Fitzjames
thought meditation on hell more to the purpose, and set about it
deliberately. He imagined the world transformed into a globe of iron,
white hot, with a place in the middle made to fit him so closely that he
could not even wink. The globe was split like an orange; he was thrust
by an angel into his place, immortal, unconsumable, and capable of
infinite suffering; and then the two halves were closed, and he left in
hideous isolation to suffer eternal torments. I guess from my own
experience that other children have had similar fancies. He adds,
however, a characteristic remark. 'It seemed to me then, as it seems
now, that no stronger motive, no motive anything like so strong, can be
applied to actuate any human creature toward any line of conduct. To
compare the love of God or anything else is to my mind simply childish.'
He refers to Mill's famous passage about going to hell rather than
worship a bad God, and asks what Mill would say after an experience of a
quarter of an hour. Fitzjames, however, did not dwell upon such fancies.
They were merely the childish mode of speculation by concrete imagery.
He became more sociable, played cricket, improved in health, and came
home with the highest of characters as being the best and most promising
boy in the school. He rose steadily, and seems to have been thoroughly
happy for the next five years and a half.

In 1840 my mother observed ce