Most boys took confirmation very much as a matter of form, as something you had done to you at some time or another. Perhaps they prayed a little longer at night, for it was the custom to say prayers, and the traditional shoe, had it been flung, would more probably have been aimed at the shirker than the devotee. But otherwise they were unaffected. Martin took a deeper interest because he had listened closely to an address in which there had been almost a definite promise that the first Communion would bring a gift, a spiritual reality about which no mistake could be made. He was curious to discover what exactly this gift was and how it would feel to be filled with the Holy Ghost. So he awaited with more enthusiasm than most the day of his strengthening in the Church. Confirmation stirred him because the bishop spoke warmly and, as bishops go, sensibly. But first Communion was a disappointment. He had expected so much, he had looked forward with so tense a curiosity to the receiving of a priceless and unknown gift, and he had to admit that he felt exactly as he had felt before. It couldn't be, he decided, his own faith that was lacking, for he had gone to the sacrament in perfect confidence about the blessing that was to come, and he resolved to continue his search for the truth and the help that it would bring. So for two terms he attended the Communion with fair regularity. But still nothing happened, the promise seemed to him unfulfilled, and he came to the conclusion that it was no use going on. For the future he lay in bed on Sunday mornings and listened to the faithful washing and groping for their studs. The position of the sceptic had, after all, its consolations. In course of the following holidays he discovered among some paper-covered books of his uncle's a three-penny copy of Blatchford's _God and My Neighbour_. He read it through almost without a break, for he had just reached the necessary stage to appreciate it. The short, stabbing sentences and the obvious good-will of the author made a great impression upon him, and he was thrilled by the peroration and flaming appeal for a world set free from kings and priests and all such evil-doers. He caught the spirit of the book at once and read it aloud to himself, rejoicing: "'Rightly or wrongly, I am for reason against dogmas, for evolution against revolution: for humanity always: for earth, not heaven: for the holiest trinity of all--the trinity of man, woman, and child.' "This," he thought, "is literature." And then the final thunderclap: "'Let the holy have their heaven. I am a man, and an Infidel. And this is my apology. Besides, gentlemen, Christianity is not true.'"