British Library, Day Eight

Near-drowning experiences are proving to be a regular thing.

• M. M. Pollard, Robert Deane's Mission.  A Tale for the Young (RTS, n.d.).  Young Robert Deane aspires to a heroic life as a missionary! If only he hadn't heroically jumped in to save snooty Eustace Templeton from drowning.   Robert dies (quickly); everyone else is magically reformed by his example, and they all become good Christians.  There's also a bully.  And cricket.  (Bullies, cricket, and water appear to be central to Christian school tales.)  BODY COUNT: One.
• Passion-Flower: A Novel (Burns, Oates and Company, 1872).  A Catholic novel, featuring the misadventures in love of the Lyfftons (Beatrice and Ralph, the Viscount).  Beatrice is proud (sin!) and vain (sin!), which leads to various and sundry disasters, but she finally marries Johnnie Carewe (who sacrifices his estates when he discovers he inherited them improperly).  Her heartless brother falls for the symbolically-named Agnes, a devout Catholic.  Alas, he's a skeptic (oh no!) and she refuses to marry outside her faith, even though he did rescue her from drowning (seriously, what's up with this plot point?).  However, she dies (at moderate length) after rejecting his advances and going home in a storm (stay away from water in religious fiction), but her gift of an Imitation of Christ at least converts him to Catholicism.  Warnings against the dangers of marrying out of the faith are standard for Victorian religious fiction in general, except in liberal Protestant novels. One of the important subthemes is the importance of obedience--obedience to parents, to God's will, and so on.  BODY COUNT: One.
• "Veritas," The Confessional.  Autobiography of an Anglican Priest (William Macintosh, n.d.).  An anti-Ritualist novel.  The son of an evangelical Welsh preacher is sent to an English school, where he is exposed to that lusus naturae, the Anglican Jesuit. He resists the seductive Father S.'s calls for him to confess, until he plagiarizes (see? plagiarism really is bad, folks!) and falls prey to Father S.'s machinations.  Next thing you know, he's lying to his father, fasting, and contemplating crucifixes.  Fortunately, a nurse reads the Bible to him one day, and of course he gives up that Anglo-Catholic stuff immediately.  BODY COUNT: Two (the father and Father S., both offstage).
• The Two Christmas Eves (SPCK, n.d.).  Nice Christian policeman John Bowman stumbles across Mary Thompson and her children on a cold, wintry night.  Although Mary soon dies (quickly), Bowman adopts her son and daughter, and they all grow up to be good industrious Christians, eventually taking care of Bowman when he becomes disabled.  Emphasizes the importance of self-help, as well as eventual recompense for good deeds.  BODY COUNT: One.
• Blind Maggie (SPCK, n.d.).  An elderly Scotswoman tells the story of her life to two well-off young ladies.  Although disobeying her too-doting parents leads her to being kidnapped for several weeks (!), she fails to learn the obvious lesson and goes off to become a lady's-maid for Lady Mary; despite her parents' objections, she follows Lady Mary and her new husband to India, where Maggie falls prey to an Evil Seductive Officer who turns out to be abusive.  Widowed with a young boy, Maggie eventually gets back to England and finally reunites with her widowed Dad.  Eventually, they live happily ever after, once they agree that doting too much on kids is bad and that disobeying parents is also bad.  BODY COUNT: Five, most offstage (Lady Mary, Maggie's parents, Maggie's husband, and eventually Maggie herself).
• George Harding: A Tale of Christian Courage (SPCK, n.d.).  Young George Harding persists in taking Communion, despite the scoffing of his drunken father and the sneering of his peers.  Fortunately for all these sinners, he dies (at moderate length) after toppling off a ladder, which of course leads to their  conversion.  BODY COUNT: One.
• "Mistress Alice," Falconbridge: A Tale of Old, in the Times of Henry VIII (Hamilton, Adams & Co., n.d.).  Father Leonard, an unhappy Catholic priest whose angst seems to derive primarily from enforced celibacy, meets up with Mr. Lascells, who has become critical of Church doctrine.  Among other things, they tour a ruined convent, which is furnished with all the usual things one expects to find in convents (racks, skeletons chained to walls, etc.).  They go abroad, where Father Leonard catches a nasty priest in the act of attempted rape and, therefore, is imprisoned by the Inquisition.  Needless to say, this confirms Leonard's decision to stop being Catholic and start being Protestant.  A good chunk of the novel is given over to three inset narratives: the story of Clare, Mr. Lascells' sister, who becomes an Abbess; the story of Leonard in prison; and the story of Bertha, an ex-nun who had been treated kindly by Clare.  Readers will be glad to know that Protestant women are surprisingly intelligent.  BODY COUNT: surprisingly, none (Clare is dead before the novel begins).