Langport was a scrum of contending Christian faiths when Walter was going to school. More than one family was split as the Bagehots were, with adherents of the established church lined up against dissenters. Walter, attending Unitarian services with this father in the morning and Anglican services with his mother in the afternoon, favored the Church of England. The town made room for Baptists, Wesleyans, Plymouth Brothers and Sisters, and members of the Home Missionary Society. It set a place for heathens, too. "From time immemorial," contended James Moreton, a dissenting minister, "Langport was a stronghold of the powers of darkness, proverbial for ignorance of spiritual things, prejudice and wickedness."
-James Grant, Bagehot: The Life and Times of the Greatest Victorian
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