Chapter: Some people say that their school days were the happiest of their lives.
They may be right, but I always look with suspicion upon those whom I
hear saying this.  It is hard enough to know whether one is happy or
unhappy now, and still harder to compare the relative happiness or
unhappiness of different times of one's life; the utmost that can be said
is that we are fairly happy so long as we are not distinctly aware of
being miserable.  As I was talking with Ernest one day not so long since
about this, he said he was so happy now that he was sure he had never
been happier, and did not wish to be so, but that Cambridge was the first
place where he had ever been consciously and continuously happy.

How can any boy fail to feel an ecstasy of pleasure on first finding
himself in rooms which he knows for the next few years are to be his
castle?  Here he will not be compelled to turn out of the most
comfortable place as soon as he has ensconced himself in it because papa
or mamma happens to come into the room, and he should give it up to them.
The most cosy chair here is for himself, there is no one even to share
the room with him, or to interfere with his doing as he likes in
it--smoking included.  Why, if such a room looked out both back and front
on to a blank dead wall it would still be a paradise, how much more then
when the view is of some quiet grassy court or cloister or garden, as
from the windows of the greater number of rooms at Oxford and Cambridge.

Theobald, as an old fellow and tutor of Emmanuel--at which college he had
entered Ernest--was able to obtain from the present tutor a certain
preference in the choice of rooms; Ernest's, therefore, were very
pleasant ones, looking out upon the grassy court that is bounded by the
Fellows' gardens.

Theobald accompanied him to Cambridge, and was at his best while doing
so.  He liked the jaunt, and even he was not without a certain feeling of
pride in having a full-blown son at the University.  Some of the
reflected rays of this splendour were allowed to fall upon Ernest
himself.  Theobald said he was "willing to hope"--this was one of his
tags--that his son would turn over a new leaf now that he had left
school, and for his own part he was "only too ready"--this was another
tag--to let bygones be bygones.

Ernest, not yet having his name on the books, was able to dine with his
father at the Fellows' table of one of the other colleges on the
invitation of an old friend of Theobald's; he there made acquaintance
with sundry of the good things of this life, the very names of which were
new to him, and felt as he ate them that he was now indeed receiving a
liberal education.  When at length the time came for him to go to
Emmanuel, where he was to sleep in his new rooms, his father came with
him to the gates and saw him safe into college; a few minutes more and he
found himself alone in a room for which he had a latch-key.

From this time he dated many days which, if not quite unclouded, were
upon the whole very happy ones.  I need not however describe them, as the
life of a quiet steady-going undergraduate has been told in a score of
novels better than I can tell it.  Some of Ernest's schoolfellows came up
to Cambridge at the same time as himself, and with these he continued on
friendly terms during the whole of his college career.  Other
schoolfellows were only a year or two his seniors; these called on him,
and he thus made a sufficiently favourable _entree_ into college life.  A
straightforwardness of character that was stamped upon his face, a love
of humour, and a temper which was more easily appeased than ruffled made
up for some awkwardness and want of _savoir faire_.  He soon became a not
unpopular member of the best set of his year, and though neither capable
of becoming, nor aspiring to become, a leader, was admitted by the
leaders as among their nearer hangers-on.

Of ambition he had at that time not one particle; greatness, or indeed
superiority of any kind, seemed so far off and incomprehensible to him
that the idea of connecting it with himself never crossed his mind.  If
he could escape the notice of all those with whom he did not feel himself
_en rapport_, he conceived that he had triumphed sufficiently.  He did
not care about taking a good degree, except that it must be good enough
to keep his father and mother quiet.  He did not dream of being able to
get a fellowship; if he had, he would have tried hard to do so, for he
became so fond of Cambridge that he could not bear the thought of having
to leave it; the briefness indeed of the season during which his present
happiness was to last was almost the only thing that now seriously
troubled him.

Having less to attend to in the matter of growing, and having got his
head more free, he took to reading fairly well--not because he liked it,
but because he was told he ought to do so, and his natural instinct, like
that of all very young men who are good for anything, was to do as those
in authority told him.  The intention at Battersby was (for Dr Skinner
had said that Ernest could never get a fellowship) that he should take a
sufficiently good degree to be able to get a tutorship or mastership in
some school preparatory to taking orders.  When he was twenty-one years
old his money was to come into his own hands, and the best thing he could
do with it would be to buy the next presentation to a living, the rector
of which was now old, and live on his mastership or tutorship till the
living fell in.  He could buy a very good living for the sum which his
grandfather's legacy now amounted to, for Theobald had never had any
serious intention of making deductions for his son's maintenance and
education, and the money had accumulated till it was now about five
thousand pounds; he had only talked about making deductions in order to
stimulate the boy to exertion as far as possible, by making him think
that this was his only chance of escaping starvation--or perhaps from
pure love of teasing.

When Ernest had a living of 600 or 700 pounds a year with a house, and
not too many parishioners--why, he might add to his income by taking
pupils, or even keeping a school, and then, say at thirty, he might
marry.  It was not easy for Theobald to hit on any much more sensible
plan.  He could not get Ernest into business, for he had no business
connections--besides he did not know what business meant; he had no
interest, again, at the Bar; medicine was a profession which subjected
its students to ordeals and temptations which these fond parents shrank
from on behalf of their boy; he would be thrown among companions and
familiarised with details which might sully him, and though he might
stand, it was "only too possible" that he would fall.  Besides,
ordination was the road which Theobald knew and understood, and indeed
the only road about which he knew anything at all, so not unnaturally it
was the one he chose for Ernest.

The foregoing had been instilled into my hero from earliest boyhood, much
as it had been instilled into Theobald himself, and with the same
result--the conviction, namely, that he was certainly to be a clergyman,
but that it was a long way off yet, and he supposed it was all right.  As
for the duty of reading hard, and taking as good a degree as he could,
this was plain enough, so he set himself to work, as I have said,
steadily, and to the surprise of everyone as well as himself got a
college scholarship, of no great value, but still a scholarship, in his
freshman's term.  It is hardly necessary to say that Theobald stuck to
the whole of this money, believing the pocket-money he allowed Ernest to
be sufficient for him, and knowing how dangerous it was for young men to
have money at command.  I do not suppose it even occurred to him to try
and remember what he had felt when his father took a like course in
regard to himself.

Ernest's position in this respect was much what it had been at school
except that things were on a larger scale.  His tutor's and cook's bills
were paid for him; his father sent him his wine; over and above this he
had 50 pounds a year with which to keep himself in clothes and all other
expenses; this was about the usual thing at Emmanuel in Ernest's day,
though many had much less than this.  Ernest did as he had done at
school--he spent what he could, soon after he received his money; he then
incurred a few modest liabilities, and then lived penuriously till next
term, when he would immediately pay his debts, and start new ones to much
the same extent as those which he had just got rid of.  When he came into
his 5000 pounds and became independent of his father, 15 or 20 pounds
served to cover the whole of his unauthorised expenditure.

He joined the boat club, and was constant in his attendance at the boats.
He still smoked, but never took more wine or beer than was good for him,
except perhaps on the occasion of a boating supper, but even then he
found the consequences unpleasant, and soon learned how to keep within
safe limits.  He attended chapel as often as he was compelled to do so;
he communicated two or three times a year, because his tutor told him he
ought to; in fact he set himself to live soberly and cleanly, as I
imagine all his instincts prompted him to do, and when he fell--as who
that is born of woman can help sometimes doing?--it was not till after a
sharp tussle with a temptation that was more than his flesh and blood
could stand; then he was very penitent and would go a fairly long while
without sinning again; and this was how it had always been with him since
he had arrived at years of indiscretion.

Even to the end of his career at Cambridge he was not aware that he had
it in him to do anything, but others had begun to see that he was not
wanting in ability and sometimes told him so.  He did not believe it;
indeed he knew very well that if they thought him clever they were being
taken in, but it pleased him to have been able to take them in, and he
tried to do so still further; he was therefore a good deal on the look-
out for cants that he could catch and apply in season, and might have
done himself some mischief thus if he had not been ready to throw over
any cant as soon as he had come across another more nearly to his fancy;
his friends used to say that when he rose he flew like a snipe, darting
several times in various directions before he settled down to a steady
straight flight, but when he had once got into this he would keep to it.





When he was in his third year a magazine was founded at Cambridge, the
contributions to which were exclusively by undergraduates.  Ernest sent
in an essay upon the Greek Drama, which he has declined to let me
reproduce here without his being allowed to re-edit it.  I have therefore
been unable to give it in its original form, but when pruned of its
redundancies (and this is all that has been done to it) it runs as
follows--

   "I shall not attempt within the limits at my disposal to make a
   _resume_ of the rise and progress of the Greek drama, but will confine
   myself to considering whether the reputation enjoyed by the three
   chief Greek tragedians, AEschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, is one
   that will be permanent, or whether they will one day be held to have
   been overrated.

   "Why, I ask myself, do I see much that I can easily admire in Homer,
   Thucydides, Herodotus, Demosthenes, Aristophanes, Theocritus, parts of
   Lucretius, Horace's satires and epistles, to say nothing of other
   ancient writers, and yet find myself at once repelled by even those
   works of AEschylus, Sophocles and Euripides which are most generally
   admired.

   "With the first-named writers I am in the hands of men who feel, if
   not as I do, still as I can understand their feeling, and as I am
   interested to see that they should have felt; with the second I have
   so little sympathy that I cannot understand how anyone can ever have
   taken any interest in them whatever.  Their highest flights to me are
   dull, pompous and artificial productions, which, if they were to
   appear now for the first time, would, I should think, either fall dead
   or be severely handled by the critics.  I wish to know whether it is I
   who am in fault in this matter, or whether part of the blame may not
   rest with the tragedians themselves.

   "How far I wonder did the Athenians genuinely like these poets, and
   how far was the applause which was lavished upon them due to fashion
   or affectation?  How far, in fact, did admiration for the orthodox
   tragedians take that place among the Athenians which going to church
   does among ourselves?

   "This is a venturesome question considering the verdict now generally
   given for over two thousand years, nor should I have permitted myself
   to ask it if it had not been suggested to me by one whose reputation
   stands as high, and has been sanctioned for as long time as those of
   the tragedians themselves, I mean by Aristophanes.

   "Numbers, weight of authority, and time, have conspired to place
   Aristophanes on as high a literary pinnacle as any ancient writer,
   with the exception perhaps of Homer, but he makes no secret of
   heartily hating Euripides and Sophocles, and I strongly suspect only
   praises AEschylus that he may run down the other two with greater
   impunity.  For after all there is no such difference between AEschylus
   and his successors as will render the former very good and the latter
   very bad; and the thrusts at AEschylus which Aristophanes puts into
   the mouth of Euripides go home too well to have been written by an
   admirer.

   "It may be observed that while Euripides accuses AEschylus of being
   'pomp-bundle-worded,' which I suppose means bombastic and given to
   rodomontade, AEschylus retorts on Euripides that he is a 'gossip
   gleaner, a describer of beggars, and a rag-stitcher,' from which it
   may be inferred that he was truer to the life of his own times than
   AEschylus was.  It happens, however, that a faithful rendering of
   contemporary life is the very quality which gives its most permanent
   interest to any work of fiction, whether in literature or painting,
   and it is a not unnatural consequence that while only seven plays by
   AEschylus, and the same number by Sophocles, have come down to us, we
   have no fewer than nineteen by Euripides.

   "This, however, is a digression; the question before us is whether
   Aristophanes really liked AEschylus or only pretended to do so.  It
   must be remembered that the claims of AEschylus, Sophocles and
   Euripides, to the foremost place amongst tragedians were held to be as
   incontrovertible as those of Dante, Petrarch, Tasso and Ariosto to be
   the greatest of Italian poets, are held among the Italians of to-day.
   If we can fancy some witty, genial writer, we will say in Florence,
   finding himself bored by all the poets I have named, we can yet
   believe he would be unwilling to admit that he disliked them without
   exception.  He would prefer to think he could see something at any
   rate in Dante, whom he could idealise more easily, inasmuch as he was
   more remote; in order to carry his countrymen the farther with him, he
   would endeavour to meet them more than was consistent with his own
   instincts.  Without some such palliation as admiration for one, at any
   rate, of the tragedians, it would be almost as dangerous for
   Aristophanes to attack them as it would be for an Englishman now to
   say that he did not think very much of the Elizabethan dramatists.  Yet
   which of us in his heart likes any of the Elizabethan dramatists
   except Shakespeare?  Are they in reality anything else than literary
   Struldbrugs?

   "I conclude upon the whole that Aristophanes did not like any of the
   tragedians; yet no one will deny that this keen, witty, outspoken
   writer was as good a judge of literary value, and as able to see any
   beauties that the tragic dramas contained as nine-tenths, at any rate,
   of ourselves.  He had, moreover, the advantage of thoroughly
   understanding the standpoint from which the tragedians expected their
   work to be judged, and what was his conclusion?  Briefly it was little
   else than this, that they were a fraud or something very like it.  For
   my own part I cordially agree with him.  I am free to confess that
   with the exception perhaps of some of the Psalms of David I know no
   writings which seem so little to deserve their reputation.  I do not
   know that I should particularly mind my sisters reading them, but I
   will take good care never to read them myself."

This last bit about the Psalms was awful, and there was a great fight
with the editor as to whether or no it should be allowed to stand.  Ernest
himself was frightened at it, but he had once heard someone say that the
Psalms were many of them very poor, and on looking at them more closely,
after he had been told this, he found that there could hardly be two
opinions on the subject.  So he caught up the remark and reproduced it as
his own, concluding that these psalms had probably never been written by
David at all, but had got in among the others by mistake.

The essay, perhaps on account of the passage about the Psalms, created
quite a sensation, and on the whole was well received.  Ernest's friends
praised it more highly than it deserved, and he was himself very proud of
it, but he dared not show it at Battersby.  He knew also that he was now
at the end of his tether; this was his one idea (I feel sure he had
caught more than half of it from other people), and now he had not
another thing left to write about.  He found himself cursed with a small
reputation which seemed to him much bigger than it was, and a
consciousness that he could never keep it up.  Before many days were over
he felt his unfortunate essay to be a white elephant to him, which he
must feed by hurrying into all sorts of frantic attempts to cap his
triumph, and, as may be imagined, these attempts were failures.

He did not understand that if he waited and listened and observed,
another idea of some kind would probably occur to him some day, and that
the development of this would in its turn suggest still further ones.  He
did not yet know that the very worst way of getting hold of ideas is to
go hunting expressly after them.  The way to get them is to study
something of which one is fond, and to note down whatever crosses one's
mind in reference to it, either during study or relaxation, in a little
note-book kept always in the waistcoat pocket.  Ernest has come to know
all about this now, but it took him a long time to find it out, for this
is not the kind of thing that is taught at schools and universities.

Nor yet did he know that ideas, no less than the living beings in whose
minds they arise, must be begotten by parents not very unlike themselves,
the most original still differing but slightly from the parents that have
given rise to them.  Life is like a fugue, everything must grow out of
the subject and there must be nothing new.  Nor, again, did he see how
hard it is to say where one idea ends and another begins, nor yet how
closely this is paralleled in the difficulty of saying where a life
begins or ends, or an action or indeed anything, there being an unity in
spite of infinite multitude, and an infinite multitude in spite of unity.
He thought that ideas came into clever people's heads by a kind of
spontaneous germination, without parentage in the thoughts of others or
the course of observation; for as yet he believed in genius, of which he
well knew that he had none, if it was the fine frenzied thing he thought
it was.

Not very long before this he had come of age, and Theobald had handed him
over his money, which amounted now to 5000 pounds; it was invested to
bring in 5 per cent and gave him therefore an income of 250 pounds
a year.  He did not, however, realise the fact (he could realise nothing
so foreign to his experience) that he was independent of his father till
a long time afterwards; nor did Theobald make any difference in his
manner towards him.  So strong was the hold which habit and association
held over both father and son, that the one considered he had as good a
right as ever to dictate, and the other that he had as little right as
ever to gainsay.

During his last year at Cambridge he overworked himself through this very
blind deference to his father's wishes, for there was no reason why he
should take more than a poll degree except that his father laid such
stress upon his taking honours.  He became so ill, indeed, that it was
doubtful how far he would be able to go in for his degree at all; but he
managed to do so, and when the list came out was found to be placed
higher than either he or anyone else expected, being among the first
three or four senior optimes, and a few weeks later, in the lower half of
the second class of the Classical Tripos.  Ill as he was when he got
home, Theobald made him go over all the examination papers with him, and
in fact reproduce as nearly as possible the replies that he had sent in.
So little kick had he in him, and so deep was the groove into which he
had got, that while at home he spent several hours a day in continuing
his classical and mathematical studies as though he had not yet taken his
degree.





Ernest returned to Cambridge for the May term of 1858, on the plea of
reading for ordination, with which he was now face to face, and much
nearer than he liked.  Up to this time, though not religiously inclined,
he had never doubted the truth of anything that had been told him about
Christianity.  He had never seen anyone who doubted, nor read anything
that raised a suspicion in his mind as to the historical character of the
miracles recorded in the Old and New Testaments.

It must be remembered that the year 1858 was the last of a term during
which the peace of the Church of England was singularly unbroken.  Between
1844, when "Vestiges of Creation" appeared, and 1859, when "Essays and
Reviews" marked the commencement of that storm which raged until many
years afterwards, there was not a single book published in England that
caused serious commotion within the bosom of the Church.  Perhaps
Buckle's "History of Civilisation" and Mill's "Liberty" were the most
alarming, but they neither of them reached the substratum of the reading
public, and Ernest and his friends were ignorant of their very existence.
The Evangelical movement, with the exception to which I shall revert
presently, had become almost a matter of ancient history.  Tractarianism
had subsided into a tenth day's wonder; it was at work, but it was not
noisy.  The "Vestiges" were forgotten before Ernest went up to Cambridge;
the Catholic aggression scare had lost its terrors; Ritualism was still
unknown by the general provincial public, and the Gorham and Hampden
controversies were defunct some years since; Dissent was not spreading;
the Crimean war was the one engrossing subject, to be followed by the
Indian Mutiny and the Franco-Austrian war.  These great events turned
men's minds from speculative subjects, and there was no enemy to the
faith which could arouse even a languid interest.  At no time probably
since the beginning of the century could an ordinary observer have
detected less sign of coming disturbance than at that of which I am
writing.

I need hardly say that the calm was only on the surface.  Older men, who
knew more than undergraduates were likely to do, must have seen that the
wave of scepticism which had already broken over Germany was setting
towards our own shores, nor was it long, indeed, before it reached them.
Ernest had hardly been ordained before three works in quick succession
arrested the attention even of those who paid least heed to theological
controversy.  I mean "Essays and Reviews," Charles Darwin's "Origin of
Species," and Bishop Colenso's "Criticisms on the Pentateuch."

This, however, is a digression; I must revert to the one phase of
spiritual activity which had any life in it during the time Ernest was at
Cambridge, that is to say, to the remains of the Evangelical awakening of
more than a generation earlier, which was connected with the name of
Simeon.

There were still a good many Simeonites, or as they were more briefly
called "Sims," in Ernest's time.  Every college contained some of them,
but their headquarters were at Caius, whither they were attracted by Mr
Clayton who was at that time senior tutor, and among the sizars of St
John's.

Behind the then chapel of this last-named college, there was a
"labyrinth" (this was the name it bore) of dingy, tumble-down rooms,
tenanted exclusively by the poorest undergraduates, who were dependent
upon sizarships and scholarships for the means of taking their degrees.
To many, even at St John's, the existence and whereabouts of the
labyrinth in which the sizars chiefly lived was unknown; some men in
Ernest's time, who had rooms in the first court, had never found their
way through the sinuous passage which led to it.

In the labyrinth there dwelt men of all ages, from mere lads to
grey-haired old men who had entered late in life.  They were rarely seen
except in hall or chapel or at lecture, where their manners of feeding,
praying and studying, were considered alike objectionable; no one knew
whence they came, whither they went, nor what they did, for they never
showed at cricket or the boats; they were a gloomy, seedy-looking
_conferie_, who had as little to glory in in clothes and manners as in
the flesh itself.

Ernest and his friends used to consider themselves marvels of economy for
getting on with so little money, but the greater number of dwellers in
the labyrinth would have considered one-half of their expenditure to be
an exceeding measure of affluence, and so doubtless any domestic tyranny
which had been experienced by Ernest was a small thing to what the
average Johnian sizar had had to put up with.

A few would at once emerge on its being found after their first
examination that they were likely to be ornaments to the college; these
would win valuable scholarships that enabled them to live in some degree
of comfort, and would amalgamate with the more studious of those who were
in a better social position, but even these, with few exceptions, were
long in shaking off the uncouthness they brought with them to the
University, nor would their origin cease to be easily recognisable till
they had become dons and tutors.  I have seen some of these men attain
high position in the world of politics or science, and yet still retain a
look of labyrinth and Johnian sizarship.

Unprepossessing then, in feature, gait and manners, unkempt and
ill-dressed beyond what can be easily described, these poor fellows
formed a class apart, whose thoughts and ways were not as the thoughts
and ways of Ernest and his friends, and it was among them that Simeonism
chiefly flourished.

Destined most of them for the Church (for in those days "holy orders"
were seldom heard of), the Simeonites held themselves to have received a
very loud call to the ministry, and were ready to pinch themselves for
years so as to prepare for it by the necessary theological courses.  To
most of them the fact of becoming clergymen would be the _entree_ into a
social position from which they were at present kept out by barriers they
well knew to be impassable; ordination, therefore, opened fields for
ambition which made it the central point in their thoughts, rather than
as with Ernest, something which he supposed would have to be done some
day, but about which, as about dying, he hoped there was no need to
trouble himself as yet.

By way of preparing themselves more completely they would have meetings
in one another's rooms for tea and prayer and other spiritual exercises.
Placing themselves under the guidance of a few well-known tutors they
would teach in Sunday Schools, and be instant, in season and out of
season, in imparting spiritual instruction to all whom they could
persuade to listen to them.

But the soil of the more prosperous undergraduates was not suitable for
the seed they tried to sow.  The small pieties with which they larded
their discourse, if chance threw them into the company of one whom they
considered worldly, caused nothing but aversion in the minds of those for
whom they were intended.  When they distributed tracts, dropping them by
night into good men's letter boxes while they were asleep, their tracts
got burnt, or met with even worse contumely; they were themselves also
treated with the ridicule which they reflected proudly had been the lot
of true followers of Christ in all ages.  Often at their prayer meetings
was the passage of St Paul referred to in which he bids his Corinthian
converts note concerning themselves that they were for the most part
neither well-bred nor intellectual people.  They reflected with pride
that they too had nothing to be proud of in these respects, and like St
Paul, gloried in the fact that in the flesh they had not much to glory.

Ernest had several Johnian friends, and came thus to hear about the
Simeonites and to see some of them, who were pointed out to him as they
passed through the courts.  They had a repellent attraction for him; he
disliked them, but he could not bring himself to leave them alone.  On
one occasion he had gone so far as to parody one of the tracts they had
sent round in the night, and to get a copy dropped into each of the
leading Simeonites' boxes.  The subject he had taken was "Personal
Cleanliness."  Cleanliness, he said, was next to godliness; he wished to
know on which side it was to stand, and concluded by exhorting Simeonites
to a freer use of the tub.  I cannot commend my hero's humour in this
matter; his tract was not brilliant, but I mention the fact as showing
that at this time he was something of a Saul and took pleasure in
persecuting the elect, not, as I have said, that he had any hankering
after scepticism, but because, like the farmers in his father's village,
though he would not stand seeing the Christian religion made light of, he
was not going to see it taken seriously.  Ernest's friends thought his
dislike for Simeonites was due to his being the son of a clergyman who,
it was known, bullied him; it is more likely, however, that it rose from
an unconscious sympathy with them, which, as in St Paul's case, in the
end drew him into the ranks of those whom he had most despised and hated.





Once, recently, when he was down at home after taking his degree, his
mother had had a short conversation with him about his becoming a
clergyman, set on thereto by Theobald, who shrank from the subject
himself.  This time it was during a turn taken in the garden, and not on
the sofa--which was reserved for supreme occasions.

"You know, my dearest boy," she said to him, "that papa" (she always
called Theobald "papa" when talking to Ernest) "is so anxious you should
not go into the Church blindly, and without fully realising the
difficulties of a clergyman's position.  He has considered all of them
himself, and has been shown how small they are, when they are faced
boldly, but he wishes you, too, to feel them as strongly and completely
as possible before committing yourself to irrevocable vows, so that you
may never, never have to regret the step you will have taken."

This was the first time Ernest had heard that there were any
difficulties, and he not unnaturally enquired in a vague way after their
nature.

"That, my dear boy," rejoined Christina, "is a question which I am not
fitted to enter upon either by nature or education.  I might easily
unsettle your mind without being able to settle it again.  Oh, no!  Such
questions are far better avoided by women, and, I should have thought, by
men, but papa wished me to speak to you upon the subject, so that there
might be no mistake hereafter, and I have done so.  Now, therefore, you
know all."

The conversation ended here, so far as this subject was concerned, and
Ernest thought he did know all.  His mother would not have told him he
knew all--not about a matter of that sort--unless he actually did know
it; well, it did not come to very much; he supposed there were some
difficulties, but his father, who at any rate was an excellent scholar
and a learned man, was probably quite right here, and he need not trouble
himself more about them.  So little impression did the conversation make
on him, that it was not till long afterwards that, happening to remember
it, he saw what a piece of sleight of hand had been practised upon him.
Theobald and Christina, however, were satisfied that they had done their
duty by opening their son's eyes to the difficulties of assenting to all
a clergyman must assent to.  This was enough; it was a matter for
rejoicing that, though they had been put so fully and candidly before
him, he did not find them serious.  It was not in vain that they had
prayed for so many years to be made "_truly_ honest and conscientious."

"And now, my dear," resumed Christina, after having disposed of all the
difficulties that might stand in the way of Ernest's becoming a
clergyman, "there is another matter on which I should like to have a talk
with you.  It is about your sister Charlotte.  You know how clever she
is, and what a dear, kind sister she has been and always will be to
yourself and Joey.  I wish, my dearest Ernest, that I saw more chance of
her finding a suitable husband than I do at Battersby, and I sometimes
think you might do more than you do to help her."

Ernest began to chafe at this, for he had heard it so often, but he said
nothing.

"You know, my dear, a brother can do so much for his sister if he lays
himself out to do it.  A mother can do very little--indeed, it is hardly
a mother's place to seek out young men; it is a brother's place to find a
suitable partner for his sister; all that I can do is to try to make
Battersby as attractive as possible to any of your friends whom you may
invite.  And in that," she added, with a little toss of her head, "I do
not think I have been deficient hitherto."

Ernest said he had already at different times asked several of his
friends.

"Yes, my dear, but you must admit that they were none of them exactly the
kind of young man whom Charlotte could be expected to take a fancy to.
Indeed, I must own to having been a little disappointed that you should
have yourself chosen any of these as your intimate friends."

Ernest winced again.

"You never brought down Figgins when you were at Roughborough; now I
should have thought Figgins would have been just the kind of boy whom you
might have asked to come and see us."

Figgins had been gone through times out of number already.  Ernest had
hardly known him, and Figgins, being nearly three years older than
Ernest, had left long before he did.  Besides he had not been a nice boy,
and had made himself unpleasant to Ernest in many ways.

"Now," continued his mother, "there's Towneley.  I have heard you speak
of Towneley as having rowed with you in a boat at Cambridge.  I wish, my
dear, you would cultivate your acquaintance with Towneley, and ask him to
pay us a visit.  The name has an aristocratic sound, and I think I have
heard you say he is an eldest son."

Ernest flushed at the sound of Towneley's name.

What had really happened in respect of Ernest's friends was briefly this.
His mother liked to get hold of the names of the boys and especially of
any who were at all intimate with her son; the more she heard, the more
she wanted to know; there was no gorging her to satiety; she was like a
ravenous young cuckoo being fed upon a grass plot by a water wag-tail,
she would swallow all that Ernest could bring her, and yet be as hungry
as before.  And she always went to Ernest for her meals rather than to
Joey, for Joey was either more stupid or more impenetrable--at any rate
she could pump Ernest much the better of the two.

From time to time an actual live boy had been thrown to her, either by
being caught and brought to Battersby, or by being asked to meet her if
at any time she came to Roughborough.  She had generally made herself
agreeable, or fairly agreeable, as long as the boy was present, but as
soon as she got Ernest to herself again she changed her note.  Into
whatever form she might throw her criticisms it came always in the end to
this, that his friend was no good, that Ernest was not much better, and
that he should have brought her someone else, for this one would not do
at all.

The more intimate the boy had been or was supposed to be with Ernest the
more he was declared to be naught, till in the end he had hit upon the
plan of saying, concerning any boy whom he particularly liked, that he
was not one of his especial chums, and that indeed he hardly knew why he
had asked him; but he found he only fell on Scylla in trying to avoid
Charybdis, for though the boy was declared to be more successful it was
Ernest who was naught for not thinking more highly of him.

When she had once got hold of a name she never forgot it.  "And how is So-
and-so?" she would exclaim, mentioning some former friend of Ernest's
with whom he had either now quarrelled, or who had long since proved to
be a mere comet and no fixed star at all.  How Ernest wished he had never
mentioned So-and-so's name, and vowed to himself that he would never talk
about his friends in future, but in a few hours he would forget and would
prattle away as imprudently as ever; then his mother would pounce
noiselessly on his remarks as a barn-owl pounces upon a mouse, and would
bring them up in a pellet six months afterwards when they were no longer
in harmony with their surroundings.

Then there was Theobald.  If a boy or college friend had been invited to
Battersby, Theobald would lay himself out at first to be agreeable.  He
could do this well enough when he liked, and as regards the outside world
he generally did like.  His clerical neighbours, and indeed all his
neighbours, respected him yearly more and more, and would have given
Ernest sufficient cause to regret his imprudence if he had dared to hint
that he had anything, however little, to complain of.  Theobald's mind
worked in this way: "Now, I know Ernest has told this boy what a
disagreeable person I am, and I will just show him that I am not
disagreeable at all, but a good old fellow, a jolly old boy, in fact a
regular old brick, and that it is Ernest who is in fault all through."

So he would behave very nicely to the boy at first, and the boy would be
delighted with him, and side with him against Ernest.  Of course if
Ernest had got the boy to come to Battersby he wanted him to enjoy his
visit, and was therefore pleased that Theobald should behave so well, but
at the same time he stood so much in need of moral support that it was
painful to him to see one of his own familiar friends go over to the
enemy's camp.  For no matter how well we may know a thing--how clearly we
may see a certain patch of colour, for example, as red, it shakes us and
knocks us about to find another see it, or be more than half inclined to
see it, as green.

Theobald had generally begun to get a little impatient before the end of
the visit, but the impression formed during the earlier part was the one
which the visitor had carried away with him.  Theobald never discussed
any of the boys with Ernest.  It was Christina who did this.  Theobald
let them come, because Christina in a quiet, persistent way insisted on
it; when they did come he behaved, as I have said, civilly, but he did
not like it, whereas Christina did like it very much; she would have had
half Roughborough and half Cambridge to come and stay at Battersby if she
could have managed it, and if it would not have cost so much money: she
liked their coming, so that she might make a new acquaintance, and she
liked tearing them to pieces and flinging the bits over Ernest as soon as
she had had enough of them.

The worst of it was that she had so often proved to be right.  Boys and
young men are violent in their affections, but they are seldom very
constant; it is not till they get older that they really know the kind of
friend they want; in their earlier essays young men are simply learning
to judge character.  Ernest had been no exception to the general rule.
His swans had one after the other proved to be more or less geese even in
his own estimation, and he was beginning almost to think that his mother
was a better judge of character than he was; but I think it may be
assumed with some certainty that if Ernest had brought her a real young
swan she would have declared it to be the ugliest and worst goose of all
that she had yet seen.

At first he had not suspected that his friends were wanted with a view to
Charlotte; it was understood that Charlotte and they might perhaps take a
fancy for one another; and that would be so very nice, would it not?  But
he did not see that there was any deliberate malice in the arrangement.
Now, however, that he had awoke to what it all meant, he was less
inclined to bring any friend of his to Battersby.  It seemed to his silly
young mind almost dishonest to ask your friend to come and see you when
all you really meant was "Please, marry my sister."  It was like trying
to obtain money under false pretences.  If he had been fond of Charlotte
it might have been another matter, but he thought her one of the most
disagreeable young women in the whole circle of his acquaintance.

She was supposed to be very clever.  All young ladies are either very
pretty or very clever or very sweet; they may take their choice as to
which category they will go in for, but go in for one of the three they
must.  It was hopeless to try and pass Charlotte off as either pretty or
sweet.  So she became clever as the only remaining alternative.  Ernest
never knew what particular branch of study it was in which she showed her
talent, for she could neither play nor sing nor draw, but so astute are
women that his mother and Charlotte really did persuade him into thinking
that she, Charlotte, had something more akin to true genius than any
other member of the family.  Not one, however, of all the friends whom
Ernest had been inveigled into trying to inveigle had shown the least
sign of being so far struck with Charlotte's commanding powers, as to
wish to make them his own, and this may have had something to do with the
rapidity and completeness with which Christina had dismissed them one
after another and had wanted a new one.

And now she wanted Towneley.  Ernest had seen this coming and had tried
to avoid it, for he knew how impossible it was for him to ask Towneley,
even if he had wished to do so.

Towneley belonged to one of the most exclusive sets in Cambridge, and was
perhaps the most popular man among the whole number of undergraduates.  He
was big and very handsome--as it seemed to Ernest the handsomest man whom
he ever had seen or ever could see, for it was impossible to imagine a
more lively and agreeable countenance.  He was good at cricket and
boating, very good-natured, singularly free from conceit, not clever but
very sensible, and, lastly, his father and mother had been drowned by the
overturning of a boat when he was only two years old and had left him as
their only child and heir to one of the finest estates in the South of
England.  Fortune every now and then does things handsomely by a man all
round; Towneley was one of those to whom she had taken a fancy, and the
universal verdict in this case was that she had chosen wisely.

Ernest had seen Towneley as every one else in the University (except, of
course, dons) had seen him, for he was a man of mark, and being very
susceptible he had liked Towneley even more than most people did, but at
the same time it never so much as entered his head that he should come to
know him.  He liked looking at him if he got a chance, and was very much
ashamed of himself for doing so, but there the matter ended.

By a strange accident, however, during Ernest's last year, when the names
of the crews for the scratch fours were drawn he had found himself
coxswain of a crew, among whom was none other than his especial hero
Towneley; the three others were ordinary mortals, but they could row
fairly well, and the crew on the whole was rather a good one.

Ernest was frightened out of his wits.  When, however, the two met, he
found Towneley no less remarkable for his entire want of anything like
"side," and for his power of setting those whom he came across at their
ease, than he was for outward accomplishments; the only difference he
found between Towneley and other people was that he was so very much
easier to get on with.  Of course Ernest worshipped him more and more.

The scratch fours being ended the connection between the two came to an
end, but Towneley never passed Ernest thenceforward without a nod and a
few good-natured words.  In an evil moment he had mentioned Towneley's
name at Battersby, and now what was the result?  Here was his mother
plaguing him to ask Towneley to come down to Battersby and marry
Charlotte.  Why, if he had thought there was the remotest chance of
Towneley's marrying Charlotte he would have gone down on his knees to him
and told him what an odious young woman she was, and implored him to save
himself while there was yet time.

But Ernest had not prayed to be made "truly honest and conscientious" for
as many years as Christina had.  He tried to conceal what he felt and
thought as well as he could, and led the conversation back to the
difficulties which a clergyman might feel to stand in the way of his
being ordained--not because he had any misgivings, but as a diversion.
His mother, however, thought she had settled all that, and he got no more
out of her.  Soon afterwards he found the means of escaping, and was not
slow to avail himself of them.





On his return to Cambridge in the May term of 1858, Ernest and a few
other friends who were also intended for orders came to the conclusion
that they must now take a more serious view of their position.  They
therefore attended chapel more regularly than hitherto, and held evening
meetings of a somewhat furtive character, at which they would study the
New Testament.  They even began to commit the Epistles of St Paul to
memory in the original Greek.  They got up Beveridge on the Thirty-nine
Articles, and Pearson on the Creed; in their hours of recreation they
read More's "Mystery of Godliness," which Ernest thought was charming,
and Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying," which also impressed him deeply,
through what he thought was the splendour of its language.  They handed
themselves over to the guidance of Dean Alford's notes on the Greek
Testament, which made Ernest better understand what was meant by
"difficulties," but also made him feel how shallow and impotent were the
conclusions arrived at by German neologians, with whose works, being
innocent of German, he was not otherwise acquainted.  Some of the friends
who joined him in these pursuits were Johnians, and the meetings were
often held within the walls of St John's.

I do not know how tidings of these furtive gatherings had reached the
Simeonites, but they must have come round to them in some way, for they
had not been continued many weeks before a circular was sent to each of
the young men who attended them, informing them that the Rev. Gideon
Hawke, a well-known London Evangelical preacher, whose sermons were then
much talked of, was about to visit his young friend Badcock of St John's,
and would be glad to say a few words to any who might wish to hear them,
in Badcock's rooms on a certain evening in May.

Badcock was one of the most notorious of all the Simeonites.  Not only
was he ugly, dirty, ill-dressed, bumptious, and in every way
objectionable, but he was deformed and waddled when he walked so that he
had won a nick-name which I can only reproduce by calling it "Here's my
back, and there's my back," because the lower parts of his back
emphasised themselves demonstratively as though about to fly off in
different directions like the two extreme notes in the chord of the
augmented sixth, with every step he took.  It may be guessed, therefore,
that the receipt of the circular had for a moment an almost paralysing
effect on those to whom it was addressed, owing to the astonishment which
it occasioned them.  It certainly was a daring surprise, but like so many
deformed people, Badcock was forward and hard to check; he was a pushing
fellow to whom the present was just the opportunity he wanted for
carrying war into the enemy's quarters.

Ernest and his friends consulted.  Moved by the feeling that as they were
now preparing to be clergymen they ought not to stand so stiffly on
social dignity as heretofore, and also perhaps by the desire to have a
good private view of a preacher who was then much upon the lips of men,
they decided to accept the invitation.  When the appointed time came they
went with some confusion and self-abasement to the rooms of this man, on
whom they had looked down hitherto as from an immeasurable height, and
with whom nothing would have made them believe a few weeks earlier that
they could ever come to be on speaking terms.

Mr Hawke was a very different-looking person from Badcock.  He was
remarkably handsome, or rather would have been but for the thinness of
his lips, and a look of too great firmness and inflexibility.  His
features were a good deal like those of Leonardo da Vinci; moreover he
was kempt, looked in vigorous health, and was of a ruddy countenance.  He
was extremely courteous in his manner, and paid a good deal of attention
to Badcock, of whom he seemed to think highly.  Altogether our young
friends were taken aback, and inclined to think smaller beer of
themselves and larger of Badcock than was agreeable to the old Adam who
was still alive within them.  A few well-known "Sims" from St John's and
other colleges were present, but not enough to swamp the Ernest set, as
for the sake of brevity, I will call them.

After a preliminary conversation in which there was nothing to offend,
the business of the evening began by Mr Hawke's standing up at one end of
the table, and saying "Let us pray."  The Ernest set did not like this,
but they could not help themselves, so they knelt down and repeated the
Lord's Prayer and a few others after Mr Hawke, who delivered them
remarkably well.  Then, when all had sat down, Mr Hawke addressed them,
speaking without notes and taking for his text the words, "Saul, Saul,
why persecutest thou me?"  Whether owing to Mr Hawke's manner, which was
impressive, or to his well-known reputation for ability, or whether from
the fact that each one of the Ernest set knew that he had been more or
less a persecutor of the "Sims" and yet felt instinctively that the
"Sims" were after all much more like the early Christians than he was
himself--at any rate the text, familiar though it was, went home to the
consciences of Ernest and his friends as it had never yet done.  If Mr
Hawke had stopped here he would have almost said enough; as he scanned
the faces turned towards him, and saw the impression he had made, he was
perhaps minded to bring his sermon to an end before beginning it, but if
so, he reconsidered himself and proceeded as follows.  I give the sermon
in full, for it is a typical one, and will explain a state of mind which
in another generation or two will seem to stand sadly in need of
explanation.

"My young friends," said Mr Hawke, "I am persuaded there is not one of
you here who doubts the existence of a Personal God.  If there were, it
is to him assuredly that I should first address myself.  Should I be
mistaken in my belief that all here assembled accept the existence of a
God who is present amongst us though we see him not, and whose eye is
upon our most secret thoughts, let me implore the doubter to confer with
me in private before we part; I will then put before him considerations
through which God has been mercifully pleased to reveal himself to me, so
far as man can understand him, and which I have found bring peace to the
minds of others who have doubted.

"I assume also that there is none who doubts but that this God, after
whose likeness we have been made, did in the course of time have pity
upon man's blindness, and assume our nature, taking flesh and coming down
and dwelling among us as a man indistinguishable physically from
ourselves.  He who made the sun, moon and stars, the world and all that
therein is, came down from Heaven in the person of his Son, with the
express purpose of leading a scorned life, and dying the most cruel,
shameful death which fiendish ingenuity has invented.

"While on earth he worked many miracles.  He gave sight to the blind,
raised the dead to life, fed thousands with a few loaves and fishes, and
was seen to walk upon the waves, but at the end of his appointed time he
died, as was foredetermined, upon the cross, and was buried by a few
faithful friends.  Those, however, who had put him to death set a jealous
watch over his tomb.

"There is no one, I feel sure, in this room who doubts any part of the
foregoing, but if there is, let me again pray him to confer with me in
private, and I doubt not that by the blessing of God his doubts will
cease.

"The next day but one after our Lord was buried, the tomb being still
jealously guarded by enemies, an angel was seen descending from Heaven
with glittering raiment and a countenance that shone like fire.  This
glorious being rolled away the stone from the grave, and our Lord himself
came forth, risen from the dead.

"My young friends, this is no fanciful story like those of the ancient
deities, but a matter of plain history as certain as that you and I are
now here together.  If there is one fact better vouched for than another
in the whole range of certainties it is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ;
nor is it less well assured that a few weeks after he had risen from the
dead, our Lord was seen by many hundreds of men and women to rise amid a
host of angels into the air upon a heavenward journey till the clouds
covered him and concealed him from the sight of men.

"It may be said that the truth of these statements has been denied, but
what, let me ask you, has become of the questioners?  Where are they now?
Do we see them or hear of them?  Have they been able to hold what little
ground they made during the supineness of the last century?  Is there one
of your fathers or mothers or friends who does not see through them?  Is
there a single teacher or preacher in this great University who has not
examined what these men had to say, and found it naught?  Did you ever
meet one of them, or do you find any of their books securing the
respectful attention of those competent to judge concerning them?  I
think not; and I think also you know as well as I do why it is that they
have sunk back into the abyss from which they for a time emerged: it is
because after the most careful and patient examination by the ablest and
most judicial minds of many countries, their arguments were found so
untenable that they themselves renounced them.  They fled from the field
routed, dismayed, and suing for peace; nor have they again come to the
front in any civilised country.

"You know these things.  Why, then, do I insist upon them?  My dear young
friends, your own consciousness will have made the answer to each one of
you already; it is because, though you know so well that these things did
verily and indeed happen, you know also that you have not realised them
to yourselves as it was your duty to do, nor heeded their momentous,
awful import.

"And now let me go further.  You all know that you will one day come to
die, or if not to die--for there are not wanting signs which make me hope
that the Lord may come again, while some of us now present are alive--yet
to be changed; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, for this corruption must put on incorruption, and this
mortal put on immortality, and the saying shall be brought to pass that
is written, 'Death is swallowed up in victory.'

"Do you, or do you not believe that you will one day stand before the
Judgement Seat of Christ?  Do you, or do you not believe that you will
have to give an account for every idle word that you have ever spoken?  Do
you, or do you not believe that you are called to live, not according to
the will of man, but according to the will of that Christ who came down
from Heaven out of love for you, who suffered and died for you, who calls
you to him, and yearns towards you that you may take heed even in this
your day--but who, if you heed not, will also one day judge you, and with
whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning?

"My dear young friends, strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which
leadeth to Eternal Life, and few there be that find it.  Few, few, few,
for he who will not give up ALL for Christ's sake, has given up nothing.

"If you would live in the friendship of this world, if indeed you are not
prepared to give up everything you most fondly cherish, should the Lord
require it of you, then, I say, put the idea of Christ deliberately on
one side at once.  Spit upon him, buffet him, crucify him anew, do
anything you like so long as you secure the friendship of this world
while it is still in your power to do so; the pleasures of this brief
life may not be worth paying for by the torments of eternity, but they
are something while they last.  If, on the other hand, you would live in
the friendship of God, and be among the number of those for whom Christ
has not died in vain; if, in a word, you value your eternal welfare, then
give up the friendship of this world; of a surety you must make your
choice between God and Mammon, for you cannot serve both.

"I put these considerations before you, if so homely a term may be
pardoned, as a plain matter of business.  There is nothing low or
unworthy in this, as some lately have pretended, for all nature shows us
that there is nothing more acceptable to God than an enlightened view of
our own self-interest; never let anyone delude you here; it is a simple
question of fact; did certain things happen or did they not?  If they did
happen, is it reasonable to suppose that you will make yourselves and
others more happy by one course of conduct or by another?

"And now let me ask you what answer you have made to this question
hitherto?  Whose friendship have you chosen?  If, knowing what you know,
you have not yet begun to act according to the immensity of the knowledge
that is in you, then he who builds his house and lays up his treasure on
the edge of a crater of molten lava is a sane, sensible person in
comparison with yourselves.  I say this as no figure of speech or bugbear
with which to frighten you, but as an unvarnished unexaggerated statement
which will be no more disputed by yourselves than by me."

And now Mr Hawke, who up to this time had spoken with singular quietness,
changed his manner to one of greater warmth and continued--

"Oh! my young friends turn, turn, turn, now while it is called to-day--now
from this hour, from this instant; stay not even to gird up your loins;
look not behind you for a second, but fly into the bosom of that Christ
who is to be found of all who seek him, and from that fearful wrath of
God which lieth in wait for those who know not the things belonging to
their peace.  For the Son of Man cometh as a thief in the night, and
there is not one of us can tell but what this day his soul may be
required of him.  If there is even one here who has heeded me,"--and he
let his eye fall for an instant upon almost all his hearers, but
especially on the Ernest set--"I shall know that it was not for nothing
that I felt the call of the Lord, and heard as I thought a voice by night
that bade me come hither quickly, for there was a chosen vessel who had
need of me."

Here Mr Hawke ended rather abruptly; his earnest manner, striking
countenance and excellent delivery had produced an effect greater than
the actual words I have given can convey to the reader; the virtue lay in
the man more than in what he said; as for the last few mysterious words
about his having heard a voice by night, their effect was magical; there
was not one who did not look down to the ground, nor who in his heart did
not half believe that he was the chosen vessel on whose especial behalf
God had sent Mr Hawke to Cambridge.  Even if this were not so, each one
of them felt that he was now for the first time in the actual presence of
one who had had a direct communication from the Almighty, and they were
thus suddenly brought a hundredfold nearer to the New Testament miracles.
They were amazed, not to say scared, and as though by tacit consent they
gathered together, thanked Mr Hawke for his sermon, said good-night in a
humble deferential manner to Badcock and the other Simeonites, and left
the room together.  They had heard nothing but what they had been hearing
all their lives; how was it, then, that they were so dumbfoundered by it?
I suppose partly because they had lately begun to think more seriously,
and were in a fit state to be impressed, partly from the greater
directness with which each felt himself addressed, through the sermon
being delivered in a room, and partly to the logical consistency, freedom
from exaggeration, and profound air of conviction with which Mr Hawke had
spoken.  His simplicity and obvious earnestness had impressed them even
before he had alluded to his special mission, but this clenched
everything, and the words "Lord, is it I?" were upon the hearts of each
as they walked pensively home through moonlit courts and cloisters.

I do not know what passed among the Simeonites after the Ernest set had
left them, but they would have been more than mortal if they had not been
a good deal elated with the results of the evening.  Why, one of Ernest's
friends was in the University eleven, and he had actually been in
Badcock's rooms and had slunk off on saying good-night as meekly as any
of them.  It was no small thing to have scored a success like this.





Ernest felt now that the turning point of his life had come.  He would
give up all for Christ--even his tobacco.

So he gathered together his pipes and pouches, and locked them up in his
portmanteau under his bed where they should be out of sight, and as much
out of mind as possible.  He did not burn them, because someone might
come in who wanted to smoke, and though he might abridge his own liberty,
yet, as smoking was not a sin, there was no reason why he should be hard
on other people.

After breakfast he left his rooms to call on a man named Dawson, who had
been one of Mr Hawke's hearers on the preceding evening, and who was
reading for ordination at the forthcoming Ember Weeks, now only four
months distant.  This man had been always of a rather serious turn of
mind--a little too much so for Ernest's taste; but times had changed, and
Dawson's undoubted sincerity seemed to render him a fitting counsellor
for Ernest at the present time.  As he was going through the first court
of John's on his way to Dawson's rooms, he met Badcock, and greeted him
with some deference.  His advance was received with one of those ecstatic
gleams which shone occasionally upon the face of Badcock, and which, if
Ernest had known more, would have reminded him of Robespierre.  As it
was, he saw it and unconsciously recognised the unrest and
self-seekingness of the man, but could not yet formulate them; he
disliked Badcock more than ever, but as he was going to profit by the
spiritual benefits which he had put in his way, he was bound to be civil
to him, and civil he therefore was.

Badcock told him that Mr Hawke had returned to town immediately his
discourse was over, but that before doing so he had enquired particularly
who Ernest and two or three others were.  I believe each one of Ernest's
friends was given to understand that he had been more or less
particularly enquired after.  Ernest's vanity--for he was his mother's
son--was tickled at this; the idea again presented itself to him that he
might be the one for whose benefit Mr Hawke had been sent.  There was
something, too, in Badcock's manner which conveyed the idea that he could
say more if he chose, but had been enjoined to silence.

On reaching Dawson's rooms, he found his friend in raptures over the
discourse of the preceding evening.  Hardly less delighted was he with
the effect it had produced on Ernest.  He had always known, he said, that
Ernest would come round; he had been sure of it, but he had hardly
expected the conversion to be so sudden.  Ernest said no more had he, but
now that he saw his duty so clearly he would get ordained as soon as
possible, and take a curacy, even though the doing so would make him have
to go down from Cambridge earlier, which would be a great grief to him.
Dawson applauded this determination, and it was arranged that as Ernest
was still more or less of a weak brother, Dawson should take him, so to
speak, in spiritual tow for a while, and strengthen and confirm his
faith.

An offensive and defensive alliance therefore was struck up between this
pair (who were in reality singularly ill assorted), and Ernest set to
work to master the books on which the Bishop would examine him.  Others
gradually joined them till they formed a small set or church (for these
are the same things), and the effect of Mr Hawke's sermon instead of
wearing off in a few days, as might have been expected, became more and
more marked, so much so that it was necessary for Ernest's friends to
hold him back rather than urge him on, for he seemed likely to develop--as
indeed he did for a time--into a religious enthusiast.

In one matter only, did he openly backslide.  He had, as I said above,
locked up his pipes and tobacco, so that he might not be tempted to use
them.  All day long on the day after Mr Hawke's sermon he let them lie in
his portmanteau bravely; but this was not very difficult, as he had for
some time given up smoking till after hall.  After hall this day he did
not smoke till chapel time, and then went to chapel in self-defence.  When
he returned he determined to look at the matter from a common sense point
of view.  On this he saw that, provided tobacco did not injure his
health--and he really could not see that it did--it stood much on the
same footing as tea or coffee.

Tobacco had nowhere been forbidden in the Bible, but then it had not yet
been discovered, and had probably only escaped proscription for this
reason.  We can conceive of St Paul or even our Lord Himself as drinking
a cup of tea, but we cannot imagine either of them as smoking a cigarette
or a churchwarden.  Ernest could not deny this, and admitted that Paul
would almost certainly have condemned tobacco in good round terms if he
had known of its existence.  Was it not then taking rather a mean
advantage of the Apostle to stand on his not having actually forbidden
it?  On the other hand, it was possible that God knew Paul would have
forbidden smoking, and had purposely arranged the discovery of tobacco
for a period at which Paul should be no longer living.  This might seem
rather hard on Paul, considering all he had done for Christianity, but it
would be made up to him in other ways.

These reflections satisfied Ernest that on the whole he had better smoke,
so he sneaked to his portmanteau and brought out his pipes and tobacco
again.  There should be moderation he felt in all things, even in virtue;
so for that night he smoked immoderately.  It was a pity, however, that
he had bragged to Dawson about giving up smoking.  The pipes had better
be kept in a cupboard for a week or two, till in other and easier
respects Ernest should have proved his steadfastness.  Then they might
steal out again little by little--and so they did.

Ernest now wrote home a letter couched in a vein different from his
ordinary ones.  His letters were usually all common form and padding, for
as I have already explained, if he wrote about anything that really
interested him, his mother always wanted to know more and more about
it--every fresh answer being as the lopping off of a hydra's head and
giving birth to half a dozen or more new questions--but in the end it
came invariably to the same result, namely, that he ought to have done
something else, or ought not to go on doing as he proposed.  Now,
however, there was a new departure, and for the thousandth time he
concluded that he was about to take a course of which his father and
mother would approve, and in which they would be interested, so that at
last he and they might get on more sympathetically than heretofore.  He
therefore wrote a gushing impulsive letter, which afforded much amusement
to myself as I read it, but which is too long for reproduction.  One
passage ran: "I am now going towards Christ; the greater number of my
college friends are, I fear, going away from Him; we must pray for them
that they may find the peace that is in Christ even as I have myself
found it."  Ernest covered his face with his hands for shame as he read
this extract from the bundle of letters he had put into my hands--they
had been returned to him by his father on his mother's death, his mother
having carefully preserved them.

"Shall I cut it out?" said I, "I will if you like."

"Certainly not," he answered, "and if good-natured friends have kept more
records of my follies, pick out any plums that may amuse the reader, and
let him have his laugh over them."  But fancy what effect a letter like
this--so unled up to--must have produced at Battersby!  Even Christina
refrained from ecstasy over her son's having discovered the power of
Christ's word, while Theobald was frightened out of his wits.  It was
well his son was not going to have any doubts or difficulties, and that
he would be ordained without making a fuss over it, but he smelt mischief
in this sudden conversion of one who had never yet shown any inclination
towards religion.  He hated people who did not know where to stop.  Ernest
was always so _outre_ and strange; there was never any knowing what he
would do next, except that it would be something unusual and silly.  If
he was to get the bit between his teeth after he had got ordained and
bought his living, he would play more pranks than ever he, Theobald, had
done.  The fact, doubtless, of his being ordained and having bought a
living would go a long way to steady him, and if he married, his wife
must see to the rest; this was his only chance and, to do justice to his
sagacity, Theobald in his heart did not think very highly of it.

When Ernest came down to Battersby in June, he imprudently tried to open
up a more unreserved communication with his father than was his wont.  The
first of Ernest's snipe-like flights on being flushed by Mr Hawke's
sermon was in the direction of ultra-evangelicalism.  Theobald himself
had been much more Low than High Church.  This was the normal development
of the country clergyman during the first years of his clerical life,
between, we will say, the years 1825 to 1850; but he was not prepared for
the almost contempt with which Ernest now regarded the doctrines of
baptismal regeneration and priestly absolution (Hoity toity, indeed, what
business had he with such questions?), nor for his desire to find some
means of reconciling Methodism and the Church.  Theobald hated the Church
of Rome, but he hated dissenters too, for he found them as a general rule
troublesome people to deal with; he always found people who did not agree
with him troublesome to deal with: besides, they set up for knowing as
much as he did; nevertheless if he had been let alone he would have
leaned towards them rather than towards the High Church party.  The
neighbouring clergy, however, would not let him alone.  One by one they
had come under the influence, directly or indirectly, of the Oxford
movement which had begun twenty years earlier.  It was surprising how
many practices he now tolerated which in his youth he would have
considered Popish; he knew very well therefore which way things were
going in Church matters, and saw that as usual Ernest was setting himself
the other way.  The opportunity for telling his son that he was a fool
was too favourable not to be embraced, and Theobald was not slow to
embrace it.  Ernest was annoyed and surprised, for had not his father and
mother been wanting him to be more religious all his life?  Now that he
had become so they were still not satisfied.  He said to himself that a
prophet was not without honour save in his own country, but he had been
lately--or rather until lately--getting into an odious habit of turning
proverbs upside down, and it occurred to him that a country is sometimes
not without honour save for its own prophet.  Then he laughed, and for
the rest of the day felt more as he used to feel before he had heard Mr
Hawke's sermon.

He returned to Cambridge for the Long Vacation of 1858--none too soon,
for he had to go in for the Voluntary Theological Examination, which
bishops were now beginning to insist upon.  He imagined all the time he
was reading that he was storing himself with the knowledge that would
best fit him for the work he had taken in hand.  In truth, he was
cramming for a pass.  In due time he did pass--creditably, and was
ordained Deacon with half-a-dozen others of his friends in the autumn of
1858.  He was then just twenty-three years old.

 As a student at Emmanuel College of Cambridge University, Ernest is conscious of being happy for the first time in his life. Freedom of movement, comfortable surroundings, and the companionship of desirable friends all contribute to his sense of well being. Lacking ambition as a scholar, Ernest at least gains a modest reputation as an intellectual after arguing in an undergraduate magazine that the reputations of some of the classical Greek dramatists -- Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides -- are greatly exaggerated. This one essay is to remain his only triumph, however, until he surprises himself, his friends, and his family by completing an honors degree in mathematics and classics. During his last year at Emmanuel, Ernest, along with other of his classmates who plan to enter the Anglican ministry, becomes more attentive to religious topics. Ernest is especially attracted to the Simeonites, a group of evangelistically fervent students of all ages who eschew the comforts of ordinary society to live piously among themselves in extreme poverty. After Ernest falls under their spell, he vows to renounce his habitual pipe smoking, a step which he hastily retracts. When he writes to his family of his new awakening to Christ, Christina and Theobald are greatly disturbed: Religious faith, even among the clergy, is to be exercised in moderation. Ironically, Ernest's period of religious enthusiasm comes at a period in English history in which skeptical currents were becoming popular with the public.

