Chapter: By and by a subtle, indefinable _malaise_ began to take possession of
him.  I once saw a very young foal trying to eat some most objectionable
refuse, and unable to make up its mind whether it was good or no.  Clearly
it wanted to be told.  If its mother had seen what it was doing she would
have set it right in a moment, and as soon as ever it had been told that
what it was eating was filth, the foal would have recognised it and never
have wanted to be told again; but the foal could not settle the matter
for itself, or make up its mind whether it liked what it was trying to
eat or no, without assistance from without.  I suppose it would have come
to do so by and by, but it was wasting time and trouble, which a single
look from its mother would have saved, just as wort will in time ferment
of itself, but will ferment much more quickly if a little yeast be added
to it.  In the matter of knowing what gives us pleasure we are all like
wort, and if unaided from without can only ferment slowly and toilsomely.

My unhappy hero about this time was very much like the foal, or rather he
felt much what the foal would have felt if its mother and all the other
grown-up horses in the field had vowed that what it was eating was the
most excellent and nutritious food to be found anywhere.  He was so
anxious to do what was right, and so ready to believe that every one knew
better than himself, that he never ventured to admit to himself that he
might be all the while on a hopelessly wrong tack.  It did not occur to
him that there might be a blunder anywhere, much less did it occur to him
to try and find out where the blunder was.  Nevertheless he became daily
more full of _malaise_, and daily, only he knew it not, more ripe for an
explosion should a spark fall upon him.

One thing, however, did begin to loom out of the general vagueness, and
to this he instinctively turned as trying to seize it--I mean, the fact
that he was saving very few souls, whereas there were thousands and
thousands being lost hourly all around him which a little energy such as
Mr Hawke's might save.  Day after day went by, and what was he doing?
Standing on professional _etiquette_, and praying that his shares might
go up and down as he wanted them, so that they might give him money
enough to enable him to regenerate the universe.  But in the meantime the
people were dying.  How many souls would not be doomed to endless ages of
the most frightful torments that the mind could think of, before he could
bring his spiritual pathology engine to bear upon them?  Why might he not
stand and preach as he saw the Dissenters doing sometimes in Lincoln's
Inn Fields and other thoroughfares?  He could say all that Mr Hawke had
said.  Mr Hawke was a very poor creature in Ernest's eyes now, for he was
a Low Churchman, but we should not be above learning from any one, and
surely he could affect his hearers as powerfully as Mr Hawke had affected
him if he only had the courage to set to work.  The people whom he saw
preaching in the squares sometimes drew large audiences.  He could at any
rate preach better than they.

Ernest broached this to Pryer, who treated it as something too outrageous
to be even thought of.  Nothing, he said, could more tend to lower the
dignity of the clergy and bring the Church into contempt.  His manner was
brusque, and even rude.

Ernest ventured a little mild dissent; he admitted it was not usual, but
something at any rate must be done, and that quickly.  This was how
Wesley and Whitfield had begun that great movement which had kindled
religious life in the minds of hundreds of thousands.  This was no time
to be standing on dignity.  It was just because Wesley and Whitfield had
done what the Church would not that they had won men to follow them whom
the Church had now lost.

Pryer eyed Ernest searchingly, and after a pause said, "I don't know what
to make of you, Pontifex; you are at once so very right and so very
wrong.  I agree with you heartily that something should be done, but it
must not be done in a way which experience has shown leads to nothing but
fanaticism and dissent.  Do you approve of these Wesleyans?  Do you hold
your ordination vows so cheaply as to think that it does not matter
whether the services of the Church are performed in her churches and with
all due ceremony or not?  If you do--then, frankly, you had no business
to be ordained; if you do not, then remember that one of the first duties
of a young deacon is obedience to authority.  Neither the Catholic
Church, nor yet the Church of England allows her clergy to preach in the
streets of cities where there is no lack of churches."

Ernest felt the force of this, and Pryer saw that he wavered.

"We are living," he continued more genially, "in an age of transition,
and in a country which, though it has gained much by the Reformation,
does not perceive how much it has also lost.  You cannot and must not
hawk Christ about in the streets as though you were in a heathen country
whose inhabitants had never heard of him.  The people here in London have
had ample warning.  Every church they pass is a protest to them against
their lives, and a call to them to repent.  Every church-bell they hear
is a witness against them, everyone of those whom they meet on Sundays
going to or coming from church is a warning voice from God.  If these
countless influences produce no effect upon them, neither will the few
transient words which they would hear from you.  You are like Dives, and
think that if one rose from the dead they would hear him.  Perhaps they
might; but then you cannot pretend that you have risen from the dead."

Though the last few words were spoken laughingly, there was a sub-sneer
about them which made Ernest wince; but he was quite subdued, and so the
conversation ended.  It left Ernest, however, not for the first time,
consciously dissatisfied with Pryer, and inclined to set his friend's
opinion on one side--not openly, but quietly, and without telling Pryer
anything about it.





He had hardly parted from Pryer before there occurred another incident
which strengthened his discontent.  He had fallen, as I have shown, among
a gang of spiritual thieves or coiners, who passed the basest metal upon
him without his finding it out, so childish and inexperienced was he in
the ways of anything but those back eddies of the world, schools and
universities.  Among the bad threepenny pieces which had been passed off
upon him, and which he kept for small hourly disbursement, was a remark
that poor people were much nicer than the richer and better educated.
Ernest now said that he always travelled third class not because it was
cheaper, but because the people whom he met in third class carriages were
so much pleasanter and better behaved.  As for the young men who attended
Ernest's evening classes, they were pronounced to be more intelligent and
better ordered generally than the average run of Oxford and Cambridge
men.  Our foolish young friend having heard Pryer talk to this effect,
caught up all he said and reproduced it _more suo_.

One evening, however, about this time, whom should he see coming along a
small street not far from his own but, of all persons in the world,
Towneley, looking as full of life and good spirits as ever, and if
possible even handsomer than he had been at Cambridge.  Much as Ernest
liked him he found himself shrinking from speaking to him, and was
endeavouring to pass him without doing so when Towneley saw him and
stopped him at once, being pleased to see an old Cambridge face.  He
seemed for the moment a little confused at being seen in such a
neighbourhood, but recovered himself so soon that Ernest hardly noticed
it, and then plunged into a few kindly remarks about old times.  Ernest
felt that he quailed as he saw Towneley's eye wander to his white necktie
and saw that he was being reckoned up, and rather disapprovingly reckoned
up, as a parson.  It was the merest passing shade upon Towneley's face,
but Ernest had felt it.

Towneley said a few words of common form to Ernest about his profession
as being what he thought would be most likely to interest him, and
Ernest, still confused and shy, gave him for lack of something better to
say his little threepenny-bit about poor people being so very nice.
Towneley took this for what it was worth and nodded assent, whereon
Ernest imprudently went further and said "Don't you like poor people very
much yourself?"

Towneley gave his face a comical but good-natured screw, and said
quietly, but slowly and decidedly, "No, no, no," and escaped.

It was all over with Ernest from that moment.  As usual he did not know
it, but he had entered none the less upon another reaction.  Towneley had
just taken Ernest's threepenny-bit into his hands, looked at it and
returned it to him as a bad one.  Why did he see in a moment that it was
a bad one now, though he had been unable to see it when he had taken it
from Pryer?  Of course some poor people were very nice, and always would
be so, but as though scales had fallen suddenly from his eyes he saw that
no one was nicer for being poor, and that between the upper and lower
classes there was a gulf which amounted practically to an impassable
barrier.

That evening he reflected a good deal.  If Towneley was right, and Ernest
felt that the "No" had applied not to the remark about poor people only,
but to the whole scheme and scope of his own recently adopted ideas, he
and Pryer must surely be on a wrong track.  Towneley had not argued with
him; he had said one word only, and that one of the shortest in the
language, but Ernest was in a fit state for inoculation, and the minute
particle of virus set about working immediately.

Which did he now think was most likely to have taken the juster view of
life and things, and whom would it be best to imitate, Towneley or Pryer?
His heart returned answer to itself without a moment's hesitation.  The
faces of men like Towneley were open and kindly; they looked as if at
ease themselves, and as though they would set all who had to do with them
at ease as far as might be.  The faces of Pryer and his friends were not
like this.  Why had he felt tacitly rebuked as soon as he had met
Towneley?  Was he not a Christian?  Certainly; he believed in the Church
of England as a matter of course.  Then how could he be himself wrong in
trying to act up to the faith that he and Towneley held in common?  He
was trying to lead a quiet, unobtrusive life of self-devotion, whereas
Towneley was not, so far as he could see, trying to do anything of the
kind; he was only trying to get on comfortably in the world, and to look
and be as nice as possible.  And he was nice, and Ernest knew that such
men as himself and Pryer were not nice, and his old dejection came over
him.

Then came an even worse reflection; how if he had fallen among material
thieves as well as spiritual ones?  He knew very little of how his money
was going on; he had put it all now into Pryer's hands, and though Pryer
gave him cash to spend whenever he wanted it, he seemed impatient of
being questioned as to what was being done with the principal.  It was
part of the understanding, he said, that that was to be left to him, and
Ernest had better stick to this, or he, Pryer, would throw up the College
of Spiritual Pathology altogether; and so Ernest was cowed into
acquiescence, or cajoled, according to the humour in which Pryer saw him
to be.  Ernest thought that further questions would look as if he doubted
Pryer's word, and also that he had gone too far to be able to recede in
decency or honour.  This, however, he felt was riding out to meet trouble
unnecessarily.  Pryer had been a little impatient, but he was a gentleman
and an admirable man of business, so his money would doubtless come back
to him all right some day.

Ernest comforted himself as regards this last source of anxiety, but as
regards the other, he began to feel as though, if he was to be saved, a
good Samaritan must hurry up from somewhere--he knew not whence.





Next day he felt stronger again.  He had been listening to the voice of
the evil one on the night before, and would parley no more with such
thoughts.  He had chosen his profession, and his duty was to persevere
with it.  If he was unhappy it was probably because he was not giving up
all for Christ.  Let him see whether he could not do more than he was
doing now, and then perhaps a light would be shed upon his path.

It was all very well to have made the discovery that he didn't very much
like poor people, but he had got to put up with them, for it was among
them that his work must lie.  Such men as Towneley were very kind and
considerate, but he knew well enough it was only on condition that he did
not preach to them.  He could manage the poor better, and, let Pryer
sneer as he liked, he was resolved to go more among them, and try the
effect of bringing Christ to them if they would not come and seek Christ
of themselves.  He would begin with his own house.

Who then should he take first?  Surely he could not do better than begin
with the tailor who lived immediately over his head.  This would be
desirable, not only because he was the one who seemed to stand most in
need of conversion, but also because, if he were once converted, he would
no longer beat his wife at two o'clock in the morning, and the house
would be much pleasanter in consequence.  He would therefore go upstairs
at once, and have a quiet talk with this man.

Before doing so, he thought it would be well if he were to draw up
something like a plan of a campaign; he therefore reflected over some
pretty conversations which would do very nicely if Mr Holt would be kind
enough to make the answers proposed for him in their proper places.  But
the man was a great hulking fellow, of a savage temper, and Ernest was
forced to admit that unforeseen developments might arise to disconcert
him.  They say it takes nine tailors to make a man, but Ernest felt that
it would take at least nine Ernests to make a Mr Holt.  How if, as soon
as Ernest came in, the tailor were to become violent and abusive?  What
could he do?  Mr Holt was in his own lodgings, and had a right to be
undisturbed.  A legal right, yes, but had he a moral right?  Ernest
thought not, considering his mode of life.  But put this on one side; if
the man were to be violent, what should he do?  Paul had fought with wild
beasts at Ephesus--that must indeed have been awful--but perhaps they
were not very wild wild beasts; a rabbit and a canary are wild beasts;
but, formidable or not as wild beasts go, they would, nevertheless stand
no chance against St Paul, for he was inspired; the miracle would have
been if the wild beasts escaped, not that St Paul should have done so;
but, however all this might be, Ernest felt that he dared not begin to
convert Mr Holt by fighting him.  Why, when he had heard Mrs Holt
screaming "murder," he had cowered under the bed clothes and waited,
expecting to hear the blood dripping through the ceiling on to his own
floor.  His imagination translated every sound into a pat, pat, pat, and
once or twice he thought he had felt it dropping on to his counterpane,
but he had never gone upstairs to try and rescue poor Mrs Holt.  Happily
it had proved next morning that Mrs Holt was in her usual health.

Ernest was in despair about hitting on any good way of opening up
spiritual communication with his neighbour, when it occurred to him that
he had better perhaps begin by going upstairs, and knocking very gently
at Mr Holt's door.  He would then resign himself to the guidance of the
Holy Spirit, and act as the occasion, which, I suppose, was another name
for the Holy Spirit, suggested.  Triply armed with this reflection, he
mounted the stairs quite jauntily, and was about to knock when he heard
Holt's voice inside swearing savagely at his wife.  This made him pause
to think whether after all the moment was an auspicious one, and while he
was thus pausing, Mr Holt, who had heard that someone was on the stairs,
opened the door and put his head out.  When he saw Ernest, he made an
unpleasant, not to say offensive movement, which might or might not have
been directed at Ernest and looked altogether so ugly that my hero had an
instantaneous and unequivocal revelation from the Holy Spirit to the
effect that he should continue his journey upstairs at once, as though he
had never intended arresting it at Mr Holt's room, and begin by
converting Mr and Mrs Baxter, the Methodists in the top floor front.  So
this was what he did.

These good people received him with open arms, and were quite ready to
talk.  He was beginning to convert them from Methodism to the Church of
England, when all at once he found himself embarrassed by discovering
that he did not know what he was to convert them from.  He knew the
Church of England, or thought he did, but he knew nothing of Methodism
beyond its name.  When he found that, according to Mr Baxter, the
Wesleyans had a vigorous system of Church discipline (which worked
admirably in practice) it appeared to him that John Wesley had
anticipated the spiritual engine which he and Pryer were preparing, and
when he left the room he was aware that he had caught more of a spiritual
Tartar than he had expected.  But he must certainly explain to Pryer that
the Wesleyans had a system of Church discipline.  This was very
important.

Mr Baxter advised Ernest on no account to meddle with Mr Holt, and Ernest
was much relieved at the advice.  If an opportunity arose of touching the
man's heart, he would take it; he would pat the children on the head when
he saw them on the stairs, and ingratiate himself with them as far as he
dared; they were sturdy youngsters, and Ernest was afraid even of them,
for they were ready with their tongues, and knew much for their ages.
Ernest felt that it would indeed be almost better for him that a
millstone should be hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than
that he should offend one of the little Holts.  However, he would try not
to offend them; perhaps an occasional penny or two might square them.
This was as much as he could do, for he saw that the attempt to be
instant out of season, as well as in season, would, St Paul's injunction
notwithstanding, end in failure.

Mrs Baxter gave a very bad account of Miss Emily Snow, who lodged in the
second floor back next to Mr Holt.  Her story was quite different from
that of Mrs Jupp the landlady.  She would doubtless be only too glad to
receive Ernest's ministrations or those of any other gentleman, but she
was no governess, she was in the ballet at Drury Lane, and besides this,
she was a very bad young woman, and if Mrs Baxter was landlady would not
be allowed to stay in the house a single hour, not she indeed.

Miss Maitland in the next room to Mrs Baxter's own was a quiet and
respectable young woman to all appearance; Mrs Baxter had never known of
any goings on in that quarter, but, bless you, still waters run deep, and
these girls were all alike, one as bad as the other.  She was out at all
kinds of hours, and when you knew that you knew all.

Ernest did not pay much heed to these aspersions of Mrs Baxter's.  Mrs
Jupp had got round the greater number of his many blind sides, and had
warned him not to believe Mrs Baxter, whose lip she said was something
awful.

Ernest had heard that women were always jealous of one another, and
certainly these young women were more attractive than Mrs Baxter was, so
jealousy was probably at the bottom of it.  If they were maligned there
could be no objection to his making their acquaintance; if not maligned
they had all the more need of his ministrations.  He would reclaim them
at once.

He told Mrs Jupp of his intention.  Mrs Jupp at first tried to dissuade
him, but seeing him resolute, suggested that she should herself see Miss
Snow first, so as to prepare her and prevent her from being alarmed by
his visit.  She was not at home now, but in the course of the next day,
it should be arranged.  In the meantime he had better try Mr Shaw, the
tinker, in the front kitchen.  Mrs Baxter had told Ernest that Mr Shaw
was from the North Country, and an avowed freethinker; he would probably,
she said, rather like a visit, but she did not think Ernest would stand
much chance of making a convert of him.





Before going down into the kitchen to convert the tinker Ernest ran
hurriedly over his analysis of Paley's evidences, and put into his pocket
a copy of Archbishop Whateley's "Historic Doubts."  Then he descended the
dark rotten old stairs and knocked at the tinker's door.  Mr Shaw was
very civil; he said he was rather throng just now, but if Ernest did not
mind the sound of hammering he should be very glad of a talk with him.
Our hero, assenting to this, ere long led the conversation to Whateley's
"Historic Doubts"--a work which, as the reader may know, pretends to show
that there never was any such person as Napoleon Buonaparte, and thus
satirises the arguments of those who have attacked the Christian
miracles.

Mr Shaw said he knew "Historic Doubts" very well.

"And what you think of it?" said Ernest, who regarded the pamphlet as a
masterpiece of wit and cogency.

"If you really want to know," said Mr Shaw, with a sly twinkle, "I think
that he who was so willing and able to prove that what was was not, would
be equally able and willing to make a case for thinking that what was not
was, if it suited his purpose."  Ernest was very much taken aback.  How
was it that all the clever people of Cambridge had never put him up to
this simple rejoinder?  The answer is easy: they did not develop it for
the same reason that a hen had never developed webbed feet--that is to
say, because they did not want to do so; but this was before the days of
Evolution, and Ernest could not as yet know anything of the great
principle that underlies it.

"You see," continued Mr Shaw, "these writers all get their living by
writing in a certain way, and the more they write in that way, the more
they are likely to get on.  You should not call them dishonest for this
any more than a judge should call a barrister dishonest for earning his
living by defending one in whose innocence he does not seriously believe;
but you should hear the barrister on the other side before you decide
upon the case."

This was another facer.  Ernest could only stammer that he had
endeavoured to examine these questions as carefully as he could.

"You think you have," said Mr Shaw; "you Oxford and Cambridge gentlemen
think you have examined everything.  I have examined very little myself
except the bottoms of old kettles and saucepans, but if you will answer
me a few questions, I will tell you whether or no you have examined much
more than I have."

Ernest expressed his readiness to be questioned.

"Then," said the tinker, "give me the story of the Resurrection of Jesus
Christ as told in St John's gospel."

I am sorry to say that Ernest mixed up the four accounts in a deplorable
manner; he even made the angel come down and roll away the stone and sit
upon it.  He was covered with confusion when the tinker first told him
without the book of some of his many inaccuracies, and then verified his
criticisms by referring to the New Testament itself.

"Now," said Mr Shaw good naturedly, "I am an old man and you are a young
one, so perhaps you'll not mind my giving you a piece of advice.  I like
you, for I believe you mean well, but you've been real bad brought up,
and I don't think you have ever had so much as a chance yet.  You know
nothing of our side of the question, and I have just shown you that you
do not know much more of your own, but I think you will make a kind of
Carlyle sort of a man some day.  Now go upstairs and read the accounts of
the Resurrection correctly without mixing them up, and have a clear idea
of what it is that each writer tells us, then if you feel inclined to pay
me another visit I shall be glad to see you, for I shall know you have
made a good beginning and mean business.  Till then, Sir, I must wish you
a very good morning."

Ernest retreated abashed.  An hour sufficed him to perform the task
enjoined upon him by Mr Shaw; and at the end of that hour the "No, no,
no," which still sounded in his ears as he heard it from Towneley, came
ringing up more loudly still from the very pages of the Bible itself, and
in respect of the most important of all the events which are recorded in
it.  Surely Ernest's first day's attempt at more promiscuous visiting,
and at carrying out his principles more thoroughly, had not been
unfruitful.  But he must go and have a talk with Pryer.  He therefore got
his lunch and went to Pryer's lodgings.  Pryer not being at home, he
lounged to the British Museum Reading Room, then recently opened, sent
for the "Vestiges of Creation," which he had never yet seen, and spent
the rest of the afternoon in reading it.

Ernest did not see Pryer on the day of his conversation with Mr Shaw, but
he did so next morning and found him in a good temper, which of late he
had rarely been.  Sometimes, indeed, he had behaved to Ernest in a way
which did not bode well for the harmony with which the College of
Spiritual Pathology would work when it had once been founded.  It almost
seemed as though he were trying to get a complete moral ascendency over
him, so as to make him a creature of his own.

He did not think it possible that he could go too far, and indeed, when I
reflect upon my hero's folly and inexperience, there is much to be said
in excuse for the conclusion which Pryer came to.

As a matter of fact, however, it was not so.  Ernest's faith in Pryer had
been too great to be shaken down all in a moment, but it had been
weakened lately more than once.  Ernest had fought hard against allowing
himself to see this, nevertheless any third person who knew the pair
would have been able to see that the connection between the two might end
at any moment, for when the time for one of Ernest's snipe-like changes
of flight came, he was quick in making it; the time, however, was not yet
come, and the intimacy between the two was apparently all that it had
ever been.  It was only that horrid money business (so said Ernest to
himself) that caused any unpleasantness between them, and no doubt Pryer
was right, and he, Ernest, much too nervous.  However, that might stand
over for the present.

In like manner, though he had received a shock by reason of his
conversation with Mr Shaw, and by looking at the "Vestiges," he was as
yet too much stunned to realise the change which was coming over him.  In
each case the momentum of old habits carried him forward in the old
direction.  He therefore called on Pryer, and spent an hour and more with
him.

He did not say that he had been visiting among his neighbours; this to
Pryer would have been like a red rag to a bull.  He only talked in much
his usual vein about the proposed College, the lamentable want of
interest in spiritual things which was characteristic of modern society,
and other kindred matters; he concluded by saying that for the present he
feared Pryer was indeed right, and that nothing could be done.

"As regards the laity," said Pryer, "nothing; not until we have a
discipline which we can enforce with pains and penalties.  How can a
sheep dog work a flock of sheep unless he can bite occasionally as well
as bark?  But as regards ourselves we can do much."

Pryer's manner was strange throughout the conversation, as though he were
thinking all the time of something else.  His eyes wandered curiously
over Ernest, as Ernest had often noticed them wander before: the words
were about Church discipline, but somehow or other the discipline part of
the story had a knack of dropping out after having been again and again
emphatically declared to apply to the laity and not to the clergy: once
indeed Pryer had pettishly exclaimed: "Oh, bother the College of
Spiritual Pathology."  As regards the clergy, glimpses of a pretty large
cloven hoof kept peeping out from under the saintly robe of Pryer's
conversation, to the effect, that so long as they were theoretically
perfect, practical peccadilloes--or even peccadaccios, if there is such a
word, were of less importance.  He was restless, as though wanting to
approach a subject which he did not quite venture to touch upon, and kept
harping (he did this about every third day) on the wretched lack of
definition concerning the limits of vice and virtue, and the way in which
half the vices wanted regulating rather than prohibiting.  He dwelt also
on the advantages of complete unreserve, and hinted that there were
mysteries into which Ernest had not yet been initiated, but which would
enlighten him when he got to know them, as he would be allowed to do when
his friends saw that he was strong enough.

Pryer had often been like this before, but never so nearly, as it seemed
to Ernest, coming to a point--though what the point was he could not
fully understand.  His inquietude was communicating itself to Ernest, who
would probably ere long have come to know as much as Pryer could tell
him, but the conversation was abruptly interrupted by the appearance of a
visitor.  We shall never know how it would have ended, for this was the
very last time that Ernest ever saw Pryer.  Perhaps Pryer was going to
break to him some bad news about his speculations.





Ernest now went home and occupied himself till luncheon with studying
Dean Alford's notes upon the various Evangelistic records of the
Resurrection, doing as Mr Shaw had told him, and trying to find out not
that they were all accurate, but whether they were all accurate or no.  He
did not care which result he should arrive at, but he was resolved that
he would reach one or the other.  When he had finished Dean Alford's
notes he found them come to this, namely, that no one yet had succeeded
in bringing the four accounts into tolerable harmony with each other, and
that the Dean, seeing no chance of succeeding better than his
predecessors had done, recommended that the whole story should be taken
on trust--and this Ernest was not prepared to do.

He got his luncheon, went out for a long walk, and returned to dinner at
half past six.  While Mrs Jupp was getting him his dinner--a steak and a
pint of stout--she told him that Miss Snow would be very happy to see him
in about an hour's time.  This disconcerted him, for his mind was too
unsettled for him to wish to convert anyone just then.  He reflected a
little, and found that, in spite of the sudden shock to his opinions, he
was being irresistibly drawn to pay the visit as though nothing had
happened.  It would not look well for him not to go, for he was known to
be in the house.  He ought not to be in too great a hurry to change his
opinions on such a matter as the evidence for Christ's Resurrection all
of a sudden--besides he need not talk to Miss Snow about this subject to-
day--there were other things he might talk about.  What other things?
Ernest felt his heart beat fast and fiercely, and an inward monitor
warned him that he was thinking of anything rather than of Miss Snow's
soul.

What should he do?  Fly, fly, fly--it was the only safety.  But would
Christ have fled?  Even though Christ had not died and risen from the
dead there could be no question that He was the model whose example we
were bound to follow.  Christ would not have fled from Miss Snow; he was
sure of that, for He went about more especially with prostitutes and
disreputable people.  Now, as then, it was the business of the true
Christian to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.  It would
be inconvenient to him to change his lodgings, and he could not ask Mrs
Jupp to turn Miss Snow and Miss Maitland out of the house.  Where was he
to draw the line?  Who would be just good enough to live in the same
house with him, and who just not good enough?

Besides, where were these poor girls to go?  Was he to drive them from
house to house till they had no place to lie in?  It was absurd; his duty
was clear: he would go and see Miss Snow at once, and try if he could not
induce her to change her present mode of life; if he found temptation
becoming too strong for him he would fly then--so he went upstairs with
his Bible under his arm, and a consuming fire in his heart.

He found Miss Snow looking very pretty in a neatly, not to say demurely,
furnished room.  I think she had bought an illuminated text or two, and
pinned it up over her fireplace that morning.  Ernest was very much
pleased with her, and mechanically placed his Bible upon the table.  He
had just opened a timid conversation and was deep in blushes, when a
hurried step came bounding up the stairs as though of one over whom the
force of gravity had little power, and a man burst into the room saying,
"I'm come before my time."  It was Towneley.

His face dropped as he caught sight of Ernest.  "What, you here,
Pontifex!  Well, upon my word!"

I cannot describe the hurried explanations that passed quickly between
the three--enough that in less than a minute Ernest, blushing more
scarlet than ever, slunk off, Bible and all, deeply humiliated as he
contrasted himself and Towneley.  Before he had reached the bottom of the
staircase leading to his own room he heard Towneley's hearty laugh
through Miss Snow's door, and cursed the hour that he was born.

Then it flashed upon him that if he could not see Miss Snow he could at
any rate see Miss Maitland.  He knew well enough what he wanted now, and
as for the Bible, he pushed it from him to the other end of his table.  It
fell over on to the floor, and he kicked it into a corner.  It was the
Bible given him at his christening by his affectionate aunt, Elizabeth
Allaby.  True, he knew very little of Miss Maitland, but ignorant young
fools in Ernest's state do not reflect or reason closely.  Mrs Baxter had
said that Miss Maitland and Miss Snow were birds of a feather, and Mrs
Baxter probably knew better than that old liar, Mrs Jupp.  Shakespeare
says:

   O Opportunity, thy guilt is great
   'Tis thou that execut'st the traitor's treason:
   Thou set'st the wolf where he the lamb may get;
   Whoever plots the sin, thou 'point'st the season;
   'Tis thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason;
   And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him,
   Sits Sin, to seize the souls that wander by him.

If the guilt of opportunity is great, how much greater is the guilt of
that which is believed to be opportunity, but in reality is no
opportunity at all.  If the better part of valour is discretion, how much
more is not discretion the better part of vice

About ten minutes after we last saw Ernest, a scared, insulted girl,
flushed and trembling, was seen hurrying from Mrs Jupp's house as fast as
her agitated state would let her, and in another ten minutes two
policemen were seen also coming out of Mrs Jupp's, between whom there
shambled rather than walked our unhappy friend Ernest, with staring eyes,
ghastly pale, and with despair branded upon every line of his face.

 While praying for the stock market to behave properly, in the way God intends it should, Ernest grows restless and impatient at the delay. Thousands of souls are being lost hourly without being saved. Ernest determines to begin his campaign of saving souls by canvassing his own neighborhood. Immediately after making this vow, however, Ernest accidentally meets a former college friend, fittingly named Towneley, an individual perfectly and effortlessly adapted to the world. When Ernest awkwardly asks Towneley whether he likes poor people, the prompt and forceful reply of "No, no, no" produces a devastating effect on Ernest. After rationalizing Towneley's rejoinder to be the voice of the devil, Ernest resolves to carry out his scheme of saving souls by first calling on the other tenants of Mrs. Jupp. Unfortunately, the result of this decision, to paraphrase Overton, is that one tenant, Mr. Holt, puts him in fear of physical harm; a married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Baxter, nearly convert him to Methodism; a lowly tinker, Mr. Shaw, undermines his faith in the Resurrection; and an alluring young woman, Miss Snow, nearly ruins his moral character. It is while he is speaking to Miss Snow that Ernest is startled by the unexpected and untimely arrival of Towneley, although "at his appointed time," as Miss Snow comments. Ernest goes back to his own room, where he agitatedly kicks his Bible across the floor. He then forces himself into the room of a second young woman, Miss Maitland, whom he supposes to be of the same moral persuasion as Miss Snow. Terrified by the sudden intrusion into her chambers, Miss Maitland flees in alarm to the street, where an overly zealous police officer is stationed. Moments later, Ernest is arrested on a charge of attempted assault.

