So little kick had lie 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.
CHAPTER XLVII
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 commence. ment 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.
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