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.
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