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.
CHAPTER XLIX
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.
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