"Very well then, keep it by all means."
I continue turning over my file of Ernest's letters and find as
follows-
"Thanks for your last, in answer to which I send you a rough copy of
a letter I sent to the Times a day or two back. They did not insert
it, but it embodies pretty fully my ideas on the parochial
visitation question, and Pryer fully approves of the letter. Think
it carefully over and send it back to me when read, for it is so
exactly my present creed that I cannot afford to lose it.
"I should very much like to have a viva voce discussion on these
matters: I can only see for certain that we have suffered a dreadful
loss in being no longer able to excommunicate. We should excommunicate
rich and poor alike, and pretty freely too. If this power were
restored to us we could, I think, soon put a stop to by far the
greater part of the sin and misery with which we are surrounded."
These letters were written only a few weeks after Ernest had been
ordained, but they are nothing to others that he wrote a little
later on.
In his eagerness to regenerate the Church of England (and through
this the universe) by the means which Pryer had suggested to him, it
occurred to him to try to familiarise himself with the habits and
thoughts of the poor by going and living among them.
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