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
anyone, 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 Whitefield 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
Whitefield 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.
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