Perhaps he was helped to arrive at the foregoing conclusion by an
event which almost thrust inconsistency upon him. A few days after
he had left the infirmary the chaplain came to his cell and told him
that the prisoner who played the organ in chapel had just finished his
sentence and was leaving the prison; he therefore offered the post
to Ernest, who, he already knew, played the organ. Ernest was at first
in doubt whether it would be right for him to assist at religious
services more than he was actually compelled to do, but the pleasure
of playing the organ, and the privileges which the post involved, made
him see excellent reasons for not riding consistency to death. Having,
then, once introduced an element of inconsistency into his system,
he was far too consistent not to be inconsistent consistently, and
he lapsed ere long into an amiable indifferentism which to outward
appearance differed but little from the indifferentism from which
Mr. Hawke had aroused him.
By becoming organist he was saved from the treadmill, for which
the doctor had said he was unfit as yet, but which he would probably
have been put to in due course as soon as he was stronger.
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