The small pieties with which they larded
their discourse, if chance threw them into the company of one whom they
considered worldly, caused nothing but aversion in the minds of those for
whom they were intended. When they distributed tracts, dropping them by
night into good men's letter boxes while they were asleep, their tracts
got burnt, or met with even worse contumely; they were themselves also
treated with the ridicule which they reflected proudly had been the lot
of true followers of Christ in all ages. Often at their prayer meetings
was the passage of St Paul referred to in which he bids his Corinthian
converts note concerning themselves that they were for the most part
neither well-bred nor intellectual people. They reflected with pride
that they too had nothing to be proud of in these respects, and like St
Paul, gloried in the fact that in the flesh they had not much to glory.
Ernest had several Johnian friends, and came thus to hear about the
Simeonites and to see some of them, who were pointed out to him as they
passed through the courts. They had a repellent attraction for him; he
disliked them, but he could not bring himself to leave them alone.
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