On
one occasion he had gone so far as to parody one of the tracts they had
sent round in the night, and to get a copy dropped into each of the
leading Simeonites' boxes. The subject he had taken was "Personal
Cleanliness." Cleanliness, he said, was next to godliness; he wished to
know on which side it was to stand, and concluded by exhorting Simeonites
to a freer use of the tub. I cannot commend my hero's humour in this
matter; his tract was not brilliant, but I mention the fact as showing
that at this time he was something of a Saul and took pleasure in
persecuting the elect, not, as I have said, that he had any hankering
after scepticism, but because, like the farmers in his father's village,
though he would not stand seeing the Christian religion made light of, he
was not going to see it taken seriously. Ernest's friends thought his
dislike for Simeonites was due to his being the son of a clergyman who,
it was known, bullied him; it is more likely, however, that it rose from
an unconscious sympathy with them, which, as in St Paul's case, in the
end drew him into the ranks of those whom he had most despised and hated.
CHAPTER XLVIII
Once, recently, when he was down at home after taking his degree, his
mother had had a short conversation with him about his becoming a
clergyman, set on thereto by Theobald, who shrank from the subject
himself.
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