CHAPTER XLIX
On his return to Cambridge in the May term of 1858, Ernest and a few
other friends who were also intended for orders came to the conclusion
that they must now take a more serious view of their position. They
therefore attended chapel more regularly than hitherto, and held evening
meetings of a somewhat furtive character, at which they would study the
New Testament. They even began to commit the Epistles of St Paul to
memory in the original Greek. They got up Beveridge on the Thirty-nine
Articles, and Pearson on the Creed; in their hours of recreation they
read More's "Mystery of Godliness," which Ernest thought was charming,
and Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying," which also impressed him deeply,
through what he thought was the splendour of its language. They handed
themselves over to the guidance of Dean Alford's notes on the Greek
Testament, which made Ernest better understand what was meant by
"difficulties," but also made him feel how shallow and impotent were the
conclusions arrived at by German neologians, with whose works, being
innocent of German, he was not otherwise acquainted. Some of the friends
who joined him in these pursuits were Johnians, and the meetings were
often held within the walls of St John's.
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