As
for temptations, there could be few or none in such a place as that. This
argument about cheapness was the one with which she most successfully met
Theobald, who grumbled more _suo_ that he had no sympathy with his son's
extravagance and conceit. When Christina pointed out to him that it
would be cheap he replied that there was something in that.
On Ernest himself the effect was to confirm the good opinion of himself
which had been growing upon him ever since he had begun to read for
orders, and to make him flatter himself that he was among the few who
were ready to give up _all_ for Christ. Ere long he began to conceive of
himself as a man with a mission and a great future. His lightest and
most hastily formed opinions began to be of momentous importance to him,
and he inflicted them, as I have already shown, on his old friends, week
by week becoming more and more _entete_ with himself and his own
crotchets. I should like well enough to draw a veil over this part of my
hero's career, but cannot do so without marring my story.
In the spring of 1859 I find him writing--
"I cannot call the visible Church Christian till its fruits are
Christian, that is until the fruits of the members of the Church of
England are in conformity, or something like conformity, with her
teaching.
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