When he saw Ernest, he made an
unpleasant, not to say offensive movement, which might or might not have
been directed at Ernest and looked altogether so ugly that my hero had an
instantaneous and unequivocal revelation from the Holy Spirit to the
effect that he should continue his journey upstairs at once, as though he
had never intended arresting it at Mr Holt's room, and begin by
converting Mr and Mrs Baxter, the Methodists in the top floor front. So
this was what he did.
These good people received him with open arms, and were quite ready to
talk. He was beginning to convert them from Methodism to the Church of
England, when all at once he found himself embarrassed by discovering
that he did not know what he was to convert them from. He knew the
Church of England, or thought he did, but he knew nothing of Methodism
beyond its name. When he found that, according to Mr Baxter, the
Wesleyans had a vigorous system of Church discipline (which worked
admirably in practice) it appeared to him that John Wesley had
anticipated the spiritual engine which he and Pryer were preparing, and
when he left the room he was aware that he had caught more of a spiritual
Tartar than he had expected.
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