"
This letter did not produce the effect on Ernest that it would have done
before his imprisonment began. His father and mother thought they could
take him up as they had left him off. They forgot the rapidity with
which development follows misfortune, if the sufferer is young and of a
sound temperament. Ernest made no reply to his father's letter, but his
desire for a total break developed into something like a passion. "There
are orphanages," he exclaimed to himself, "for children who have lost
their parents--oh! why, why, why, are there no harbours of refuge for
grown men who have not yet lost them?" And he brooded over the bliss of
Melchisedek who had been born an orphan, without father, without mother,
and without descent.
CHAPTER LXVIII
When I think over all that Ernest told me about his prison meditations,
and the conclusions he was drawn to, it occurs to me that in reality he
was wanting to do the very last thing which it would have entered into
his head to think of wanting. I mean that he was trying to give up
father and mother for Christ's sake. He would have said he was giving
them up because he thought they hindered him in the pursuit of his truest
and most lasting happiness.
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