 not restrain herself when on sounding her clerical
neighbours she found them inclined to applaud her son for conduct which they
idealised into something much more self-denying than it really was. She did not
quite like his living in such an unaristocratic neighbourhood; but what he was
doing would probably get into the newspapers, and then great people would take
notice of him; besides it would be very cheap: down among these poor people he
could live for next to nothing, and might put by a great deal of his income; 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 entêté 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. I cordially agree with the teaching of the Church of England
        in most respects; but she says one thing and does another, and until
        excommunication - yes, and wholesale excommunication - be resorted to, I
        cannot call her a Christian institution. I should begin with our rector,
        and if I found it necessary to follow him up by excommunicating the
        bishop, I should not flinch even from this.
        
                                   * * * * *
 
The present London rectors are hopeless people to deal with. My own is one of
the best of them, but the moment Pryer and I show signs of wanting to attack an
evil in a way not recognised by routine, or of remedying anything about which no
outcry has been
