whom he
would not rather die than marry. It had been one of Theobald's and
Christina's main objects to keep him out of the way of women, and they
had so far succeeded that women had become to him mysterious, inscrutable
objects to be tolerated when it was impossible to avoid them, but never
to be sought out or encouraged. As for any man loving, or even being at
all fond of any woman, he supposed it was so, but he believed the greater
number of those who professed such sentiments were liars. Now, however,
it was clear that he had hoped against hope too long, and that the only
thing to do was to go and ask the first woman who would listen to him to
come and be married to him as soon as possible.

He broached this to Pryer, and was surprised to find that this gentleman,
though attentive to such members of his flock as were young and
good-looking, was strongly in favour of the celibacy of the clergy, as
indeed were the other demure young clerics to whom Pryer had introduced
Ernest.

CHAPTER LII

"You know, my dear Pontifex," said Pryer to him, some few weeks after
Ernest had become acquainted with him, when the two were taking a
constitutional one day in Kensington Gardens, "You know, my dear
Pontifex, it is all very well to quarrel with Rome, but Rome has reduced
the treatment of the human soul to a science, while our own Church,
though so much purer in many respects, has no organised system either of
diagnosis or pathology--I mean, of course, spiritual diagnosis and
spiritual pathology. Our Church does not prescribe remedies upon any
settled system, and, what is still worse, even when her physicians have
according to their lights ascertained the disease and pointed out the
remedy, she has no discipline which will ensure its being actually
applied. If our patients do not choose to do as we tell them, we cannot
make them. Perhaps really under all the circumstances this is as well,
for we are spiritually mere horse doctors as compared with the Roman
priesthood, nor can we hope to make much headway against the sin and
misery that surround us, till we return in some respects to the practice
of our forefathers and of the greater part of Christendom."

Ernest asked in what respects it was that his friend desired a return to
the practice of our forefathers.

"Why, my dear fellow, can you really be ignorant? It is just this,
either the priest is indeed a spiritual guide, as being able to show
people how they o