has gained much by the Reformation,
does not perceive how much it has also lost. You cannot and must not
hawk Christ about in the streets as though you were in a heathen country
whose inhabitants had never heard of him. The people here in London have
had ample warning. Every church they pass is a protest to them against
their lives, and a call to them to repent. Every church-bell they hear
is a witness against them, everyone of those whom they meet on Sundays
going to or coming from church is a warning voice from God. If these
countless influences produce no effect upon them, neither will the few
transient words which they would hear from you. You are like Dives, and
think that if one rose from the dead they would hear him. Perhaps they
might; but then you cannot pretend that you have risen from the dead."

Though the last few words were spoken laughingly, there was a sub-sneer
about them which made Ernest wince; but he was quite subdued, and so the
conversation ended. It left Ernest, however, not for the first time,
consciously dissatisfied with Pryer, and inclined to set his friend's
opinion on one side--not openly, but quietly, and without telling Pryer
anything about it.

CHAPTER LVII

He had hardly parted from Pryer before there occurred another incident
which strengthened his discontent. He had fallen, as I have shown, among
a gang of spiritual thieves or coiners, who passed the basest metal upon
him without his finding it out, so childish and inexperienced was he in
the ways of anything but those back eddies of the world, schools and
universities. Among the bad threepenny pieces which had been passed off
upon him, and which he kept for small hourly disbursement, was a remark
that poor people were much nicer than the richer and better educated.
Ernest now said that he always travelled third class not because it was
cheaper, but because the people whom he met in third class carriages were
so much pleasanter and better behaved. As for the young men who attended
Ernest's evening classes, they were pronounced to be more intelligent and
better ordered generally than the average run of Oxford and Cambridge
men. Our foolish young friend having heard Pryer talk to this effect,
caught up all he said and reproduced it _more suo_.

One evening, however, about this time, whom should he see coming along a
small street not far from his own but, of all persons in the world,
Towneley, looking as full of lif