n or college for
placing the nature and treatment of sin on a more scientific basis than
it rests at present. We want--to borrow a useful term of Pryer's--a
College of Spiritual Pathology where young men" (I suppose Ernest thought
he was no longer young by this time) "may study the nature and treatment
of the sins of the soul as medical students study those of the bodies of
their patients. Such a college, as you will probably admit, will
approach both Rome on the one hand, and science on the other--Rome, as
giving the priesthood more skill, and therefore as paving the way for
their obtaining greater power, and science, by recognising that even free
thought has a certain kind of value in spiritual enquiries. To this
purpose Pryer and I have resolved to devote ourselves henceforth heart
and soul.

"Of course, my ideas are still unshaped, and all will depend upon the men
by whom the college is first worked. I am not yet a priest, but Pryer
is, and if I were to start the College, Pryer might take charge of it for
a time and I work under him nominally as his subordinate. Pryer himself
suggested this. Is it not generous of him?

"The worst of it is that we have not enough money; I have, it is true,
5000 pounds, but we want at least 10,000 pounds, so Pryer says, before we
can start; when we are fairly under weigh I might live at the college and
draw a salary from the foundation, so that it is all one, or nearly so,
whether I invest my money in this way or in buying a living; besides I
want very little; it is certain that I shall never marry; no clergyman
should think of this, and an unmarried man can live on next to nothing.
Still I do not see my way to as much money as I want, and Pryer suggests
that as we can hardly earn more now we must get it by a judicious series
of investments. Pryer knows several people who make quite a handsome
income out of very little or, indeed, I may say, nothing at all, by
buying things at a place they call the Stock Exchange; I don't know much
about it yet, but Pryer says I should soon learn; he thinks, indeed, that
I have shown rather a talent in this direction, and under proper auspices
should make a very good man of business. Others, of course, and not I,
must decide this; but a man can do anything if he gives his mind to it,
and though I should not care about having more money for my own sake, I
care about it very much when I think of the good I could do with it by
saving souls from