o-do
people; we know of no safer criterion than this, but what does the
decision thus arrived at involve? Simply this, that a conspiracy of
silence about things whose truth would be immediately apparent to
disinterested enquirers is not only tolerable but righteous on the part
of those who profess to be and take money for being _par excellence_
guardians and teachers of truth.

Ernest saw no logical escape from this conclusion. He saw that belief on
the part of the early Christians in the miraculous nature of Christ's
Resurrection was explicable, without any supposition of miracle. The
explanation lay under the eyes of anyone who chose to take a moderate
degree of trouble; it had been put before the world again and again, and
there had been no serious attempt to refute it. How was it that Dean
Alford for example who had made the New Testament his speciality, could
not or would not see what was so obvious to Ernest himself? Could it be
for any other reason than that he did not want to see it, and if so was
he not a traitor to the cause of truth? Yes, but was he not also a
respectable and successful man, and were not the vast majority of
respectable and successful men, such for example, as all the bishops and
archbishops, doing exactly as Dean Alford did, and did not this make
their action right, no matter though it had been cannibalism or
infanticide, or even habitual untruthfulness of mind?

Monstrous, odious falsehood! Ernest's feeble pulse quickened and his
pale face flushed as this hateful view of life presented itself to him in
all its logical consistency. It was not the fact of most men being liars
that shocked him--that was all right enough; but even the momentary doubt
whether the few who were not liars ought not to become liars too. There
was no hope left if this were so; if this were so, let him die, the
sooner the better. "Lord," he exclaimed inwardly, "I don't believe one
word of it. Strengthen Thou and confirm my disbelief." It seemed to him
that he could never henceforth see a bishop going to consecration without
saying to himself: "There, but for the grace of God, went Ernest
Pontifex." It was no doing of his. He could not boast; if he had lived
in the time of Christ he might himself have been an early Christian, or
even an Apostle for aught he knew. On the whole he felt that he had much
to be thankful for.

The conclusion, then, that it might be better to believe error than truth
should