uld do unto him. _Cantabil vacuus_. Who could hurt him more than he
had been hurt already? Let him but be able to earn his bread, and he
knew of nothing which he dared not venture if it would make the world a
happier place for those who were young and loveable. Herein he found so
much comfort that he almost wished he had lost his reputation even more
completely--for he saw that it was like a man's life which may be found
of them that lose it and lost of them that would find it. He should not
have had the courage to give up all for Christ's sake, but now Christ had
mercifully taken all, and lo! it seemed as though all were found.

As the days went slowly by he came to see that Christianity and the
denial of Christianity after all met as much as any other extremes do; it
was a fight about names--not about things; practically the Church of
Rome, the Church of England, and the freethinker have the same ideal
standard and meet in the gentleman; for he is the most perfect saint who
is the most perfect gentleman. Then he saw also that it matters little
what profession, whether of religion or irreligion, a man may make,
provided only he follows it out with charitable inconsistency, and
without insisting on it to the bitter end. It is in the
uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want
of dogma that the danger lies. This was the crowning point of the
edifice; when he had got here he no longer wished to molest even the
Pope. The Archbishop of Canterbury might have hopped about all round him
and even picked crumbs out of his hand without running risk of getting a
sly sprinkle of salt. That wary prelate himself might perhaps have been
of a different opinion, but the robins and thrushes that hop about our
lawns are not more needlessly distrustful of the hand that throws them
out crumbs of bread in winter, than the Archbishop would have been of my
hero.

Perhaps he was helped to arrive at the foregoing conclusion by an event
which almost thrust inconsistency upon him. A few days after he had left
the infirmary the chaplain came to his cell and told him that the
prisoner who played the organ in chapel had just finished his sentence
and was leaving the prison; he therefore offered the post to Ernest, who
he already knew played the organ. Ernest was at first in doubt whether
it would be right for him to assist at religious services more than he
was actually compelled to do, but the pleasure of pla