The Way of All Flesh · Chapter
XLVII explained
Ernest returns to Cambridge in 1858 to read for ordination, still unquestioning of Christianity.
What happens
Ernest returns to Cambridge in 1858 to read for ordination, still unquestioning of Christianity. The chapter describes the calm before the storm of religious controversy, the rise of Simeonites (Evangelical students), and Ernest's antagonism toward them, which masks an unconscious sympathy.
Themes in this chapter
Religion and Doubt
Ernest faces ordination without having doubted Christianity, yet the chapter foreshadows the coming wave of scepticism that will challenge his faith.
Education and Indoctrination
The contrast between Ernest's privileged but unreflective education and the Simeonites' fervent, self-sacrificing preparation for the ministry highlights different forms of indoctrination.
Money and Social Class
The labyrinth sizars' extreme poverty and social exclusion contrast with Ernest's relative affluence, showing how class shapes religious and educational experience.
Characters to notice
- Ernest Pontifex
Returns to Cambridge to read for ordination; still unquestioning of Christianity; dislikes Simeonites and parodies their tract.
Key passages
“Ernest returned to Cambridge for the May term of 1858, on the plea of reading for ordination, with which he was now face to face, and much nearer than he liked.”
Ernest went back to Cambridge in the spring of 1858, supposedly to study for ordination, but he was uncomfortably close to actually having to become a clergyman.
Ernest's reluctance toward ordination is introduced.
“At no time probably since the beginning of the century could an ordinary observer have detected less sign of coming disturbance than at that of which I am writing.”
Probably no time since 1800 had seemed so calm on the surface, though deeper currents of change were already gathering.
The narrator emphasizes the deceptive tranquility before the religious controversies of 1859.
“I cannot commend my hero’s humour in this matter; his tract was not brilliant, but I mention the fact as showing that at this time he was something of a Saul and took pleasure in persecuting the elect.”
I don't approve of Ernest's joke—his tract wasn't clever—but it shows he was like Saul, enjoying persecuting the devout.
Ernest's parody of Simeonite tracts reveals his antagonism and foreshadows his later conversion.