xlvii), who still flourished at Cambridge when Ernest Pontifex was
up at Emmanuel. Ernest went down in 1858; so did Butler.
Throughout the book the spiritual and intellectual life and
development of Ernest are drawn from Butler's own experience.
"The one phase of spiritual activity which had any life in it during
the time Ernest was at Cambridge was connected with the name of
Simeon. There were still a good many Simeonites, or as they were
more briefly called 'Sims,' in Ernest's time. Every college
contained some of them, but their head-quarters were at Caius,
whither they were attracted by Mr. Clayton, who was at that time
senior tutor, and among the sizars of St. John's. Behind the then
chapel of this last-named college was a 'labyrinth' (this was the
name it bore) of dingy, tumble-down rooms," and here dwelt many
Simeonites, "unprepossessing in feature, gait, and manners, unkempt
and ill-dressed beyond what can be easily described. Destined most
of them for the Church, the Simeonites held themselves to have
received a very loud call to the ministry . . . They would be
instant in season and out of season in imparting spiritual
instruction to all whom they could persuade to listen to them. But
the soil of the more prosperous undergraduates was not suitable for
the seed they tried to sow.
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