"Yes, honorary; not with administrative powers."
"Yet I fancy it was devised in order that at a later date you might employ him--merely by accident as it were--for confirming the validity of your orders."
"While your device," said the Archbishop, "is to use him as a means for placing schismatics in a position of control and authority. Sir, I say to you that you would not dare. The nation will not allow it."
"Time will show," replied the other smoothly.
"Ah!" cried the Archbishop passionately; "you trust to time; I to the power of the Eternal. If such an attempt is made to violate the body of our Mother Church then I pronounce sentence of excommunication upon all who take part in it."
"It would have no legal effect," said the Prime Minister. "You miss the point in dispute. We have not to discuss matters of faith and doctrine, but only of government. If you prefer--if you will give us your co-operation and consent--we are ready at any time to offer you the alternative of disestablishment. It is a solution which for the moment I do not press; but undoubtedly it would leave the spiritualities of the Church more free. Your real fear, I have gathered, is that it would prepare the way for extremes of doctrine, which you yourself cannot countenance. The Church Triumphant, I am told, would run the risk of a larger recognition than is allowed to it under present forms; and the limitations imposed by a State connection are your most hopeful means of retarding doctrinal development. Is not that so?"
"We have not to discuss matters of doctrine," countered the Archbishop stiffly, "but only of government. Our concern is not with the Church's teachings but with her powers for enforcing them upon her own members."
"Including," commented the Prime Minister, "what you have called 'the power of the Keys.' That power you seek to extend over temporalities to which we claim access; and to retain it you have in the past used political means; we are using them to deprive you of that power. I recognize that had your Grace occupied to-day the position of advantage which is now mine, you would have used it--and with justification--for the strengthening of your order; from the popular verdict you would have had authority to deliver sentence against me. Upon the same ground I now take the only sure means that are open to me to strengthen my own order and to safeguard its future liberty."