"If you will allow me, sir, I will venture to state my views as shortly as I can," said Dr. Tempest. "That may perhaps be the most expeditious course for us all in the end."
"Oh, certainly," said Mr. Thumble. "I didn't mean to interrupt."
"In the case of his being found guilty," continued the doctor, "there will arise the question whether the punishment awarded to him by the judge should suffice for ecclesiastical purposes. Suppose, for instance, that he should be imprisoned for two months, should he be allowed to return to his living at the expiration of that term?"
"I think he ought," said Mr. Robarts;—"considering all things."
"I don't see why he shouldn't," said Mr. Quiverful.
Mr. Oriel sat listening patiently, and Mr. Thumble looked up to the doctor, expecting to hear some opinion expressed by him with which he might coincide.
"There certainly are reasons why he should not," said Dr. Tempest; "though I by no means say that those reasons are conclusive in the present case. In the first place, a man who has stolen money can hardly be a fitting person to teach others not to steal."
"You must look to the circumstances," said Robarts.
"Yes, that is true; but just bear with me a moment. It cannot, at any rate, be thought that a clergyman should come out of prison and go to his living without any notice from his bishop, simply because he has already been punished under the common law. If this were so, a clergyman might be fined ten days running for being drunk in the street,—five shillings each time,—and at the end of that time might set his bishop at defiance. When a clergyman has shown himself to be utterly unfit for clerical duties, he must not be held to be protected from ecclesiastical censure or from deprivation by the action of the common law."
"But Mr. Crawley has not shown himself to be unfit," said Robarts.