"Oh, la, la, la!… I should have said, Whose authoritative interpretation of Christ's authority?"
"The Church's."
"Aye? Through whose mouth? We shall get at something definite in time.… I'll put it more simply. You, sir, are a plain priest in holy orders, and it's conceivable that on some point of use or doctrine you may be in error. Just conceivable, hey? At all events, you may be accused of it. To whom, then, do you appeal? To the King?—Parliament?—the Court of Arches, or any other Court? Not a bit of it. Well, let's try again. Is it to the Archbishop of Canterbury? Or to your own Diocesan?"
"I should appeal to the sanction of the Church Catholic as given in her ancient Councils."
"And again—as nowadays interpreted by whom? Let us pass a hundred possible points on which no Council bothered its head, and on which consequently it has left no decision. Who's the man, anywhere, to take you by the scruff of the neck and chastise you for an error?"
"Within the limits of conscience I should, of course, bow to my Diocesan."
"Elastic limits, Mr. Colt! and, substituting Brother Warboise's conscience for yours, precisely the limits within which Brother Warboise bows to you! Anarchy will obey anything 'within the limits of conscience'—that's precisely what anarchy means; and even so and to that extent will you obey Bishop or Archbishop. In your heart you deny their authority; in speech, in practice, you never lose an occasion of flouting them and showing them up for fools. Take this Education Squabble for an example. The successor to the Chair of Augustine, good man—he's, after all, your Metropolitan—runs around doing his best to discover a way out, to patch up a 'concordat,' as they call it? What's the effect, upon any Diocesan Conference? Up springs subaltern after subaltern, fired with zeal to give his commander away. 'Our beloved Archbishop, in his saintly trustfulness, is bargaining away our rights as Churchmen'—all the indiscipline of a middle-class private school (and I know what that is, Mr. Colt, having kept one) translated into the sentimental erotics of a young ladies' academy!"
Mr. Colt gasped.
"And so, believe me, sir," concluded Brother Copas, snapping down the lid of his snuff-box, "this country of ours did not get rid of the Pope in order to make room for a thousand and one Popelings, each in his separate parish practising what seems right in his own eyes. At any rate, let us say, remembering the parable of the room swept and garnished, it intended no such result. Let us agree, Mr. Chaplain, to economise in Popes, and to condemn that business of Avignon. So the ignorant herd comes back on you with two questions, which in effect are one: 'If not mere anarchists, what authority own you? And if not for Rome, for what in the world are you heading?' You ask Rome to recognise your Orders.—Mais, soyez consequent, monsieur."
It was Mr. Colt's turn to pull out his watch.