“You think, in this country,” he continued in a voice intense with feeling, “that the Church is the cat’s-paw of European nations; that they get missionaries killed to have an excuse for conquest? Bah! What are these nations? The Church’s hammer and tongs. The Church commands, they obey. You cannot injure a servant of God with impunity. You cannot oppose the Church without ruin. The Church of God must be the Spiritual Ruler of the world. It cares not who holds the few hours of temporal sway. Accept our Spiritual Dominance in peace and be your own rulers; attempt to destroy and you shall become the Servant of the World.
“You know that no army ever landed in this country that did not come at our wish and command. Why are all of these gunboats creeping up and down your rivers? Who are they to obey? Dare you punish a Christian without our leave? Has not the church placed them above your laws? And yet you come to me and threaten to destroy this Mission; kill this priest and lyngchee a Christian woman! What could be more ridiculous? How would you do it? Where would you begin and where would you end?”
After a moment of silence the bishop drew back in his chair. Gradually his ashen flush faded and he again became pallid.
Tai Lin stood motionless. Presently his head sank upon his bosom, but the frown on his withered face did not go away.
The silence was broken by the bishop, speaking compassionately.
“I am sorry for Your Excellency. You are a wronged man. When one is cast out by a father one can forget; when one is scorned by a son one can grieve and forgive, but when a man’s wife discards him he cannot forget, nor grieve nor forgive. He has been injured internally and abroad. His heart has been splintered; his name befouled; his thoughts and hopes, like green scum, are cast adrift; his children and children’s children are bastardised; he is alone in the profundity of his sorrow and yet conspicuous because of her sin.
“Most of our sins die with us, but the sins of such a woman live on. Like abhorrent weeds they have seeds, which by Time’s winds, are scattered abroad to tare the fields of men. Quick should be her cut-off. There is no law in this land wiser than the one that makes death the penalty of her crime. It is the same law that God himself gave to Moses, our Great Elder. I can understand the threefold reason why you should have her lyngcheed and sympathise with you.
“A man should be known before the world as just; the laws of the Empire should not be deceived; the stigma should be removed from your descendants, for if not, men will ever say there was baseness in your household and your whole progeny will be heralded as bastards. How can the wick of one’s memory be tended by those whom the world repudiates?”
The bishop leaned close to Tai Lin and lowering his voice spoke with greater intensity.
“Would you have me aid you?”