Max's scorn dropped back like a rocket to earth.
"Yes," he retorted, "no doubt! The question is, are you capable of hearing Him?"
"I am always ready to be instructed," replied his Grace sarcastically.
"I must remind you," said the Prince, "that as a Doctor of Divinity I have some claim. Yes," he went on in answer to the Archbishop's look of astonishment, "though you have forgotten the circumstance, you yourself dubbed me Theologian by hitting me over the head with a Greek Testament."
The Archbishop accepted the reminiscence.
"In that case," said he, "I bow to your Highness's authority."
"Yes: you were a shepherd of that fold, yet you let me in? I was the clever one of my family; and the title was given me when, with three lives standing between, there was little likelihood of my becoming Head of the Church. Was I to wear it, then, as an ornament, or as an amulet to guide me into right doctrine? Whatever faith I still hold, I fear me that miracle has not been wrought."
"In these days," said the Archbishop, "faith itself is the great miracle."
"That people should have any faith in the Church is indeed a miracle," said Max. "Yet I suppose it is but another instance of how easily the world accepts what it finds. I myself remain outwardly a Churchman; merely because it seems to me hardly to matter, and because any overt act on my part would hurt those whom I love. And what spiritual experience have I acquired as the result of my outward conformity? I have found the pulpit the most polished of all social institutions: and never once have I heard from it any word troublesome to a conscience which has still, I can assure you, its waking moments. The eloquence that flows from it never trespasses beyond the bounds of polite conversation; and as regards 'unpleasant subjects' it deals faithfully only with the lives of those who do not form the bulk of its congregations. If it dealt faithfully with them, those polite congregations would get up and walk out."
"I do not think, sir, that your experience puts you in a position to know how the Church deals with the consciences of the faithful."