"The blood of her martyrs," said the Archbishop, "has stained the very steps of that throne from which under divine Providence I am commissioned to speak with authority. I call on them to witness that never in her hour of need shall the Church surrender her divine mission to preach only pure doctrine and to defend the faith committed to the saints."
"I thought," said the Prime Minister, "that, officially at least, you did not invoke the dead."
"Sir, we have no need. Their record is our inheritance. It is they who invoke us from an imperishable past."
"Our discussion, then, seems to be at an end. We have gone back into the middle ages."
The Prime Minister, having got very much the answer he expected, here rose and began buttoning his coat. "Well, Archbishop," said he, as he thus trimmed himself to give a neat finish to the discussion, "before we part I will put the question quite frankly: Is it to be peace or war?"
"I am a servant of the Church Militant," answered his Grace.
And then they compared notes and settled dates as to when war was to be declared. Jingalo was about to exhibit to the world the continuity of her institutions, and with her mind thus carried back to ancient times modern controversy was an anachronism.
It was on those historic grounds that they arranged their armistice; but Recording Angels are more truthful than Archbishops or Prime Ministers; and the Recording Angel, having listened to their conversation, was led to set down upon his tables this notable memorandum—that on no account were popular pageantry or trade interests to be disturbed during so golden an opportunity as the Silver Jubilee. While that was going on defense of Church and State must be relegated to obscurity.
III
All this had taken place before the truce actually began (see, in fact, Chapter II). How much, or rather how little the King had heard of it we already know. How little the truce brought benefit to him we shall learn more fully in later chapters. Still for the moment he was not without comfort, for he had got Max to talk to. Every evening that they spent together much talk went on; and the King sat infected and edified while Maxian oratory flowed.