"It is only because you will try to do things too fast!" said the King; but the Prime Minister continued--
"And now, sir, our one opportunity has come. The Bill for dividing the dioceses and doubling the number of the Bishoprics has just passed into law. I flatter myself that when the Prelates assented to that Bill they did not realize how its powers might be directed. It is the proposal of your Majesty's advisers to nominate to those Bishoprics only Free Churchmen, men whose political views coincide with our own."
"Free Churchmen!" cried the King, startled; "but they are outside the Establishment altogether."
"Merely on a point of Church discipline," answered the Prime Minister. "They are ministers properly ordained. When they seceded over the 'Church Government Act' they carried their full Canonical Orders with them: only as they had no Bishops they have become a diminishing body. Their beliefs, or their disbeliefs (for on many points the churches are merely maintaining an observance of definitions which their intellects no longer really accept)--their professed beliefs, then, shall I say?--in all matters of doctrine are not more heterogeneous than those which distract the councils and the congregations of the Establishment. It is only on matters of administration and Church discipline that they fundamentally differ. We count upon the Free Church Bishops to give us a majority both on the secularization of charities and the opening of the theological chairs and divinity degrees of our Universities to all sects and communities alike. After that we shall be in a position to deal with State Endowment and with Education generally."
"But will the Chapters, under such circumstances, accept the Crown's nominees?" inquired the King. "And even if they do, may not the Bishops refuse to consecrate them?"
"The right in law of a Dean and Chapter to reject the Crown's nominee and to substitute one of their own has already been decided against them," said the Prime Minister. "As for the consecration, if the Bishops refuse their services we have an understanding with the exiled Archimandrite of Cappadocia to see the whole thing through for us."
"Good Heavens!" cried the King, "a black man with two wives."