Der Praefekt

appealed, almost in tears, to the bishop, who had left
    his chair, and was now leaning on the warden’s arm as he stood on the
    further side of the table facing the archdeacon.  “Could you tell me
    to sit there at ease, indifferent, and satisfied, while such things as
    these are said loudly of me in the world?”
     
    The bishop could feel for him and sympathise with him, but he could
    not advise him; he could only say, “No, no, you shall be asked to
    do nothing that is painful; you shall do just what your heart tells
    you to be right; you shall do whatever you think best yourself.
    Theophilus, don’t advise him, pray don’t advise the warden to do
    anything which is painful.”
     
    But the archdeacon, though he could not sympathise, could advise;
    and he saw that the time had come when it behoved him to do so in a
    somewhat peremptory manner.
     
    “Why, my lord,” he said, speaking to his father;—and when he called
    his father “my lord,” the good old bishop shook in his shoes, for he
    knew that an evil time was coming.  “Why, my lord, there are two ways
    of giving advice: there is advice that may be good for the present
    day; and there is advice that may be good for days to come: now I
    cannot bring myself to give the former, if it be incompatible with the
    andere. “
     
    “No, no, no, I suppose not,” said the bishop, re-seating himself, and
    shading his face with his hands.  Mr Harding sat down with his back to
    the further wall, playing to himself some air fitted for so calamitous
    an occasion, and the archdeacon said out his say standing, with his
    back to the empty fire-place.
     
    “It is not to be supposed but that much pain will spring out of this
    unnecessarily raised question.  We must all have foreseen that, and
    the matter has in no wise gone on worse than we expected; but it will
    be weak, yes, and wicked also, to abandon the cause and own ourselves
    wrong, because the inquiry is painful.  It is not only ourselves we
    have to look to; to a certain extent the interest of the church is in
    our keeping.  Should it be found that one after another of those who
    hold preferment abandoned it whenever it might be attacked, is it
    not plain that such attacks would be renewed till nothing was left
    us? and, that if so deserted, the Church of England must fall to
    the ground altogether?  If this be true of many, it is true of one.
    Were you, accused as you now are, to throw up the wardenship, and to
    relinquish the preferment which is your property, with the vain object
    of proving yourself disinterested, you would fail in that object, you
    would inflict a desperate blow on your brother clergymen, you would
    encourage every cantankerous dissenter in England to make a similar
    charge against some source of clerical revenue, and you would do your
    best to dishearten those who are most anxious to defend you and uphold
    your position. I can fancy nothing more weak, or more wrong. Es ist
    not that you think that there is any justice in these charges, or that
    you doubt your own right to the wardenship: you are convinced of your
    own honesty, and yet would yield to them through cowardice.”
     
    “Cowardice!” said the bishop, expostulating.  Mr Harding sat unmoved,
    gazing on his son-in-law.
     
    “Well; would it not be cowardice?  Would he not do so because he is
    afraid to endure the evil things which will be falsely spoken of him?
    Would that not be cowardice?  And now let us see the extent of the
    evil which you dread.  The _Jupiter_ publishes an article which a
    great many, no doubt, will read; but of those who understand the
    subject how many will believe _The Jupiter_?  Everyone knows what its
    object is: it has taken up the case against Lord Guildford and against
    the Dean of Rochester, and that against half a dozen bishops; and does
    not everyone know that it would take up any case of the kind, right
    or wrong, false or true, with known justice or known injustice, if by
    doing so it could further its own views?  Does not all the world know
    this of _The Jupiter_?  Who that really knows you will think the worse
    of you for what _The Jupiter_ says?  And why care for those who do not
    know you?  I will say nothing of your own comfort, but I do say that
    you could not be justified in throwing up, in a fit of passion, for
    such it would be, the only maintenance that Eleanor has; and if you
    did so, if you really did vacate the wardenship, and submit to ruin,
    what would