policy of Eternal Bliss--but on any policy a business-like
Insurance Company would grant for three hundred pounds? There _is_
the difference too," added Brother Copas, "that _he_ gets the eternal
bliss, while the three hundred pounds goes to his widow."

Brother Copas took a second pinch, his eyes on Mr. Simeon's face.
He could not guess the secret of the pang that passed over it--that
in naming three hundred pounds he had happened on the precise sum in
which Mr. Simeon was insured, and that trouble enough the poor man
had to find the yearly premium, due now in a fortnight's time.
But he saw that somehow he had given pain, and dexterously slid off
the subject, yet without appearing to change it.

"For my part," he went on, "I know a method by which, if made
Archbishop of Canterbury and allowed a strong hand, I would undertake
to bring, within ten years, every Dissenter in England within the
Church's fold."

"What would you do?"

"I would lay, in one pastoral of a dozen sentences, the strictest
orders on my clergy to desist from all politics, all fighting; to
disdain any cry, any struggle; to accept from Dissent any rebuff,
persecution, spoliation--while steadily ignoring it. In every parish
my Church's attitude should be this: 'You may deny me, hate me,
persecute me, strip me: but you are a Christian of this parish and
therefore my parishioner; and therefore I absolutely defy you to
escape my forgiveness or my love. Though you flee to the uttermost
parts of the earth, you shall not escape these: by these, as surely
as I am the Church, you shall be mine in the end.' . . . And do you
think, Mr. Simeon, any man in England could for ever resist that
appeal? A few of us agnostics, perhaps. But we are human souls,
after all; and no one is an agnostic for the fun of it. We should be
tempted--sorely tempted--I don't say rightly."

Mr. Simeon's eyes shone. The picture touched him.

"But it would mean that the Church must compromise," he murmured.

"That is precisely what it would not mean. It would mean that all
her adversaries must compromise; and with love there is only one
compromise, which is surrender. . . . But," continued Brother Copas,
resuming his lighter tone, "this presupposes not only a sensible
Archbishop but a Church not given up to anarchy as the Church of
England is. Let us therefore leave speculating and follow our noses;
which with me, Mr. Simeon--and confound you for a pleasant
companion!--me