But all I know is just this, that when that fellow Martinian got back again into Pelusium, after being turned out by the late bishop for a rogue and hypocrite as he was, and got the ear of this present bishop, and was appointed his steward, and ordained priest--I'd as soon have ordained that street-dog--and plundered him and brought him to disgrace--for I don't believe this bishop is a bad man, but those who use rogues must expect to be called rogues--and ground the poor to the earth, and tyrannised over the whole city so that no man's property, or reputation, scarcely their lives, were safe; and after all, had the impudence, when he was called on for his accounts, to bring the church in as owing him money; I just know this, that he added to all his other shamelessness this, that he offered the patriarch a large sum of money to buy a bishopric of him....

And what do you think the patriarch answered ?' 'Excommunicated the sacrilegious wretch, of course!' 'Sent him a letter to say that if he dared to do such a thing again he should really be forced to expose him! So the fellow, taking courage, brought his money himself the next time; and all the world says that Cyril would have made him a bishop after all, if Abbot Isidore had not written to remonstrate.' 'He could not have known the man's character,' said poor Philammon, hunting for an excuse.
'The whole Delta was ringing with it.

Isidore had written to him again and again.' 'Surely then his wish was to prevent scandal, and preserve the unity of the church in the eyes of the heathen.' The old man laughed bitterly.
'Ah, the old story--of preventing scandals by retaining them, and fancying that sin is a less evil than a little noise; as if the worst of all scandals was not the being discovered in hushing up a scandal.

And as for unity, if you want that, you must go back to the good old times of Dioclesian and Decius.' 'The persecutors ?' 'Ay, boy--to the times of persecution, when Christians died like brothers, because they lived like brothers.

You will see very little of that now, except in some little remote county bishopric, which no one ever hears of from year's end to year's end.