Do you suppose that they heap priests and churches with wealth for nothing?
They have their reward.

Do you suppose that a preacher gets into the pulpit of that church there, without looking anxiously, at the end of each peculiarly flowery sentence, to see whether her saintship there is clapping or not?
She, who has such a delicate sense for orthodoxy, that she can scent out Novatianism or Origenism where no other mortal nose would suspect it.

She who meets at her own house weekly all the richest and most pious women of the city, to settle our discipline for us' as the court cooks do our doctrine.

She who has even, it is whispered, the ear of the Augusta Pulcheria herself, and sends monthly letters to her at Constantinople, and might give the patriarch himself some trouble' if he crossed her holy will!' 'What! will Cyril truckle to such creatures ?' 'Cyril is a wise man in his generation--too wise, some say, for a child of the light.

But at least, he knows there is no use fighting with those whom you cannot conquer; and while he can get money out of these great ladies for his almshouses, and orphan-houses, and lodging-houses, and hospitals, and workshops, and all the rest of it--and in that, I will say for him, there is no man on earth equal to him, but Ambrose of Milan and Basil of Caesarea--why, I don't quarrel with him for making the best of a bad matter; and a very bad matter it is, boy, and has been ever since emperors and courtiers have given up burning and crucifying us, and taken to patronising and bribing us instead.' Philammon walked on in silence by the old priest's side, stunned and sickened....