Salazar received them with dignity, and listened calmly to their entreaties. They urged that this was an established custom, that ladies required humouring, that they were obstinate--the prelate nodded his head--that their digestions were delicate, and required that they should continually be imbibing nourishment; that they had taken a violent prejudice against him, which could only be overcome by his yielding to their whims; that if he persisted, seditions would arise which would endanger the cause of true religion; and, finally, the prelate’s life was menaced in a way rather hinted at than expressed. “Enough, my sons!” said the bishop, with composure; “the souls under my jurisdiction must be in a perilous condition when they have forgotten that there must be obedience in little matters as well as in great. Whether I am assaulting an established custom, or a new abuse, matters little. It is a bad habit; it is sapping the foundations of reverence and morality. God’s house was built for worship, and for that alone. My children must come to His temple either to learn or to pray. Learn they will not, for they have forgotten how to pray: prayer they are unused to, for the highest act of adoration the Church can offer is only regarded by them as an opportunity for the gratification of their appetites. You recommend me to yield to their vagaries. A strange shepherd would he be, who let his sheep lead him; a wondrous captain, who was dictated to by his soldiers! As for the cause of true religion being endangered, I judge differently. Religion _is_ endangered; but it is by children’s disobedience to their spiritual legislators, and by their own perversity. I am sorry for you, my sons, that you should have undertaken a fruitless office; but you may believe me, that nothing shall induce me to swerve from the course which I deem advisable. My personal safety, you hint, is endangered; my life, I answer, is in my Master’s hands, and I value it but as it may advance His glory.” When the ladies heard that their request had been refused, they treated the excommunication with the greatest contempt, scoffing at it publicly, and imbibing chocolate in church, “on principle,” more than ever; “Just,” says Gage, “drinking in church as a fish drinks in water.” Some of the canons and priests were then stationed at the cathedral doors to stop the ingress of the servants with cups and chocolate-pots. They had received injunctions to remove the drinking and eating vessels, and suffer the servants to come empty-handed to church. A violent struggle ensued in the porch, and all the ladies within rushed in a body to the doors, to assist their domestics. The poor clerks were utterly routed and thrown in confusion down the steps, whilst, with that odious well-known clink, clink, the trays came in as before.