Even in Silesia, however, Frederick’s policy of impartial firmness disarmed his religious opponents in the end. While his neighbours were expelling the Jesuits from their dominions and confiscating the estates of the Church, his doors stood open to the fugitives and the original settlement of the relations between Church and State remained unvaried. It must not be forgotten, too, that the King of Prussia was the patron and paymaster of a vast number of ecclesiastics of all creeds. This fact finds illustration in one of the practical jokes which he played upon his needy friend Pöllnitz. Although he had already changed his religion in hope of a lucrative marriage, Frederick tempted him by hinting that a rich canonry in Silesia was vacant. Next day, as he expected, Pöllnitz came to tell him that he had again recanted and was now eligible for the post. The King replied that the appointment was already made, but that he had still a place of Rabbi to dispose of—“Turn Jew and you shall have it.” With the same cynicism he exhorted and often compelled the clergy to practise apostolic poverty. “We free them from the cares of this world,” he wrote to Voltaire after a sweeping measure of confiscation, “so that they may labour without distraction to win the Heavenly Jerusalem which is their true home.” It is not surprising if Carlyle is justified in stating that under Frederick “the reverend men feel themselves to be a body of Spiritual Sergeants, Corporals and Captains, to whom obedience is the rule and discontent a thing not to be indulged in by any means.”