That's unimportant, and could not assist Your reverence to pronounce upon the point. PATRIARCH. What! unimportant! See, Sir Knight, how apt Proud reason is to err in sacred things. 'Tis of deep import; though, 'tis true, the case May be the offspring of your sportive wit, When we should straight dismiss it from our thoughts, And I should then refer you to the stage Where _pros_ and _cons_ like these are oft discussed With loud applause. But if the object be, By something better than a sleight of hand, To sound my judgment, if the thing be fact, And may have happened in our diocese, Here in our dear Jerusalem itself, Why then---- TEMPLAR. What then? PATRIARCH. Then were it well, Sir Knight, To execute at once upon the Jew The penalty provided for the case, By Papal and Imperial laws, against So foul a crime, such dire iniquity. TEMPLAR. Indeed! PATRIARCH. The laws I mention have decreed That if a Jew shall to apostasy Seduce a Christian, he shall die by fire. TEMPLAR. Indeed! PATRIARCH. How much more when a Jew by force Tears from baptismal bonds a Christian child? For all that's done to children is by force, Save what the Church shall order and perform. TEMPLAR. What if the child were steeped in misery, And must have died, but for this bounteous Jew? PATRIARCH. It matters not: the Jew should still be burnt. 'Twere better to expire in misery, Than live to suffer never-ending pains. The Jew moreover should not have forestalled The hand of God, whom had He willed to save, Could save without him. TEMPLAR. Make him happy too, In spite of him. PATRIARCH. It matters not, the Jew Must still be burnt. TEMPLAR. That grieves me very much, And all the more, as people say that he Has reared the child not in his own belief, So much as in no faith at all, and taught Her neither more nor less of God than is By reason asked. PATRIARCH. It matters not, the Jew Must still be burnt--and for this very cause Would merit threefold death. To rear a child Without a faith! Not even teach a child The greatest of all duties--to believe! 'Tis heinous, and I'm rapt in wonder, Knight, That you yourself---- TEMPLAR.