Yet, though Germanos was accounted a man of integrity both by Petrobey and Nicholas, how could there but be a background to the picture he had drawn? He was a man to whom power and the exercise of power had become a habit, and the habit almost a passion. Though this scheme, by which the church would be restored to its old splendor and magnificence, the glory of those days when from Constantinople came the emperor humbly and suppliantly with great gifts, had for its object the glory of God, yet inasmuch as he was a man of dominant nature he could not be unaware nor disregardful of what it would mean to him personally. What a position! The chances were ten to one that he would be chosen to fill the places of the martyred patriarch, instead of the Bishop Eugenios, well known to the Greeks as a middle-minded man, who strove to keep well with both Ottoman and Greek. For, in truth, this was no time for diplomatic attitudes; each man must take one side or the other, and now to consent to take from the hands of the Sultan the insignia of his victim was to declare one's self no patriot. Greece would certainly repudiate the appointment and choose a supreme head for itself, and among all the primates and bishops there was none who was so powerful with his own class, and so popular among the people, as Germanos. As every one knew, he had thrown himself heart and soul into the revolution; he had raised the northern army, he had headed the attempt on the citadel of Patras in person. The chosen head of a new and splendid church, rising glorious in the dawn of liberty, sanctified by suffering, proved by its steadfastness to endure, a church for which blood had been shed, and, as he had said, no pale spiritual kingdom only, but a power on earth as in heaven! It was not in the nature of the man to be able to shut his eyes to that; it could not but be that so splendid a possibility should be without weight to him. His next words showed it. "Is it not a thing to make the heart beat fast?" he went on. "I would not take the pontiff's chair in Rome in exchange for such a position. A new church, or rather, the old grown gloriously young again, a spiritual kingdom throned in the hearts of men, yet with the allegiance not only of their souls, but of their bodies and their earthly blessings. And I," he said, rising, "I, the unworthy, the erring, yet called by a call that I may not disobey." But Nicholas, frowning deeply, interrupted him. "I ask your pardon, father," he said, "but is it well to talk of that? Surely in this great idea which you have put before us there is nothing personal. It is the kingdom of God of which we speak." Germanos paused a moment. "You are right," he said; "you have but reminded me of my own words; it is in His name and none other that I speak."