This fearless expounder of the truth afterwards added, in reply to the bishop’s desire that a prayer should be offered up by the clergy for the union of the Christian Churches in one: “God would not listen to our prayers: our kingdom, the kingdom of the priests, has been in all times a worldly kingdom; that to come will, I believe, belong to the poor. If these latter were to ask, God would listen to them, but not to us who cannot sincerely pray for such an end that would be the destruction of priestly power. “I will,” he added, “give you an instance of the intricacies of the question. I who hold in my own hand some of the threads, cannot surmise a real clue to the solution, but would, as a curiosity, like to explain what I know of them.” “On a late visit to Paris I went in full canonical dress, and assisted at High Mass in Notre Dame. The ceremony was a grand one; the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris himself officiated. I knew but little of the rites and ceremonies he went through, but when he bowed or knelt I did the same. When he prayed, I joined in the prayer; when he blessed, I bowed my head and asked inwardly his blessing. I felt the devotion of all around, and I joined my gratitude to the Giver of all mercies. “The ceremony over, I went to the usual room behind the altar for disrobing, and was disrobed by canonical officials, as though I had been one of the chiefs in the Church. I believe, from what I have heard since, that no one was offended by the manner in which I assumed a somewhat prominent part. “The next day I went in my official robes as a Metropolitan of the Eastern Church, and attended by the acolytes usual on official occasions, to pay a visit to the Cardinal Archbishop himself. _He would not receive me._ No doubt orders had been sent from elsewhere forbidding an official recognition of my position in a Church at all events equal in antiquity to his own.