human
You, the Bishop of Ely, you offer me this? It is no jest?
gpt
Well, I do not mind confessing that it was no easy matter to bring about. Yet why should we go on permitting you to take people away from the Church? I am persuaded that the people need the Church as much as the Church needs the people. They have your confidence; I want you to bring them back to the altar.
human
But, Father, the instant I doff this russet gown and don the albe and stole, that instant the people's confidence in me is gone.
gpt
I cannot believe it has gone so far as that.
human
Yea, I say it. It is too late to try to drag the people back. They have grown weary of having fat and lazy priests prate to them, with white hand on full belly, of patience and humility and duty to their overlords. Why do the people believe in me? Why do they follow me? Because they wot well that my meals are as uncertain as their own, that my face is roughened by the same wind that roughens theirs. Because I can look into their faces and say, 'I too have a-hungered, I too have a-thirsted, I too have sweated in the fields.'