“I need not remind those of you whose privilege it is to live in Sunch’ston, of the charm attendant on the Sunchild’s personal presence and conversation, nor of his quick sympathy, his keen intellect, his readiness to adapt himself to the capacities of all those who came to see him while he was in prison. He adored children, and it was on them that some of his most conspicuous miracles were performed. Many a time when a child had fallen and hurt itself, was he known to make the place well by simply kissing it. Nor need I recall to your minds the spotless purity of his life—so spotless that not one breath of slander has ever dared to visit it. I was one of the not very many who had the privilege of being admitted to the inner circle of his friends during the later weeks that he was amongst us. I loved him dearly, and it will ever be the proudest recollection of my life that he deigned to return me no small measure of affection.”
My father, furious as he was at finding himself dragged into complicity with this man’s imposture, could not resist a smile at the effrontery with which he lowered his tone here, and appeared unwilling to dwell on an incident which he could not recall without being affected almost to tears, and mere allusion to which, had involved an apparent self-display that was above all things repugnant to him. What a difference between the Hanky of Thursday evening with its “never set eyes on him and hope I never shall,” and the Hanky of Sunday morning, who now looked as modest as Cleopatra might have done had she been standing godmother to a little blue-eyed girl—Bellerophon’s firstborn baby.
Having recovered from his natural, but promptly repressed, emotion, the Professor continued:—
“I need not remind you of the purpose for which so many of us, from so many parts of our kingdom, are here assembled. We know what we have come hither to do: we are come each one of us to sign and seal by his presence the bond of his assent to those momentous changes, which have found their first great material expression in the temple that you see around you.
“You all know how, in accordance with the expressed will of the Sunchild, the Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the Musical Banks began as soon as he had left us to examine, patiently, carefully, earnestly, and without bias of any kind, firstly the evidences in support of the Sunchild’s claim to be the son of the tutelar deity of this world, and secondly the precise nature of his instructions as regards the future position and authority of the Musical Banks.
“My friends, it is easy to understand why the Sunchild should have given us these instructions. With that foresight which is the special characteristic of divine, as compared with human, wisdom, he desired that the evidences in support of his superhuman character should be collected, sifted, and placed on record, before anything was either lost through the death of those who could alone substantiate it, or unduly supplied through the enthusiasm of overzealous visionaries. The greater any true miracle has been, the more certainly will false ones accrete round it; here, then, we find the explanation of the command the Sunchild gave to us to gather, verify, and record, the facts of his sojourn here in Erewhon. For above all things he held it necessary to ensure that there should be neither mistake, nor even possibility of mistake.
“Consider for a moment what differences of opinion would infallibly have arisen, if the evidences for the miraculous character of the Sunchild’s mission had been conflicting—if they had rested on versions each claiming to be equally authoritative, but each hopelessly irreconcilable on vital points with every single other. What would future generations have said in answer to those who bade them fling all human experience to the winds, on the strength of records written they knew not certainly by whom, nor how long after the marvels that they recorded, and of which all that could be certainly said was that no two of them told the same story?
“Who that believes either in God or man—who with any self-respect, or respect for the gift of reason with which God had endowed him, either would, or could, believe that a chariot and four horses had come down from heaven, and gone back again with human or quasi-human occupants, unless the evidences for the fact left no loophole for escape? If a single loophole were left him, he would be unpardonable, not for disbelieving the story, but for believing it. The sin against God would lie not in want of faith, but in faith.
“My friends, there are two sins in matters of belief. There is that of believing on too little evidence, and that of requiring too much before we are convinced. The guilt of the latter is incurred, alas! by not a few amongst us at the present day, but if the testimony to the truth of the wondrous event so faithfully depicted on the picture that confronts you had been less contemporaneous, less authoritative, less unanimous, future generations—and it is for them that we should now provide—would be guilty of the first-named, and not less heinous sin if they believed at all.
“Small wonder, then, that the Sunchild, having come amongst us for our advantage, not his own, would not permit his beneficent designs to be endangered by the discrepancies, mythical developments, idiosyncracies, and a hundred other defects inevitably attendant on amateur and irresponsible recording. Small wonder, then, that he should have chosen the officials of the Musical Banks, from the Presidents and Vice-Presidents downwards to be the authoritative exponents of his teaching, the depositaries of his traditions, and his representatives here on earth till he shall again see fit to visit us. For he will come. Nay it is even possible that he may be here amongst
