to be
workmen from the Fairmead iron and steel works. There was a third
banner, which said, "Science as well as Sunchildism."

CHAPTER XV: THE TEMPLE IS DEDICATED TO MY FATHER, AND CERTAIN EXTRACTS
ARE READ FROM HIS SUPPOSED SAYINGS

"It is enough to break one's heart," said Mr. Balmy when he had
outstripped the procession, and my father was again beside him. "'As
well as,' indeed! We know what that means. Wherever there is a factory
there is a hot-bed of unbelief. 'As well as'! Why it is a defiance."

"What, I wonder," said my father innocently, "must the Sunchild's
feelings be, as he looks down on this procession. For there can be
little doubt that he is doing so."

"There can be no doubt at all," replied Mr. Balmy, "that he is taking
note of it, and of all else that is happening this day in Erewhon. Heaven
grant that he be not so angered as to chastise the innocent as well as
the guilty."

"I doubt," said my father, "his being so angry even with this procession,
as you think he is."

Here, fearing an outburst of indignation, he found an excuse for rapidly
changing the conversation. Moreover he was angry with himself for
playing upon this poor good creature. He had not done so of malice
prepense; he had begun to deceive him, because he believed himself to be
in danger if he spoke the truth; and though he knew the part to be an
unworthy one, he could not escape from continuing to play it, if he was
to discover things that he was not likely to discover otherwise.

Often, however, he had checked himself. It had been on the tip of his
tongue to be illuminated with the words,

Sukoh and Sukop were two pretty men,
They lay in bed till the clock struck ten,

and to follow it up with,

Now with the drops of this most Yknarc time
My love looks fresh,

in order to see how Mr. Balmy would interpret the assertion here made
about the Professors, and what statement he would connect with his own
Erewhonian name; but he had restrained himself.

The more he saw, and the more he heard, the more shocked he was at the
mischief he had done. See how he had unsettled the little mind this
poor, dear, good gentleman had ever had, till he was now a mere slave to
preconception. And how many more had he not in like manner brought to
the verge of idiocy? How many again had he not made more corrupt than
they were before, even though he had not deceived them--as for example,
Hanky and Panky. And t