When you get
to the capital, hand me over to the King's tender mercies and say that
our oaths were only taken this morning to prevent a ferment in the town.
I will play my part very willingly. The King can only kill me, and I
should die like a gentleman."

"They will not do it," said George quietly to my father, "and I am glad
of it."

He was right. "This," said Dr. Downie, "is a counsel of perfection.
Things have gone too far, and we are flesh and blood. What would those
who in your country come nearest to us Musical Bank Managers do, if they
found they had made such a mistake as we have, and dared not own it?"

"Do not ask me," said my father; "the story is too long, and too
terrible."

"At any rate, then, tell us what you would have us do that is within our
reach."

"I have done you harm enough, and if I preach, as likely as not I shall
do more."

Seeing, however, that Dr. Downie was anxious to hear what he thought, my
father said--

"Then I must tell you. Our religion sets before us an ideal which we all
cordially accept, but it also tells us of marvels like your chariot and
horses, which we most of us reject. Our best teachers insist on the
ideal, and keep the marvels in the background. If they could say
outright that our age has outgrown them, they would say so, but this they
may not do; nevertheless they contrive to let their opinions be
sufficiently well known, and their hearers are content with this.

"We have others who take a very different course, but of these I will not
speak. Roughly, then, if you cannot abolish me altogether, make me a peg
on which to hang all your own best ethical and spiritual conceptions. If
you will do this, and wriggle out of that wretched relic, with that not
less wretched picture--if you will make me out to be much better and
abler than I was, or ever shall be, Sunchildism may serve your turn for
many a long year to come. Otherwise it will tumble about your heads
before you think it will.

"Am I to go on or stop?"

"Go on," said George softly. That was enough for my father, so on he
went.

"You are already doing part of what I wish. I was delighted with the two
passages I heard on Sunday, from what you call the Sunchild's Sayings. I
never said a word of either passage; I wish I had; I wish I could say
anything half so good. And I have read a pamphlet by President Gurgoyle,
which I liked extremely; but I never said what he says I did. Again, I
wish I h