f those customs or opinions
that would naturally present themselves in our actual situation. The
brigadier took the request in good part, and we began to promenade the
rooms in company. As the Archbishop of Aggregation, who was to perform
the marriage ceremony, was shortly expected, the conversation very
naturally turned on the general state of religion in the monikin region.

I was delighted to find that the clerical dogmas of this insulated
portion of the world were based on principles absolutely identical with
those of all Christendom. The monikins believe that they are a miserable
lost set of wretches, who are so debased by nature, so eaten up by
envy, uncharitableness, and all other evil passions, that it is quite
impossible they can do anything that is good of themselves; that their
sole dependence is on the moral interference of the great superior power
of creation; and that the very first, and the one needful step of their
own, is to cast themselves entirely on this power for support, in
a proper spirit of dependence and humility. As collateral to, and
consequent on, this condition of the mind, they lay the utmost stress
on a disregard of all the vanities of life, a proper subjection of the
lusts of the flesh, and an abstaining from the pomp and vainglory of
ambition, riches, power, and the faculties. In short, the one thing
needful was humility--humility--humility. Once thoroughly humbled to
a degree that put them above the danger of backsliding, they obtained
glimpses of security, and were gradually elevated to the hopes and the
condition of the just.

The brigadier was still eloquently discoursing on this interesting
topic, when a distant door opened, and a gold stick, or some other sort
of stick, announced the right reverend father in God, his grace the most
eminent and most serene prelate, the very puissant and thrice gracious
and glorified saint, the Primate of All Leaphigh!

The reader will anticipate the eager curiosity with which I advanced
to get a glimpse of a saint under a system as sublimated as that of the
great monikin family. Civilization having made such progress as to strip
all the people, even to the king and queen, entirely of everything
in the shape of clothes, I did not well see under what new mantle of
simplicity the heads of the church could take refuge! Perhaps they
shaved off all the hair from their bodies in sign of supereminent
self-abasement, leaving themselves naked to the cuticle