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CHAPTER 12

PREPARING TO LEAVE THIS SPINNING ORB

Harry arose the next morning, listening to the snow fall gently onto the branches outside his upstairs window, and pondering the air as if it were an active texture, mobile, lissom, adventurous, permeating the land and anointing the trees and birds with a perfume of freshness.

It makes you alert to ponder your early departure from all of this kindly earth! he thought. It's almost like a death, but temporary, leading not to heaven but back to this very death ... if no disaster occurs!

An early phone call from Ralph soon dissipated these thoughts, and his friend's car, less extravagant perhaps than his sister's, but more robust for wilderness areas, arrived, the doors shutting with crisp clarity in the cold air, as if a crocodile had snapped shut its teeth. How poetic I am this morning! Ralph thought, as he set aside the image to welcome that of Ralph.

Do you realise, his friend announced unceremoniously, the question of Church-State relationships could arise on the lunar soil ?

Of course, responded Harry, since we are Chaplains, and the State is paying for the entire expedition.

But what of this ? Suppose, just suppose that like John Glenn we were in a position at any time, to speak personally and frankly, not that is, in our official capacity. Can we speak what we are convinced is apt and right, concerning Christ in some relevant way!

Why should we have to ponder the unofficial level ? We ARE chaplains.

Yet that does not make us as persons into orators or consultants, merely specifies a job from the State's viewpoint. If we are talking to those who WANT to hear, fine. What however if our audience for any reason is not specifically Christian ? Take John Glenn. On the space shuttle Discovery, he relieved the wonder in his soul as he surveyed space and what was in it, closer than any American before him, by declaring:

"To look out at this kind of creation out there and not believe in God is to me impossible. It just strengthens my faith. I wish there were words to describe what it's like ..."

Look, Harry, did you realise that some atheistical body or other, daring to define what they cannot know on their own model, absolute truth - since to them it is not and cannot be there – were upset by this. On their model, they CANNOT know the answer to such a matter;  but they object to the results of a consistent model which means you can know, can test and can find unyielding evidence to confirm.

Against God in the midst of this, their archaic piece of persistent irrationalism, they objected to Glenn's having made that declaration! Is reason not allowed to speak ? is conviction denied utterance, because they choose to defy reason ? What reason could they possibly have, who ravage reason! who declare what they exclude themselves from knowing!

Thought police next ?

They certainly are not operating in loads of propaganda-infected schools teaching in totalitarian and irrational manner against creation, or simply excluding it despite its perfect fit into all the criteria of scientific method for evaluation. What makes it far worse is the fact that this perfect fit is as unlike as possible to the case of evolutionism, deficient in all of scientific method’s requirements, a thing I observed set out in detail in the disk of  The Shadow of a Mighty Rock Ch. 2 and That Magnificent Rock in its first and last chapters. This subject is often raised.

Well, pondered Harry, it certainly follows that if they are to object to Glenn’s action, as they did, then on the same ground, the whole school thrust into uncritical evolutionism in monolithic status must cease too.

Yes, Ralph agreed.  If they can't be rational, at least being reasonable and consistent a little at least, would help. That would of course instantly remove all this quasi-atheistical, materialistic assault on God explicit or implicit in school science courses touching creation.  It might even lead to some acute thinking instead of this ballet dancing, spinning on the toes of dizziness.

We love the truth and the truth loves us, friend Ralph, so this liberation from inane dogmatism would be an advance far greater than being more careful in the construction of space craft, massive as that need is, would it not! THAT is a means; THIS leads to objectives. That explores the back yard; this ensures the house is one that stands.

Yet Harry, in stark conflict with this fact, the need for liberty in education, so that it could be scientific, and as if never satisfied to attack by law what they can never manage by logic, the atheist-materialist-magic brigade, determined to get everything from nothing or something else ludicrously inadequate,  simply object, object, object. God simply annoys them, in most cases, it seems, so they want to fire Him, rather like a baby wanting to fire the womb, before birth!

Despite their radical inconsistency, anyway, their point seems to be that this is the State, and the State not being committed, no one in it when acting for it can give expression to what IS committed.

That in parallel terms would prevent their speaking about it, then, since this is their commitment, this being parallel in both cases, the difficulty that theirs lacks reason being simply an aggravation of the assault.

Ralph, they would state that on a State occasion, unless it is for a self-selected group, I suppose, you cannot let them have what they might not accept. Like taxes ?

Yes, indeed. How in the world are you going to control every person's tongue in case someone might possibly say something that someone might just possibly not like ?

Is truth irrelevant ? Is freedom passé ?

Harry liked the pith of this, and responded quietly. Their point would be this: that you can say what you like so long as it is not on a generalised State occasion, in which the State is paying.

The State is ALWAYS paying for the roads, Ralph noted. Does this mean that car travel must not be permitted to have people speaking their minds, since they are involved in a State project ? Are we to become mindless casualties of some kind of minders! Is that it, Harry ?

I think, Ralph,  their view is that when the MAIN point of a meeting is STRICTLY and SIMPLY both national in its interest, or State conceived in its place, and not sub-divided in its kind as to who is to be auditing it, then you CANNOT say ANYTHING which anyone religious might not like.

The mere fact that the religion-belief model they push is not liked is irrelvant, then ? they are exempt from their own principle ? Is this is so, then no one can talk of organic evolution, materialist concepts, since this is a belief system, with religious implications as to the prime order of things.

Indeed Harry, Ralph mused, and how would this sort of exclusivist approach to religion arise, in any
case ? Why pick on religion ? Why not make it apply to politics, sport, history and anything else, including philosophy such as theirs ? Then platitudes of uncertain truth would become a sort of token speech in place of reason, testing and verifiable truth and the rest, in case someone should arise to declare, Hey, shut up! I do not happen to like this which you are saying.

Why not apply it to universities ?

Ralph, I guess I have to agree it is futile and in the deepest sense irreligious, since it means that people in some circumstances are to be forbidden to say what they deem relevant and mandatory for an occasion, thus removing all colour and character from utterance in whatever field anyone might happen, dyspeptically or with disgruntlement of some kind, or approbation and reason, to specify. In fact, it could remove what various speakers accurately and aptly brought into focus, upsetting the delicate psychologies, pockets or power grasps of many.

If no one could speak his mind, then mentality, farewell. It is to be that, on such a CONSISTENT basis: That or remove the speakers to prison or penury for their honesty and integrity.

This being so, Ralph, tell me: Do you think John Glenn did right when he spoke in strong terms a testimony of faith in the Creator’s wonder and power, when on an official US mission in space, as the first US astronaut whirling around the earth ?

Ralph hesitated little in his reply.

Certainly, as the first to have this experience, he was as right to utter his mind as it was correct for atheists, despite their irrationalities, to utter theirs afterwards by means of power lines paid for by the State. The point is simply this, that if a President or anyone REPRESENTING the people AS SUCH, by political means, is to talk about what he knows many of his people do not accept in the field of their beliefs, then it is best for him to specify that he is saying this as a Christian or whatever.

After all, why not ? Is he expected to cease to be a Christian in order to be a President; or to undertake any public role, is a person to cease to have values because elected or selected WITH them! Is he to cease to offer wisdom because holding an office of the State ? Can people not show what they think of such things, with plus or minus results, in the next election! Can they not vote for the actual person, rather than a pruned version, or a dried prune left over ?

The real caution is this: to avoid FORCING people to abide by YOUR religion. It is this which is wrong, not giving them, as a specified person, what you believe. Thus the atheistical people are trying to FORCE people to confine themselves to what they as a negative group happen to like.

That is compulsion and a type of fraud in a free country! It is a lack of religious freedom, a dominating clique calling for preference, and an inane capitulation to the materialist pre-occupation of a dying nation, like some ancient person in hospital, now thinking of the aching body so much, that other questions may begin to dissipate. If that is involuntary for some, this is voluntary, and without excuse.

Still, Harry rejoined, as you began by saying Ralph, we are going to have to be more than reasonable, if such situations arise. What would you do ?

I ? asked Ralph. I would, indeed ...  yes, I should declare my mind, first simply saying that I am speaking as a Christian.

It would be quite all right for me to add if it seemed best, that this was to my mind the reasonable answer as well, since in taking a post on the lunar surface, I did not agree contractually to cease to be a human being, or to belong to some Communist or other absolutist State, where your words and thoughts have to be converted to the Party line, or else you are liable to pay handsomely.

It should be clear that I am willing to discuss it with others. It is not personality suppression, and reason's death which is needed, but vitality and clarity, enabling discussion and truth to appear, not crucified as so unwisely done to Jesus Christ Himself.

Harry smiled wryly. That has been paid for by Jew and Gentile alike, he declared, as so many Gentile nations, increasingly exemplified in our own, seek to crucify the truth which He is, in their own minds, with political inventions and casuistical requirements. Just look at Europe declaring its common destiny and evacuating its nature!

After all, Ralph, he continued, I suppose that word of Paul's in Colossians 3:17 still holds: Whatever you do in word or deed, DO ALL in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him! If anyone is afraid to attest Christ, He is unable to attest such before HIS Father. Luke 9 has it so. Christians are not chameleons but truth pronouncers, reasonable in righteousness, but not cowed by duress.

True, Harry, and I can tell you this: I don't plan to turn into a dumb  ass because some dogs are barking. Who gave them authority to drown out my voice ? They are loud enough with their own!

What’s more, Harry, you know, if we are to become generalised persons for State purposes, then the State is acting as God, and making  inconsequential,

now gender (though in fact , with such an approach it might in the end tend to terminate the race),

now religion (though the pragmatic unreasonableness of this suppression will assuredly bring us the way of all great Powers in the past, in the end looking at a bill or invoice for their folly),

now truth (being told the 'truth' that you cannot know the truth - though this means absolute confusion for a created being, which is rather more than it can safely hold!).

If we fell for such claptrap,  we would become Creations of the State. Give it a capital C to make it look good, though it is merely a lying fraud on the part of unprepossessingly possessive mankind-grabbers.

As to that, Ralph, in the end of it all, it is simply cheating. The State: IT did not make us, IT did not die for us, and IT has no rights to act as if it had done so, simply because we give it power to make laws to enable due industry and development to occur in an orderly manner.

His friend smiled grimly at the gaunt spectre of the sceptre in pagan hands, calloused with trying to dig  conveniently to the heart of man, and finding only power tools can help. The lust for power,  the path of violence, as always before, now in these coercive terms, specious, grasping, irrational, irreverent, and  now increasingly in an international arena… moving perilously close to becoming global.

In fact, Harry, Ralph pursued the point, if it is not orderly to speak freely on what you believe to be soundly based, what follows ? It is this:  then order has become God and man his subject. However that too is irrational, for if order WERE REALLY God, who gave the orders to make it to be so ? Magic is the only option, an abortion to mind and a disclaimer to causation, a mere sidestepping such as some horses do, when not willing to move!

It presupposes an orderer, requiring nothing to impose on Him, but able to impose on what lacks the innate capacity to do so. This Being however, it then ignores, and so makes the order it sees fit, trying to superimpose it on the actual order. Since it does not agree, and continues in its own ordered way, not kind enough to make kinds, not equipped to do so, this collision becomes an impasse of will and nature, as far from science as is inconceivable chaos of arid conception from a rose brilliant appearance.

Will we make the laws of magnetism similarly fit convenience, and have them as well formulated by politicians with sociology text-books alone in their manipulative hands!

In the midst of this miscreancy, this agony of arrogance and power, when the fallen, sodden State meets intractable truth, it ignores it just as Pilate did. Despising reason, it then asks to be treated not as traffic policeman to prevent needless collision, as a State properly might, but instead to be regarded as God Himself, who made order and all, including you and me.

What is that ? It is as you said,  a species of theft, and I for one have not faintest intention of becoming subservient to such insane pretensions, an accessory to mindless ardours, or an accomplice to such political pretensions. In the Grand Assizes before God, I have no desire to be regarded as a willing participant in such tantrums of pollution, parading spiritual typhoons fit only to blow themselves out and all vulnerable lights with themselves.

Harry pondered this, his eyes dwelling on distant scenes.

Ralph, you are right, he mused. The thing is deadly and whatever its dynamic pretensions in the stage of deception at the first, at the last, only the dead will feel free to inhabit the corpse pile in the clammy hands of the corrupters. I suppose that is why the Bible makes it so potent a point, NOT to take the image of the beast, that deadly defiance of maddened mankind. It helps one to see why it is so severe on the point, that we are not so to worship, not to have such a mark, in Revelation 13.

Fancy worshipping - or if you like giving absolute pre-eminence in your life - to a man-made projection of human personality, a witless expression of relative power in the midst of the scenario of the absolute God. Man parading as God! and meanwhile appealing to 'Nature' of some kind which simply will not co-operate with the philosophical chauvinism, and remains meekly in the kind made.

You can call the coming representative of mankind as himself the ultimate, 'the last', or whatever you like, but putting him where deity belongs is idolatry, and idols are such puny pieces of philosophic adventurism, as incapable as their lords, as massive as their masters who in fact are like pebbles,  lying around at the foot of the mountain of truth, before the majestic sweep of deity descends like a burying avalanche.

To think that man who breathes in and out, and is gone from the scene here when he ceases to do so, man born and to die, man equipped with old-fashioned marvels newer than tomorrow, in his own body and mind, in order to have physical being: that this item should look to himself for the way to live!

It makes an ass seem Socrates, a minnow a genius by comparison. Even dogs know their masters, if they're not mongrel curs, or ferral.

Yes Harry, and while reason cuts, revelation exposes to the bone. Revelation 13 is devastating to yes-men who pivot or even pirouette at State orders. Verse 8 says a word to ponder concerning the man-made unity and religious fervour to come:

^“And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him,
whose names are not written in the book of life
of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”  

I remember, buddy, Revelation 16:2, because of the more modern English in the New King James than for the AV:

“So the first went and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and a foul and loathsome sore
came upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image.”

That speaks Harry; for there are consequences, but look at the issue itself. If the 'law' says, be quiet  about Christ, I shall indicate that this is no species of freedom. If man legislates that what the Bible COMMANDS me to do, is now what I am legally unable to do, God is the last who would endorse such arrogation of His word. This is simply an attack on the Bible, and should be seen as such.

On the other hand, Harry mused, look at the issue in more general terms. Consider now, that if you HAVE spoken to someone who OBJECTS to your giving further word on any given topic, then courtesy can leave him free, provided you feel you have done your duty in delivering him, if his decease or injury is impending. Who would just stand by as a suicide case moves quietly out of the window in front of him, at the 57th floor ?

In the governmental case, if you have already acquainted your hearers with the particular element of character and conviction which you deem and believe on solid grounds to be relevant, there is a point where mere repetition may pall, and indeed become intrusive. It is all a question of character and freedom on the one hand, and intrusive aggression on the other. You have to preserve the freedom and avoid the aggressive forcing of what is not desired, when once the issue is made clear.

But one thing is safe and sure: SILENCE is no testimony at all, and letting others suffer while you are quiet, is more like an infernal than an eternal affection!

In fact, Ralph spoke with flushed face in his indignation: Not to speak in such cases becomes cowardice and virtually less than human! It becomes like a hand refusing to acknowledge the body, since we are all created by God.

Of course, he pursued the issue, as a limit, to continually go on speaking on the other when your point is taken and the people concerned have not commissioned you to do this, can become just as intrusive on your part, as is the prohibition against speaking on certain things like God and truth at all, by its very nature. It is a question of duty to warn, perception that the point is clear and remains relevant, and avoidance at the same time of futile fussing.

It really is much the same in dealing with someone with suicidal tendencies. You need to speak and be thoughtful, neither by aggressive repetition alienating needlessly, nor by putrid silence enabling folly to ruin the victim of his own madness. Your safety is not to the point in Christian love: their safety is, but mere droning is not the same as effective witnessing.

Silence however is the decadent option, Harry added with no little force.

Ralph then surveyed the point in drier mode. It seems to me, he reflected,  that it is rather like the old saw of leading a horse to water, but being unable to make it drink. If you do NOT lead it to water, then you violate your human stature; if you insist that it drink, then you violate the liberty of the horse. If the horse, to return to actuality, is another person, then there has to be liberty to arrest his attention, and liberty for him to take the point and ask you to leave him free from mere repetition.

What if, the ebullient Harry persisted, you have told someone of one element of risk or danger, as a politician say, and then see the need to point out another one, from the same source, say the Bible, for argument's sake ?

Then you have to consider whether silence is consigning the person to danger unfeelingly on your part, or whether you have indeed said quite enough. Proverbs 26:4-5 deals with this succinctly, in the form of two balancing advices:

^"Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.
Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit."

There comes a time, doesn't there Harry, when a person has to take the results of his own actions. Whether  he refuses a prostate operation, and dies of infection, or takes one and does the same, it is his decision to take the risk that operates. It is the surgeon's to tell him of the nature of those risks. In another field of human relations, similarly, it is the politicians' job to alert in their own fields of responsibility; and it is the general citizen's responsibility within the bounds of reasonable restraint and genuine concern for the other, to do the same. Silent sentinels watching their fellow citizens die of inaction, inertia or indolence is not the biblical way. It is harsh, selfish and ruinous potentially for the race.

I should hate to be 'loved' in utter silence, like that, wouldn't you Ralph ? It rather reminds me of the inert gases, like krypton, undisposed to react, just keeping on, and on, as if dead.

Certainly: so we are agreed, then.

NOTHING will prevent us, by the grace and power of God, from speaking out on ANY occasion, provided the welfare of those concerned seems to us to bring responsibility for doing so, so that it is laid on us.
 

If they object, they can become self-appointed if illusory gods and suppress freedom to their heart's content, until they are first regarded as a plague by man, for the folly it brings as it is doing right now in this increasingly impersonal, impure and impenitent society. Then the time comes when they are met by God for acting as if under divine mandate to suppress His orders. God sees from eternity their plans, but implements His own when He is ready! It is all there in Psalm 2, the divine grace, the humanly murderous response and the eventual act of God when all has realised itself, shown what it really is, ready for harvest!

You know, Ralph, Harry pondered, it is not so very hard. We have simply to do what we are told, and love our neighbours as ourselves, as Churchill sought to do when he vainly saw Hitler's build-up, while Britain for quite a time simply refused to listen to the 'war-like' politician. To fail so to act is to become almost dis-human. It is like providing for life with pretended colours,  glamorous dresses and high-heeled spikes on a woman, who has terminal tuberculosis, and needs rather ... medicine.

In fact, it is to contribute to the hollow, faceless man that is the objective of so many who, ignoring personality and its prerogatives, wants it out. It is not then peace but programmatic presumption which arrogantly rules ...

And rules, as if God, Ralph, as if God, like someone I know.

You know him well. Well…  when must we be off, Harry ?

In just three days' time, Ralph, and three minutes. .

Reminds me rather of the resurrection of Christ, to occur by heavily REPEATED emphasis, in three days after the death. If it had not, then Christ would not have been God, since absolute truth as in John 14:6 has NO room for error.

He ALWAYS did that kind of thing, Harry.

It goes rather like this. IF He is God, then this happens; so He thus proceeds. If it doesn’t then it is shown that he is not God, and the case collapses. However, always it DOES happen, as in Mark 2 and John 11, under the eye of the most critical assessors, like opposing players making themselves into umpires. Despite this, they could not void Him except by murder. Verifications abound, anti-verifications take leave on extended vacation while Christ is there. Death then appeared the only option, just as now State burlesques like these one-sided pretensions, are coming close to the same line, being imposed on citizens and their children, with crushing emphasis.

Yes, whatever as God in Christ declared would happen, would have to happen. Authenticity demanded that it ALWAYS happened, in word, in deed, in miracle, in love, in grace, in charity, in purity, in power. That is why it was so gracious and indeed great of Him to expose Himself to endless tests when authority commanded and events followed. For someone to be God as man, 100% conformity of command to result is just a beginning. The TYPE of authority, over death, disease, oral dynamics and challenge of every kind, this also is vital.

A king is matched by his regality, not his arrogance. God is matched by infinite power and utter majesty of word. This does not void humility, but rather this is found in even becoming a man. People tend to love a king who is humble because what he is does not need arrogance to support it, but merely translucence to exhibit it naturally and normally.

Yet, Ralph,  then as now in parallel, the people in power were never satisfied. If this goes on, they said after Christ's raising Lazarus from the dead, they will ALL follow Him! You see that in John 11.

What then, Harry ? Their minds lacked faith in what their eyes saw, the very things which their scriptures provided as a test, over a millennium beforehand! So they killed Him, in vain, for after all, they were no better at countering His power than counterfeiting His identity. Why in vain ?  He simply rose from the dead. Death couldn’t contain Him, nor could they contain the results of His life, which seemed almost to swamp the city. The enemies of Jesus Christ had only to produce the corpse: they KNEW that this was the issue. It is difficult to do this when it walks away! They were stymied, despite murder, an unpleasant corollary to confronting God!

Instead, Peter and John confronted the murderous authorities as we see in Acts 4 and 5, and continued the miracles in Christ's NAME, as in Acts 3. This was as insufferable to the persecuting powers that then were, as it was inexorable in testimony to His truth!

There was a continuity which death could not master. Yet their defiant disfaith continued until they ALL were lost, just as in the days of Jeremiah, and AGAIN the city was demolished, just one generation later, as if they COULD NOT LEARN! Of this, Christ likewise warned, as if of a small version of hell in advance; and how they suffered when Rome carried out the desolatory purge on the people, crucifying some outside the city walls, by testimony given.

The Gentiles are no better, Ralph, and in fact, Rome was in it then, through Pilate, in that deadly affair concerning Jesus Christ, just as it was the Treaty of Rome some 1900 years later! That was the contract which led on to the current efforts to build a new Babel, in Europe, one where there is much ado about religion, and the pope loves to strut, as in the Italian parliament which rose to cheer him! It is however one where a vacancy occurs at the religious top!

Yet that is all going. Papacy is past in its power. Europe is looking for something more modern, wanting female priests, birth control in a surging population explosion, something more ... with it, and up to date, however spurious. So moved now, as Israel of old, it will find it in their 'man of sin', in a little while, no doubt.

It is easy to see it coming, like a tornado just now out to sea! Aall the past is turned into the beckoning future of beautiful bureaucracy, needing of course as always, something they want ? And what is that ?

Harry, came the rejoinder, I will tell you what it is. It is a face. THAT coming face will not be scarred with the butchery faced by Christ, but with a spiritual savagery and scorched with personal burning within.

It will arrogate power in corrupt incomprehension of its follies, that would make outside wounds look almost beautiful by comparison. Its heart however is too hard to bleed.

The face of the devil's messiah is coming, that spurious, furious counterfeit who like a specious salesmen will deceive if it were possible, God's very elect! That is what Christ indicated.

Ralph, it will be an inestimable privilege not to have to look on it, not from lack of pity, but because of its pollution, as if tar poured down a thousand streams into a stinking sea, black with evil deposits from near and far. Harry grimaced as he spoke, his eyes glowing quietly, as one who see afar.

Harry, you are certainly growing more artistic, but perhaps the theme is goading you! Is this the man who was so displeased at the valedictory speech in seminary ? Is this the child of a religiously vapid culture ? Do we see here the cult-worshipper of a fallen nation ? Surely not. Yet with God, the little hills are soon surmounted, and the vision beyond is stunning.

Yes, Ralph, my heart was changed, and my mind is conforming to the Spirit of the God who changed me, as if light were moving relentlessly down into the depths, on a dazzling day, the day of Christ in my life. Everything makes sense.

The fact is this: they wanted to kill Christ, did so, and failed since death is no problem to the God of all comfort and power. They want to rule now, but it is quite in vain all over again, since Christ simply returns to rule. They didn't believe at the time of the flood, for the fall of Tyre, Nineveh or Babylon, the reduction of Egypt, all duly fulfilled, yes and for that twice told destruction of poor, unbelieving Jerusalem. They don't now.

It didn't change anything then, but made it all the more sure. God does not change; man does not change: all that changes is the number of those in any given period of history, who find the light; and even those are known in advance by the God of all wisdom.

You are right, Harry. While fighting against God is devastating, walking with Him is dazzlingly delightful, and in Christ we can even find the sun-glasses to help us see it all in its perspective.

Just as it was in history, so now. It is no different in essence. Christ returned to life in the flesh, at the resurrection, slain in hate but alive in His majesty, alive in inveterate dynamic, not hesitating to take His body in resurrection as foretold; and He returns to rule over flesh, in His second coming, not hestitating to expose the evil. It is just a matter of phasing.

As Christ put it to His disciples,

“O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.
Ought not the Christ to have suffered thee things and to enter into His glory!”

They didn't believe then, and the powers-that-be simply don't believe now; but if they think I am going for PRACTICAL purposes to join them, too bad. They can extinguish me, but not my faith; and my faith has legs as James demands.

Ralph, the son of the bureaucrat replied, you know, this ? the moon's living quarters are going to be a wonderful testing ground for spiritual sanity. I wonder if my father's prayers will go with us ?

I hope not, his friend responded, since they are, if addressed to his own inner sanctum of mysterious self, likely to be more malign than benign, the very vitriol of vaunting malice, fumes unthinkable arising to meet the unwary nostrils!