One of the charms of the Christian religion is that the Foolish confound the Wise. The Atheists are all brainy men. Myself, I hate a brainy man. All the brainy men said it was impossible to have aeroplanes. No brainy man ever sees that speed is armour. Directly the brainy men got a chance they clapped masses of armour on the “Hush-Hush” ships. They couldn’t understand speed being armour, and said to themselves: “Didn’t she draw so little water she could stand having weight put on her? Shove on armour!” and so bang went the speed, and the “Hush-Hush” ships, whose fabulous beauty was their forty shore-going miles an hour, were slowed down by these brainy men. Don’t jockeys have to carry weights? Isn’t it called handicapping? Isn’t it the object to beat the favourite--the real winner? There really is comfort in the 27th verse of the 1st chapter of I Corinthians, where the Foolish are wiser than the Wise. What!--A battle cruiser called the “Furious” going 40 shore-going miles an hour with 18-inch guns reaching 26 miles! “Take the damn guns out and make it into an aeroplane ship!” (And I’m not sure they could ever get the aeroplanes to land on her, owing to the heat of the funnels causing what they call “Air pockets” above the stern of the ship.) Yes! and we still have ancient Admirals who believe in bows and arrows. There’s a good deal to be said for bows and arrows. Our ancestors insisted on all churchyards being planted with yew trees to make bows. There you are! It’s a home product! Not like those damn fools who get their oil from abroad! And I have now the Memorandum with me delivered to me when I was Controller of the Navy by a member of the Board of Admiralty desiring to build 16 sailing ships! Again, didn’t the Board of Admiralty issue a solemn Board Minute that wood floated and iron sank? So what a damnable thing to build iron ships! Wasn’t there another solemn Board Minute that steam was damnable and fatal to the supremacy of the British Navy? Haven’t we had Admirals writing very brainy articles in magazines to prove that there was nothing like a tortoise? You could stand on the tortoise’s back; you weren’t rushed by the tortoise, whereas these “Hush-Hush” ships, they were flimsy, and speed was worshipped as a god. One mighty man of valour (only “he was a leper” as regards sea fighting) told me at his luncheon table that when one of these “Hush-Hush” ships encountered at her full strength of nearly a hundred thousand horse power a gale of wind in a mountainous sea she was actually strained! It’s all really too lovely; but of course the humour of it can’t be properly appreciated by the ordinary shore-going person. Yes, the brainy men, as I said before, crabbed the “Hush-Hush” ships; they couldn’t understand that speed was armour when associated with big guns because the speed enabled you to put your ship at such a distance that she couldn’t be hit by the enemy, so it was the equivalent of impenetrable armour although you had none of it,