Along with the sexual motive, Comstock had decided that if the Fathers controlled the world, he too would like to have a share in either controlling the world as it was, or perhaps with luck, helping to change the control in such a way that their world would be a better place to live in. This mixture of ideas had resulted in his mental picture of the Fathers becoming an amalgam of monsters of pride, venery and power. Looking about the room Comstock decided that he could not possibly have been further wrong in the way he had pictured the Fathers. For his first feeling as his unbelieving eyes swept around the table at which the Fathers sat, was one of pity. Far from being the creatures with inflated egos, the monsters of uxoriousness that his inflamed imagination had painted, these men who guided the affairs of his world were invalids... The lame, the halt and the blind. Each face was torn by pain, every body bore the stigmata of some fatal disease. Only the Grandfather, ridiculously tall and spare, standing at the far end of the gigantic room was as his imagination had foretold He would be. In the silence that greeted them Comstock finally turned to Grundy and said, "I ... I don't understand." The Grandfather walked to the head of the table and prepared to speak. While they waited, Grundy whispered, "Think a moment. The only cure for disease that our people know is vice. Right?" Nodding, Comstock waited. "But the only people on the whole planet who know how this cure works, what psychic machinery is involved, are the Fathers." Comstock gulped and thought of his heart. "To become a Father," Grundy added hurriedly as The Grandfather raised his hand for silence, "is a sentence of death. For once you know how sin cures sickness, it can no longer cure you." "Fathers," The Grandfather said, and involuntarily, Comstock felt his heart fill with awe, so imbued had his upbringing been with respect and worship of the figure called The Grandfather; he tried to control the emotion that threatened to unman him, for his temptation was to fall down before The Grandfather. "Fathers," the deep organ bass went on, "you know why we are gathered in this extraordinary conclave. So successful has been the regime that I have caused to come into being, that no longer can we hope to recruit new Fathers from amongst those brave souls who rebel against the government we have set up. Not for fifty years has a new rebel appeared to challenge our power. Therefore, as you all know, Father Bowdler, because he is the healthiest appearing of any of you, was empowered to go out into the world and find rebellious souls whom we may be able to use as leaders. "I feared when first I caused the apparatus of power to be set up as I have done, that there would be instant and successful rebellion. It did not then occur to me that I would be too successful and that rebellion would be bred out of the blood of our people.