Amherst shook his head when they had left him behind. "Not nearly clever enough for the part," he pronounced. "To organise religion a man should have the talents of the devil, or at least of the intelligent civil servant. Prideaux would do it quite well; or Chester; only Chester might be too erratic for the popular taste. No wonder Christianity is the ineffective thing it is in this country, if it's left in the hands of officials like that. That man couldn't organise anything; I bet even his school treats go wrong--too few buns or something. That's the hope for the world, that inefficiency of most religious officials; that's why the public will succeed before long in throwing off the whole business, even before they succeed in downing Parliament and the British autocracy, who are a shade more acute. From my point of view your vicar's stupidity is all to the good. If he preaches to-morrow as the Brains Ministry want him to--and he looks loyal and patriotic enough to try--he'll be preaching against his own interests. But that's what all you Brains people are doing, of course. You don't seem to see that if you ever were to succeed in making the human race reasonably intelligent, your number would be up; you wouldn't be stood for a moment longer. You're sitting on a branch and trying to saw it off. Lucky for you your saws aren't sharper." "Chester would go on just the same if he did see," Kitty said. "He probably does. He's an idealist, but his eye for facts is very penetrating. And he'd think it worth while to perish in so good a cause." "The fact is," added Prideaux, "that he never would perish, even if the branch did fall; he'd climb on to another pretty quickly and rise as the People's Saviour. Our Nicky won't go under." 3