I can never fix in my inconstant mind my exact feeling towards these "potent, grave and reverend signiors" of the council, these impassive and industrious priests (who are in reality not priests at all, for their task is almost purely a secular one, the priestly office being practically merged in that of the statesman). And in the performance of these duties they are as unselfish as they are indefatigable; nor is there any apparent taint of personal jealousy or internal intrigue amongst the hierarchy. When during my rides abroad for pleasure or for hunting I see a pair of these white-robed councillors, equally servants and rulers of the state, visit some remote hamlet and observe the scrupulous care and the genuine interest wherewith they inquire into and carry out every necessary arrangement for the public weal; and when I consider the implicit faith placed by the country folk in their rulers, I am somehow reminded of the mission of the Apostles of old as they wandered through the towns and villages of the Roman world healing and assisting helpless humanity. At other times, however, I am inclined to regard them with a mixture of hatred and contempt, whenever I reflect on the unprecedented system of conscious fraud whereon all their beneficent action rests. How strange, for example, must it seem for a newly elected candidate to learn for the first time that the religious teaching he has imbibed from infancy is a deliberate fabrication, which he himself is now called on to champion and perpetuate; that the divinity of the Sun is a hollow myth; that his Child is a mortal from another planet; that the world of Meleager, far from being the special creation and care of the Sun-god, is in reality a mere speck in a vast solar system, such as has been propounded by our own astronomers Copernicus and Galileo. What a terrible moment it must prove for a sensitive soul, implected with the beautiful mythology of a lifetime, when in a trice the whole of his religious environment is stripped rudely from him like a garment! I often meditate on the unique moral dilemma that must face every new councillor. How fearful an awakening! How difficult for a conscientious nobleman to combine the two phases of a public benefactor and of a promulgator of an elaborate lie! Has any Meleagrian noble of high integrity I wonder ever had the courage or conscience, at the supreme moment, to protest, even at the risk of death? But I presume the preliminary training and preparation bestowed on all probationers are carefully contrived to soften so great a shock, and to lead the postulant gently towards the amazing revelations made at the time of his reception into the council.