Chapter 4

Dark shadows from lush foliage fringed the road leading from the farmland of Gotesdene to a district where only the occasional tethered ox enlivened the orderly, monotonous rows of vegetable and root crops. These were regimented by an unending line of posts supporting barbed wire fences. At regular intervals signs warned me not to leave the path nor to appropriate what was not mine. At one stage, I observed a very despondent merman tethered just like the oxen, with a sign hanging round his neck and a black hood covering his face and head. He was too far away across the fields for me to decipher the writing on the sign.

The flat, grey paving stones of the road were undeniably better maintained than before, as also was the lethal barbed wire supported by posts in the grey earth, which had caught and killed the odd unfortunate song bird. It was getting late in the afternoon, but, as everywhere was so dark and grey, it seemed much later although the sky was no less blue nor the sun less golden. It was ominously quiet. There were no song birds and the only sound was the gentle rustle of a light breeze through the stiff orderly lines of cabbages, swedes and turnips.

Initially, I welcomed this tidier, more orderly, environment. It had evoked the care and attention I was accustomed to in the Suburbs, rather than the dirt and decay I had so recently left. However, after a few miles, I hankered for a break in the monotony or just the sight of other people. I had the distinct feeling that I was trespassing, although I'd seen no signs warning me off private property or informing me that I would be prosecuted.

After more than an hour of walking between the barbed wire and the infrequent dark shadowy tree, I came in sight of a large sign under which sat a hunched figure wearing a long black gown and a tall black hat. The sign informed me that I was in The Borough of Divinity and underneath was copious small writing that I couldn't decipher until I came fairly close. It was a list of rules and regulations pertaining to the borough. Just behind the dark figure was a signpost which pointed in four directions ahead - two indicating Divinity that were nonetheless in opposite directions, one which read The Delta and the fourth which pointed to Endon.

As I approached, the figure in the cloak scrutinised me silently and curiously, while I debated which of these four directions I should take. He was small and thin and his head was shaven. He turned to stare at me, but made no attempt to acknowledge my presence.

"Excuse me," I ventured after a while. "Where would you recommend I go?"

The figure cleared his throat, apparently resenting being addressed. After a moment of uneasy deliberation, he informed me that one direction led to the Holy Parish of the Divinity of Christ, which was the true and rightful administrator of the Borough of Divinity. The other direction, misleadingly also known as 'Divinity', was the heretical Parish of the Divinity of Christ the Lord. The borough, especially that part under the jurisdiction of the Holy Parish, was one which took true and unsinful pride in its status as a truly Holy borough in which the Word of the Son, the Father and the Holy Ghost was maintained as law and guiding principle. It was a district that welcomed with open arms all right-thinking people who honestly practised the precepts of the Holy and Sacred Scriptures, and who had surrendered their will and worldly goods to the greater good of the One True Religion of Jesus Christ Our Lord.

He didn't know from his brief acquaintance of me whether I were a Christian: one who followed the dictates of Our Saviour and not the heretical opinions of the Pope, the AntiChrist or the Devil (who are but one in their sin and heresy). Only a true Christian, however, would be welcome within the walls of the Holy Parish. His opinion at seeing my uncovered head and hands (he sniffed disapprovingly) was that I was no Christian; at least not a Christian who followed the true Word of the Lord as faithfully practised by the good Christian people of the Holy Parish. Even those of the misguided and despicable Parish of the Divinity of Christ the Lord covered these extremities and purged their scalp of the vanity of hair. If I were to have any likelihood of entering the Holy Parish I would be obliged to at least cover my hair with a hat, several of which were provided, with accompanying gowns, in a chest by his side, for strangers such as I. He advised me to cover myself without delay if I were to stay any longer within the borough.

I decided it was advisable to heed the pious gentleman, and selected a tall hat large enough to cover all my hair and a long black gown that shrouded me almost to my feet. While I was dressing, the gentleman commented that I must be speculating why a devout Christian such as he was sitting alone outside the walls of the Parish, when all good Christians were at prayer or devotion secure within the welcoming confines of the Chapel and not out in the open air, imperilled by temptation and sin.

He explained that he was indefinitely exiled from the Parish for committing the unforgivable and irredeemable sins of garrulity, irreverent laughter, vile thoughts and oversleeping. Sins for which he was pleased to do penance, awaiting a decision from the Priests of the Holy Parish, and the Lord God Our Maker who guides their deliberations, that he had atoned for his sins and could be rehabilitated into the community. In the meantime, he was to spend his days working on the fields with his comrades - never to utter one word to them on pain of more severe punishment - and his nights here, at the foot of the sign, in contemplation of the great mercy and goodness of Our Father Who Art in Heaven. When not praying, he would recite approved texts from the Holy Scriptures and flagellate himself with the barbed wire provided. In this way God the Most Wise and Merciful would see the sincerity of his penance and the degree to which he atoned for his transgressions.

The practices of the Holy Parish of the Divinity of Christ were inspired by the classical wisdom of the great prophet, Saint Isaac Newton, who in his religious and secular writings had divined the profoundest depths and meanings of the Christian faith as it should be practised. A faith that had strayed too far over the centuries from the original fundamental tenets preached by Jesus Christ and His Apostles under the lax and heretical doctrine of the Papists, the Lutherans, the Calvinists, the Baptists, the Quakers, the Anabaptists, the Mormons and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. A faith which had schismed so many times that it was only in the pure unadulterated vision of the Great Saint, who had divined the Noble Principles of Force and Motion, that it had regained the clarity and purity of Our Saviour's Own Truth.

There are Four Pillars of the Faith practised by Deists, as the good Christians of the Holy Parish are known by others blinkered by liberal ungodly interpretations of the Holy Scriptures. The First Pillar (1) is that of Unquestioning Faith. Man was not created by God to question His Laws or His Desires. What is Good is what the Lord dictates. What He wishes must be Good, because all that is Good is also the Wish of God. It is a Sin to question the Letter of Holy Writ, to even suggest that there may be error, misinterpretation or inconsistency. It is a Sin to even hint that one quarter of one word of the Law as interpreted by the Priests of the Holy Parish is anything but the complete and accurate precept of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

Together with Unquestioning Faith is the Second Pillar (2) which is the Absolute Observation of Ritual. When Jesus Christ commanded Christians to pray at regular and frequent times of the day, to Labour not on the seventh day - the Day of Creation - and to attend Church regularly to voice praise, these were not meant as options for Christians to follow. Rather, as an ox must be tethered to prevent its escape, so too must Christians be tethered to the Rituals that characterise the One and Only True Church.

The Third Pillar (3) is that of a Rejection of Material Values. Material possessions and the means of measuring them in groats, shillings or florins were forbidden in the Holy Parish. A Good Christian must follow the example of Our Saviour who had no possessions of His own, as they were held entirely by the Church and in turn by God the Father. A Christian Man must not own his own ox, woman or slave. Possession is clearly the begetter of the Sins of Avarice and Greed, which along with the Five others (especially Lust), must be extirpated forever if Satan and his hounds of Hell are to be held at bay.

Not only must Material Values be rejected, but there must be conformance to the Fourth Pillar (4) which is Rejection of Spiritual Corruption. Satan is everywhere, ready to corrupt the Good Christian Soul as he endeavoured so unsuccessfully with Our Saviour. Nobody can hope to withstand the Temptations of the Devil as well as Our Lord Jesus Christ, so it is an Eternal Unceasing Struggle. Spiritual Corruption is the deadliest and most difficult of the Evils to ward off. It can lead to Atheism, Agnosticism or Heresy. Doubts as to the Perfection of Creation. Philosophical debate on the nature of Morality and Knowledge. Non-acceptance of class, status, race or gender, and one's own position in the Hierarchy of Creation, a Hierarchy headed by the Priests and Angels, under which, in descending order, are Men, Women, Negroes, Animals, Monsters, Demons and Cats. All such propositions are diabolic, and only an unflinching and Total rejection of such luxurious unGodly doubts and discussion can be tolerated by the Good Christian.

I wasn't convinced that I wanted to visit either of the Parishes of Divinity, so I asked the Exile if he could tell me about the other two destinations indicated by the signpost. He assured me that his knowledge of them was not based on personal experience, for he knew better than to risk Eternal Damnation by visiting known refuges of the Devil, but what he knew convinced him that it was better for all men, and not just Christians, to forsake these districts. In comparison to these, even the heretical Parish of the Divinity of Christ the Lord was to be preferred.

In one direction was the Insect City of Endon which must forever be Damned for four reasons that were as follows. The First Reason (and one which alone must surely give me pause to think) is that the inhabitants are not Human and therefore have no hope of Salvation. No Animal can be Blessed - and for that reason no Animal is permitted into the Holy Parish of the Divinity of Christ. The oxen who labour on the fields are permitted outside its walls, but never within, only insofar as they must never speak a word on pain of death and must only be seen as Beasts of Burden, for which all Animals were Created by Our Maker.

The inhabitants of Endon are all insects - and such insects! Many as tall as a Man, if not taller, and pretend to Rights and Privileges which no Animal, nor even a Woman, would be permitted in Divinity. Even insects of more moderate proportions were not permitted within the Borough of Divinity: a partly inconvenient principle in that the fertilisation of all flowering crops had to be done by artificial means, but one which denied the Parishioners of much disease and all pestilence.

The Second Reason is that the inhabitants do not recognise the Primacy of the One True Faith as practised in the Holy Parish. There are Insects who claim to be Christians, but how can this be when they deny the superiority of Man over Arthropods or indeed any other Animal? It is true that the Borough of Divinity is a tiny island of Sanity and Virtue amidst an ocean of heresy, blasphemy and apathy, and in that regard the City of Endon is no worse than the Suburbs, Lambdeth, Delta or elsewhere; but it is no less the Damned for that.

The Third Reason is the Licentiousness of the inhabitants. They indulge in physical procreation, to read literature and view pictures not imbued with the Spirit or Word of Our Saviour, to freely express opinions contrary to that of the Christian Faith and to draw no ethical distinctions between race and species. Females are known to wander free, attracting lascivious and unholy thoughts. There is little or no public observance of Christian Ritual. There are private ownership, public vice and no respect for betters and elders. Sin is rife, in all its Seven forms.

The Fourth Reason is that the Borough of Endon is Doomed, and it was not necessary to wait for the Second Coming for me to see this happen. The Good Christians of the Holy Parish of the Divinity of Christ would soon extend its boundaries to enclose the territory of this great subterranean City and in the process would purge it of the last of these oversized Insects; and the Spiders, Centipedes, Wood-Lice, Worms and Silver Fish that also live there. The City of Endon would become a mirror of Divinity itself: no longer a haven for Godless Arthropods. The cinemas, brothels and video arcades would be replaced by Chapels at which Men could pray to Our Lord for forgiveness for our Sins and for the elimination of Godless Exoskeletal Execrations.

In the other direction is the equally damned Delta where the Borough of Divinity meets the Sea. This is another Godless district inhabited by merpeople and water buffalo. The merpeople are as damned as the Arthropods of Endon, for they are, in addition, cruel satiric jokes created by Satan who has taken the Holy and Sacred Image of Our Lord, in whose likeness Men are made, and replaced the lower limbs with the tail of a fish, a form of life lower than even an ox. These deformed people live wholly in the saline and estuarine waters of the Delta, where they can breathe freely both under and over water, and wear no clothes. This naked flesh invites Lust, that most base of Sins: the mere entertainment of which is a capital offence in the Holy Parish.

I expressed concern at the harshness in which nonbelievers and animals were treated by the people of Divinity. The Exile responded with anger. He advised me that it was imperative for all Good Christians to purge the World of Godlessness and Sin. And part of that imperative is to forcefully convert all nonbelievers, under threat of capital punishment if necessary. Animals, who have no Soul, and therefore no chance of the Life Everlasting, should be purged without recourse to appeal. For what value is there in a being without Soul?

In the World of nonbelievers, there is a hierarchy of apostasy. Vile though the Dieuists of the heretical Parish of the Divinity of Christ the Lord may be, they are nearer to the One True Faith in that they departed from its basic tenets in only recent centuries. And this is why the greatest effort of the Holy Parish of the Divinity of Christ has been towards the forcible conversion and Spiritual Salvation of these most hated of reprobates. These Dieuists dissented from the Doctrine as prescribed by the Prophet Saint Isaac and follow instead the heresy of the Apostate Rénè Descartes. May he be Forever Damned and his sufferings especially intense! To people beyond the Borough of Divinity, it may appear that there is little difference between the practices of Good Christians and Dieuists. They lead a similarly austere way of life, but unlike Good Christians, they place significantly less weight on the Natural Order as manifest by the Laws of Force and Motion. Instead, they attach greater significance to the Dual Identity of Mind and Body, believing that the Soul rests in the Pituitary Gland and that the Laws of Classical Physics have only passing relevance to the worship of the Holy Trinity of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

None of the destinations seemed wholly welcoming, and as it would soon be dusk, I thought it best to head to the nearest, whether it was a religious parish, a delta or a city of giant insects. The Exile advised me that the Holy Parish was by far the nearest, being less than four furlongs distant, but he was sceptical about advising one of such dubious character as I to sojourn at a Parish of such great virtue. He also advised me that I may not be alone in my journey as another - a woman, he admitted with some loathing, - had also passed by in that direction. He hoped that I would not sully my slim chance of Salvation by looking at, or, worse, speaking with this Temptress of Adam. I assured him that I would do my best to keep my Soul intact and followed the unswerving, grey paved path towards this one of the two Divinities.

As I walked along, I pondered the Exile's reference to a woman preceding me on this route. It wasn't long until I came upon a figure huddled up in a long black gown under the dark shadow of a broad-leafed tree whom I assumed to be a Priest. As I came closer I realised that this must be the woman I'd been warned to avoid. My steps on the hard paving stones attracted her attention. She raised her head and I could see that her skin was black and her hair was beaded. I was sure I recognised her.

"What the blinking heck are you doing here?" she exclaimed. "It's a flipping long way from the blooming Suburbs!" It was Anna, whom I'd met the day before.

"I'm just looking for somewhere to stay the night." I noticed acute misery in her previously self-confident face. Her eyes had lost their liveliness: evidence that she may have been crying. She didn't stand up, so I crouched down beside her at the foot of the tree. "What are you doing here?"

"I was looking for somewhere to stay as well," she sniffed. "I left the Suburbs yesterday and went by coach to the Delta which I thought would be jolly interesting. Well, a lot more flipping interesting than the blinking Suburbs, I reckoned. And I suppose the Delta is a lot more interesting: but it's really just a place where merpeople live. You can't see much of them, of course, as they mostly live underwater. All you can see is the odd merman or mermaid sunning him or her self by the water's edge or on a rock. There's a shop where you can buy souvenirs of your visit to the Delta and a café where you can sit and watch them frolic around in the water with sea-cows and dolphins. To be honest, though, when you've seen one merperson - and they're fairly common sights in some places - then you've seen them all.

"There's nowhere to stay in the Delta. Not unless you can breathe underwater, so I thought I'd come to stay the night in a motel or pub in this borough. I'd been told that Divinity was a rather peculiar place, where you had to cover yourself up like this..." She indicated with her hand the long gown that covered most of her body, and then tugged at the hood which would have totally hidden her face if she'd put it up. "I got all this gear from the souvenir shop in Delta when I'd been told what I'd have to wear. I suppose it was meant as a souvenir of Delta's neighbouring borough. It was jolly cheap - less than half a crown! But I'll be blinking well glad when I can take it off. It's really heavy and constricting."

I felt the same about the gown I'd put on. "Didn't you find anywhere to stay?"