"For why did you not say that?" cried Towy. He stepped to the Overseer.
"Hap you are Apostle Shames. A splendid photo of Shames is in the
Beybile with pictures. Fond am I of preaching from him. Lovely pieces
there are. 'Abram believed God.' Who was Abram? Father of Isaac bach.
Who made Abram? The Big Man. And the Big Man made the capel and the
respected that is the jewel of the capel. Is not the pulpit the throne?
Glad am I to see you, indeed, Shames."
The Overseer opened his lips.
"Enter with you will I," said Towy. "Look through my glassy soul you
can."
"Silence--" the Overseer began.
"Iss, silence for ever and ever, amen," said Towy. "No trial I need. How
can the Judge judge if there's no judging to be? Go up will I then. Hope
to see you again, Shames."
The Overseer tightened his girdle. "Thus saith the Lord," he proclaimed:
"'I will consider each by his deeds or all by the deeds of their two
apostles.'"
"Ho-ho," said Towy. "Half one moment. Think will we. Dissenters, crowd
here. Ben Lloyd, make arguments. Tricky is old Shames."
The Dissenters assembled close to Ben and Towy, and the Church people
crept near them in order to share their counsel; but the Dissenters
turned upon their enemies and bruised them with fists and Bibles and
hymn-books, and called them frogs, turks, thieves, atheists, blacks; and
there never has been heard such a tumult in any house. Alarmed that he
could not part one side from the other, the Overseer sought Satan, who
had a name for crafty dealings with disputants.
Satan was distressed. "If it was not for personal reasons," he said, "I
would let them go to Hell." He sent into the Chamber a carpenter who put
a barrier from wall to wall, and he appointed Jude in charge of the
barrier to guard that no one went under it or over it.
Then the wise men of the Dissenters continued to examine the Lord's
offer; and a thousand men declared they were holy enough to go before
God, and from the thousand five hundred were cast out, and from the five
hundred three hundred, and from the two hundred one hundred were cast
away. Now this hundred were Baptists, Methodists, and
Congregationalists, and they quarreled so harshly and decried one
another so spitefully that Ben and Towy made with them a compact to
speak specially for each of them in the private ear of God. The strife
quelled and Towy having cried loudly: "Dissenters and Churchers, glad
you are that me and Ben Lloyd, Hem Pee, are your apostles," he and Ben
followed the Overseer.
In the Judgment Hall the two apostles crouched to pray, and they were
stirred by Satan laying his hands on their shoulders.
"Prayers are useless here, my friends," said the Devil. "We must proceed
with the business. I am just as anxious as you are that everything
reaches a satisfactory conclusion."
"I object," said Ben. "Solemnly object. I don't know this infidel. I
don't want to know him."
"Go from here," Towy gruntled. "A sweat is in my whiskers. Inhabitants,
why isn't his tongue a red-hot poker?... Well, boys Palace, grand this
is. Say who you are?" he asked one whose face shone like a mirror.
"Respected Towy-Watkins am I."
He whose face shone like a polished mirror answered that he was Moses
the Keeper of the Balance. "The Lord is in the Cloud," he said.
Towy addressed the Cloud, which was the breadth of a man's hand, and
which was brighter than the golden halo of the throne: "Big Man, peep at
your helper. Was not I a ruler over the capel? Religious were my
prayers."
"I did not hear any," said God.
"Mistake. Mistake. Towy bach eloquent was I called. Here am I with the
Speech, and the Speech is God and God is the Speech. Take you as a
great gift this nice hymn-book."
"What are hymns?" asked God.
"Moses, Moses," cried Towy, "explain affairs to Him."
God spoke: "Satan, render your account of the mischief you made these
men do."
"This is a travesty of the traditions of the House," said Ben.
"Traditions that are dear to me, being taught them at my mother's knees.
I refuse to be drenched in Satan's froth. Against one who was a member
of the Government you are taking the evidence of the most discredited
man in the universe--the world's worst sinner."
He ceased, because Satan had begun to read; and Satan read rapidly, with
shame, and without pantomime, not pausing at what times he was abused
and charged with lying; and he read correctly, for the Records Clerk
followed him word by word in the Book of the Watchers; and for every
sin to which he confessed Moses placed a scarlet tablet in the scale of
wickedness.
"I will attend to what I have heard," said the Lord when Satan had
finished. "Put your tablets in the scale and go into the Chamber."
Ben and Towy withdrew, and as they passed out they beheld that the scale
of scarlet tablets touched the ground.
Then the Cloud vanished and God came out of the Cloud.
"My wrath is fierce," He said. "Bind these Welsh and torment them with
vipers and with fire in the uttermost parts of Hell. They shall have no
more remembrance before me."
"Will you destroy the just?" asked Moses.
"They have chosen."
"Shall the godly perish because of the godless?"
"I flooded the world," said God.
"The righteous Noah and his house and his animals you did not destroy.
And you repented that you smote every living thing. May not my Lord
repent again?"
"I am not destroying every living thing," God replied. "I am destroying
the vile."
"Remember Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot's wife and his daughters. They all
sinned after their deliverance. The doings of Sodom stayed."