“The Church does not ask you to believe in things as they should be or perhaps will be some day. The Church asks you to consider facts and then to act as the facts require. It asks you to believe only in the believable.
“Consider this. Beyond any dispute, we were all born on Earth and we died there. Is there anyone among you who would contradict that?
“No? Then consider this. Man is born to sorrow and evil as the sparks fly upward. Can any of you, remembering your life on Earth and here deny that?
“Whatever the religion on Earth, it promised something that just was not true. The evidence of that is that we are not in Hell or Heaven. Nor are we going through reincarnations, except in a limited sense that we are given new bodies and new life if we die.
“The first resurrection was a tremendous, an almost shattering, shock. No one, religionist, agnostic, or atheist, was in the state he believed he’d be in after the end of Terrestrial existence.
“Yet, here we are, like it or not. Nor is escape from this world possible, as it was on Earth. If you are killed or kill yourself, you rise the next day. Can anyone deny this?”
“No, but I sure as hell don’t like it!” a man shouted. There was a general laugh, and Hermann looked at the man who had made the remark. He was Sam Clemens himself, standing in the middle of the crowd on a chair on a platform erected for this occasion.
“Please, brother Clemens, do me the courtesy of not interrupting,” Hermann said. “Very well. So far, facts only. Now, can anyone deny that this world is not a natural one? I do not mean by that that this planet itself, the sun, the stars, are artificial. This planet was created by God. But The River and The Valley are not natural. Nor is the resurrection a supernatural event.”
“How do you know that?” a woman yelled. “Now you’re getting away from facts. You’re slipping into surmise.”
“That isn’t all he’s slipping into!” a man shouted.
Hermann waited for the laughter to subside.
“Sister, I can prove to you that the resurrection is not something worked directly by God. It was and is performed by people like us. They may not be Terrestrials. They undoubtedly are superior in wisdom and science. But they look much like us. And some of us have talked face to face with them!”
Uproar. Not because the crowd had not heard this before, though not in just these terms. The unbelievers just wanted to have some fun, to relieve tension.
Hermann took a drink of water and by the time he’d put the cup down, he had comparative silence.
“This world and these resurrections, if not made with human hands, have been brought about by hands that are human in appearance. There are two men who can testify to this. For all I know, there may be many others. One of these is an Englishman named Richard Francis Burton. He was not unknown on Earth during his time, in fact, he was famous. He lived from 1821 to 1890, and he was an explorer, anthropologist, innovator, author, and linguist extraordinaire. Perhaps some of you have heard of him? If so, please raise your hands.
“Ah, I count at least forty, among them your consul, Samuel Clemens.”
Clemens did not seem to like what he was hearing. He was scowling and chewing frantically on the end of his cigar.
Goring proceeded to recount his experiences with Burton, stressing what Burton had told him. The crowd was caught; there was scarcely a sound. This was something new, something no Chancer missionary had ever spoken of.
“Burton called this mysterious being the Ethical. Now, according to Burton, the Ethical who talked to him did not agree with his fellows. Apparently, there is dissension even among beings whom we could account as gods. Dispute or discord in Olympus, if I may draw such a parallel. Though I do not think that the so-called Ethicals are gods, angels, or demons. They are human beings like us but advanced to a higher ethical plane. What their disagreement is, I frankly do not know. Perhaps it is about the means used to achieve a goal.
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