"It behooves us all, as children of a mighty government, to believe without contest in the inviolate concepts upon which our all-powerful way of living and thought is built. There have been those who were unbelievers; there have been those who would profess to debase government and political philosophy to the level of mere intellectual function and enterprise of policy, yet even those were heard to admit before paying the terrible price for their heresies that, because their beliefs were different, they must have of course been wrong.
"For those of us who aspire and pray that we may one day hold a seat in the great Quorum of the Perfectly Governed, let there be no doubt, let there be no threat to the mightiness of the glorious order which we foster....
"As it is to be found in the immortal words of the Constitutional Commandments, and I read from Four Chapter 18, Book of Sections, Section 932: 'There shall be great honor to those who give of their blood that the One World shall live, and great reverence for the glorious memories of those who give of their lives that the One World shall not perish.' Sobeit."
Once again the rolling murmur of a half-million voices. "Amen...."
"It is then to you that I command, go forth, and perform the duties of your great faith; go forth, for the dead shall inherit the living!"
And as at a signal, the air was rent with a deafening surge of voices strained to their topmost in a savage cheer.
Slowly then, it subsided, and the Prelatinate General raised his left hand as though in half-salute, half-benediction. And again, there was silence, and the living things that were statues had lost their shape and form, and had become row upon row of symmetrically-hewn markers dotting a large graveyard on Sunday afternoon in July.
"And now, let us join minds as we listen to the ancient tongue voicing the Prelatinate's Creed which has taught us to believe...."
And the sounds were strange, their meaning neither having been taught nor studied for the century and a half that English had been decreed by law as the universal tongue. Doug knew that only he, of all the half-million, understood the sounds. With difficulty at first, then with increasing facility, he translated the Latin. The Latin which the others heard and obeyed. And which they had never, nor ever would understand.