Then the conference adjourned for recess and luncheon, which consisted of every sort of costly viands, served on costly plate; of rare and costly fruits, and wines of exquisite “bouquet,” all set out amid a display of the very rarest exotics, that cost exceeding much wealth, and to the accompaniment of an orchestra of very talented minstrels.
This over, and “thanks” having been rendered by His Grace, the Serene and Excessively Distinguished Archiepiscopus of the Diocese of Puliciania, who had travelled a thousand miles “to be present on this auspicious occasion,” the session was reopened with prayer by the Veriest Reverend Father in God, Sanguineous F. Plumpdog.
Now, His Grace, the Serene and Excessively Distinguished Archiepiscopus of the Diocese of Puliciania, was a very large, fat and wheezy dog who could hardly see out of his eyes for fatness. He had lived amongst, and ministered to a churchful of big fat fleas so long that he had come to regard himself as one of them, and always said “we” and “us” and “our.” So did all the rest of these wonderfully sleek and plump barkers; and so acceptable were these barkers to their various congregations of fat and Monstrous Fleas and so uniformly did they never preach any other than an “acceptable” gospel to them, that the fleas were pleased to regard them as of their caste.
The first speaker was the Most Reverend, Asthmatic and Holy Archdeacon, Suckerius P. Paunchiana Fatdog, F. L. U. N. K. E. Y., H. U. M. B. U. G., who made a few remarks thus: “Ladies and Gentlefleas—It seems to me that we, to whom has been committed, by the wisdom of Almighty God, the keeping of great wealth, ought first to guard against the danger of forgetting that we owe something to the poor dogs whom God, in His wisdom has put in a position beneath us. We ought never to forget that it is to us that God looks, as his chosen instruments, for the uplifting of the dogs. Why there are dogs and why there are fleas is one of those inscrutable mysteries that we ought not to pry into, but reverently accept. For my part, I reverently accept it, and I pray that I may ever be kept reverent. Certain it is, however, that if ever the dogs are to be made fat and happy, and uplifted to those things of the soul and Heaven, we fleas will have to do it. God always works through means, and we are the means. He has ordained the wealthy to minister to the poor, the strong to bear with the weak, the wise to lead the foolish, the enlightened to illumine the dark; we are the wealthy, the strong, the wise, and the enlightened, and woe to us if we shirk the duty thus laid upon us. Brethren, the one thing we are most apt to forget is the Spirit of Christ. He came down from his high estate to uplift the fallen, and it is this going down, going down, GOING DOWN, brethren, to those below us, that is going to save them.
“Let us then carry out this Spirit, and go down to these poor creatures. Let us walk amongst them; let us show ourselves to them; let us put on poor raiment and ask them how they do; let us teach them scientific economy in eating; let us with our own paws show them how one bone can be made to yield a good dinner for a large family and leave something over for the morrow; let us teach them how to accept in a proper spirit the cast-off garments of the “charitable,” and to seek to be clothed with the “garments of righteousness”; let us invite them to confide to us their trials and troubles; let us take a genuine interest in them, and get into their affections, and teach them toil, and thrift, and temperance, and so, by easy and natural methods—such as wrapping up pennies and candies in tracts and leaflets—gradually train their minds to those higher and eternal things and treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust break through and steal.”
And all the audience broke out into a storm of applause; and everybody said that was a most glorious gospel, the Gospel of GOING DOWN. And everybody looked anxious to get up and go down then and there. And an enthusiastic Monstrous Flea moved, and another enthusiastic one seconded, that “We do, here and now, all of us, form ourselves into an Association to be known as the ‘Going Down Organization Society,’” which was carried with immense enthusiasm.
