CHAPTER XXI.
The Sacred Order of Ancient Timers and Holy Retrogressionists, and Their Lugubrious Ritual.
THE barkers were all true and immovable believers in the musty and mouldy old doctrine that whatsoever was in the beginning ought to be now and forever, world without end, amen. So they still held themselves together as the Society for the Protection of the Almighty, as they had found by past sad experience that he could not be trusted to take care of himself.
And, oh! It was a solemn and sad society, that did nothing but weep and mourn for the “Good Old Days” of the past, when dogs were all kept with their noses heavenward (downward) by the wholesome administration of Blue Thunderbolts. And they formed themselves into a solemn Order, which they called the “Sacred Order of Ancient Timers and Holy Retrogressionists.” And they had a sacred ritual of mourning and a service of weeping, and ordinary, extraordinary and special days of moaning, lamentation and bewailment, and prayer for the resurrection of the dead past.
They met weekly in a damp and dead smelling catacomb, at the solemn hour of midnight, and by the darkling light of smoky torches, stuck in the eyeholes of skulls. In the center of the meeting place was a huge crape-covered, black lachrymatory or weeping pot, around which they gathered to moan, and into which they shed their tears.
To the north of the lachrymatory was stationed the Grand Lugubrious Lachrymator, supported by the Worthy Right Hand and the Worthy Left Hand Weepers; to the south was the Vice Grand Lugubrious Lachrymator, supported by the Worthy Eyerag Wringer, and his assistant, the Assistant Worthy Eyerag Wringer. To the east was the Past and Bygone Lugubrious Lachrymator, and opposite him was the Worthy Grand Exalted Moaner, who read the prayers.
And at the tap of a funeral bell, the Grand Lugubrious Lachrymator read from the Solemn Ritual these words:
“Oh mourning brethren of the Eternal Tear Drop: It hath been appointed unto us to bewail the good old days of Prostrate Piety and Blue Thunderbolts; when the glory of Simple Faith was as the sun in mid-heaven; when Reason—wicked Faith-upsetting Reason—was in chains; when our ever glorious Almighty Vengeance and beloved Hell reigned supreme, and blaspheming questioners were stricken dead; when dogs everywhere piously and in the fear of God, gave up their blood to their lawful and divinely appointed suckers, the fleas.