“And yet this ceremony repudiates all the considerations enumerated in the certificate?”
“This ceremony has no connection with that certificate.”
“So it would seem; and yet both refer to the same solemn engagement!”
“Why, to tell you the truth, Sir John Goldencalf, we monikins (for in these particulars Leaphigh is Leaplow) have two distinct governing principles in all that we say or do, which may be divided into the theoretical and the practical—moral and immoral would not be inapposite—but, by the first we control all our interests, down as far as facts, when we immediately submit to the latter. There may possibly be something inconsistent in appearance in such an arrangement; but then our most knowing ones say that it works well. No doubt among men, you get along without the embarrassment of so much contradiction.”
I now advanced to pay my respects to the Countess of Chatterino, who stood supported by the countess-dowager, a lady of great dignity and elegance of demeanor. The moment I appeared, the elaborate air of modesty, vanished from the charming countenance of the bride, in a look of natural pleasure; and, turning to her new mother, she pointed me out as a man! The courteous old dowager gave me a very kind reception, inquiring if I had enough good things to eat, whether I was not much astonished at the multitude of strange sights I beheld in Leaphigh, said I ought to be much obliged to her son for consenting to bring me over, and invited me to come and see her some fine morning.
I bowed my thanks, and then returned to join the brigadier, with a view to seek an introduction to the archbishop. Before I relate the particulars of my interview with that pious prelate, however, it may be well to say that this was the last I ever saw of any of the Chatterino set, as they retired from the presence immediately after the congratulations were ended. I heard, however, previously to leaving the region, which was within a month of the marriage, that the noble pair kept separate establishments, on account of some disagreement about an incompatibility of temper—or a young officer of the guards—I never knew exactly which; but as the estates suited each other so well, there is little doubt that, on the whole, the match was as happy as could be expected.
The archbishop received me with a great deal of professional benevolence, the conversation dropping very naturally into a comparison of the respective religious systems of Great Britain and Leaphigh. He was delighted when he found we had an establishment; and I believe I was indebted to his knowledge of this fact for his treating me more as an equal than he might otherwise have done, considering the difference in species. I was much relieved by this; for, at the commencement of the conversation, he had sounded me a little on doctrine, at which I am far from being expert, never having taken an interest in the church, and I thought he looked frowning at some of my answers; but, when he heard that we really had a national religion, he seemed to think all safe, nor did he once, after that, inquire whether we were pagans or Presbyterians. But when I told him we had actually a hierarchy, I thought the good old prelate would have shaken my hand off, and beatified me on the spot!
“We shall meet in heaven some day!” he exclaimed, with holy delight; “men or monikins, it can make no great difference, after all. We shall meet in heaven; and that, too, in the upper mansions!”
The reader will suppose that, an alien, and otherwise unknown, I was much elated by this distinction. To go to heaven in company with the Archbishop of Leaphigh was in itself no small favor; but to be thus noticed by him at court was really enough to upset the philosophy of a stranger. I was sorely afraid, all the while, he would descend to particulars, and that he might have found some essential points of difference to nip his new-born admiration. Had he asked me, for instance, how many caudae our bishops wear, I should have been badgered; for, as near as I could recollect, their personal illustration was of another character. The venerable prelate, however, soon gave me his blessing, pressed me warmly to come to his palace before I sailed, promised to send some tracts by me to England, and then hurried away, as he said, to sign a sentence of excommunication against an unruly presbyter, who had much disturbed the harmony of the church, of late, by an attempt to introduce a schism that he called “piety.”
The brigadier and myself discussed the subject of religion at some length, when the illustrious prelate had taken his leave. I was told that the monikin world was pretty nearly equally divided into two parts, the old and the new. The latter had remained uninhabited, until within a few generations, when certain monikins, who were too good to live in the old world, emigrated in a body, and set up for themselves in the new. This, the brigadier admitted, was the Leaplow account of the matter; the inhabitants of the old countries, on the other hand, invariably maintaining that they had peopled the new countries by sending all those of their own communities there, who were not fit to stay at home. This little obscurity in the history of the new world, he considers of no great moment, as such trifling discrepancies must always depend on the character of the historian. Leaphigh was by no means the only country in the elder monikin region. There were among others, for instance, Leapup and Leapdown; Leapover and Leapthrough; Leaplong and Leapshort; Leapround and Leapunder. Each of these countries had a religious establishment, though Leaplow, being founded on a new social principle, had none. The brigadier thought, himself, on the whole, that the chief consequences of the two systems were, that the countries which had establishments had a great reputation for possessing religion, and those that had no establishments were well enough off in the article itself, though but indifferently supplied on the score of reputation.