3.  The church supplies a moral and spiritual education to all the children of its members.  This school does a work similar to our Sunday-school, only it is held daily and is under a trained corps of paid teachers.

For all these advantages each member is required to give to the church one-eleventh of his earnings and to attend the services of the church and co-operate with the pastor in the advancement of all spiritual work.

The church keeps a perpetual record of the attendance and the work done by each member.

It required a man of large business capacity to launch such a church with its radically new principles.  But Trique’s immense wealth was a powerful force when utilized in this manner.  He made every church a strong business center commanding the respect of the whole community.  Discipline was rigidly enforced.  No member cared to be expelled from such a church.  It meant a going out from under a warm cover at the approach of winter.

Fortunately, Trique was a clean, spiritual man and strongly urged a spiritual ministry and membership.

It can be seen why this church grew so rapidly.  In fifty years it became so powerful that it could control, if it wished, the legislation in nearly all the sections of the planet.

I have given but a brief picture of this ruling church.  It must suffice.  I may add that one must not imagine the church services and forms in Saturn to be like our worship.  All things are so different that it would take much space and time to describe them.

For beauty of natural scenery, Saturn surpasses all the Solar System.  Its air is of a different composition from ours, and its sky puts on various tints as the day passes, which is a little over ten hours of our time, but it takes nearly thirty of our years to make one on Saturn.

The immense mountain ranges present a picture of unusual beauty.  The leaves of trees are rich in velvety varieties and the undergrowth appears as if trimmed by skilled hands.  This is a desirable place to live.  But I learned that the inhabitants of Saturn do not appreciate all this wealth of beauty, in its atmosphere or on its earth, a whit more than the people of our world appreciate the sin cursed scenery which greets their eyes.

CHAPTER VI.

The Nearest Fixed Star.

All that was required on my part was a mere act of the mind, and I went where I wished.  I visited Uranus and Neptune, after which I stretched my swift wings for the great flight, away from our Solar System, over billions of miles of space.  I alighted on the burning star nearest to our Earth.  This star is called, by our astronomers, Alpha Centaurus, and it is said to be 20,000,000,000,000 miles away.  This star is much greater than our Sun and is the center of a system of worlds larger and more numerous than those that compose our Solar System.