“But the straighteners,” said my father, “could not co-exist with Sunchildism, and it is hard to see how the claims of the Banks can be reasonably gainsaid.”

“Perhaps; and after all the Banks are our main bulwark against the evils that I fear will follow from the repeal of the laws against machinery.  This has already led to the development of a materialism which minimizes the miraculous element in the Sunchild’s ascent, as our own people minimize the material means that were the necessary prologue to the miraculous.”

Thus did they converse; but I will not pursue their conversation further.  It will be enough to say that in further floods of talk Mr. Balmy confirmed what George had said about the Banks having lost their hold upon the masses.  That hold was weak even in the time of my father’s first visit; but when the people saw the hostility of the Banks to a movement which far the greater number of them accepted, it seemed as though both Bridgeford and the Banks were doomed, for Bridgeford was heart and soul with the Banks.  Hanky, it appeared, though under thirty, and not yet a Professor, grasped the situation, and saw that Bridgeford must either move with the times, or go.  He consulted some of the most sagacious Heads of Houses and Professors, with the result that a committee of enquiry was appointed, which in due course reported that the evidence for the Sunchild’s having been the only child of the sun was conclusive.  It was about this time—­that is to say some three years after his ascent—­that “Higgsism,” as it had been hitherto called, became “Sunchildism,” and “Higgs” the “Sunchild.”

My father also learned the King’s fury at his escape (for he would call it nothing else) with my mother.  This was so great that though he had hitherto been, and had ever since proved himself to be, a humane ruler, he ordered the instant execution of all who had been concerned in making either the gas or the balloon; and his cruel orders were carried out within a couple of hours.  At the same time he ordered the destruction by fire of the Queen’s workshops, and of all remnants of any materials used in making the balloon.  It is said the Queen was so much grieved and outraged (for it was her doing that the material ground-work, so to speak, had been provided for the miracle) that she wept night and day without ceasing three whole months, and never again allowed her husband to embrace her, till he had also embraced Sunchildism.

When the rain came, public indignation at the King’s action was raised almost to revolution pitch, and the King was frightened at once by the arrival of the promised downfall and the displeasure of his subjects.  But he still held out, and it was only after concessions on the part of the Bridgeford committee, that he at last consented to the absorption of Sunchildism into the Musical Bank system, and to its establishment as the religion of the country.  The far-reaching changes in Erewhonian institutions with which the reader is already acquainted followed as a matter of course.