Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/310

 to a very low ebb indeed. Instead of jokes in reference to his excessive devotion to the goddess "culchaw," the Bostonian was liable to be twitted with a worship of a very different kind.

On our way home, Hulmar recounted to me the steps in the political and intellectual decadence of New £ngland. These were, the accession to political supremacy of an ignorant and superstitious foreign element; the accelerated emigration of the original stock; the establishment of a State church, in fact though not in name, by improving on the example of the Mormon church; decisions by obsequious courts that placed the education fund practically under the control of the priesthood; the removal of the seat of the Papacy to Boston; attainment, by the Jesuits, of a controlling power in many States, by adroit manipulation of parties; rapid decline and ultimate extinction of the Papacy, after its alliance with the invaders during the "Great Invasion."

"You have really worked hard at that lecture of yours," said her father to Reva, a few days after our excursion to Boston. "Let us celebrate its completion by a water-excursion, and pay that long-deferred visit to your uncle Aslan."

Instead of our usual forenoon work, we accordingly set off soon after breakfast for Piescil (Peekskill). We found in readiness the boat engaged by telephone before we left home. This, to me, odd-looking conveyance consisted of two boats connected by a platform with low bulwarks. The motive-power was, of course, electncity. The machinery I had no opportunity of inspecting, it being entirely out of sight: it propelled us, however, through