moved its capital to Turin. As he departs to catch a volor to Birmingham, Oliver looks out at "the grey haze of London, really beautiful, this vast hive of men and women who had learned at least the primary lesson of the gospel that there was no God but man, no priest but the politician, and no prophet but the schoolmaster." As she prepares to board a train to Brighton, Mabel Brand witnesses a Government volor crash into the station. As the Government's Ministers of Euthanasia arrive and begin to finish off the wounded, maimed and dying, Mrs. Brand witnesses Father Percy Franklin arrive. She is stunned to see the priest open his coat, pull out his crucifix and give the Last Rites to the dying Catholic lying next to her. After she returns home, deeply moved and traumatized by what she has witnessed, Mabel tells Oliver that both Father Franklin and the dying man seemed to believe in what they were doing. While deeply grieved that his wife has witnessed the horrors of the accident, Oliver explains Catholic doctrine about the Afterlife, which he mocks as a ridiculous belief that a person's mind can survive despite their brain being dead. According to Brand, for Father Franklin, the soul of the man is either "in a sort of smelting works being burned", or if "that piece of wood took effect" he is "somewhere beyond the clouds" with the Holy Trinity, the Mother of God, and the Communion of Saints. He explains that "that kind of thing may be nice, but it isn't true." Impressed by her husband's explanation of the fallacy of religion, Mabel relaxes. At the residence of the Cardinal-Protector near Westminster Cathedral, Father Percy Franklin finishes writing his Latin language report to Rome about the mass defections taking place among English Catholics and the recent conversions from the crumbling Anglican Communion. As he walks toward the elevator, Father Franklin finds that Father John Francis, whom he has been attempting to nurse through his mounting doubts, has lost his faith and decided to leave the priesthood. In a last-ditch effort to prevent this, Father Franklin explains that Christianity "may be untrue", but it cannot be absurd and false as long as educated and intelligent people continue to believe in its teachings. Unmoved, Father Francis rebuffs Father Franklin's argument and, with bottomless self-pity, asks whether they can remain friends. Father