Francis LaPorte and the Association of Good Fellows

The Law of the Strong

Thursday, 28 Sivan, 5693

Francis stood behind a lectern at the front of the great lecture hall of Bevel University.  The students had begun to fill the room, the crowd of vibrant, inquisitive souls swelling to over two-thousand. He looked out over the eager faces of the children and prayed that he might have words proportionate to their need.

Beside him stood five others, each man preparing for anticipated time of debate. There were to his left two men from the Garman Kingsmen and to his left three representatives of the Kingsmen Center Party, all of them professors. He alone was present there to present the voice of Yakovi's League of Reformers, but he had no doubt that truth would win the day, if only someone should be so bold as to proclaim it. In this instance, that task belonged to him, and he hoped that the gentlemen to his right would do the same. If they did, it would render the claims of the Garman Kingsmen utterly ridiculous. He, however, was about to be gravely disappointed by his colleagues from the Tyran tradition.

The university chaplaincy was hosting the event, and it was because of this fact that Sigmund Reed, the university's head chaplain, stepped out in front of the growing crowd of curious souls to the center of the stage as moderator. Francis listened to his standard introductions of the panel with a sense of foreign peace and overwhelming confidence. Sigmund had long been Francis's friend. What's more, he had spent the much of the week traveling with him to appointments at governmental offices in a feverish attempt to preserve the legality of the present meeting in the wake of Monday's incident involving the students' notable rejection of the Garman Kingsmen and their protest against Fredrick Bealer.

After the introductions, one man began to speak, then another, then the next. It was almost expected that the Garman Kingsmen would bring forward controversial and condemning evidence in support of their cause with such forceful enthusiasm and conceited pride that logic could be of no help to them. If the students had come to hear much ado about nothing, they would not have been the least bit disappointed. When the Garman Kingsmen had their fill of speaking, which they never truly had, it was the turn of the professors to speak. The men from the Tyran tradition had a more universal take on the church and its international ties. They argued well the points that they did argue, but Francis was heartbroken when he heard them stop short of any real demands for honest doctrine and Kingsmen unity.

What the Garman Kingsmen were proposing in their uncompromising assertion that all people of the non-Indo-Yeropian race, particularly those of Altruic ancestry, should be thrown out of the church and banned without exclusion was, in Francis's mind, nothing short of bald-faced heresy and worthy of schism. It had been his earnest hope that his respected colleagues from the Kingsmen Center Party would have shared that view, which he believed to be the only logical one for any Kingsmen to hold, and would have joined him in the disruption of this dangerous theological trend. Not only had they failed to call the first two fiery speakers to task, they had gone so far as to bolster their baseless argument by making excuses for circumstances under which they might be right.

Francis felt every drop of his blood as it ran hot through his veins and his heart beat loudly. With every passing word that the last of his colleagues spoke, disappointing his expectant heart just as much as they disturbed his balanced mind, he could feel his patience waning. There was no place among Kingsmen for such cowardice and double-talk, particularly in such a delicate time of badly needed leadership. What was needed now in Garma was a bit of color and clarity, the bold declaration of some striking contrast with no strings attached. There could be among Kingsmen no more compromise with these agents of darkness within the church.

When it came to be Francis's time to speak, he almost thought that he might not be able to say anything freely because of the immense feeling that the statements of his predecessors had brought him. All the time, he had felt as if his insides were being torn up by some ancient beast and all that was left of his organs were hanging shreds. It wasn't that he couldn't speak; he certainly could have said something, but that he never allowed himself to say anything without a coolness and calm which allowed for clear of thought and logical conclusions. He would never be the one to stand before a crowd and shout hyperbolic statements meant to prey on the emotions of his hearers as the Good Fellows did. He would always be the tranquil, trustworthy, level-headed voice of reason which demanded much and threatened naught at all. As to whether his insides reflected his outer display of composure or not, that was another matter better left untouched.

He lifted his eyes from the notes on which they had fallen and yet had never truly seen, and with a raw smile he passed a speculative glance at Jacob Melee, the distinguished professor who had spoken before him. In him, Francis had placed much of his hope, and in him he had been sorely disappointed, because he had gone out of his way to make an appeal for unity amongst the churchmen with the supporters of the proposed Altruic exclusion. He had gone so far as to say that it would be better to part company with the Altruites than to lose their Garman brothers who were still "weak" in their faith, but Francis would have none of it and would go so far as to walk it back, step-by-step, right in the other direction.

"You must be careful that the apparent weakness of some does not become the bullying strength of another's downfall," Francis said in his usual firm, slightly throaty way of speaking. "If these, our fellow members, are really so weak as you all say, then tell me why it is that they insist on a law to the exclusion of their brothers? Perhaps we should convene a council to decide it. I am well aware that it has not been done for some time, but how else could we prevent the wishes of the weak from becoming the heretical law of the strong over the other members? Who but a Kingsmen Council could decide such a thing and lay down such a law as to exclude some of our members? It would be schism then, wouldn't it? But that is not such a terrifying thing. We should thank God for the hour of confession, for this hour of decision in which we stand, all the while remembering that God's highest gift to us is peace."

When the meeting broke, he caught Melee again outside, and he was not so kind to him then. He tracked him to the university's main plaza, and pointing a finger at him in an accusatory fashion, spouted out a sharp rebuke. "What have you done?" Francis demanded. "You will encourage these incorrigible fools to their deaths and drag us along with them! I refuse to believe that you are so blind that you cannot see that there can be no compromise here!"

But his words were met with only a blank look and a void stare from the face of his colleague. "Professor LaPorte, what on earth are you talking about?" Melee said, as if he could not understand the man's overwhelming passion or possibly imagine what would have driven him to such care on such an underwhelming subject of interest, and he walked away as though the entire exchange had been conducted without meaning, leaving Francis standing in the center of the University Plaza feeling very much alone.