Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 703 Are reality and faith exactly opposite?

"Let's go. From the cemetery here, we can directly reach the interior of St. Annville Cross Church." Old man Pancras took out the key from his pocket and unlocked the rusty lock on the iron gate of the cemetery. He lowered his voice and said, "Don't stay here too long. The residents here have received relief from the church and will remain silent in most cases, but we can't completely rule out the possibility that they will leak information to the church alliance."

The rusty iron gate creaked and slowly opened. Pancras led everyone into the cemetery, along a gray-white stone road, through the rows of tombstones, and walked towards the ceremony building of St. Annville Cross Church. Needless to say, the scenery along the way was much better than the Evangelical Convent, both in terms of the magnificent architectural style and the lush green environment.

The only drawback is that it is not popular. The avenue that was specially built to accommodate four carriages driving side by side in order to welcome the numerous believers is now deserted and looks very empty. Occasionally, one or two black-robed monks will pass by in a hurry. When they see old man Pancras, they will stop and bow their heads to greet him, but soon leave in a hurry. They don't pay any attention to the strange guests like Lingge, as if giving them a glance will delay their journey.

The sound of their footsteps echoed under the gray sky, gradually fading away until they were no longer visible, as if they had gone to a very far away place, never to be able to return there for the rest of their lives.

This huge church should have been a sacred and solemn place, but now it gave people a feeling of gloom and desolation. The flowers that were once carefully cared for by the nuns were left with only rotten germs, the bodies of lizards and ants floated in the mud pits that had not been cleaned after the rainstorm, the long corridors were covered with cobwebs, the white brick walls were cracked everywhere, the doors and windows and tables and chairs were dull and faded, and the tiles on the roof were worn away by the sunlight of the past, making everything shrouded in an unimaginable gloomy and sad atmosphere.

In just a hundred years, this church has completely changed.

The travelers who strayed into a gray memory were not sure whether they were shocked by the scale of the cathedral or affected by the bleak atmosphere. They lost the mood to speak for a while. Only Linger lowered his voice and asked old man Pancras a question that he was very concerned about: "You mentioned relief just now. Is the relief home run by St. Annville Cross Church still in operation?"

"Yes." The old man nodded gently. "The Religious Decree restricts public missionary activities and the normal operation of the church, but there are no strict restrictions on other aspects. Therefore, the church still retains a group of about a hundred black monks. Every weekend or major festival, they will go deep into the streets to preach to the residents, so as to make the people of this land still remember the belief in animism. Although the effect is not as good as in the heyday of the past, it is better than nothing. In addition, the church's relief homes, orphanages, Sunday schools, charity hospitals and other welfare institutions are also operating normally. It's just that after losing the dedication of believers, the source of funds can only be solved by selling antiques, calligraphy and paintings and ancient relics preserved in the church."

He paused for a moment and continued, "It is precisely because the church adheres to the tradition of helping the people that the residents of the Seven Stars District have not forgotten us and are willing to cover up some things for us, such as those secret underground passages. But please remember what I just said and don't trust them completely, Mr. Ling. If the pressure from the church alliance is great enough, these people will turn to them without hesitation. The only question is how long they can hold on."

Lingge was thoughtful and vaguely understood the reason for this phenomenon: "Because even if they lose St. Annville Cross Church, the Church Alliance will continue to help them?"

"Although I don't want to admit it, it's true." The old man said, "Fortunately, the relief method of the United Church is different from ours. They don't provide relief to individuals, but prefer to plan and coordinate the overall situation of a block. For example, they build a certain number of townhouses on each street so that poor people who meet certain conditions can move in free of charge; they add street lights, public fire hydrants, public water pipes and other facilities to improve the quality of life of local residents; they build large-scale projects such as drainage canals, sewers or subways to provide jobs for the unemployed. This relief method is actually more sophisticated, but residents usually don't realize who is really helping them. Instead, they will push the credit to the city government's public service department, water pipe company, construction company or railway operating company. Therefore, the influence of the United Church in the Seven Stars District is still slightly inferior to ours."

"Even if they want to change the way they provide relief and increase their influence, it's probably not that easy. Because St. Annville Cross Church has been operating in the Qixingpan area for many years, it has opened 53 relief homes, 21 orphanages, 32 schools, and 15 charity hospitals. The number is second to none in the entire Lunkwell area, and it will be difficult for them to catch up in a short period of time."

No wonder.

The old man's tone was filled with pride when he said this, because this was indeed something worth boasting about, but Linger couldn't help but think: No wonder the Qixingpan District is considered the poorest of the thirty-two administrative districts of Lunweiting, because there are so many poorhouses and welfare institutions here.

The relief methods of the United Church of the Church and St. Annville Cross are probably not only different in influence, but also in philosophy. The former tries to make residents self-reliant, so it provides them with an environment for self-reliance; the latter tries to create an dependent ecology, because only when residents rely on the church and animism can they gain more faith. This makes it seem as if the United Church of the Church does not need faith, but they are clearly also a religious organization.

It is indeed very strange to say that although the seven major orthodox churches are also very enthusiastic about missionary work, they seem to hold an attitude of "If I don't fight for the faith, others will take it away." Once no one competes with them for the faith, they may no longer be enthusiastic; on the contrary, they are indeed very enthusiastic about matters such as economy, politics, culture, scientific and technological research and development, wilderness development, and colonial wars.

Could it be that they were influenced by the Steam Holy War and became afraid of the power of faith and did not want to repeat the same mistakes? But the Church Union was ruled by a true god, so it was impossible for the power of faith to give birth to the next Steam God Alexander, right? Unless...

Lingge suddenly had a bold guess.

Witch society, cult alliance.

Seven witches, seven righteous gods.

As a believer of the Herbal Garden, the apostle of the association, Ronning Lavelle, appeared in the team of the Inquisition in a dignified manner; the seven major orthodox churches have clear division of labor and responsibilities, and only when they unite can they be more like a complete organization.

The Witch Society has always been secretly guiding human history, but its existence is only known to a few people; the United Cults clearly follows the teachings of the Seven Great Gods, but these seven gods have only their names passed down, without any specific deeds.

It competes with other churches for faith, but it does not need faith itself; compared with the struggles in the religious world, it is more interested in the field that guides the progress and development of modern civilization.

He silently recited these seemingly contradictory but implicitly related details in his mind, gradually connecting them together and overlapping them. Then, a name that popped up in his mind was a name that few people mentioned for some reason: the United Realist Order.

People often only use the last four words to refer to it, but ignore the more essential meaning of the first four words.

Realism, united by religion.

Aren’t reality and faith exactly opposite?

　Give me some meow
　　
　
(End of this chapter)