Conscience, the Town Recorder, had a very difficult post to hold and a very difficult part to play in that still so divided and still so unsettled town.  What with all those murderers and man-slayers, thieves and prostitutes, skulkers and secret rebels, on the one hand, and with Governor God’s-peace and his so unaccountable and so autocratic ways, on the other hand, the Recorder’s office was no sinecure.  All the misdemeanours and malpractices of the town,—­and they were happening every day and every night,—­were all reported to the Recorder; they were all, so to say, charged home upon the Recorder, and he was held responsible for them all; till his office was a perfect laystall and cesspool of all the scum and corruption of the town.  And yet, in would come Governor God’s-peace, without either warning or explanation, and would demand all the Recorder’s papers, and proofs, and affidavits, and what not, it had cost him so much trouble to get collected and indorsed, and would burn them all before the Recorder’s face, and to his utter confusion, humiliation, and silence.  So autocratic, so despotic, so absolute, and not-to-be-questioned was Governor God’s-peace.  The Recorder could not understand it, and could barely submit to it; my Lord Mayor could not understand it, and his clerk, Mr. Mind, would often oppose it; but there it was:  Mr. Governor God’s-peace was set over them all.

5.  But the thing that always in the long-run justified the governorship of Mr. God’s-peace, and reconciled all the other officers to his supremacy, was the way that the city settled down and prospered under his benignant rule.  All the other officers admitted that, somehow, his promotion and power had been the salvation of Mansoul.  They all extolled their Prince’s far-seeing wisdom in the selection, advancement, and absolute seat of Mr. God’s-peace.  And it would ill have become them to have said anything else; for they had little else to do but bask in the sun and enjoy the honours and the emoluments of their respective offices as long as Governor God’s-peace held sway, and had all things in the city to his own mind.  Now, it was on all hands admitted, as we read again with renewed delight, that there were no jars, no chiding, no interferings, no unfaithful doings in the town of Mansoul; but every man kept close to his own employment.  The gentry, the officers, the soldiers, and all in place, observed their orders.  And as for the women and children, they all followed their business joyfully.  They would work and sing, work and sing, from morning till night, so that quite through the town of Mansoul now nothing was to be found but harmony, quietness, joy, and health.  What more could be said of any governorship of any town than that?  The Heavenly Court itself, out of which Governor God’s-peace had come down, was not better governed than that.  Harmony, quietness, joy, and health.  No; the New Jerusalem itself will not surpass that.  ‘And this lasted all that summer.’