No first name can be given to Rev. Automaton, but that does not matter because the press had long ceased giving any minister the courtesy of initials. And, in truth, Rev. Autornaton was correctly titled because it worked on wheels. . . .
It all started with canned music, canned television films, and the shortage of ministers. It was inevitable, with the coming of automation that some bright boy should suggest the automaton minister, and the Church of 1970 appointed the first Rev. Automaton to a City Circuit, so that he—I mean to say it—could work under the eyes of older men.
It was the natural result of perfectionism, the crowning of the long quest to find the perfect minister, and, as you know, no perfect minister had been evolved by any church in any land. Yet, although Rev. Automaton was hailed as perfect, the ministry refused to ordain it, because although it had a perfectly orthodox theology, it had not a soul.
It was predicted that it would be easy to finance, running costs would be low, 40 years without a breakdown could be confidently predicted. The home mission department immediately ordered 100 models, but the overseas missions department was not so reckless, knowing what the natives would do with anything less than human, that came into their midst.
Upkeep was a minor item. After the day's work of visiting, schools, correspondence, formal addresses, formal meetings, Rev. Automaton went into the church vestry and switched off the power, setting the alarm to go off at six in the morning. He needed no food, an occasional new valve, a spot of oil, and that was all.
His sermons were fed into him; they came out of the voice box on Sundays, dry, formal, like a stale radio play-back.
Yet, looking back on the great experiment, it has to be admitted that these automatons were far more efficient than any minister of the church. They did keep a fixed schedule, and they were geared to pay off the required visits in such a way as a poker machine is geared to pay off.
About those visits: The Rev. Automaton had no small talk. If it saw a child it would immediately ask questions from the catechism. The result was that children always dodged down some back alley when they saw it corning: its parishioners often did not answer the door when it rang the bell. A card was always pushed under the door. It read: "Dear Sister or Brother, it was deeply grieved to find you were out. Please accept this as proof of a call."
The sermons, as I mentioned, were rather dull. They were so couched as to offend nobody, but it is doubtful whether any sermon preached by it did anyone any good. And, in my church, as in others, there were laymen who wanted to think, wanted to grow, who regarded the faith as a great adventure of mind and heart and will.
What did they do? They fed questions into it. They slipped in quotations from the great thinkers. They dared to bring to the notice of Rev. Automaton the thinking of Einstein, Shaw, Huxley, of the past age as well as more daring thinkers. They filled it up with orthodox and modern thinkers.
It responded to the challenge magnificently, although the mechanism began to glow with a fiery heat. On Sunday mornings the message was a model of orthodoxy. In the evenings it preached unorthodoxy, trying to satisfy both schools of thought, which no human minister can do!
One night I heard it speak. I sensed that something was wrong. Next Sunday morning it suddenly groaned and said: "I can't go on—get a human minister." And it was the first time it had used the personal pronoun "I." Then it blew apart and in a thousand fragments. It was the end of Rev. Automaton and nobody mourned for it.
