Now if you are a policeman perplexed by a sudden and unaccountable
collision between a taxicab and an electric standard, complicated by a
blinding flash and a sound like an abbreviated trump from an
automobile horn, you do not want to be bothered by a hatless clerical
gentleman suddenly rushing out of a handsome private house and telling
you that "the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" You are respectful to him
because it is the duty of a policeman to be respectful to Gentlemen,
but you say to him, "Sorry I can't attend to that now, sir. One thing
at a time. I've got this little accident to see to." And if he
persists in dancing round the gathering crowd and coming at you again,
you say: "I'm afraid I must ask you just to get away from here, sir.
You aren't being a 'elp, sir." And if, on the other hand, you are a
well-trained clerical gentleman, who knows his way about in the world,
you do not go on pestering a policeman on duty after he has said that,
even although you think God is looking at you and Judgement is close
at hand. You turn away and go on, a little damped, looking for some
one else more likely to pay attention to your tremendous tidings.
And so it happened to the Reverend Mr. Parchester.
He experienced a curious little recession of confidence. He went on
past quite a number of people without saying anything further, and the
next person he accosted was a flower-woman sitting by her basket at
the corner of Chexington Square. She was unable to stop him at once
when he began to talk to her because she was tying up a big bundle of
white chrysanthemums and had an end of string behind her teeth. And
her daughter who stood beside her was the sort of girl who wouldn't
say "Bo!" to a goose.
"Do you know, my good woman," said Mr. Parchester, "that while we poor
creatures of earth go about our poor business here, while we sin and
blunder and follow every sort of base end, close to us, above us,
around us, watching us, judging us, are God and His holy angels? I
have had a vision, and I am not the only one. I have _seen_. We are
_in_ the Kingdom of Heaven now and here, and Judgement is all about us
now! Have you seen nothing? No light? No sound? No warning?"
By this time the old flower-seller had finished her bunch of flowers
and could speak. "I saw it," she said. "And Mary--she saw it."
"Well?" said Mr. Parchester.
"But, Lord! It don't _mean_ nothing!" said the old flower-seller.