FROM THE PROPHET’S CHAMBER.
Tom Hammond was alone in his editorial office. He had come to the day,
the moment at last, when he felt constrained to write out of his full
heart, to the readers of his paper, all that he yearned that the world
should know of the imminence of the Return of the Lord.
Before he put pen to paper to write on this supreme theme in his
“Prophet’s Chamber” column, he bowed his head on his desk and prayed for
guidance and help. Then he began to write out his heart fully, telling
first of his conversion, and of the wondrous meetings conducted by Major
H——.
His whole being was fired with holy purpose. “Had ever a preacher such a
pulpit as has the editor of “The Courier?” he wrote. “Had any preacher
ever so mighty a privilege, so great a responsibility as is mine to-day?
This paper circulates through more than a million people’s hands, even
allowing that only the one person purchasing the paper, reads it—though
one might almost safely double that million, since there are very few of
the papers which will not be read by _two_, or more persons.
“This ‘Prophet’s Column’ will likely overflow all its ordinary banks, as
does the Great Nile in its season, but if my overflowing but carry life
on its tide, as does the tide of the overflowing Nile, then, all will be
well.
“As a converted Editor of a great daily, I have put my hand, my pen, my
mind into the mighty, unerring hand of God, praying that I may write
only that which will reach the _hearts_ of my readers. And the question
comes to me, ‘what word does London, does England most need to-day?’
“This—that all the world should know, and realize, that any day, aye, any
hour, Christ may return—not to the earth but _into the air_—”
Here followed the teaching of the Gospel and Epistles, as he had learned
it from Major H——, and from his own subsequent personal study of the Word
of God.
“I appeal to the most thoughtful of my readers, I appeal to the
unthinking, as I say, ‘do you not see how a real belief, in this near
coming of Christ would revolutionize all our national, commercial,
domestic, and church life. How, too, it would immediately settle every
social problem.’
“If our legislators, sitting in council at St. Stephens, realized that
before the present Parliamentary session could end in the ordinary way,
that Christ might come, what a speedy end they would seek to put to every
national iniquity.
“The hideous drink traffic would be swept, root and branch, from our
land. And, in sweeping that curse away, the awful problem of the
unemployed, the homeless, the starving, all that inures to our national
poverty would be swept away.
“The shameful opium traffic with China; the national Greed for territory;
the Traffic in White Slaves; and every other national iniquity would be
abolished.
“Christian churches, (so-called) would become worthy of the name
_Christian_. All those bits of devilish device used to extract, and
extort money from the pockets of the people would end, as by magic.
Theatricals would be left to the theatres; nigger entertainments would
be left to the music-halls; the church would leave all these things to
their master—_the Devil_.
“In _social_ life, people would pay their debts; the wild, mad, sinful
extravagance that marks the life of to-day, would cease. Christians
would love one another. Every Evangelical denomination would be
_inter_-denominational in the truest sense, and be _one_ wholly in their
Crucified, Risen, coming Lord. A love for the poor fallen world, such
as has never been since our Lord spent Himself in service, would be the
order of the day, and not the vision of a few. Every missionary society
would have more men and women and money than they actually needed.
“But, even as I pen this millennium-like picture, I know, from the Word
of God, that it _cannot_ be _before_ Christ comes. But I seek to arouse
every _Christian_ to God’s call to them on this matter. You, who profess
to be Christ’s, dare not refuse this truth, save at the peril of losing
the _Crown_ of Life.
“The vast bulk of the churches, I know, preach, that the world will
continually improve until the earth shall be fit for Christ to come
and reign. But I defy any cleric or layman to show me a single word
of scripture that gives the faintest colour to that belief, or
statement—unless the person wrests the passage so advanced from its
distinctly marked _dispensational_ setting.
“Things (spiritual) are growing worse and worse. There is a wholesale
down-gradeism, too awful to contemplate. ‘Priest and people have erred
alike!’ I take up the official organ of a section of the church that
has ever been regarded as the most out-an-out, in all that pertains to
Evangelical truth, and I find its great head saying ‘The Bible is _not_
the sole spiritual guide for the christian, for, practically, the Bible
is a _dead_ book!’
“The chief leader-writer of that same paper—himself usually regarded
as the soundest of Believers, the most trenchant of all Evangelical
preachers, writes in one of a series of articles, ‘That the so-called
_Finished work_ of Christ, is a doctrine not to be found in scripture,’
and glories in the fact that ‘_we_ never have, and, I trust, we never
shall, preach this doctrine.’
“All this but proves the truth of the New Testament prophecies,
‘_Perilous_ times shall come,’ ‘Evil men and seducers shall wax worse
and worse, _deceiving_, and _being deceived_.’ If only we could all be
induced to read the signs of the times in the light of scripture! we
should then realize that we were in the thickest darkness of the world’s
blackest night, the darkness immediately preceding the dawn, and we
should be looking for ‘the Morning Star.’”
Here, writing with swift, eager pen, he went over the ground covered by
Major H——, as regarded the signs of the coming of the Lord—the movement
among the Jews; their excitement, as a race, over the date discovery
5,666; the preparations for the rebuilding of the Temple. Then the
increased effort in the Foreign Mission fields. The growth of the spirit
of lawlessness in the world, and in the church. The multiplicity of
spiritualistic devices—_doctrine of Devils_. The awakening of all real,
true, spiritually-minded Bible _students_ to the fact of Christ’s near
Return. And the great, but often disregarded sign, “the scoffers who
shall say where is the promise of His coming? for, since the Fathers fell
asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.”
“But He _will_ come! He is near at hand! Every sign of the times
proclaims this! It is NIGHT, now, and He will come as a thief in the
night. At any moment now we may look for Him. Before this news-sheet,
damp from the press, is in the hands of my readers, Christ _may_ have
come and taken away _every one_ of His own Believing people—_I_ shall be
missing, another here, and another there will be missing.
“And when a puzzled, troubled London shall be gathering in business,
that saying shall have come to pass, ‘_The one shall be taken, the other
left!_’ (For though this word is _primarily Jewish_ in its application,
it will yet have a measure of meaning for the world, when the Church is
taken away).
“May every _Christian_ be ready to meet His Lord, when He shall come, and
every unready, unsaved soul who reads these ‘Prophet’s Chamber’ columns,
seek the face of God through faith in the Atoning work of Jesus Christ.
For, believe me, His Return is very near, to some of us the sound of His
footfalls is even now in our ears.”
He bent his head over the written sheets, praying God to bless the
message. Then an interruption came. A knock at the door, and his sub,
Ralph Bastin entered.