IN ST. PAUL’S.
The cathedral was packed, packed out to the doors. The aisles, and every
other inch of standing-room was a solid Jam. The whole area of the
interior showed one black mass of silent waiting, expectant people—it was
curious to note that almost every woman had donned black, in some form or
other.
The great organ was silent. No one dreamed of singing. The choir seats
were full of strangers. The stalls were filled with an indiscriminate
crowd. There was no rule, no discipline to-day.
Suddenly the tall, square-built form of a certain well-known Bishop, rose
near the pulpit. He had linked his arm in that of one of London’s most
popular Nonconformist preachers, and almost dragged him to his feet.
There was evidently a controversy going on between the two men as to
which of them should address the people, each urging the other to lead
off. The same thought was in the minds of nearly all who were in view of
the pair, _namely_, “how comes it that a Bishop, and a popular preacher
like the Rev. ——, have been left behind?”
A strange new tenseness, a deepening silence, settled upon the mighty
mass gathered under that great dome. Suddenly the silence was broken by a
voice calling:
“Bishop ——.” Another voice immediately cried, “No! The Rev. ——.”
A momentary clamour of voices ensued. The voices were not shrill in their
eagerness, but sullen, sombre, almost savage, in fact. A moment, and the
Bishop slowly entered the pulpit. He bowed his head in prayer.
Like the slow, rushing sound of the letting loose of some distant water,
the noise of thousands of bending forms filled the place, for everyone
bowed the head.
A moment later, the heads were raised. The silence almost of a tomb
filled the place, when the first momentary rustle of the uprearing had
subsided.
The voice of the Bishop broke the silence, crying:—
“Men and women of London, fellows with me in the greatest shame the world
has ever known—the shame of bearing the name Christian, and yet of being
the rejected of Christ,—we meet to-day under awful, solemn circumstances.
“We are face to face with the most solemnly awful situation the human
race has ever known, if we except the conditions under which, during
those three hours of blackness at Calvary, the people of Jerusalem were
found, while the Crucified Christ hung mid-air, on the Fatal Tree.
“It may be said that our position bears some likeness to that of the
people who were destroyed at the Flood. Those antediluvians had one
hundred and twenty years warning, we, as professing Christians, have had
nearly two thousand years warning, yet, London, England and the whole
world has by last night’s events, been proved practically heathen—or
atheist, atheist will perhaps best fit our character.
“The moment came when God called Noah and his family into the ark. But
what never occurred to me, until this morning, was the significant fact,
that God did not shut the door of the ark, or send the flood, until
_seven days later_, thus giving the unbelievers another opportunity to be
saved.
“And God has given London, England, America, the world, this same extra
opportunity of being prepared for the Return of the Lord, and the
Translation of His Church.
“For, for some years, now, conferences, and conventions, addresses,
Bible-Readings, etc., where this subject of the Second Coming of Christ
has been specially taught, has been multiplied mightily. I have been
present at some of these gatherings, but, smiling amusedly at what I
termed the wild utterances of visionaries, I neglected my opportunity.
“Yet, of all men, _I_ ought to have been prepared for this Coming of
the Lord. I have held ministerial office in a church that taught the
doctrine, plainly, in many of its prayers and collects. But I see,
now, that all through my life, I have been blinded by the _letter_ of
things, and have mistaken christening, confirmation, communicating, for
conversion, and for life in Christ.
“I see, to-day, that I entered the established church of this realm, and
not the family of God, and the service of Christ. I have never really
been God’s, by the New Birth, until last night, when my dear wife, in
company with all the waiting, longing church, was suddenly called up to
be with her Lord. Not by death, dear friends—she saw no death—but by that
sudden translation, that has startled us all so.”
A low sobbing sound ran through all the building. The gathered thousands,
almost to a man, realised that they, with the speaker, were equally
lifeless, spiritually.
“I was in the room when my wife disappeared,” the Bishop went on. “She
had been very ill. It became necessary to perform a critical operation on
her. I insisted on being present. I see the scene now.
“The nurses standing by the antiseptic baths with the sponges and clips
immersed. In the eerie silence of that room, no sound came save the voice
of the great surgeon, as he cried ‘clip’—‘iodoform’—‘bandages.’ Suddenly,
as he half turned to take a bandage of the nurse, the form of my precious
wife disappeared from the operating table. One of the nurses at the
antiseptic bowl, was gone also.
“And I, a _professed_ servant of the Christ who had called the translated
ones, was _left_, with the great surgeon, and others, as you, dear
friends, many, _most_ perhaps, members of some Christian church, have
been left.
“‘Sister Carrie gone too!’ cried the great surgeon, ‘then you may depend,
Bishop, that Christ has come for all His real church, for Nurse Carrie
lived in daily, hourly expectation of some kind of translation.’ With a
puzzled look upon his face, he said, suddenly:
“‘But, Bishop, how is it that you are left behind, who, of all men in our
midst, one would have thought would have gone?’
“I had to say last night to him, dear friends, what, with shame and
regret, I have to say to you now, that I _ought_ to have known the Truth,
and have been prepared, but because I was unconverted, I had failed to
apprehend the fact of the Lord’s near Return.
“Yet, how often, on the third Sunday in Advent, have I, with many of you,
repeated the _Great Truth_, in the collect:—
“‘O Lord Jesus Christ, who, at Thy first coming, didst send Thy messenger
to prepare Thy way before Thee; Grant that the ministers and stewards
of Thy mysteries, may likewise so prepare and make ready Thy way, by
turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at
Thy _second_ coming to judge the world, we may be found an acceptable
people in Thy sight, who livest and reignest with the Father, and the
Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.’
“In the burial of our dead, too, how often have I recited, and have heard
the words,
“‘Beseeching Thee that it may please Thee, of Thy gracious goodness,
_shortly to accomplish the number of Thine elect_, and to hasten Thy
Kingdom; that we, _with_ all those that are departed in the True faith of
Thy Holy Name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body
and soul, in Thy eternal and everlasting glory; through Jesus Christ our
Lord.’
“Again, the words of Paul in the matter of the Lord’s Supper ‘TILL HE
COME!’ ought to have opened my eyes. But I confess, with shame, I have
been blind, a blind leader of the blind——”
Visible emotion checked the Bishop’s speech, for a moment. Recovering
himself, he went on:—
“A blind leader of the blind, because unborn of God. I _ought_ to have
known that Christ’s Return was near. I _should_ have known it, had I been
spiritually-minded, by the signs of the Apostasy which, (prophesied to
precede the Second Coming of the Lord) have been having their fulfillment
all around us for years.
“Since last night, I have lived a whole life-time. I have read the
whole of the Gospels and Epistles, and, taking my true place as a lost
soul before God, I have been born of God. And now, here, in this solemn
moment, I bring to you the Spirit-taught knowledge that has been given to
me.”
For a few minutes, he traversed ground already covered in these pages,
then, continuing, he said:—
“Last Sunday, when, in all the pride of my office, I preached—preached in
my unconscious unbelief—I quoted those lines of the poet:—
“‘They pass me like shadows, crowds on crowds,
Dim ghosts of men, that hover to and fro,
Hugging their bodies round them like their shrouds
Wherein their souls were buried long ago;
They trampled on their youth, and faith and love,
With Heaven’s clear messages they madly strove,
And conquered—and their spirits turned to clay....
Alas! poor fools, the anointed eye may trace
A dead soul’s epitaph in every face.’
“To-day, friends, I know that ‘the anointed eye’ must have traced ‘The
dead soul’s epitaph,’ in my _life_, if not in my face.
“Now let us face our present position, as those who are _left_! What is
the future to be? This is what you need to know, what I need to know!
_First_, let me say, the next thing for each to do is to seek the Lord,
to cry unto Him for mercy and pardon, while all our hearts are shocked
and startled, and our thoughts are turned God-wards. For unless we close
with God, become His, and live out the future to Him, our portion will be
an Eternal Hell.”
An awful hush rested upon the gathered thousands, as he proceeded:—
“One thing appears very plain from Scripture, that is, that when, last
night, Christ came into the air and caught up His Church, living and
dead, that the Devil, who has been the Prince of the Power of _the air_,
had to descend to earth. Christ and Beelzebub can never live together in
the same realm.
“In the re-creation of this earth, recorded in Genesis, God blessed
everything that He created, _save the atmosphere_, He _did_ not, He
_could_ not bless that because Satan, driven from the re-created earth,
by the breath of the divine Spirit, had taken refuge _in the air_. He is
therefore called in Scripture, not only the ‘_Prince of this World_,’ but
‘THE PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR.’
“Now, beloved, the Spirit of God has left the earth. The Devil has taken
up his abode here with all his myriad agents, and he is going to make
earth as hot for those of us who will witness for God, as is hell itself
to the lost.
“If we will witness for God during the years we are beginning
to-day—called the years of ‘The Great Tribulation,’ they will probably
be seven in number, and extend therefore to the dawning moment of
the Millennium—if we witness therefore for God, I say, during these
intervening seven years, we may expect to meet with hideous trial and
suffering.
“Antichrist will now soon make himself known—he will be a _man_, not a
system, mind,—he will mislead the Jews, who will now, immediately, return
to their own land, and build their New Temple. For a time, Antichrist
will appear to be the friends of the Jews, but he will seek to force the
most awful idolatry upon them. The mass of Jewry will accept all this.
“With the Jew, every Gentile will presently be compelled to accept
Antichrist, and the Roman Beast——”
A sound of protest was heard from a seat near the pulpit, as the Bishop
spoke of the “Roman Beast.” But the preacher took no note of the
interruption and went on:—
“The Devil will be so mad at being cast down out of heaven, and because
he knows such a very limited time to work against God, that he will call
up all hell to stamp out God’s people.”
For one instant the Bishop paused. He leaned over the pulpit edge, his
eyes were full of the light of a holy determination, but into his voice
there crept a tender yearning, as he continued:—
“Are we prepared for actual martyrdom? For this will certainly be the
fate of many who will not bear about upon them the mark of the Beast.”
Again there came a growl from that seat near the pulpit. But the most
solemn hush rested upon the vast mass of people.