THE ASKING
In the morning the thoughts of England were turned towards that house
in Islington: and no small number of its people were on their way to
it. The newspapers besieged it with their representatives--on a
useless quest, though their columns did not lack news on that
account. Throughout the night the crowd increased in the street. The
authorities began to be concerned. They acted as if the occasion of
public interest was a fire. Placing a strong cordon of police at
either end of the road, they made of it a private thoroughfare; only
persons with what were empirically regarded as credentials were
permitted to pass. Only after considerable hesitation was sickness
allowed to be a passport. When it was officially decided to admit the
physically suffering an extraordinary scene began to be enacted. It
almost seemed as if all the hospitals and sick-rooms of London had
been emptied of their occupants. They came in an unceasing stream.
The police displayed their wonted skill in the management of the
amazing crowd. Those who had been brought on beds were placed in the
front ranks; those on chairs next; those who could stand, though only
with the aid of crutches, at the back. The people had to be forced
farther and farther away to make room for the sick that came; and yet
before it was full day admission had to be refused to any more--every
foot of available ground was occupied.
There were doctors present, some of whom were dissatisfied with the
turn matters were taking. Perceiving, perhaps, that if it continued
their occupation would be gone, they represented to the police that
if certain of the sufferers did not receive immediate attention they
might die. So that at an early hour their chief, Colonel Hardinge,
who had just arrived, knocked at Mr. Kinloch's door. Ada opened.
'I understand that he whom these unfortunate people have come to see
is at present in this house.'
'The Lord is in this house.'
'Quite so. We won't quarrel about description. The fact is, I'm told
that if something isn't done for these poor creatures at once,
they'll die. So, with your permission, I'll see the--er--person.'
'It is not with my permission, but with His. He is the Lord. When He
wishes to see you, well. He does not wish to see you now.'
She shut the door in the Colonel's face.
'That's an abrupt young lady!'
This he said to the doctors and other persons who were standing at
the gate. Among them was Sir William Braidwood, who replied:
'I don't know that she isn't right.'
'It's all very well for you to talk like that, but what am I to do?
You tell me with one breath that if something isn't done people will
die, and with another that because I try to get something done I
merit a snubbing.'
'Exactly. This isn't a public institution; the girl has a right to
resent your treating it as if it were. These people oughtn't to be
here at all. Those who are responsible for some of them ought to be
made to stand their trial for murder. This person, whoever he is, has
promised nothing. They have not the slightest claim upon him. They
are here as a pure speculation. Your men are to blame for allowing
them to assemble in such a fashion, not the girl who endeavours to
protect her guest from intrusion.'
Someone called out from the crowd:
'Ain't he coming, sir? I'm fair finished, I am--been here six hours.
I'm clean done up.'
'What right have you to be there at all? You ought to be at home in
bed.'
'I've come to be healed.'
'Come to be healed! I suppose if you want a hatful of money, you
think you've only got to ask for it. You've no right to be here.'
Murmurs arose--cries, prayers, stifled execrations. An inspector said
to his chief:
'If something isn't done, sir, I fancy there'll be trouble. Our men
have difficulty in keeping order as it is. Half London must be here,
and they're coming faster than ever. There's an ugly spirit about,
and some ugly customers. If it becomes known that nothing is going to
be done for these poor wretches, I don't know what will happen. How
we are going to get them safely away is more than I can guess.'
'You hear what Sir William Braidwood says.'
'Begging Sir William's pardon, it's a choice of evils, and if I were
you, sir, I should try again. They can't refuse to let you see this
person. Not that I suppose he can do what they think he can, but
still there you are.'
'He can do it.'
'With a word?'
'With a word.'
'Then he ought to.'
'Why? I can give you a thousand pounds with a word. But why ought I
to?'
'That's different.'
'You'll find that a large number of people don't think it's
different. These people want the gift of health; others in the crowd
there want the gift of wealth. I dare wager there's no form of want
which is not represented in that eager, greedy, lustful multitude.
The excuse is common to them all: he can give it with a word. I am of
your opinion, there will be trouble; because so many persons
misunderstand the situation.'
Colonel Hardinge arrived at a decision:
'I think I will have another try. We can't have these people here all
day, so if he won't have anything to do with them, the sooner they
are cleared out of this, the better. What I have to do is to find out
how it's going to be.'
He knocked again. This time the door was opened by Mr. Kinloch, who
at once broke into voluble speech.
'It was you who came just now; what do you mean by coming again?
What's the meaning of these outrageous proceedings? Can't I have a
guest in my house without being subjected to this abominable
nuisance?'
'I grant the nuisance, but would point out to you, sir, that we are
the victims of it as well as you. If you will permit me to see your
guest I will explain to him the position in a very few words. On his
answer will depend our action.'
'My guest desires to be private; I must insist upon his privacy being
respected. My daughter has been speaking to him. She tells me that he
says that he has nothing to do with these people, and that they have
nothing to do with him.'
'If that is the case, and that is really what he says, and I am to
take it for an answer, then the matter is at an end.'
Ada's voice was heard at the back.
'Father, the Lord is coming.'
The Stranger came to the door. In a moment the Colonel's hat was in
his hand.
'I beg a thousand pardons, sir, for what I cannot but feel is an
intrusion; but the fact is, these foolish people have got it into
their heads that they have only to ask you, and you will restore them
to health. Am I to understand, and to give them to understand, that
in so thinking they are under an entire delusion?'
'I will speak to them.'
The Stranger stood upon the doorstep. When they saw Him they began to
press against each other, crying:
'Heal us! Heal us!'
'Why should I heal you?'
There was a momentary silence. Then someone said:
'Because you healed those others.'
'What they have you desire. It is so with you always. You cry to Me
continually, Give! give! What is it you have given Me?'
The same voice replied:
'We have nothing to give.'
'You come to Me with a lie upon your lips.'
The fellow threw up his arms, crying:
'Lord! Lord! have mercy on me, Lord!'
He answered:
'Those among you that have given Me aught, though it is never so
little, they shall be healed.' No one spoke or moved. 'Behold how
many are the cheerful givers! I come not to give, but to receive. I
seek My own, and find it not. All men desire something, offering
nothing. This great city, knowing Me not, asks Me continually for
what I have to give. Though I gave all it craves, it would be still
farther off from heaven. It prizes not that which it has, but covets
that which is another's, hating it because it is his. Return whence
you came; cleanse your bodies; purify your hearts; think not always
of yourselves; lift up your eyes; seek continually the knowledge of
God. When you know Him but a thousandth part as He knows you, you
need ask Him nothing, for He will give you all that you desire.'
With that He returned into the house.
When they saw Him go an outcry at once arose.
'Is that all? Only talk? Why, any parson could pitch a better yarn
than that! Isn't He going to do anything? Isn't He going to heal us?
What, not after healing those people yesterday at Maida Vale, and
after our coming all this way and waiting all this time?'
The rougher sort who could use their limbs began to press forward
towards the house, forcing down those who were weaker, many of whom
filled the air with their cries and groans and curses. The police did
their best to stem the confusion.
There came along the avenue on the pavement which the police had kept
open Henry Walters and certain of his friends. They were escorted by
a sergeant, who saluted Colonel Hardinge.
'This man Walters wants to see the person all the talk's about. There
are a lot of his friends in the crowd, and rather than have any fuss
I thought I'd let them come.'
'Right, sergeant. Mr. Walters is at liberty to see this person if
this person is disposed to see him, which I'm rather inclined to
doubt.'
'We'll see about that,' muttered Walters to his companions, as with
them he hurried up the steps.
At the top he paused, regarding the poor wretches struggling
fatuously in the street.
'That looks promising for us. So he won't heal them. Why? No reason
given, I suppose. I dare say he won't heal us; for the same reason.
Well, we'll see. Mind you shut the front door when we go in. I rather
fancy we shall want some persuasion before we see the logic of such a
reason as that.'
The door was closed as he suggested. In the hall he was met by Ada.
'What is it that you want?'
'You know very well what it is. We want a few words with the stranger
who is in this house.'
'It is the Lord!'
'Very well. We want a few words with the Lord.'
'You cannot enter His presence uninvited.'
'Can't we? I think you are mistaken. Is He in that room? Stand aside
and let me see.'
'You may not pass.'
'Don't be silly. We're in no mood for manners. Will you move, or must
I make you? Do you hear? Come away.'
He laid his hand upon the girl's shoulder. As he did so the Stranger
stood in the open door. When they saw Him, and perceived how in
silence He regarded them, they drew a little back, as if perplexed.
Then Walters spoke:
'I'm told that you are Christ.'
'What has Christ to do with you, or you with Christ?'
'That's not an answer to my question. However, without entering into
the question of who you are, it seems that you can work wonders when
you choose.'
There was a pause as if for a reply. The Stranger was still, so
Walters went on.
'We represent a number of persons who are as the sands of the sea for
multitude, the victims of man's injustice and of God's.'
'With God there is no injustice.'
'That is your opinion. We won't argue the point; it's not ours. We
come to plead the cause of myriads of people who have never known
happiness from the day they were born. Some of them toil early and
late for a beggarly wage; many of them are denied the opportunity of
even doing that. They have tried every legitimate means of bettering
their condition. They have hoped long, striven often, always to be
baffled. Their brother men press them back into the mire, and tread
them down in it. We suggest that their case is worthy your
consideration. Their plight is worse to-day than it ever was; they
lack everything. Health some of them never had; they came into the
world under conditions which rendered it impossible. Most of them who
had it have lost it long ago. Society compels them to live lives in
which health is a thing unknown. Their courage has been sapped by
continuous failure. Hope is dead. Joy they never knew. Misery is
their one possession. Under these circumstances you will perceive
that if you desire to do something for them it will not be difficult
to find something which should be done.'
Another pause; still no reply.
'We do not wish to cumber you with suggestions; we only ask you to do
something. It will be plain to your sense of justice that there could
be no fitter subjects for benevolence. Yet all that we request of you
is to be just. You are showering gifts broadcast. Be just; give also
something to them to whom nothing ever has been given. I have the
pleasure to await your answer.'
He answered nothing.
'What are we to understand by your silence?--that you lack the power,
or the will? We ask you, with all possible courtesy, for an answer.
Courtesy useless? Still nothing? There is a limit even to our
civility. Understand, also, that we mean to have an answer--somehow.'
Ada touched him on the arm, whispering:
'It is the Lord!'
'Is he a friend of yours?'
'He is a Friend of all the world.'
'It doesn't look like it at present, though we hope to find it the
case before we've finished. Come, sir! You hear what this young lady
says of you. We're waiting to hear how you propose to show that
you're a friend of that great host of suffering souls on whose behalf
we've come to plead to you.'
Yet He was still. Walters turned to his associates.
'You see how it is? It's as I expected, as was foreseen last night.
If we want anything, we've got to take the kingdom of heaven by
violence. Are we going to take it, or are we going to sneak away with
our tails between our legs?'
The woman answered who had spoken at the meeting the night before--
the fair-haired woman, with the soft voice and quiet eyes:
'We are going to take it.' She went close to the Stranger. 'Answer
the question which has been put to you.' When He continued silent,
she struck Him on the cheek with her open palm, saying: 'Coward!'
Ada came rushing forward with her father and her sisters. With a
movement of His hand He kept them back. Walters applauded the woman's
action.
'That's right--for a beginning; but he'll want more than that. Let me
talk to him.' He occupied the woman's place. 'We've nothing to lose.
You may strike us dead; we may as well be dead as living the sort of
life with which we are familiar; it is a living death. I defy you to
cast us into a worse hell than that in which we move all day and
every day. If you are Christ, you have a chance of winning more
adherents than were ever won for you by all the preaching through all
the ages, and with a few words. If you are man, we will make you king
over all the earth, and all the world will cry with one heart and one
voice: "God save the King!" And whether you are Christ or man, every
heart will be filled with your praises, and night and morning old and
young will call with blessings on your name. Is not that a prospect
pleasing even unto God? And all this for the utterance of perhaps a
dozen words. That is one side of the shield. Does it not commend
itself to you? I ask you for an answer.
'None? Still dumb? I'll show you something of the other side. If you
are resolute to shut your ears to our cries, and your eyes to our
misery, we'll crucify you again. Don't think that those police
outside will help you, or anything of that sort, because you'll be
nursing a delusion. You'll be crucified by a world in arms. When it
is known that with a word you can dry the tears that are in men's
eyes, and yet refuse to utter it--when that is generally known, it
will be sufficient. For it will have been clearly demonstrated that
you must be a monster of whom the world must be rid at all and any
cost. Given such a capacity, none but a monster would refuse to
exercise it. And the fact that, according to some narrow code of
scholastic reasoning, you may be a faultless monster will make the
fact worse, not better. For faultlessness of that sort is in
continual, cruel, crushing opposition to poor, weak, human nature.
Now will you give me an answer?'
When none came, and His glance continued fixed upon the other's face
with a strange, unfaltering intensity, Walters went still closer.
'Shall I shake the answer out of you?' Putting up his hand, he took
the Stranger by the throat; and when He offered no resistance, began
to shake Him to and fro. Ada, running forward, struck at Walters with
so much force that, taken by surprise, he let the Stranger go. She
cried:
'It is the Lord! It is the Lord!'
'What is that to us? Why doesn't he speak when he's spoken to? Is he
a wooden block? You take care what you do, my girl. You'd be better
employed in inducing your friend to answer us. Lord or no Lord.
There'd be no trouble if he'd treat us like creatures of flesh and
blood. If he'd a spark of feeling in his breast, he'd recognise that
the very pitifulness of our condition--our misery, our despair!--
entitles us to something more than the brand of his scornful silence;
he'd at least answer yes or no unto our prayers.'
Ada wept as if her heart would break, sobbing out from amidst her
grief:
'It is the Christ! It is the Lord Christ!'
Her father, forcing his way to the front door, had summoned
assistance. A burly sergeant came marching in.
'What's the matter here? Oh, Mr. Walters, it's you! You're not wanted
in here. Out you go--all of you. If you take my advice you'll go
home, and you'll get your friends to go home too. There'll be some
trouble if you don't take care!'
'Go home? Sergeant, you see that Man? Have you anywhere a tender
place? Is there any little thing which, if you had it, would make
your life brighter and more worth the living? That Man, by the
utterance of a word, can make of your life one long, glad song; give
you everything you are righteously entitled to deserve; so they tell
me. Go home to the kennels in which we herd when the Christ who has
come to release us from our bondage will not move a finger, or do
aught to loose our bonds, but, seeing how we writhe in them, stands
mutely by? No, sergeant. We'll not go home till we've had a reckoning
with Him.'
He stretched out his arm, pointing at the Stranger.
'I'll meet you at another Calvary. You've crucified me and mine
through the ages, and would crucify us still, finding it a royal
sport at which it were blasphemy to cavil. Beware lest, in return,
you yourself are not crucified again.'
When Walters and his associates had gone, the sergeant said,
addressing the Stranger:
'I'm only doing my duty in telling you that the sooner you clear out
of this, the better it'll be for everyone concerned. You're getting
yourself disliked in a way which may turn out nasty for you, in spite
of anything we can do. There's half a dozen people dead out in the
street because of you, and there's worse to come, so take my tip and
get out the back way somewhere. Find a new address, and when you have
found it keep it to yourself. We don't want to have London turned
upside down for anyone, no matter who it is.'
The sergeant went. And then words came from the Stranger's lips, as
if they had been wrung from His heart; for the sweat stood on His
brow:
'Father, is it, then, for this that I am come to the children that
call upon My Name in this great city, where on every hand are
churches built for men to worship Christ? What is this idol which
they have fashioned, calling it after My Name, so that wherever I go
I find a Christ which is not Me? Lord! Lord! they cry; and when the
Lord comes they say, It is not you we called, but another. They deny
Me to My face. The things I would they know not. In their blindness,
knowing nothing, they would be gods unto themselves, making of You a
plaything, the servant of their wills. As of old, they know not what
they do. Aforetime, by God's chosen people was I nailed unto a tree.
Am I again to suffer shame at the hands of those that call themselves
My children? Yet, Father, let it be so if it is Your will.'