E-text prepared by Al Haines
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustration.
See 18815-h.htm or 18815-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/8/1/18815/18815-h/18815-h.htm)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/8/1/18815/18815-h.zip)
THE MARK OF THE BEAST
by
SIDNEY WATSON
Author of "In the Twinkling of An Eye"; "Scarlet and Purple"
New York
Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh
Copyright, 1918, by
Bible Institute of Los Angeles
Copyright, 1933, by
Fleming H. Revell Company
PUBLISHER'S NOTE.
After the Lord's Second Coming, what will happen to those left behind?
What will the Tribulation period be like? What will happen during the
reign of the Antichrist? What is meant by "The Mark of the Beast"?
What will be the fate of those who refuse to bear this mark?
All of these questions and many others connected with the mark of the
beast, are answered in this realistic, startling, awe-inspiring story.
Although entirely fictional, the author has based his narrative on just
what the Bible teaches concerning the Great Tribulation--that awful
period of distress and woe that is coming upon this earth during the
time when the Anti-christ will rule with unhindered sway. It is a
story you will never forget--a story that has been used of God in the
salvation of souls, and in awakening careless Christians to the need of
a closer walk with Jesus in their daily lives. This volume deserves a
wide reading. It should be in every Sunday School Library and in every
home.
TO THAT CHAMPION OF "THE WORD OF GOD,"
THE
REV. G. CAMPBELL MORGAN, D.D.
THIS BOOK IS
(BY HIS PERMISSION) HUMBLY
DEDICATED
IN RECOGNITION OF THE SPIRITUAL HELP,
AND A DEEP QUICKENING
TO BIBLE STUDY RECEIVED BY THE
AUTHOR
CONTENTS.
PREFACE.
PROLOGUE.
CHAPTER.
I. TWENTY FIVE YEARS LATER
II. A "SUPER MAN"
III. "TO THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL"
IV. FORESHADOWINGS
V. CRUEL AS THE GRAVE!
VI. "A REED LIKE A ROD"
VII. "THE MARK OF THE BEAST"
VIII. THE INVESTITURE
IX. THE DEDICATION
X. A LEBANON ROSE
XI. HERO WORSHIP
XII. ANTI-"WE-ISM"
XIII. "THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION"
XIV. DEATH OF THE "TWO WITNESSES"
XV. FLIGHT! PURSUIT!
XVI. MARTYRED
XVII. A GATHERING UP
ILLUSTRATION
The Mark of the Beast
PREFACE.
The great acceptance with which the Author's previous volume "In the
Twinkling of an Eye" was received, when published in Oct. 1910,
together with the many records of blessing resulting from the perusal,
leads him to hope that the present volume may prove equally useful.
The subjects treated in this volume are possibly less known, (even
among _some_ who hold the truth of the Lord's _Near_ Return in joyful
Hope) than the subjects handled "In the Twinkling of an Eye," but they
certainly should have as much interest as the earlier truths, and
should lead (those hitherto unacquainted with them) to a careful,
prayerful searching of "The Word."
The Author would here mark his indebtedness to Dr. Joseph A. Seiss, and
Dr. Campbell Morgan, for the inceptive thoughts _re_ Judas Iscariot,
and The Antichrist. Dr. Campbell Morgan's very remarkable sermon on
"Christ and Judas"--under date December 18, 1908--while being
profoundly interesting and illuminating, it has proved to the Author to
be the only sound theory of explanation of that perplexing
personality--Judas Iscariot--he has ever met.
While cleaving close to Scripture, at the same time it has settled the
life-long perplexity of the writer of this book, as to the difficulties
surrounding "The Traitor."
The fictional form has again been adopted in this volume, for the same
reasons that obtained in the writing of "In the Twinkling of an Eye."
The use of the fictional style for the presentment of sacred subjects
is ever a moot-point with some people. Yet, every parable, allegory,
etc., (not excepting Bunyan's Master-piece) is _fictional_ form. So
that the moot-point really becomes one of _degree_ and not of
_principle_--if Bunyan, Milton, and Dante, be allowed to be right.
Certain it is that many thousands have read, and have been awakened,
quickened, even converted, by reading "In the Twinkling of an Eye,"
"Long Odds," "He's coming To-morrow," (Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe) who
would never have looked at an ordinary pamphlet or book upon the
subject. One of the truest and most noted leaders (in the "Church") on
our great convention platforms, himself an authority, and voluminous
writer on the _pre_-milleniarian view of our Lord's near Return, (a
perfect stranger, personally, to the writer) wrote within a week or two
of the issue of "In the Twinkling of an Eye," saying:
"I have just finished reading your _wonderful_ book "In the Twinkling
of an Eye." It has _solemnised_ me _very greatly_--more than anything
for a long time . . . . May the Lord use your book to _STARTLE_ the
careless, ill-taught professing Christians . . . Please send me 24
copies, etc., etc."
The desire of the author of "The Mark of the Beast" has been to further
"startle" and awaken "careless, ill-taught _professing_ Christians," by
giving some faint view of the fate of those _professors_ who will be
"_left behind_" to go through the horrors of The Tribulation.
To be true to his subject, and to his convictions, the author has had
to approach one or two _delicate_ subjects. These he has sought to
touch in a veiled, a guarded way. Each reader, if desirous of pursuing
more minutely the study of those special parts, can do so by referring
to other Christian author's works.
That there is a growing interest in the whole subject of "The Lord's
Coming," is very apparent in many ways. The intense interest and
quickening that has accompanied the Author's many series of Bible
Readings on "The Near Return of our Lord," during the past twelve
months especially, would have proved the revived interest in the
subject--if proof had been needed.
SYDNEY WATSON.
"The Firs," Vernham Dean, Hungerford, Berks.
April 24th, 1911.
THE MARK OF THE BEAST
PROLOGUE.
It was late August. The year 18-- no matter the exact date, except that
the century was growing old. A small house-party was gathered under the
sixteenth century roof of that fine old Warwickshire house, "The Antlers."
"Very old famerly, very old!" the head coachman was fond of saying
to sight-seers, and others. "Come over with William of Normandy,
the first Duerdon did. Famerly allus kept 'emselves very eleck,
cream-del-al-cream, as the saying is in hupper cirkles."
The coachman's estimate of the Duerdon House will serve all the purpose
we need here, and enable us to move among the guests of the house-party
though we have little to do save with two of them--the most striking
female personality in the house, Judith Montmarte, and the latest society
lion, Colonel Youlter, the Thibet explorer.
Judith Montmarte, as her name suggests, was a Jewess. She was tall--it
is curious that the nineteen centuries of Semitic persecution should have
left the Jewess taller, in proportion, than the Jew--Judith Montmarte was
tall, with a full figure. The contour of her face suggested Spanish
blood. Her hair--what a wealth of it there was--was blue-black, finer
than such hair usually is, and with a sheen on it like unto a raven's
wing. Her eyes were large, black, and melting in their fullness. Her
lips were full, and rich in their crimson.
The face was extraordinarily beautiful, in a general way. But though the
lips and eyes would be accounted lovely, yet a true student of faces
would have read cruelty in the ruby lips, and a shade of hell lurking in
the melting black eyes. A millionairess, several times over, (if report
could be trusted) she was known and felt to be a powerful personage.
There was not a continental or oriental court where she was not
well-known--and feared, because of her power. A much-travelled woman, a
wide reader--especially in the matter of the occult; a superb musician; a
Patti and a Lind rolled into one, made her the most wonderful songster of
the day.
In character--chameleon is the only word that can in anyway describe her.
As regarded her appearances in society, her acceptance of invitations,
etc., she was usually regarded as capricious, to a fault. But this was
as it _appeared_ to those with whom she had to do. She had been known to
refuse a banquet at the table of a prince, yet eat a dish of macaroni
with a peasant, or boiled chestnuts with a forest charcoal burner. What
the world did not know, did not realize, was that, in these things, she
was not capricious, but simply serving some deep purpose of her life.
She had accepted the Duerdon invitation because she specially desired to
meet Colonel Youlter.
To-night, the pair had met for the first time, just five minutes before
the gong had sounded for dinner. Colonel Youlter had taken her down to
the dining-room.
Just at first she had spoken but little, and the Colonel had thought her
fatigued, for he had caught one glimpse of the dreamy languor in her
great liquid eyes.
An almost chance remark of his, towards the end of the meal, anent the
mysticism, the spiritism of the East, and the growing cult of the same
order in the West, appeared to suddenly wake her from her dreaminess.
Her dark eyes were turned quickly up to his, a new and eager light
flashed in them.
"Do you know," she said, her tone low enough to be caught only by him,
"that it was only the expectation of meeting you, and hearing you talk of
the occult, of that wondrous mysticism of the East, that made me accept
the invitation to this house--that is, I should add, at this particular
time, for I _had_ arranged to go to my glorious Hungarian hills this
week."
Colonel Youlter searched her face eagerly. Had she spoken the tongue of
flattery, or of the mere conventional? He saw she had not, and he began
to regard her with something more than the mere curiosity with which he
had anticipated meeting her.
In his callow days he had been romantic to a degree. Even now his heart
was younger than his years, for while he had never wed, because of a
love-tragedy thirty years before, he had preserved a rare, a very tender
chivalry towards women. He knew he would never love again, as he had
once loved, though, at times, he told himself that he might yet love in a
soberer fashion, and even wed.
"You are interested in the occult, Miss Montmarte?" he replied.
She smiled up into his face, as she said:
"'Interested,' Colonel Youlter? interested is no word for it, for I might
almost say that it is a passion with me, for very little else in life
really holds me long, compared with my love for it."
She glanced swiftly to right and left, and across the table to see if she
was being watched, or listened to. Everyone seemed absorbed with either
their plates or their companions.
Bending towards the man at her side, she said, "You know what an evening
is like at such times as this. We women will adjourn to the Drawing
Room, you men will presently join us, there will be a buzzing of voices,
talk--'cackle' one of America's representatives used to term it, and it
was a good name, only that the hen has done something to cackle about,
she has fulfilled the purpose for which she came into existence, and
women--the average Society women, at least--do not. Then there'll be
singing, of a sort, and--but you know, Colonel, all the usual rigmarole.
Now I want a long, long talk with you about the subject you have just
broached. We could not talk, as we would, in the crowd that will be in
the drawing-room presently, so I wonder if you would give me an hour in
the library, tomorrow morning after breakfast. I suggest the library
because I find it is the one room in the house into which no one ever
seems to go. Of course, Colonel Youlter, if you have something else you
must needs do in the forenoon, pray don't regard my suggestion. Or, if
you would prefer that we walked and talked, I will gladly accommodate
myself to your time and your conveniences."
He assured her that he had made no plans for the morrow, and that he
would be delighted to meet her in the library, for a good long 'confab'
over the subject that evidently possessed a mutual attraction for them.
Mentally, while he studied her, he decided that her chief charm, in his
eyes, was her absolute naturalness and unconventionality. "But to some
men," he mused "what a danger zone she would prove. Allied to her great
beauty, her wealth, and her gifts, there is a way with her that would
make her almost absolutely irresistible if she had set her heart on
anything!"
An hour later that opinion deepened within him as he listened to her
singing in the drawing-room. She had been known to bluntly, flatly
refuse an Emperor who had asked her to sing, and yet to take a little
Sicillian street singer's tambourine from her hand, and sing the coppers
and silver out of the pockets of the folk who had crowded the
market-place at the first liquid notes of her song. She rarely sang in
the houses of her hosts and hostesses. Tonight she had voluntarily gone
to the piano, accompanying herself.
She sang in Hungarian, a folk-song, and a love song of the people of her
own land. Yearning and wistful, full of that curious mystical
melancholy, that always appealed to her own soul, and which characterizes
some of the oldest of the Hungarian folk-songs.
Her second song finished, amid the profoundest hush, she rose as suddenly
from the piano as she had seated herself. A little later she was missed
from the company. She had slipped away to her room, after a quiet
good-night to her table-companion, Colonel Youlter.
* * * * * *
At ten-thirty, next morning, Judith Montmarte entered the library. The
Colonel was there already. He rose to meet her, saying, "Where will you
sit? Where will you be most comfortable."
There was a decidedly "comfo" air about the luxuriously-furnished room.
The eyes of the beautiful woman--she was twenty-eight--swept the
apartment and, finally, resting upon a delightful _vis-a-vis_, she
laughed merrily, as she said:
"Fancy finding a _vis-a-vis_, and of this luxurious type, too, in a
library. I always think it is a mistake to have the library of the house
so stiff, sometimes the library is positively forbidding."
She laughed lightly again, as she said. "I'm going off into a
disquisition on interiors, so--shall we sit here?"
She dropped into one of the curves of the _vis-a-vis_, and he took the
other.
For half-an-hour their talk on their pet subject was more or less
general, then he startled her by asking:
"Do you know the Christian New Testament, at all?"
"The Gospels, I have read," she replied, "and am fairly well familiar
with them. I have read, too, the final book, "The Revelation," which
though a sealed book to me, as far as knowledge of its meaning goes, yet
has, I confess, a perennial attraction for me."
She lifted her great eyes to his, a little quizzical expression in them,
as she added:
"You are surprised that I, a Jewess, should speak thus of the Gentile
scriptures!"
Then, without giving him time to reply, she went on:
"But why did you ask whether I knew anything of the New Testament?"
"Because, apropos of what I said a moment ago, anent the repetition of
History, the Christ of the New Testament declared that "as the days of
Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be."
She nodded her beautiful head, as though she would assent to the
correctness of his quotation.
"Now I make no profession of being ultra-Christian," he went on, "but I
know the _letter_ of the Bible quite as well as most Teachers of
Christianity, and without intending any egotism I am sure I dare to say
that I know it infinitely better than the average Christian. And if I
was a teacher or preacher of the Christian faith I would raise my voice
most vehemently against the wilful, sinful ignorance of the Bible on the
part of the professed Christians. Members of the various so-called
'churches,' seem to know _every_thing _except_ their Bibles. Mention a
passage in Spenser, William Wordsworth, Whittier, Longfellow, Tennyson,
Browning, or even Swinburne, William Watson, Charles Fox, Carleton, or
Lowell, and they can pick the volume off the shelf in an instant, and the
next instant, they have the book open at your quotation. But quote Jude
or Enoch, or Job on salt with our eggs, and they go fumbling about in the
mazes of Leviticus, or the Minor Prophets."
He laughed, not maliciously, but with a certain pitying contempt, as he
said:
"The average _professing_ Christian is about as much like the New
Testament model of what he should be, as is the straw-stuffed scarecrow
in the field, in the pockets of the costume of which the birds conceive
it to be the latest joke to build. But I am digressing, I was beginning
about the 'days of Noah' and their _near_ future repetition on the earth."
"'_Near repetition_?' How do you mean, Colonel?" Judith Montmarte
leaned a little eagerly toward him. In the ordinary way, alone with a
man of his type she would have played the coquette. To-day she thought
nothing of such trifling. There was something so different in his
manner, as he spoke of the things that were engaging them, to even the
ordinary preacher.
The pair were as utterly alone as though they had been on the wide, wide
sea together in an open boat. She had said truly, over-night, "no one
ever comes near the library."
"I mean," he said, replying to her question, "that the seven chief causes
of the apostasy which brought down God's wrath upon the Antediluvians,
have already begun to manifest themselves upon the earth, in such a
measure as to warrant one's saying that 'as it was in the days of Noah,
so it is again today,' and if the New Testament is true in every
letter--we may expect the Return of the Christ at any moment."
She was staring amazedly at him--enquiring, eager, but evidently puzzled.
But she made no sound or sign of interruption, and he went on:
"The first element of the Antediluvian apostasy was the worship of God as
Creator and Benefactor, and not as the Jehovah-God of Covenant and Mercy.
And surely that is what we find everywhere to-day. People acknowledge a
Supreme Being, and accept Christ as a model man, but they flatly deny the
Fall, Hereditary Sin, the need of an Atonement, and all else that is
connected with the Great Evangel. The _Second_ cause of Antediluvian
apostasy was the disregard of the original law of marriage, and the
increased prominence of the female sex."
Judith Montmarte smiled back into his face, as she said:
"Oh that you would propound that in a convention of New Women! And
yet--yet--yes, you are right, as to your fact, as regards life, to-day."
The pair had a merry, friendly spar for a moment or two, then, at her
request, he resumed his subject, and, for a full half hour, he amazed her
with his comparisons of the Antediluvian age with the present time. He
was an interesting speaker and she enjoyed the time immensely. But,
presently, when he came to his seventh and last likeness between the two
ages, since it had to do with a curious phase of Spiritism, she became
more intensely interested.
"There seems to me," he said, "but one correct way of interpreting that
historical item of those strange, Antediluvian days: 'The sons of God saw
the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all
which they chose.' The superficial rendering of this, sometimes given,
that it signifies nothing more than the intermarriage of Cainites and
Sethites, will not suffice when a deeper examination is made in the
original languages. The term 'Sons of God' does not appear to have any
other meaning in the _Old_ Testament, than that of angels.
"Some of the angels, with Lucifer, fell from their high estate in Heaven,
and were banished from Heaven. Scripture clearly proves in many places
that these fallen ones took up their abode 'in the air,' the Devil
becoming, even as the Christ Himself said: 'Prince of the power of the
air.'
"Now both Peter and Jude, in their epistles allude to certain of these
fallen, air-dwelling angels, leaving their first estate, and the mention
of their _second_ fall is sufficiently clear to indicate their
sin--intermarriage with the fairest of the daughters of men. Their name
as given in the old Testament, 'Nephilim' means 'fallen ones.' In their
original condition, as angels in Heaven, they 'neither married nor were
given in marriage.' It is too big a subject, Miss Judith ----."
Hurriedly, eagerly, for she wanted him to continue his topic, she said:
"Call me Ju, or Judith, or Judy, Colonel, and drop the 'Miss,' and do
please go on with this very wonderful subject."
"Thank you, Ju," he laughed, then continuing his talk, he said:
"It is far too big a subject, Ju, in all its details, to talk of here and
now, but, broadly, the fact seems to me to remain, that fallen angels
assumed human shape, or in some way held illicit intercourse with the
women of the day, a race of giant-like beings resulting. For this foul
sin God would seem to have condemned these doubly sinning fallen angels
to Tartarus, to be reserved unto Judgment.
"'Now as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the
Son of Man,' and----"
Judith Montmarte caught her breath sharply, and, in an unconscious
movement of eager wonder, let her beautiful hand drop upon his wrist, as
she gasped "you don't think--you don't mean--er--er--, tell me, Colonel,
do you mean to say that--"
"I do mean," he replied, "that I am firmly convinced that so far has
demonology increased--the door being opened by modern spiritualism--that
I believe this poor old world of ours is beginning to experience a return
of this association between fallen spirits and the daughters of men. Of
course, I cannot enter into minute detail with _you_, Ju, but let me
register my firm conviction, that I believe from some such demoniacal
association, there will spring the 'Man of Sin'--'The Antichrist.'"
At that instant, to the utter amaze of both of them, the first luncheon
gong sounded. They had been talking for nearly three hours. With the
request from Judith, and a promise from him to resume the subject at the
first favourable opportunity, they parted.
Intensely, almost feverishly excited, Judith went to her room. Beautiful
in face and form as she was, she was fouler than a Lucretia Borgia, in
soul, in thought. And now, as a foul, wild, mad thought surged through
her brain, she murmured, half-aloud:
"Demon or man, what matters! If I thought I could be the Mother of The
Antichrist, I would--so much do I hate the Nazarene, the Christ--."
She spat through the open window as she uttered the precious, though to
her the hated name of the Son of God.
CHAPTER I.
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER.
The huge London church was crowded in every part, and men had been
standing in the aisles from the first moment that the service began.
The preacher who had attracted so huge a crowd at two-thirty on a
weekday afternoon, was one of the very youngest of the "coming men" of
the English church. Tall, thin, with a magnificent head crowned by a
mane of hair that was fast becoming prematurely grey, and a face so
intense in its cast, and set with eyes so piercing, that strangers, not
knowing who he was, would almost inevitably turn to look at him when
they passed him on the street. His career had been a strange one.
Ordained at quite an early age, he had been offered a living within six
months of his ordination. He entered upon his charge, preached but
once only, then met with an accident that laid him low for seven years.
The seven years were fruitful years, since, shut up with God and His
word, he had become almost the most remarkable spiritually-minded Bible
student of his time.
The day came, at length, when once more he was strong enough to do
public service, and though without a living, from the moment that he
had preached his first sermon, after his recovery, he found himself in
constant request on every hand. He lived in close communion with God,
and his soul burned within him as he delivered--not an address, not a
sermon, but the _message of God_. The music of the voluntary was
filling all the church, while the offering was being taken. Then, as
the last well-filled plate was piled on the step of the communion rail,
the voluntary died away in a soft whisper. Amid a tense hush, he rose
to give out the hymn before the sermon. Clear, bell-like, his voice
rang out:
"When I survey the wondrous cross."
The hymn sung, he gave out his text: "Did not I choose you the twelve,
and one of you _is_ a demon."
"You will note," he began "that I have changed the word devil to demon.
There is but one devil in the universe, but there are myriads of
demons, fallen angels like their master, the Devil, only they were
angels of lesser rank."
He paused for one moment, and his eagle eyes swept the sea of faces.
Then in quiet, calm, but incisive tones he asked:
"Who,--what, was Judas Iscariot? Was he _human_, was he man, as I am,
as you are? or, was he a demon? Jesus Christ our Lord, who knew as
God, as well as man, declared that Judas was a _demon_--a fallen angel."
The silence was awesome in its tenseness. Every eye was fixed on the
preacher, necks were strained forward, lips were parted--the people
held their breath.
Again that clear, rich bell-like voice rang out in the repeated
question: "Who, I repeat, was Judas Iscariot? Was he a man, in the
usual acceptance of the term, or was he a demon incarnated? What does
the Bible say about him? In considering this I ask you each to put
from your mind, as far as it is possible for you to do so, all
preconceived ideas, all that you have been accustomed to think about
this flame of evil in the story of Christ.
"And first let me say what my own feeling, my own strong personal
conviction is regarding Judas Iscariot. I believe him to have been a
demon incarnated by the power of the Devil, whose intent was to
frustrate God's plans. In all his foul work of destruction and
confusion, the Devil, from the time of the Fall in Eden, has ever been
busy counterfeiting all that God has wrought out for the salvation of
the human race, and as the time approaches for his own utter defeat so
the more cunning will his devices of evil become.
"In the foulness of his thoughts to frustrate God's purposes of
salvation, I believe that when he knew that the Christ had been born,
that God had Himself become incarnate, so that He might deliver
man--for we must never forget that 'God was in Christ reconciling the
world unto Himself--that he, the Devil, incarnated one of his demons,
who afterwards became known as Judas Iscariot, the Betrayer of Christ."
For one instant the preacher paused, for the awed and listening mass of
people who had been literally holding their breath, were compelled to
inbreathe, and the catch of breath was heard through all the place.
"To use a twentieth century expression," he went on, "I may seem to
have 'given myself away' by this statement of my own conviction. But I
am not concerned with the effect, I am concerned only with a great and
important truth, as it seems to me, and a truth which will, I believe,
be curiously, fatefully emphasized in the days near to come, when our
Lord shall have taken away His church at His coming in the air.
"Now let me invite your attention to the actual Scriptures which speak
of Judas Iscariot. But before doing so let me acknowledge my
indebtedness for the inceptive thought of all I have said, and shall
say, to Dr. Joseph A. Seiss, of Philadelphia, in his wondrous lectures
on 'The Revelation.'
"We will turn first again to my text, to the 6th of John, the 70th
verse, 'Did I not choose you the twelve, and one of you _is_ a devil--a
_demon_? He spake of Judas Iscariot.' The second text I want us to
note is in John 17, verse 12, and again it is Jesus who makes the
solemn declaration: 'Those whom Thou gavest me I have kept, and none of
them is lost, but the _Son of Perdition_.' The third text I would draw
your attention to is in the 25th verse of Acts 1. It is Peter who is
speaking, at the time of the choosing of another as apostle in Judas's
place; he says: 'Judas, by transgression, fell, that he might go _to
his own place_.'"
In spite of their intentness in the wondrous personality of the
messenger, and the extraordinary character of his message, not a few
found time to marvel at the facile ease and certainty of touch with
which he handled his little pocket Bible, and turned to the desired
places. As he finished reading the third passage, and laid the open
book down upon the desk, the old hush deepened upon the people.
"Link those three passages together;" he went on, "and you will
instantly see what I meant when I said just now, that I believe Judas
Iscariot to have been an incarnated demon, and incarnated by the Devil
for the one fell purpose of frustrating God's designs for the World's
Salvation through Jesus Christ.
"There is not a single recorded good thought, word, or deed that ever
Judas thought, said, or did. And do please remember that Christ was
never once deceived by him, for in the 64th verse of that 6th of John,
we read 'For Jesus knew _from the beginning who_ they were that
_believed not_, and _who should betray Him_.' And knowing everything,
he said of the Betrayer, 'I have chosen--he is a demon.' If our Lord
had said 'one of you _has_ a demon,' the whole statement would have
been different, for many, in Christ's days, we find, were possessed by
demons, and He, by His divine power cast out the demons. But in Judas
we have something different, not a human man in whom a demon has taken
up his abode, but a demon who has had a body given him in which to pass
among men as a man.
"Christ's statement that he was a '_Son of Perdition_,' is equally
damning as to the real nature of Judas Iscariot. He is called the 'son
of Simon,' as regards the human side of his life, as Jesus was called
'Joseph's son,'--more especially _Mary's son_.
"But, though, nominally, 'Simon's son,' Judas Iscariot was ever 'a Son
of Perdition.' And because he was this--'a demon,' a Son of Perdition,
Peter, at Pentecost time, speaking in the Holy Ghost, was able to say
that he, Judas, 'went to his own place.' We need spend no time in any
detailed arguments as to whether this 'place' to which he went in the
under-world, was Tartarus or elsewhere, it was '_his own place_,' _the
place of imprisoned demons_, the place where other demons who kept not
their first estate, but left their own habitation are reserved in
chains.' Neither Tartarus or Hell were ever 'prepared' for lost
_human_ souls, 'but for demons, and, as a demon, Judas went to his
_own_ place.'"
He paused a moment. His tall, thin form became rigid in the intensity
of his service. In the silence, that deepened, the ticking of the
clock in the front of the gallery, could be heard plainly in every part
of the building.
Slowly he bent his lithe form forward until he leaned far over the
Reading Desk. Then stretching out his arm, the long index finger
pointing forward, he said:
"Listen, friends! Receive this next part of the message, if you will,
if you can. I believe that 'The Man of Sin,' 'The Antichrist,' when he
shall be revealed, will be Judas re-incarnated.
"There can be no doubt, I think, but that any one studying Daniel's
description of the Anti-christ will realize that, in his _human_
personation, he will necessarily be a Jew, for otherwise, the Jews (who
will have largely returned to their own land, and will have built their
Temple, and resumed their Mosaic service,) would not accept him as
their leader, and make their seven years' covenant with him.
"Now, beloved, my last word is a very solemn one. It is this, our
Lord's Return for His Bride, the Church, is very near,--'He is even at
our doors.' Any day, any hour he may return. We, here, may never
reach the point of the 'Benediction' at the _arranged_ close of this
service, for Jesus may come and call up to Himself everyone of His own
in this place. Then what of you here who are not His? For you, there
will remain nothing but the horrors of the Tribulation, (should you
seek and find God _after_ the Translation of the church.)
"Will you be among the Martyrs of the Tribulation, or of the final
impenitent, rebels who shall be cast into the Hell reserved for the
Devil, for Anti-christ, for the demons; or, blessed thought, will you
here and now yield to Christ, and become the saved of the Lord?"
Amid the most intense hush, he added: "Somewhere, even as I have
preached of him, and as you have listened, there is, I believe, a young
man, of noble stature, exceedingly attractive, wealthy,
fascinating,--bewitching, in fact, since 'all the world will wonder
after him'--yes, somewhere in the world, perhaps in this very city
where we are now gathered, is the young man who, presently, when our
Lord has come, when the Church, and the Holy Spirit are gone, will
manifest himself as the Anti-christ. May God save everyone of us from
_his_ reign, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen!"
A gasping cry of amazed wonder broke from the thousand or more throats.
They bowed, as one man, under the silent request of his spread hands,
they heard the old, old "Benediction" as they had never heard it
before: "May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and
the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit, all unite in leading us into the
Peace of God which passeth all understanding, Amen."
Silent, awed, in many cases speechless, the great congregation passed
out of the several exits of the church. Among them was the woman we
know as Judith Montmarte, and _her son_.
In spite of their pre-occupation, many of the outgoing congregation
turned to gaze with wondering eyes upon the handsome young fellow who
walked with such a regal air beside his mother, Judith Montmarte. Like
Saul, in Israel, he stood a head and shoulders above the tallest of the
crowd. And he was magnificently proportioned.
On the continent, and in New York and Chicago, Lucien Apleon, was
well-known, but only in certain of the _English_ circles was he known.
Those who knew him, whether men or women, fairly idolized him, in spite
of the impenetrable mystery that enveloped his birth.
For a full year Judith Montmarte had disappeared from the ken of the
world. Where she went, what she did, what happened to her, none ever
knew.
On her re-appearance in her Hungarian home, she called herself Madame
Apleon, and her child was Lucien Apleon. No one ever heard of a
husband, no one knew the history of that year of disappearance.
Lucien Apleon was now about twenty-five years of age, but with the
maturity of face and character of a much older man. He was accounted,
by all who knew him, to be the most accomplished man in _everything_,
that the world had ever known. The greatest scientists were babes
before him. As artist, sculptor, poet, musician, he could not be
approached by any living being. And there appeared an almost
_creative_ power in all he did, since works of every kind of art _grew_
under his hand.
Among those who had been in that service, and who turned to look at
Lucien Apleon, was Ralph Bastin. It was his last day in London,
previous to those years of wandering recorded in "The Twinkling of an
Eye."
Often during those years of adventurous wanderings the memory of Ralph
Bastin had recalled that wonderful service. One special moment of its
recall was during that fateful, sacrificial cave scene in that
Carribean Island.