"TO THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL"
The next day was Sunday. It was also the first Sunday of the month.
As he bathed and dressed, Ralph found himself wondering whether the
churches and chapels would be filled, whether the awe and fear that had
fallen upon so many Christian professors during the first hours after
the "Rapture," would drive them to the churches.
"The first of the month," he mused. "The Lord's Supper has been the
order of the day in most places. I wonder if it will be celebrated
to-day?"
"_Until He come_!" he mused on. "He _has_ come, so that the Lord's
Supper, as part of the worship of the churches is concerned, can have
no further meaning. Will any attempt be made to celebrate it, to-day,
I wonder?"
Every available moment of the fateful week that had just passed he had
occupied in deep reading the prophetic scriptures referring to The
Coming of the Lord, and the events which follow. He had also studied
deeply every book on the subject which he could secure, that was likely
to help him to understand the position of affairs. Again and again, he
had said to himself: "How could I have been such a fool? a journalist,
a bookman, a lover of research, professing to have the open mind which
should be the condition of every man of my trade, and yet never to have
studied my Bible, never to have sought to know what all the startling
events of the past decade, pointed to. Surely, surely, Tom Carlyle was
right about we British--'mostly fools.'"
At breakfast he ate and drank only sufficient to satisfy the sense of
need. Previous to "The Rapture" he had been a bit of an Epicure, now
he scarcely noted what he ate or drank.
Almost directly his meal was finished, he left the house. The
journalistic instinct was strong enough within him to make him desire
to see what changes, if any, would be apparent in London on this first
Sunday after the momentous event that had so recently come upon the
world.
Turning out of the quiet square where his lodgings were, he was
instantly struck by a new tone in the streets. There was an utter
absence of the old-time "Sabbath" sense.
The gutterways were already lined with fruit and other hawkers, their
coarse voices, crying their wares, making hideous what should have been
a Sunday quiet.
It was barely ten, yet already many of the Tea Rooms were open, and
most of them seemed thronged, whole families, and pleasure-parties
taking breakfast, evidently.
He passed a large and popular theatre, across the whole front of which
was a huge, hand-painted announcement, "Matinee at 2, this afternoon.
Performance to-night 7-45. New Topical song entitled "The Rapture," on
the great event of the week. Living Pictures at both performances:
"The Flight of the Saints."
Ralph, in his amaze, had paused to read the full contents of the
announcement. He shuddered as he took in the full import of the
blasphemy. Surveying the crowd that stood around the notice, he was
struck by the composition of the little mob. It was anything but a
low-class crowd. Many of them were evidently of the upper middle
class, well-dressed, and often intellectual-looking people.
He was turning to leave the spot, when a horsey-looking young fellow
close to him, in a voice loud enough to be heard by the whole crowd--he
evidently meant that it should--cried:
"Well, if it's true that all the long-faced puritans have been carted
off, vamoused, kidnapped, "Rapturized," as they call it, and that now
there's to be no Theatre Censor, and every one can do as they like,
well then, good riddance to the kill-joys, I say."
"And so say all of us," sang a voice, almost everyone present joining
in the song.
When twenty yards off Ralph could hear the blasphemy ringing out "The
Devil's a jolly good fellow, and so say all of us!"
"What will London be like in a month's time!" he mused.
He moved on quickly, but even as he went the thought thrust itself upon
him, that half London, for some reason or the other, was abroad in the
streets unusually early. His own objective was a great Nonconformist
church, where one of London's most popular and remarkable preachers had
ministered. He had been one of the comparatively few whose ministry
had been characterized by a close adherence to the Word of God, and an
occasional solemn word of expository warning and exhortation _anent_
the "Coming of the Lord."
Ralph was within a stone's throw of the great building when the
squeaking tones of Punchinello, reached his ears, while a deep roar of
many laughing voices accompanied the squeakings. A moment more and he
was abreast of a crowd of many hundreds of people gathered around the
Punch and Judy show.
Sick in soul at all that told of open blasphemy everywhere around him,
he hurried on, not so much as casting an eye at the show, though it was
impossible for him to miss the question and answer that rang out from
the show.
"Now, now Mr. Punch, where's your poor wife? Have you done away with
her?"
"No," screamed the hook-nosed puppet, "Not me, I aint done away with
her, she done away with herself, she's gone and got 'Rapturized.'"
Then, above the ribald laughter of the crowd, the squeaking puppet sang:
"Oh, p'raps she is, p'raps she aint,
An' p'raps she's gone to sea,
Or p'raps she's gone to Brigham Young
A Mormonite to be."
Ralph shivered as with chill, as he went up the steps of the great
church to which he had been aiming. It was filling fast. Five minutes
after he entered, the doors had to be closed, there was not even
standing room.
He swept the huge densely-packed building with his keen eyes. Many
present were evidently accustomed to gather there, though the bulk were
curious strangers. A strange hush was upon the people, a
half-frightened look upon many faces, and a general air of suspense.
Once, someone in the gallery cracked a nut. The sound was almost as
startling as a pistol shot, and hundreds of faces were turned in the
direction of the sound.
Ralph noticed that the Communion table, on the lower platform under the
rostrum was covered with white, and evidently arranged as for the
Lord's Supper.
Exactly at eleven, someone emerged from a vestry and passed up the
rostrum stairs. A moment later the man was standing at the desk. Many
instantly recognized him. It was the Secretary of the Church.
A dead hush fell upon the people.
The face of the man was deathly pale, his eyes were dull and sunken.
Twice his lips parted and he essayed to speak, but no sound escaped
him. The hush deepened.
Then, at last, low and husky came the words "My dear friends--for I
recognize some who have been wont to gather here on the Sundays, though
the majority are strangers, I think."
His eyes slowly swept the great congregation. "We have, I believe,
many of us, gathered here this morning more by a new, strange, common
instinct, than by mere force of Sunday habit. Yet, I cannot but think
that many of us, solemnized by the events that have transpired since
last Sunday, have met more in the Spirit of real seeking after God than
ever we have done before."
A few voices joined in a murmur of assent, but something like a ripple
of mocking laughter came from others. And one voice in the gallery
laughed outright--it was the man who had cracked the nut.
Momentarily unnerved by that laughter the speaker paused. Then
recovering himself he went on:
"Our pastor has gone; the Puritans (as we were wont to call them) are
gone; and we know now--now that it is too late for those of us who are
'left'--that they have been 'caught up' into the air, to be with their
Lord forever."
He glanced down at the white-draped communion table, as he continued:
"Our church officer has performed his usual monthly office, and has
spread the Table for the Lord's Supper, but it dawns upon us, friends,
how useless, how empty is the symbol since it was only ordained 'until
He should come.' He has come, and we, the unready, have been left
behind."
"Tommy Rot!"
The expression came angrily, sneeringly from the man in the gallery,
the man who cracked that nut, and who had laughed so boisterously a
moment ago.
Many eyes were turned up to the man, but no voice of reprimand came, no
cry of "shame!" or of "Turn him out," was raised.
All that had happened during the days of the past week, had served to
fill many of the people gathered there that morning, with a curious
mingling of doubt, hesitancy, fearsomeness, and uncertainty, as well as
an unconscious growth of a new strange skepticism, and a carelessness
that almost amounted to recklessness.
"As it is with many more here, this morning," the Secretary went on,
"some members of my family have gone, been caught up--"
"Aviated!" laughed a ribald voice, and this time it came from another
part of the building.
Disregarding the interruption, the secretary went on:
"My wife has gone--" His voice shook with the deep emotion that
stirred him, and for a moment he was too moved to speak. Then
recovering himself with an effort he continued:
"My daughter, too, who against my wish had offered herself as a Foreign
Missionary, has gone. Both wife and daughter lived in the spirit of
expectancy of the Coming of Christ into the air. Now they are with
Him, to be with Him for ever."
The ribald voice that had last interrupted, again broke into the
Secretary's touching words. This time the interrupter roared out a
stanza or two of a wretched song:
"Will no one tell me where they're gone,
My bursting heart with grief is torn,
I wish I never had been born,
I've lost, I've lost my vife."
A hundred or more voices roared with laughter. The devil of blasphemy
was growing bolder.
But in the silence that immediately followed the laughter, the
Secretary went on again:
"I have been a deeply _religious_ man, even as Nicodemus and Paul were,
before their conversion. But now that it is too late to share in the
bliss of the glorious Translation, I have discovered that Religion,
without Christ, without the Regeneration of the New Birth, is evidently
useless, otherwise, I, with scores of others in this church, this
morning, who have, for years, listened to a full-orbed gospel from our
God-filled translated pastor, would be now with those of our loved ones
who have 'ascended up on high.'"
He paused for the briefest fraction of a second, a look of keenest
anguish filled his face, his eyes grew moist with unshed tears, and
were full of appeal, of enquiry, as he swept the great assembly, crying:
"There must be thousands upon thousands left in our land, who, like
myself, deceived themselves, and thus, unwittingly deceived others, and
in whose souls there rises the cry: 'How can we find God? Who will
show us the way?'
"Friends, I have searched my New Testament from end to end. I have
been up two whole nights, and I have read the New Testament through
from Matthew to Revelation, twice. But I can find no provision for the
position I find myself in. I can find no guidance as to how to be
saved. The whole situation is too solemn, too awful for any fooling.
Does anyone here know? Can anyone here tell us how we may find God,
now that the salt of the earth--the real Christians are gone, and now,
too, that the Holy Spirit who, of old time--not yet a full week, but it
seems an eternity--led souls to God through Christ."
There was something so solemn, so pathetic in the man's manner and
utterance, that even the ribald fools who had previously interrupted,
were silent.
The hush was intense. The ticking of the clock could be heard
distinctly.
Impelled by a power which he could not have defined or described, Ralph
Bastin rose to his feet.
The hush deepened. Then a voice broke the silence, crying:
"Bastin, editor of 'The Courier'!"
He was very pale, but the light of a rare courage flashed in his eyes.
He acknowledged the recognition of himself by an inclination of the
head. Then amid a strange hush he began to speak, his voice husky, at
first, rapidly clearing as he went on:
"Friends, I take it that this is the most momentous Sunday that has
ever been, since the first one--the day of the resurrection of the
Christ. Our friend who has just spoken has surely voiced the question
of many hearts here this morning, and many other troubled hearts the
wide world over.
"Let me say, right here, that my friend and colleague, Mr. Tom Hammond,
the originator and late editor of 'The Courier,' was in the very act of
explaining the wonderful, expected return of Christ (expected by him
though scoffed at by myself) when he was 'caught up' from my very
presence, and then I knew what a fool I had been to neglect God and His
salvation."
The nut-cracking interrupter in the gallery, with a burst of laughter,
began mockingly to sing the old revival chorus, "Come to Jesus, come to
Jesus, come to Jesus, just now, just----"
"Silence! you blasphemous, ribald fool!" The words leaped from the
lips of Ralph Bastin, in a tone of command that literally awed the
interrupter. The effect, too, upon the hesitating, vacillating mass of
people was, for the moment at least, to arouse their sympathy with
Ralph, and a little murmur of applause followed.
At the same time a soldier in uniform, a man of giant proportions, who
was sitting almost immediately behind the disturber, rose in his seat,
and addressing the man in front of him, cried, in a stentorian voice:
"See here, mouthy, we're about fed up with your gas, so if you give us
so much as one wag of that cursed red rag of yours, I'll pick you up
and snap you in half across my knee, as I would snap a stick."
This time the applause broke out all over the crowded church. When it
ceased, Ralph standing straight as a larch, and looking up at the
soldier, gave a military salute, as he said: "Thank you, brave soldier."
Coming back to his audience, he went on, as if there had been no
interruption:
"I, too, like the gentleman who addressed us just now, have read the
whole of the Bible through, and the New Testament _twice_, and I can
find no _definite_ provision or Revelation for those who are left
behind--that is as to the _how_, I mean, of salvation. Yet that there
are to be many saved during the next seven years, is evident, since
there is to be a great multitude come out of _The Great Tribulation_,
and thousands of these will be martyrs for God, refusing to wear the
Mark of the Beast.
"In one of the pamphlets I have been studying on 'The second coming of
the Lord,' I have found this statement, that Christ, during His
ministry, preached the Gospel _of the Kingdom_, which is explained as
referring to the fact that, as a Jew, as the Messiah, He came to His
own people the Jews, the chosen _earthly_ people of God, and that if
they would have accepted Him as their Messiah, His Kingdom--with
Himself reigning as King--might have been set up there and then. But
they rejected Him, yes, even when Peter, at Pentecost, after the
Ascension of Christ, made the final offer in those wonderful words of
his.
"As a nation, they rejected Him, rejected their Lord and King, and
henceforth, until He should come again. (He came last week, as we
know, now that it is too late for us to share in the glory of that
coming.) Until that coming, as I said, the Gospel to be preached was
to be the 'Gospel of the Grace of God,' and not the 'Gospel of the
Kingdom.' 'The Gospel of the Grace of God,' included all peoples,
Gentile as well as Jew, while 'the Gospel of the Kingdom,' in its first
preaching, was especially a message to the Jew.
"Now, friends, since there appears to be no _special_ Revelation left
as to how men and women are to be saved, I have been forced to the
conclusion that we must go back to the Old Testament word: 'Seek ye the
Lord'--'Call upon the Name of the Lord'--'Trust ye in the Lord'--'Come
now and let us reason, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they
shall be as wool.' 'The Lord is nigh unto them who are of broken
heart, and _saveth_ such as be of a _Contrite_ spirit.'
"I have taken my own stand upon this, that God, the God of the Old
Testament, is the same God, who pities like a father, and that if we
confess our sin, and witness a true confession, He will forgive us our
sin, and though we can never be part of that wondrous _Bride_ of
Christ, whom, last week He caught up to Himself into the Heavenlies,
yet we may be eternally saved. And, friends, whether I am right or
wrong, I am daily pleading the Name of Jesus Christ in all my
approaches to God. I plead the Blood of Jesus Christ, and the power of
that Blood, to save me; for, as far as I understand myself, in this
matter, my belief, my trust is the same as that which inspired the
saints who were translated at the 'Rapture'--as that event has come to
be called.
"In my studies during the past week--would God I had been wise, and
given myself to all this a month ago, I should then have shared in the
glory of that Rapturous event of which all our minds are so full.
"But, as I was saying, in my studies during the past week, I have seen
that in Revelation Seven, in the account of those who are to be saved
_during_ the seven years of the present dispensation, (and which has
just begun) that they 'have washed their robes and made them white _in
the blood of the Lamb_.' So that though I am not able to reduce my
standing to an actual theological position--statement--yet I pin my
soul, my faith on the Eternal character of God, and on the efficacy of
the Blood of Jesus, as shown in Revelation Seven, fourteen."
He paused for an instant, and his eyes swept the great assembly
sorrowfully, sadly, as he went on:
"But it is forced upon me that what is done by us, in this matter of
seeking God, must be done by us _now, at once_. Every hour increases
the danger of delay because the powers of evil, of the Antichrist, are
already growing more and more rampant, more and more pronounced.
Presently, friends, we know not but that any hour or even moment now,
the awful delusion of the Antichrist lie, may be actually formulated
into speech and print, and it will be so almost universally absorbed by
mankind, and its influence be so pervading, so saturating, in every
class, of society, that it will every hour become harder, more
difficult for the individual soul to turn to God."
He paused again for one instant. Then startlingly, suddenly, the words
"Great God!" leaped from his lips. They sounded like a mighty sob.
"Great God!" he repeated with an anguish that awed the people. "The
great mass of people in London, are already mocking God. They laugh at
the notion of there being a God, of there being any Retribution. The
great mass of the people are ripe for anything, even for a public,
official denial of the very existence of God. Deluded, they will
believe any lie, THE FOUL LIE.
"How long is it since, in France, in the Revolution, the leading men,
the 'flower' of that capricious nation, carried in triumph in grand
procession the most beautiful harlot of Paris, to the Cathedral of
Notre Dame, and, unveiling and kissing her before the high altar,
proclaimed her as the 'Goddess of Reason,' exhorting the multitude of
people to forget all the childish things that they had been taught as
to the thunders of the wrath of God, for God was not, and had never
been.
"And all that happened while the 'salt of the earth,' was abroad, and
while that great, divine restrainer of evil, the Holy Spirit, the third
Person of the Trinity, was still upon the earth exercising His
restraint.
"And, in a week from to-day, I believe it will be absolutely impossible
to get a gathering like this. The world, the Flesh, the Devil, the
Antichrist, will have almost absolute sway, and if any of us will live
to God, we must be prepared to suffer the direst persecution, and all
the horrors of the Great Tribulation, with its thousands of martyrs,
will be the portion of those who will cleave to God, and flout
Antichrist."
A deep, sullen growl, like that of some huge savage beast, rose here
and there from a number of dissenters to these predictions.
Ralph lifted his head proudly, and fearlessly for his God, as he cried:
"There rises the first growl of the slumbering demon of Antichrist,
which, only too soon, shall possess almost the whole world. Soon, a
year, or two, less than that, doubtless. Antichrist will dominate the
earth's peoples. None will be able to trade, to buy or sell, unless
they bear on their forehead or their _right_ hand, the Mark of the
Beast. What will that mark be? I cannot tell. I do not know, no one
save Antichrist, and the Devil who has incarnated him, can as yet know,
I think."
Again that growl rose from the throats of some of the listeners. This
time it was deeper, fuller more voices joined in it, and the savage
note was more pronounced.
Suddenly, a mighty roar of thousands of voices, mingled with the blare
of brass instruments penetrated into the building from the street.
There followed, instantly, a general rising to their feet, and a rush
of the people to the exits. The crush at the exits was terrible.
Screams of women mingled with the hoarse cursings of men--men who had
never uttered an oath before, found their mouth filled with hideous,
blasphemous oaths. It was as if the very devil himself had suddenly
possessed the crowd.
Ralph found himself alongside the Secretary of the church, the man who
had preceded him in speaking. The pair watched and listened for a
moment while noisily, slowly, painfully the people passed out of the
building.
Involuntarily there sprang to Ralph's lips, and, before he realized it,
he was uttering the words:
"The whole herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and was
choked."
The two men were strangers, yet as they turned and faced each other, by
some common impulse they clasped hands. For one instant it looked as
though each would have spoken. Then, as though some strange power had
tied their tongues, they moved on silently, side by side, down the wide
aisle of the church, and passed out through the entrance doors of the
now empty building.
The streets were filled with surging masses of people, and there was a
glare of ruddy flames, while dense volumes of smoke poured into the
upper air from the first of two huge cars drawn by hundreds of excited
men, boys, and even women and girls.
In the center of the platform of the first car was a huge, altar-like
construction in polished iron or steel. The center of the altar was
evidently a deep hollow cauldron, into which a score of men, costumed
as satyrs, were pitchforking Bibles. The four sides of the
Altar-cauldron had open bars, so that, fanned on every side by the
double draught of the car's motion, and the fairly stiff breeze that
was blowing, the furnace roared fiercely, fed, as it incessantly was by
the copies of God's Word.
Hundreds of wildly-excited men and women--many seemed
semi-drunken--attired in every conceivable grotesqueness of costume,
and forming a kind of open-air fancy-dress ball, disported themselves
shamelessly about the cauldron car, and the triumphal car that followed
in its wake.
The latter was a gorgeous structure, finished in gold, purple, and
imitation white marble. Its center was a kind of _tableaux vivant_.
On one side was an effigy of a parsonic kind of man, crucified head
downwards upon a cross. A second side showed a theatre front with a
staring announcement "_seven_ day performances." A third side showed a
figure of "Bacchus" crowned with vine-leaves and grape-bunches. A
fourth side showed an entrance to a Law Court, with an announcement:
"Closed Eternally, for since there is no marriage, there is no divorce."
Above all this was a golden throne, and in a deep purple-plush-covered
chair sat a florid, coarsely-beautiful woman, with long hair of golden
hue hanging down upon her shoulders and blowing in the breeze. She was
literally naked, save for a ruffle of pink muslin about her waist.
Upon her head was a crown, in her right hand she held a gilded crozier.
The most wanton, hideous licentiousness was the order of the hour among
the mob of fancy-costumed people.
Ralph Bastin and his companion followed in the wake of the foaming,
raging sea of semi-mad people.
"The French Revolution business over again," said Ralph--he had to
shout into his friend's ear to be heard.
His companion nodded an assent, then bawled back:
"Whither are they bound, I wonder?"
Ralph pointed to a banner bearing the inscription. "To St. Pauls."
The procession swept on, and seven minutes later the cars were rounded
up in front of the open space before the Cathedral.
A score of policemen had managed to muster on the upper step of the
flight. But the rush of the mob was irresistible. They took entire
possession of the steps and all the open space around even to the head
of Ludgate Hill.
Ralph had got separated from his companion, and found himself swept
close up to the great triumphal car. Above him seated smilingly on her
purple throne, in all her shameless nakedness, was the beautiful form
of the foul souled harlot. Her gilded crozier was upheld between her
naked knees, and now, in her right hand she held a goblet of champagne,
just passed up to her.
A bugle sounded for silence. The hush was instantaneous. Then as she
held the goblet high aloft, her clear, shrill voice rang out in the
toast she gave:
"To the World, the Flesh, and the Devil!"
She drained the sparkling draught, and tossed the goblet down into the
upraised hand of a handsome, but dissolute-looking man, who, attired in
the theatrical idea of Mephistopheles, appeared to be a kind of Master
of Ceremonies.
A mighty roar of applause, mingled with cries of "Dolly Durden! Dear
little Dolly Durden!" accompanied the drinking of the toast.
Again the bugle rang out for silence, and amid a hush as before,
Mephistopheles shouted:
"The Sunday of the Puritans is dead and _damned_! Their Bible is
burned and a dead letter!"
He pointed, as he uttered the last sentence, to the Satyrs who were
piling the last of their stock of Bibles into the fiery furnace of the
cauldron-altar.
His blasphemies were greeted with a roar of applause. Then, as he
obtained a comparative silence by the raising of his hand, he yelled:
"To Hyde Park."
The band struck up "Good St. Anthony," and the monster procession,
swept down Ludgate Hill, hundreds of throats belching out the words of
the song, to the music of the band:
"St. Anthony sat on a lowly stool,
A large black book he held in his hand,
Never his eyes from the page he took,
With steadfast soul the page he scanned.
The Devil was in his best humour that day,
That ever his Highness was known to be in,--
That's why he sent out his imps to play
With sulphur, and tar, and pitch, and resin:
They came to the saint in a motley crew,
Twisted and twirl'd themselves about,--
Imps of every shape and hue,
A devilish, strange, and rum-looking rout.
Yet the good St. Anthony kept his eyes
So firmly fixed upon his book,
Shouts nor laughter, sighs nor cries,
Never could win away his look."
Verse after verse belched forth from the now more or less raucous
throats of the blasphemous mob, until, with unholy unctiousness,
reaching the last verse but one, they screamed laughingly, vilely:
"A thing with horny eyes was there--
With horny eyes just like the dead,
While fish-bones grew instead of hair
Upon his bald and skinless head.
Last came an imp--how unlike the rest,--
A lovely-looking female form,
And while with a whisper his cheek she press'd,
Her lips felt downy, soft, and warm;
As over his shoulder she bent, the light
Of her brilliant eyes upon his page
Soon filled his soul with mild delight,
And the good old chap forgot his age.
And the good St. Anthony boggled his eyes
So quickly o'er his old black book,--
Ho! Ho! at the corners they 'gan to rise,
And he couldn't choose but have a look.
"There are many devils that walk this world,
Devils so meagre and devils so stout,
Devils that go with their tails uncurl'd,
Devils with horns and devils without.
Serious devils, laughing devils,
Devils black and devils white,
Devils uncouth, and devils polite.
Devils for churches, devils for revels,
Devils with feathers, devils with scales,
Devils with blue and warty skins,
Devils with claws like iron nails,
Devils with fishes' gills and fins;
Devils foolish, devils wise,
Devils great, and devils small,--
But a laughing woman with two bright eyes
Proves to be the worst devil of them all."
It was all of Hell, Hellish, and should have proved conclusively, it
proof had been desired, that with the translation of the Church, and
the flight of the Holy Spirit, the last restraint upon man's natural
love of lawlessness had been taken away.
Sweeping westwards, the hideous, blasphemous procession was continually
augmented by crowds that swarmed up from side-streets, and fell-in in
the rear of the marching throng.
Somewhere on the route, owing to a kind of backwash of the surging
people, Ralph Bastin and the Secretary of the Church had become
separated. At Picadilly circus they came suddenly face to face again.
"What is this foul, blasphemous movement? What does it mean?" asked
the Secretary. "Is this a beginning of _organized_ lawlessness on the
part of the Anti-christ?"
"I think not," replied Ralph. "I should rather say that it was a bit
of wanton outrage of all the decencies of ordinary life, and arranged
by some of the rude fellows--male and female--of the baser sort. You
noticed, of course, that most of those immediately connected with the
two cars, looked like the drinking, smoking, sporting fellows who are
the _habitues_ of the music-halls and the promenades of the theatres."
An uproarious cheering of the mighty throng interrupted Ralph for a
moment. Only those well to the front of the procession could know the
cause of the cheering, but the whole mass of people joined in it. As
the roar died away, Ralph Bastin took up the broken thread of his reply:
"Yet, for all I have just said, I feel it in my bones as Mrs. Beecher
Stowe's old negress 'mammy' used to say, that this foul demonstration
on this golden Sunday morning, is the unauthorized unofficial beginning
of the Anti-christ movement."
There was a couple of hundred yards between the tail of the actual
procession, and Ralph and his companion. Hundreds of people thronged
the sidewalks, but the road was fairly clear, and along the gutter-way
there swept a gang of boys with coarse, raucous laughter,
kicking--football fashion--two or three of the half-burned Bibles that
had fallen from the cauldron-altar on the car.
The church Secretary visibly shuddered at the sacrilege. A pained look
shot into Ralph Bastin's face, as he said:
"Such wanton, open sacrilege as that could only have become possible by
the gradual decay of reverence for the word of God, brought about
largely by the so-called 'Higher critics' of the last thirty years, the
men who broke Spurgeon's heart, the Issachars of the nineteenth and
early twentieth century, those 'knowing ones' who, like Issachar,
thought that they knew better than God."
The two men walked on together in deep talk. Ralph learned that his
companion was Robert J. Baring, principal of the great shipping firm,
and of merchants and importers.
Baring was an educated man, and of considerable culture, and Ralph and
he found that they had very much in common. But that which perhaps
constituted the closest tie between them was the fact that both had
lost their nearest and dearest, and were _left_ to face the coming
horrors of the Anti-christ reign, and the hideousness of the great
Tribulation.
"God grant," Ralph said once, as they talked, "that when the moment
comes, as come it will, that we are called upon to stand for God, or
die for Him, that we may witness a good confession."