Jewels five words longThat on the outstretched forefinger of all time,Sparkle for ever.
Jewels five words longThat on the outstretched forefinger of all time,Sparkle for ever.
Next Sunday, it may be, you will hear them again, as you heard them last Sunday. Yet you live for evil pleasure still.
"When you think at all, you delude yourselves into imagining you are worshipping God, when you are taking a fitful interest in a ceremony which means no more to you than a ceremony. You come here for an hour in the morning of one day of the week, your minds full of worldly pleasures and the memories of your pleasant sins. You listen to the words of the Bible in your comfortable seats, and think how quaint, far off, and unreal they are. With a languid mental smile you hear of the devil and the evil spirits who walk up and down the City seeking whom they may devour. You would not smile if you were to take a short journey from this church into the devil's country, the East End of London—if now, with one accord, you were to drive in your carriages to those places where the air is heavy with ceaseless curses, where hideous disease and uncleanliness that you cannot even imagine, stalk hand in hand with famine, despair, and unmentionable horrors of vice.
"You would believe then, perhaps, that the devil still goes about the streets of London doing his work.
"I tell you this without any possibility of mistake, that you are the servants of Satan, and that in your lives you have enrolled yourselves under the black banners of hell.
"And more especially than all, you are hypocrites. Outwardly all is fair and of good report until, as happens now and then, your lives are laid bare to the world in some hideous scandal. You go to church, your names are seen upon the lists of those societies which endeavor to ameliorate the life of the downtrodden and the oppressed. But what personal service do most of you give to the cause of the God in whom you confess to believe? You live for pleasure, and you are hypocrites.
"Hypocrisy occurs in all the relations of your life; in the daily intercourse between man and man, when friendship is feigned; in the political sphere, when tyrants and self-seekers pretend a deep care for Fatherland, and thereby lead men according to their design. In art and science you are hypocrites, pretending a pure unselfish love to the higher ideal, when self-gratification is all you look for; incense is offered to the idols of the time, and pleasure is alone the end and aim, the Alpha and Omega of existence.
"You are as 'trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars.'
"And all around you London grows worse and worse, while it is from its corruption and from its misery that your sordid pleasures are distilled.
"There are men here to-night who have won fortune, rank, and celebrity from the wholesale poisoning of the poor. The food which the slaves of the modern Babylon eat, the drink they drink, is full of foulness, that you may fare sumptuously every day, that your wives may be covered with jewels. There are men here to-night who keep hundreds and thousands of their fellow-Christians in hideous and dreadful dens without hope, and for ever. In order that you may live in palaces, surrounded by all the beauties and splendors that the choicest art, the most skilled handicraft can give, hundreds of human beings who lurk in the holes for which they pay you must spend their lives, where no ordinary man or woman can remain for more than a moment or two, so terrible are these nauseous places.
"Whole miles of ground in the modern London are thickly packed with fellow-Christians who are hourly giving up their lives in one long torture that you may eat, drink and be merry. At midday you may go into the East End of London and pass a factory. Men come out of it dripping with perspiration, and that perspiration is green. The hair of these men sprouts green from the roots giving them the appearance of some strange vegetable. These men are changed and dyed like this that your wives may spend the life-earnings of any one of them in the costly shops of the perruquiers in Bond Street.
"In order that you may draw twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty per cent. from your investments, instead of an honest return from the wealth with which God has entrusted you, there are men who eat like animals. In the little eating-houses around the works, there are human beings who leave their knives and forks unused and drop their heads and bury their noses and mouths into what is set before them. All the bones, nerves, and muscles below their wrists are useless. These are the slaves of lead, who are transmuting lead with the sacrifice of their own lives, that it may change to gold to purchase your banquets. You are the people who directly or indirectly live in a luxury such as the world has never seen before, out of the wages of disease and death. Copper colic, hatter's shakers, diver's paralysis, shoemaker's chest, miller's itch, hammerman's palsy, potter's rot, shoddy fever, are the prices which others pay for your yachts and pictures, your horses and motor-cars, your music, your libraries, your clubs, your travel, and your health.
"And what of the other and more intimate side of your lives? Do you live with the most ordinary standard of family and personal purity before you? Do you spend a large portion of your lives in gambling, in the endeavor to gain money without working for it from people less skilful or fortunate than yourself? Do you reverence goodness and holiness when you find them or are told of them, or do you mock and sneer? Do you destroy your bodily health by over-indulgence in food, in wine, and in unnatural drugs, which destroy the mind and the moral sense? Do you ever and systematically seek the good and welfare of others, or do you live utterly and solely for yourself, even as the beasts that perish?"
The preacher stopped in one long pause; then his voice sank a full tone—
"Yes, all these things you do, and more, and God is not with you."
Nearly every head in the church was bent low as the flaming, scorching words of denunciation swept over them.
Wealthy, celebrated, high in the world's good favor as they were, none of these people had ever heard the terrible, naked truth about their lives before. Nor was it alone the denunciatory passion of the words and the bitter realization of the shameful truth which moved and influenced them so deeply. The personality of the Teacher, some quality in his voice which they had never yet heard in the voice of living man, the all-inspiring likeness to the most sacred figure the world has ever known, the intense vibrating quality of more than human power and conviction—all these united to light the fires of remorse in every heart, and to touch the soul with the cold fingers of fear.
Accustomed as most of them were to this or that piquant thrill or sensation—for were not their lives passed in the endless quest of stimulating excitement?—there was yet something in this occasion utterly alien to it, and different from anything they had ever known before.
Of what this quality consisted, of what it was composed, many of them there would have given conflicting and contradictory answers. All would have agreed in its presence.
Only a few, a very few, knew and recognized the truth, either with gladness and holy awe or with shrinking and guilty dread, the Power which enveloped them with the sense of the presence of the Holy Ghost.
There was a change in the accusing voice—
"But it is not yet too late. God's mercy is infinite, and through the merits of His Son you may save yourselves while there is time. Kneel now and pray silently as you have never prayed before, for I tell you that God is here among you. An opportunity will be given to each one of you to make reparation for the evil you have done, for the messengers of the Lord have come to London, and wondrous things will come to pass! And now pray, pray, pray! In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen."
With no further word the Teacher turned and quietly descended the pulpit steps.
Every head was bowed; hardly a single person heard or saw him move away into the vestry, and a great silence fell upon the church.
As if in a dream, the tall figure in its white linen ephod passed through the outer vestry into the large and comfortable room used by the priests. No one was there, and Joseph sank upon his knees in prayer. He had been sending up his passionate supplications for the souls of those without but a few seconds, when he felt a touch—a timid, hesitating touch—upon his shoulder.
He looked up, and saw a little elderly man, wearing the long velvet-trimmed gown which signalized a verger in St. Elwyn's, standing by his side. The old man's face was moving and working with strong emotion, and a strange blaze of eagerness shone in his eyes.
"Master," he said, "I heard it all, every word you said to them; and it is true—every word is bitter true. Master, there is one who has need of you, and in God's name I pray you to go with me."
"In God's name I will come with you, brother," Joseph answered gravely.
"Ay," the old man answered, "I felt my prayer would be answered, Master." He took Joseph's surplice from him, divested himself of his own gown, and opened the vestry door. "You found this way when you came, Master," he said. "The public do not know of it, for it goes through the big livery-stables. The district is so crowded. No one will see us when we leave the church, though there are still thousands of people waiting for you to pass in front. But my poor home is not far away."
As they walked, the old man told his story to Joseph. His son, a young fellow of eighteen or nineteen, had been employed as basement porter in the Countess of Morston's Regent Street shop for the selling of artistic, hand-wrought metal work.
Like many another fashionable woman in London, Lady Morston was making a large sum of money out of her commercial venture. But the repousse work which she sold was made by half-starved and sweated work-people in the East End of town, and all the employees in the shop itself were miserably underpaid. From early morning, sometimes till late at night, the old fellow's son had been at work carrying about the heavy crates of metal. His wages had been cut down to the lowest possible limit, and when he had asked for a rise he had been told that a hundred other young fellows would be glad to step into his shoes at any moment.
One day the inevitable collapse had come. He had found himself unable to continue the arduous labor, and had left the position. Almost immediately after his departure he had been attacked with a long and painful nervous complaint. Unable, owing to the fact of his resignation, to claim any compensation from the countess as a legal right, he had humbly petitioned for a little pecuniary help to tide him over his illness. This had been coldly refused, and the young man was now bedridden and a permanent encumbrance to the old man, who himself was unable to do anything but the lightest work.
Mr. Persse, on being applied to for assistance, had consulted the Countess of Morston, who was one of his parishioners, in order, as he said, to find out if it were "a genuine case." With an absolute disregard for truth, and in order to shield herself, the woman had told the clergyman that her late assistant was a dishonest scoundrel who merited no consideration whatever.
"And so, Master," the old man concluded—"and so I lost all hope, and tried to make up my mind to see my lad die slowly. And then I see about you in the paper, and something comes into my mind like. And then the vicar he tells me about this here service to-night, and that you were coming yourself, Master. So I prayed and I prayed that I should have a chance to speak to you. Master, I want you to raise Bill up and make him well."
The old man clutched Joseph by the arm, his cracked and pathetic voice full of poignant pleading.
"You will, won't you, Master?" he said once more.
"Take me to the young man," Joseph answered.
Eric Black was thirty-three years of age, and one of the chief and most trusted writers upon the staff of theDaily Wire.
Very few of the younger school of journalists in London had the crisp touch and vivid sense of color in words possessed by this writer. His rise to considerable success had been rapid, and his signed articles on current events were always read with extreme interest by the enormous public who bought the most popular journal of the day.
Eric Black's intellect was of first class order, but it was one-sided. He saw all the practical and material affairs of life keenly, truly and well. But of that side of human existence which men can neither touch nor see he was profoundly ignorant, and as ignorance generally is, inclined to be frankly contemptuous.
In religious matters accordingly this brilliant young man might have been called an absolute "outsider." He never denied religion in any way, and very rarely thought about it at all. No one had ever heard him say that he did not believe in God, he simply ignored the whole question.
His personal life was singularly kindly, decent, and upright. He was, in short, though he had not the slightest suspicion of it himself, a man waiting and ready for the apprehension of the truth—one of those to whom the Almighty reveals Himself late.
On a great daily paper, when some important event or series of events suddenly rises on the horizon of the news-world, a trusted member of the staff, together with such assistants as may be necessary, is placed in entire charge of the whole matter. Eric Black, accordingly, was deputed to "handle" the affair of Joseph and his epoch-making arrival in London.
Mr. Persse, the vicar of St. Elwyn's, had sent two tickets of admission for Joseph's address to theDaily Wire, and Eric Black, accompanied by a shorthand writer who was to take down the actual words of the sermon, sat in a front seat below the pulpit during the whole time of Joseph's terrible denunciation of modern society.
While the reporter close by bent over his note-book and fixed the Teacher's burning words upon the page, Black, his brain alert and eager, was busy in recording impressions of the whole strange and unexpected scene. He was certainly profoundly impressed with the dignity and importance of the occasion. He realized the emotions that were passing through the minds of the rich and celebrated people who filled the church. His eyes drank in the physical appearance of the Teacher, his ears told him that Joseph's voice was unique in all his experience of modern life.
Enormously interested and stirred as he was, Black was not, however, emotionally moved. The journalist must always and for ever be watchful and serene, never carried away—an acute recorder, but no more.
Towards the end of the sermon, when the young man saw that Joseph would only say a few more words, a sudden flash of inspiration came to him. No journalist in London had yet succeeded in obtaining an interview or a definite statement with the extraordinary being who had appeared like a thunderbolt in its midst. It was the ambition of Eric Black to talk with the Teacher, and thus to supply the enterprising journal which employed him, and for which he worked with a whole-hearted and enthusiastic loyalty, with an important and exclusive article.
He had noticed that the Teacher could not possibly have entered the church by the main entrance. The journalist himself, in order to secure the best possible seat, had arrived at St. Elwyn's at the commencement of the evening service which preceded the address.
With a keen, detective eye he had noted the little subtle signs of uneasiness upon the vicar's face, and had deduced accordingly that Joseph had not yet arrived. When the Teacher actually appeared, it was obvious that he must have come by the vestry door, in order to elude the waiting crowd. It was morally certain also that he would leave by the same route.
The writer saw his chance. By his side was the representative of a rival paper, a drawback to the realization of his scheme. As his quick brain solved the difficulty of that, he remembered Mr. Kipling's maxim, that "all's fair in love, war, and journalism." The shorthand writer from theDaily Wiresat just beyond the rival journalist.
"Look here, Tillotson," he whispered, in tones which he knew theMercuryman could hear, "I'm feeling frightfully unwell. I must get out of this, if I can, for a minute or two. Of course, after the sermon is over, Joseph will go down into the aisles. I hear that a big reception is arranged for him at the west entrance. I am going to slip away for a minute or two. When the preacher comes out of the vestry, fetch me at once. I mustn't let any of the other fellows get to him before I do. I shall be in the side-chapel over there, which is quite empty, and where the air will be cooler."
Satisfied that he had done all that was necessary to mislead his rival, Black slipped out of his seat, passed behind a massive pillar, and, unobserved by any one, slipped into the outer vestry, through the inner, and eventually came out into the narrow passage which led to the livery stables, where he waited with anxious alertness.
In less than five minutes his patience and clever forestalling of events were richly rewarded. Joseph himself, accompanied by a little old man, whom Black recognized as the verger who had shown him to his seat, came out together, talking earnestly. They passed him, and when they had gone a few yards the journalist followed cautiously. He was anxious, in the first place, to discover where the mysterious man, whose appearances and disappearances were the talk of London, was going, and upon what errand. He waited his time to speak to him, resolved that nothing should now prevent him from bringing off a journalistic "scoop" of the first magnitude.
Joseph and the verger passed through the mews, and turning to the right, entered one of those tiny but well-defined slums which exist in the heart of the West End and are inhabited by the lowest in the ranks of the army that ministers to the pleasures of the great.
The newspaper man followed cautiously some four yards behind his quarry. In about three minutes Joseph and his companion stopped before the door of a small house, and the elder man felt in his pocket and produced the key to open it. Suddenly Joseph put his hand upon the old man's shoulder for a moment, and then, turning suddenly, walked straight up to Eric Black.
"Brother," he said, "you are welcome, for God has sent you to see what is to be done this night."
The confident young journalist was taken aback, and for a moment all his readiness of manner left him.
"I—er—I—well, I represent theDaily Wire, you know, sir. I hoped that perhaps you would give me the pleasure of an interview. All London is waiting most anxiously to hear something of your views and plans. I should take it as a great favor if you could spare me a few minutes."
Joseph smiled kindly, and placed his hand upon the young man's shoulder, gazing steadily into his eyes with a deep, searching glance.
"Yes," he said, "it is as I knew. God has sent you here to-night, for you are as an empty vessel into which truth and the grace of the Holy Spirit shall be poured."
The journalist answered nothing. The extraordinary manner in which the Teacher had addressed him, the abnormal knowledge which the man with the beautiful, suffering face and lamp-like eyes seemed to possess, robbed the other of all power of speech.
And Black was conscious, also, of a strange electric thrill which ran through him when Joseph had placed a hand upon his shoulder. It was as though some force, some invisible, intangible essence or fluid, was being poured into him. Certainly, never before in his life had he experienced any such sensation. Still without any rejoinder, he followed the Teacher through the opened door of the house, down a narrow and dirty passage, and into a small bedroom lit by a single gas-jet.
The place was scantily furnished, and grim poverty showed its traces in all the poor appointments of the room. Yet it was scrupulously clean and neat, and the air was faintly perfumed by a bunch of winter violets which stood upon a chair by the bed.
A young man, tall but terribly emaciated, was lying there. His face, worn by suffering, was of a simple and homely cast, though to the seeing eye resignation and patience gave it a certain beauty of its own.
"This is my Bill," said the old man, in a trembling voice—"this is my poor lad, Master. Bill, my boy, this is the Master of whom we have been reading in the papers. This is Joseph the Teacher, and, if it is God's will, he is going to make you well."
The young man looked at Joseph with a white and startled face. Then he stretched out his thin and trembling hand towards him. His eyes closed as if in fear, and in a weak, quavering voice he said three words—
"Lord help me!"
Joseph bent over the bed, and placed his hand gently on the young man's forehead.
"Sleep," he said, in a low deep voice.
The two watchers saw a strange calmness steal over the patient's features. The convulsive movements of the poor, nerve-twitched body ceased, and, in a few moments more, quiet and regular breathing showed that the magnetic touch of the Teacher had indeed induced a tranquil slumber.
The old man looked on, shaking with anxiety.
"Master," he said, "can you cure him—can you heal him? He is my only son, all I've got left in the world—my only son!"
Eric Black, who had watched this curious scene with great interest and a considerable amount of pity, sighed. He was not inexperienced in illnesses, especially those terrible nervous collapses for which medical science can do nothing, and to which there is one inevitable end. He knew that no human skill could do anything for the sleeping and corpse-like figure upon the bed, and he wondered why Joseph had cared to accompany the old man and to buoy him up with false hopes.
Joseph did not immediately answer the old man's question about his son. Instead of that he turned quickly to the journalist.
"Yes," he said; "but with God all things are possible."
Black started violently. His very thoughts had been read instantly, and answered as swiftly. Then a curious resentment mounted in his brain against Joseph. Who was this man who sent a suffering invalid to sleep in a moment by his hypnotic touch; who brought terror, remorse, and shame into a great lighted theatre; who dared to tell the wealthiest and most influential people in London that they marched beneath the standard of Beelzebub; who even now had read his secret thoughts with unerring intuition?
With a slight sneer, foreign to his usual nature, but he was frightened and was trying to reassure himself, he said—
"That is all very well, sir, no doubt; but miracles do not happen."
"Oh, yes, sir, they do—they do!" cried the old verger, wringing his hands. "Oh, don't say that, sir; miracles aren't over yet. I don't like the way you say it, sir. God will surely never let my poor Bill die!"
Joseph took no notice of the poor old fellow's entreaty. He spoke to Black.
"My brother," he said, "and what is a miracle?"
Black thought for a moment, and then replied, though he did not know it, in the words of Hume: "A miracle," he said, "is a violation of the laws of Nature, and therefore impossible—Huxley showed that long ago."
The journalist was quite unconscious of the progress of modern thought, and in his ignorance believed that Huxley was the last word in philosophic criticism.
"Huxley," Joseph answered quietly, "has said that if a miracle, such as the restoring to life of a dead man, were actually to take place, the phenomenon would simply become a problem for further scientific investigation. That is perfectly true as far as it goes, nor does it in any way discredit the possibility of a miracle. Is it not a fact that every day new natural laws, previously entirely unsuspected by any one, are being discovered? Have not the papers of late been full of strange news of great chemical discoveries, such as radium—electrical wonders, such as the sending of messages without wires? What are these but natural laws? But would they not have been miracles three hundred years ago?
"Supposing we admit the Divine regulation of the world by natural law, the spiritual nature of man, and his value to God. Let us say that in the exercise of his free will man has disturbed the poise and balance of the moral universe by sin, and that God proposes to restore it. If we do this, there can be no improbability in our mind that God supplements, or even in a manner reverses, the workings of natural law by a fresh revelation of His will and character. Have you ever seen or known of a case in which a man or woman full of bitter hatred of God, and stained by a life of continuous sin, has been suddenly changed by the power of the Holy Spirit, and has become from henceforward a righteous and Christian man? You must have come across such cases—they are common enough in the experience of every one. Is not this a miracle? Is not this a revelation of Our Lord Jesus Christ?
"And if Jesus Christ be the bearer of this new revelation, may we not regard His miracles as the spontaneous, even natural, expressions of His Personality? Miracles are thus perfectly credible to any one who believes in two things—the love of God and the existence of sin."
The journalist bowed without replying. His keen and logical mind saw at once the force of Joseph's quiet argument. He was not prepared to answer the Teacher. Nevertheless, there was still a certain sense of stubbornness and revolt within his mind.
This was all very well, but it was, after all, mere abstract philosophical discussion. It did not affect the matter in hand, which was that the Teacher was buoying up a poor and unhappy old man with fruitless hopes.
When he had finished speaking to Black, Joseph turned to the old verger. "Come, my brother," he said, "and let us kneel by the bedside of the one who is sick, praying that the Holy Spirit may come down upon us and heal him."
Then Eric Black, standing against the opposite wall of the little room, saw the two men kneel down, and saw also the marvel which it was to be his privilege to give to the knowledge of the whole world, and which was to utterly change his own life from that moment until its end.
There was a long silence, and then suddenly the journalist began to be aware that, in some way or other, the whole aspect of the room was altered.
It was incredibly, wonderfully altered, and yetmateriallyit was just the same.
The young man had known nothing like it in all his life experience, though he was to know it again many times, when in the future he should kneel at the Eucharist.
Neither then, nor at any other time, was Black able to explain his sensations and impressions at that supreme moment. With all his brilliant and graphic power, to the end of his days the power of describing the awe and reverence, the absolute certainty of the Divine Presence which he experienced at the Mass, was denied him. Celebrated as he became as a writer, his attempts to give the world his own testimony to the Truth in a convincing way always failed. It was the great sorrow of his career. He would have counted it as his highest privilege. But he bore his cross meekly till the end, knowing that it was sent him for a wise purpose, and that perhaps it was his punishment for his long days of hard-heartedness and blindness.
He began to tremble a little, and then he saw that Joseph's hands were placed lightly upon the temples of the sleeping man, just touching them with the long, nervous finger-tips.
The Teacher may have remained motionless in this position for five or ten minutes—the journalist never knew—and all the time the power and unseen influence grew and grew in the silence, until the very walls of the little room seemed to melt and dissolve beyond the bounds of sense, and the brain, mind, and soul of the watcher to grow and dissolve with them in one overpowering ecstasy of reverence and awe.
And then the next thing that Eric Black knew was that the tall thin figure which had lain upon the bed was standing in the middle of the room, robed in its long, grey flannel gown, and that the old man had leaped at his son with loud cries of joy and wonder, and that the two men, locked in each other's embrace, were weeping and calling out in gratitude upon God.
Joseph took the journalist by the arm, and led him, unresisting, from that awful and sacred scene.
They were out in the quiet back street, and the young man was swaying as if he would fall. He felt an arm pass through his, and heard the deep, vibrating voice of the Teacher speaking.
"Come swiftly with me, for we have to meet a great company of people in another place, and to witness the marvellous ways of God."
Among the audience, or rather the congregation, which had assembled to hear Joseph in St. Elwyn's Church, all those people who were intimately connected with him had been present.
It had been arranged beforehand, although Mr. Persse had known nothing of it, that Joseph's followers, Sir Augustus and Lady Kirwan, Marjorie, and Mary, accompanied by Sir Thomas Ducaine and Hampson, the journalist, should all have seats reserved for them by ticket in the church.
Accordingly they had all been there. After the Teacher's solemn exhortation to private prayer, the whole congregation had awoke as if from a dream. The influence, the magnetic influence of Joseph's presence, was removed. Every one sat up in their places with grave and tired eyes, wearing the aspect of people who had come back to life after a sojourn in that strange country of the soul which lies between this world and the next.
The vicar, very pale and agitated, had descended from the chancel in his surplice and biretta, and had gone among the people, whispering here and there, frowning, faintly smiling, and only too obviously upset and frightened in body, mind, and spirit.
Over all the great congregation of wealthy and fashionable people there had lain that same manner of uneasiness, that hidden influence of fear. After a few minutes the majority of them rose and went silently from the church. As they walked down the broad and lighted aisle it was obvious enough, both in their walk and in their faces, that they were trying to call back their self-respect and that mental attitude which ruled their lives, and was but an insolent defiance of all claims upon conduct, save only the imperial insistence of their own self-will.
But it was an attempt, and nothing more, upon the part of those who thronged and hurried to be quit of the sacred building in which, for the first time in their lives, a man inspired by God had told them the truth about themselves.
Nevertheless, a considerable residue of people was left. They sat in their seats, whispering brokenly to each other, glancing at the vicar, and especially at two pews where a company of countrymen in black were still kneeling with their heads bowed in prayer.
It had already been bruited about in society that Sir Augustus and Lady Kirwan, together with Sir Thomas Ducaine, were intimately connected with the Teacher. The regard and attention of those who still stayed in the church were, therefore, also directed to the pew which held the baronet, his wife, and their daughter, Sir Thomas, the beautiful girl in the costume of a hospital nurse who was recognized by some of them as the niece of Lady Kirwan, and a little, meagre-looking man whom no one knew—Hampson, the editor of theSunday Friend, in fact.
Mr. Persse seemed oddly ill at ease. He was unable to answer the queries which were constantly addressed to him, but his embarrassment was presently relieved. Sir Thomas Ducaine, followed by Mary Lys, rose from his seat and went round about among the people.
"If you will come to my house," Sir Thomas whispered to this or that friend; "if you care to come, of course, Joseph is to be there to meet us all at eleven o'clock. He will make the first pronouncement as to what he intends to do, as to why he has come to London, and of the message which the future holds."
On Sunday night, about half-past ten, the squares and the street thoroughfares of the West End of London are not thronged. The exodus of the crowds from the East End which takes place earlier every evening, so that the poor may catch a single holiday glimpse of those more fortunate, is by that time over and done with.
The rats have gone back to their holes, and the spacious streets of the wealthy are clear and empty, save only for the swift and silent carriages of those who have supper parties, to end and alleviate the dulness of the first day of the week in town.
The walk from Mayfair to Piccadilly is not a long one, and Joseph, with his companion, met few wayfarers as they walked swiftly among the swept and lighted streets, wound in and out among the palaces of the West End.
Eric Black strode by the side of the Teacher with never a word. His heart was beating within him like sudden drums at midnight. His mind and thoughts were swirling in multitudinous sensations. What he had seen he had seen, and what to make of it he did not know. Where he was going, he was going, and what new marvel he was about to experience he was unable to conceive or guess.
Yet, as he moved swiftly towards the house of Sir Thomas Ducaine, he knew in a strange, sub-conscious fashion, that all his life was altered, all his ideas of the future were overthrown.
Something had come into the life of the brilliant young man, something had fallen upon him like a sword—it would never be the same any more!
Meanwhile, as he walked with Joseph, he walked with a man who warmed his whole being with awe and reverence. Speculation ceased within him. He was content to be taken where the other would—dominated, captive, and glad.
And in his mental vision there still remained the vivid memory of the miracle which he had seen—the piercing cries of joy and thankfulness, the picture of the poor old man and his recovered son, drowned all other thought within him!
He felt, as Moses must have felt on Sinai, the rapture and fear of one who has been very near to God.
They came to the door of the house in Piccadilly.
A row of carriages lined the pavement, and the butler was standing in the hall, surrounded by his satellites. The door was half ajar, held by a footman, and as the two men entered there was a sudden stir and movement of the people who were expectant there.
Sir Thomas Ducaine, who had been talking earnestly and in a low voice to Mary Lys, came forward quickly as the two men entered.
His face was charged with a great reverence and affection as he took Joseph by both hands.
"Master," he said, "welcome! We are all waiting for you."
Then he turned inquiringly to Eric Black. Joseph interpreted the look.
"This is a brother," he said, "who will be very strong in the Lord. He is a strong and tempered blade which has for long rested in the scabbard. Our Blessed Lord has come to him this night."
The twenty or thirty people who had been waiting round the great hall now came forward in a group. With the exception of Joseph's friend Hampson, there was not a single person there who was not important in one way or another in English life. Here was a well-known and popular King's Counsel, his keen, clean-shaven face all alight with interest and wonder. By his side was a prominent society actress, a great artiste, as far removed from the Mimi Addington type as light is from darkness. There were tears in the great grey eyes, and the sensitive mouth was quivering with emotion. A young peer, an intimate friend of Sir Thomas Ducaine, a group of well-known society women, a popular Mayfair doctor, a middle-aged baronet, who was one of the Court officials at Buckingham Palace—of such materials was the advance band of people composed.
Along the other side of the hall, in strange contrast to these fashionable and beautifully dressed people, the faithful band of Welsh miners and quarrymen was standing in their black coats, talking earnestly and quietly together.
They turned also as the Master entered.
Then David Owen took three or four steps in front of his companions and raised his gnarled old brown hands high above his head.
"Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord," he cried, "and who is filled with the Holy Spirit!"
Then he turned suddenly to his companions, and with a wave of his arm started the "Veni Creator Spiritus"—
Come, Holy Ghost, eternal God,Proceeding from above,Both from the Father and the Son;The God of peace and love.Visit our minds, into our heartsThy heavenly grace inspire;That truth and godliness we mayPursue with full desire.Thou art the ComforterIn grief and all distress;The heavenly gift of God Most HighNo tongue can it express.The fountain and the living springOf joy celestial;The fire so bright, the love so sweet,The Unction spiritual.
Come, Holy Ghost, eternal God,Proceeding from above,Both from the Father and the Son;The God of peace and love.
Visit our minds, into our heartsThy heavenly grace inspire;That truth and godliness we mayPursue with full desire.
Thou art the ComforterIn grief and all distress;The heavenly gift of God Most HighNo tongue can it express.
The fountain and the living springOf joy celestial;The fire so bright, the love so sweet,The Unction spiritual.
A glorious burst of deep and moving harmony filled the great hall, and thundered away up in the dome above as the Welshmen caught up the old hymn.
None of the other people there had ever heard anything like this in their lives. All this melody and wild beauty, which is the heritage of the country which produces the most perfect chorus singers in the world, were mingled with a spiritual fervor so intense, and a love and rapture so ecstatic, a purpose so inviolable and strong, that souls and hearts were moved as they had never been moved before.
The organ voices ceased suddenly, as a symphony played on some great orchestra ceases without a single dropping note.
Then every one saw that the Master's hand was raised in blessing. He seemed suddenly grown taller. His face shone with heavenly radiance, he was more than human in that moment, his whole body was like some thin, transparent shell which throbbed and pulsed with Divine fire.
"The blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be with you and remain with you always."
The words of blessing fell upon hearts and souls long dry and arid, atrophied by the things of this world, like the blessed rain of heaven upon the thirsting fields. Worldly ambitions, hopes, thoughts and preoccupations, shrivelled up and disappeared. A deep penitence flowed over those dry spaces like a river. Sorrow for the past, resolution for the future, the glory and awe of worship, came upon them all in the supreme moment.
While they were looking at the Teacher with rapt attention they saw him suddenly drop his arm, which fell heavily to his side like a dead thing.
The light faded from his face, the thin, blue-veined lids fell over the shining eyes, the mouth dropped a little, with a long sigh, and Joseph fell backwards in a deep swoon.
The man who but a moment before realized for them the absolute visual picture of Christ Himself, as He may have looked on one of those great moments of tenderness and triumph which star the Holy Gospel with the radiance of their recital, was now, indeed, a visible picture in his own body of the "Man of Sorrows Who was acquainted with grief," The Redeemer Who fell by the way.
Sir Thomas and Hampson were standing by the Teacher as he fell, and it was their arms which received the swooning form, carried it into an inner room, and laid it gently upon a couch.
But it was Mary, tall, grave and unutterably lovely in her healing ministry, who chafed the cold, thin hands, wiped the damp moisture from the pale and suffering brow, and called back life into the frail and exhausted vessel of God.
While the Teacher was being tended by his friends Sir Thomas had given orders to the butler to take his other guests into the large dining-room, where there was some supper waiting for them.
Every one assembled in the great, rich room, with its Jacobean carvings and family portraits by Gainsborough and Reynolds.
But nobody ate anything, or sat down at the long, gleaming table. One and another took a sandwich, but every one was too expectant and highly strung to think of food in the ordinary way.
Probably for the first time in the lives of the society people there, they felt a real brotherhood and equality with the rugged sons of toil. The cultured accents of Park Lane mingled with the rougher voices of the Master's disciples. Distinguished and famous men walked with their hands upon the shoulders of the peasants from Wales. Beautiful women in all the splendor of dress and jewels hung upon the words of some poor servant of God whose whole worldly possessions were not worth twelve inches of the lace upon their gowns.
It was an extraordinary scene of absolute, uncalculating love and brotherhood. As in the very early Christian time, the mighty and the humble were once more one and equal, loving and beloved in the light which streamed from the Cross on which the Saviour of them all had died in agony that they might live in eternity.
There was no single trace of embarrassment among Joseph's followers. They answered the eager questioning of the others with quiet and simple dignity. The marvellous story of Lluellyn Lys was told once more with a far greater fulness of detail than the public Press had ever been able to give to the world. The miracles which had taken place upon the wild hills of Wales were recited to the eager ears of those who had only heard of them through garbled and sensational reports.
During the half-hour all the London folk were put in possession of the whole facts of Joseph's mission and its origin.
Probably never before in the social history of England had the force and power of the Christian faith been so wonderfully and practically manifested as at this moment. Degrees, dignities, rank, wealth, and power were all swept away, and ceased utterly to exist. The Divine love had come down upon this company in full and overflowing measure, and a joy which none of them had known before, and which seemed indeed a very foretaste of the heavenly joy to come, was with them all.
Sir Thomas Ducaine came into the room.
"My friends," he said, "the Master has recovered and asks you to pray and talk with him upon this great and happy night. He is waiting for you all in the ball-room upstairs. Will you come with me?"
The young baronet led the way. They followed him out of the dining-room, through the hall in which the liveried servants stood about with awe-struck faces, up the wide marble staircase with its crimson carpet, and into the vast room, lit by a thousand lights, which gleamed in the mirrors with which the walls were lined, and were reflected again in the smooth and shiny parquet floor.
And in the midst of all these splendors, seated upon a chair at one end of the room, they saw the dark-robed figure of the Master, with a sweet and gentle smile upon his face.
Without a word they grouped themselves round him, and, still smiling on them in love and brotherhood, Joseph began to speak.
"My dear brothers and sisters," he said quietly, "you have come here to-night from the church where I spoke as the Spirit of God compelled me to speak. The words that I said were there given to me, and to many of the congregation they must have seemed harsh and cruel. But out of all that congregation you have chosen to be with me to-night, and I pray and believe that a new life is to begin for all of you, even as it began for me no long time ago.
"I am going to ask you now how, and in what measure, each of you is going to live for Christ Jesus. Think about your past life and think about your future life in this world! God has given to all of you great powers and opportunities. In the ranks of this world you are set high. I and my companions have come from the hills of Wales, led by God, our band captained by the Holy Ghost, to wake this great and sinful city from its sloth and evil. By the blessing of the Holy Trinity you are assembled here to-night under the roof of a young man who is very rich and powerful in England. By the direct operation of the Paraclete, that young man is being led to the Truth, and has thrown in his lot with the servants of God. At the beginning of our battle we are thus provided with money and influence, and all the weapons with which God in His Divine wisdom makes it necessary for His servants to use.
"What are you, also, going to do for Jesus?"
There was a silence for a full minute when Joseph had made an end of speaking.
Then, quite suddenly, a strong, clear, and confident voice rang out in the great ball-room.
Eric Black, the journalist, was speaking.
"Sir Thomas Ducaine, Ladies and Gentlemen," he said, "I am not one of you. I am a writer for the Press, and, I may say, a writer who is successful and whose words are read by very many people. I have never before to-night thought much about religion, nor have I loved God or tried to serve Him. But from now, with the help of the Holy Spirit, I vow and pledge myself to write nothing that is untrue; nothing which shall not, in intention and effort, redound to the glory of God. With such power as in me lies, I enlist under the banner of this man, which I verily, truly and honestly believe to be the banner of Jesus. And there is one thing more that I must say. I beg you will excuse my presumption, and listen patiently to me for a moment, for I have a wonderful thing to tell you."
Then, in crisp, vivid sentences, full of color and movement, he told the listening company of the miracle of healing he had just witnessed in the West End slum.
He spoke as he wrote, keenly and directly, with the technical power of producing an actual picture in the hearer's or the reader's brain.
While he was telling his experience Joseph's eyes were half closed. His hands were resting upon the arms of his chair, and he was quite motionless.
When he had finished, the keen-faced King's Counsel began to speak in a somewhat hard and metallic voice, though with force and determination in every note of it.
"For my part," he said, "without any further preamble I will say just this. I will never again defend a cause in the courts in which I do not believe. I will give up all the methods and intrigues by which I have hoped to secure a judgeship. I will no longer court a political party in whose policy I do not really believe, in order that I may gain a prize. And when I am not exercising my profession and doing the duty to which God has called me, in an honest and Christian fashion, I will spend a right proportion of my wealth and time in helping Joseph to alleviate the sorrows and miseries of the poor, and to bring London back to Jesus Christ!"
The silence which ensued after the great lawyer, in his brusque and determined fashion, had made his confession of faith, was broken by a voice which was like water falling into water.
The great actress was speaking, gently and humbly.
"For my part," she said, "I can do little, oh, so very little. But I have enough money to live on quietly, and there will still be some to spare for the poor people. I will act no more. My art, such as it is, has been well thought of in this world. But I am sure now that I cannot go on playing. There is so much more to do for God. And, perhaps, I do not yet know, because I have not thought it out, it may not be good in the sight of Heaven that I should continue in my profession. That is what I will do, Master."
Young Lord Ashbury, Sir Thomas Ducaine's friend, began to mumble and stutter. He was a short, thick-set young fellow, with a clean-shaven, pleasant, but not particularly intellectual countenance.
"I—er—really, I don't quite know, but I—well, it's difficult to say, don't you know! At any rate, I'll do what I can. Old Tommy Ducaine is a good lead, and I haven't done all I ought to do—not by a very long way. But I will if I can. If I can help the poor Johnnies Joseph talks about, I jolly well will. That's all!"
Very red in the face, the Earl of Ashbury subsided into silence.
The night wore on, and many hearts were laid bare, many natures opened themselves before the Teacher.
It was close upon dawn when the last carriage rolled away, and the door opened to let the latest guest out into Piccadilly.
The battle of the Lord was begun. People were flocking to the enlistment. The standard of Jesus was raised in the Babylon of our time.
Mr. Andrew Levison, the lessee and part proprietor of the Frivolity Theatre, sat in his private office, which led out of the foyer, one damp and foggy afternoon, a fortnight after Joseph's now famous sermon at St. Elwyn's.
Since that momentous occasion, much water had run under the bridge.
Joseph and his companions had become the question of the hour. What, in the first instance, had been mere excitement and surmise, was now an accepted and revolutionary fact. Except by hearsay, London in reality was divided into two camps—those who were for, and those who were against the Teacher.
And the hostile party was infinitely greater than the friendly one.
In the first instance, the attitudes of the religious bodies were extremely varied.
Mr. Persse himself, whose church had become suddenly emptied of its congregation, and whose personal prestige had suffered an irremediable injury, headed a most virulent and persistent antagonism.
But the really fine brains and spiritual natures in the Anglican Church—including those noble men who live the lives of paupers among paupers, and work like galley-slaves—were much more friendly. They noticed that the Teacher made no personal assumptions. He did not say that those whose sins he remitted were cleansed. He baptized none; he called himself an ambassador, but not a priest of God.
That, in His inscrutable providence, the Father had richly endowed this man with the Holy Spirit, that he did indeed walk under the direct guidance of God, seemed to these good men impossible to doubt. They were, despite the certain restrictions of thought to which their training and temperament inclined them, ready to believe that because the advent of one directly inspired by the Holy Ghost in the sense with which the Apostle Paul was inspired was outside their personal experience, it was not to be rejected upon that account.
As far as in them lay, in the measure of their opportunities and possibilities, they held out the welcoming hand.
But, as was inevitable, it was the Free Sects who were in the front of the Teacher's army—as far as definitely Christian people went.
During the last few days of the fortnight which had intervened between the present moment and the sermon in St. Elwyn's, Dissent, with the exception of the Unitarians, had spoken in no uncertain way in favor of Joseph's mission. They saw, with a singular unanimity, that here was a deeply spiritual revival of religion upon true evangelical lines. Here was a greater than Wesley even, a force and a personality which could not be explained away by any accusations of charlatanism or self-interest, a man with a personal magnetism, a power over the human soul, a power even over the material things of life which was verily without precedent or likeness since the times of the holy apostles themselves!
That much of his teaching was definitely Catholic in tone, that he sent people to the true channels of grace—the Sacraments of the Church—did not alienate them as it might have done in another. It was now known that in his youth Joseph was a baptized and confirmed member of the Church of England, that he in no way repudiated it nor stood outside it, that he constantly received the Blessed Sacrament. But Nonconformity was not hostile.
The word "miracle," so long derided and discredited by the materialists and scientists who denied the immanence of God in all things, was now once more in the air.
The whole of England was awaking to the realization of strange new happenings. Men who had never thought or spoken of such things before now talked in low voices, one with the other, of the Holy Ghost. "God is a Spirit"—once more men said this to each other.
The healing of the verger's son was known to all the world. It was a fact beyond possibility of doubt, more authenticated and certain, more easily capable of proof than any of the Roman Catholic wonders of Lourdes or Treves. The colder analysis of the Anglo-Saxon temperament had been brought to bear upon the event. Evidence was weighed and sorted as the impulsive, emotional Latin temperament is incapable of doing.
And, in the event, even the most sceptical were forced to admit that there was no doubt at all.
The thing had really happened!
Eric Black had put it upon record. His vivid and powerful description had touched the heart of the nation. Then it was the turn of the investigators, and they had been unable to discover a single flaw in the sequence of cause, operation, and effect.
It was said also, and hinted everywhere, that a certain famous family had brought an afflicted daughter to the Teacher. Nothing was known definitely, but the generally believed story was this:—
The Lady Hermione —— was the third daughter of the Duke of ——. The family, one of the most famous in the historical annals of England, was still rich in power and wealth. But it was a physical ruin. Sons and daughters for the last three generations had been born feeble in brain and stunted in body.
A mysterious taint was on the ancient house, that Nemesis for past grandeur that Thackeray has drawn for us in the picture of the Marquis of Steyne inVanity Fair.
The young and lovely lady had been seized with a mysterious and incurable disease of the mind. She had disappeared from society. It was said that her condition was terrible; that at times even the doctors and nurses who watched over her impenetrable seclusion shrunk back from her in fear.
It was as though she was possessed of an evil spirit—so the tale had long been whispered.
And now it was abroad and upon the lips of every one that the poor living body inhabited by some evil thing had been brought to the Teacher, and that all was once more well with the maid—the soul returned, health and simplicity her portion once more.
These things had made a most lasting and powerful impression upon the public mind. Who Joseph was, what were the reality and extent of his powers, what was to be the outcome of his mission: these were the questions of the day, and all the world was asking them.
The non-religious world sneered. The majority in "Christian" England was also divided in unequal portions. Most people said that Joseph was a marvellous trickster and cheat—a cheat and impostor such as England had probably never seen before, but still a rogue of rogues.
But among the last and poorest sections of the London community a very different opinion obtained.
They didn't know anything about religious matters, they cared still less. "God" was a word which gave point and freedom to an oath. The churches were places in which one was adjured to give up even the miserable pleasures which made life possible to be endured. The Bible was the little black Book you kissed in the police courts.
But Joseph was a friend.
Great things were going to happen in the congested districts of the lost. A material Saviour seemed to have risen up. A man who rebuked the rich and powerful, who poured words of fire upon the tyrant and the oppressor, had come to London. There was help then! A light was to dawn in the sky, there was a little patch of hope in the sombre environment of lost and degraded lives.
Joseph and his brethren were coming to help!
So all London was stirred to its depths.
Vested interests were threatened in innumerable ways, a revolution in public thought and sentiment was imminent, in some way or other, for all classes of society; things were going to be changed.
Things were going to be changed.
And, whether it knew it or not, the Modern Babylon was in the throes of a spiritual revolution.
The Holy Ghost brooded over the waters.
Mr. Andrew Levison sat in his private office at the Frivolity Theatre.
It was a richly furnished and comfortable place.
The walls were decorated with large photographs of the popular actors and actresses of the day. A heavy Turkey carpet covered the floor, a great writing-table of carved oak was littered with papers, electric lights in little silver shells glowed here and there; it was the luxury of a business room.
Andrew Levison's theatre had remained closed since the night when Joseph had first appeared in London and denounced the place. The attendance at many other theatres of the same class was dwindling enormously. It was exactly as the shrewd Jew had foreseen—the advent of the evangelist bade fair to ruin, or, at any rate, terribly embarrass, his unscrupulous enterprises.
He sat in his big arm-chair of green leather and smiled. A light yellow-colored cigar was between his firm white teeth. He drummed gently upon the writing-table with fat white fingers. No more happy-looking and prosperous person, at peace with the world and with himself, could have been seen anywhere—upon the surface.
It is a great mistake to imagine that the most evil passions of the heart show themselves in the face. Criminals, with the exception of those unhappy people who livecontinuouslyby crime, are no monsters in aspect. Your murderer is, as often as not, a mild and pleasant-looking man. Mr. Levison looked what he was—a good-natured, shrewd and money-loving Hebrew, no more. Yet, as he sat there, he was planning murder, and waiting the arrival of an assassin!
It is always thus, though many people have neither sufficient imagination nor knowledge of life to realize it. A man may be a panderer like Levison, or a robber like any successful rascal in the City, and yet he may still be a kind husband and father and a generous friend.
The Son of God, Who hung upon the shameful tree of Calvary, knew this.
"This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise" was not said idly. Man is made in God's image, however marred or defaced the Divine imprint may be.
It is well to remember this sometimes, though it is fatal to allow our appreciation of its truth to make us kind to sin or tolerant of it. But may we not hope that no single son or daughter of God is ever entirely lost?
The theatrical manager's secretary, a pale and tired-looking girl, who took down his letters in shorthand and typed them upon her machine, knocked at the door and entered.
"Oh, Miss Campbell, what is it?" Levison said, making a pretence of looking up from a pile of papers.
"A man has come," the girl said, "who tells me that he is one of the supers in the last play. There is another man with him, and he says that he thinks you will see him. His name is Harris, and he states that he is one of the regular people here."
"Well, that's nothing to do with me," Levison answered. "They ought to see the stage-manager. He looks after all those things. However, you may tell them to come in. I suppose they're hard up, and want a shilling or two? I shan't disappoint them, I dare say."
He smiled, a flashing, good-humored smile of strong white teeth; and the girl went out, thinking that under a brusque exterior her employer had a heart of gold, after all.
In a moment or two more the carefully arranged comedy was over, the door of the office was carefully closed, and two seedy-looking, clean-shaven men stood in front of Mr. Levison's writing-table.
"This is my pal, Mr. Levison," one of the men said, in a hoarse and furtive voice.
He spoke softly and in the way of one who shared a confidential secret.
Levison looked the other man up and down with a keen and comprehensive regard. The fellow was shorter and stouter than his companion. His face was like a mask. It betrayed nothing whatever, although its obvious concealment of what lay behind—the real man, in short—was rather sinister. The light, red-flint eyes kept flickering and shifting from side to side, and that was the only betrayal of uneasiness apparent.
"What's your name?" Levison said; and then, with a sudden wave of his hand, he corrected himself. "No, I don't want to know your name, after all. That matters nothing to me. But what I am going to ask you is just this: Has Harris explained to you what you are going to be paid to do?"
"'E 'ave, gov'nor," said the man.
"He's told you exactly?"
The fellow nodded, without further waste of words.
"Very well, then," Levison answered—"then there is no need of any explanations on my part. At the same time, I will say just this: A certain person has got to be put out of the way. That you already understand. But there need not necessarily be anything more than that. An injury that would incapacitate the person we know of, would put him on the shelf for a long time, would be quite enough."
The man smiled. The whole ghastly immobility of the mask was suddenly transformed into a hideous and mocking countenance. The tool of the arch criminal betrayed his superiority to scruple, and in that moment the hired assassin was contemptuous of the greater scoundrel and the weaker man.
"As you like, gov'nor," he said, in a low, oily voice. "It's all one to me and my pals—give you my word. There's lots of ways of putting a cove through it wivout doin' of 'im entirely like. But the whole thing's just as easy."
Levison, whose face had suddenly grown very white, made him an impatient and terrified movement with his hand.
It was one thing to call up one of the foul creeping things of London, it was quite another to hear hideousness voicing horror in a quiet and accustomed room.
"I want to hear nothing at all!" he said, in a high-pitched and unsteady voice. "Don't tell me! Don't tell me! I don't want to know!"
Once more the assassin smiled—dreadfully.
"Very well, gov'nor," he whispered. "That's all O.K. Leave it to me, and it'll be safe as 'ouses. Day after ter-morrer this 'ere Joseph is going down into Whitechapel wiv a lot of 'is swell pals. Sort of explanatory tour, it is. 'E's a-goin' to show them 'ow the pore live. Tike 'em over the rookeries and preach the Gospel. We'll 'ave lots of chances, and no one won't know 'oo done it. It's a question of terms, that's all. You're a gen'leman, you are, sir; and Mr. 'Arris 'ere, an old pal of the boys, is a gentleman, too. Guv'nor, what are you a-goin' to hoffer?"
Levison's hand trembled as he opened a drawer of the big writing-table.
He withdrew ten sovereigns in gold.
"Take this," he said, "and when the thing is done, I'll give you twenty more of the same. Harris will give them to you from me. And now, for God's sake, get out of my sight!"
The last words burst from him in a high, almost feminine note, and as the two men shuffled away into the fog of the empty foyer, the fat, white hand of the Jew went up to his throat, clutching at it in sick hysteria.
"In the name of God, get out of my sight!"
Was there ever a more blasphemous parody and mockery than this? He who taketh the name of the Lord God in vain—