A Second Coming

CHAPTER XXI

THE ASKING

In the morning the thoughts of England were turned towards that house in Islington: and no small number of its people were on their way to it. The newspapers besieged it with their representatives-on a useless quest, though their columns did not lack news on that account. Throughout the night the crowd increased in the street. The authorities began to be concerned. They acted as if the occasion of public interest was a fire. Placing a strong cordon of police at either end of the road, they made of it a private thoroughfare; only persons with what were empirically regarded as credentials were permitted to pass. Only after considerable hesitation was sickness allowed to be a passport. When it was officially decided to admit the physically suffering an extraordinary scene began to be enacted. It almost seemed as if all the hospitals and sick-rooms of London had been emptied of their occupants. They came in an unceasing stream. The police displayed their wonted skill in the management of the amazing crowd. Those who had been brought on beds were placed in the front ranks; those on chairs next; those who could stand, though only with the aid of crutches, at the back. The people had to be forced farther and farther away to make room for the sick that came; and yet before it was full day admission had to be refused to any more-every foot of available ground was occupied.

There were doctors present, some of whom were dissatisfied with the turn matters were taking. Perceiving, perhaps, that if it continued their occupation would be gone, they represented to the police that if certain of the sufferers did not receive immediate attention they might die. So that at an early hour their chief, Colonel Hardinge, who had just arrived, knocked at Mr. Kinloch's door. Ada opened.

'I understand that he whom these unfortunate people have come to see is at present in this house.'

'The Lord is in this house.'

'Quite so. We won't quarrel about description. The fact is, I'm told that if something isn't done for these poor creatures at once, they'll die. So, with your permission, I'll see the-er-person.'

'It is not with my permission, but with His. He is the Lord. When He wishes to see you, well. He does not wish to see you now.'

She shut the door in the Colonel's face.

'That's an abrupt young lady!'

This he said to the doctors and other persons who were standing at the gate. Among them was Sir William Braidwood, who replied:

'I don't know that she isn't right.'

'It's all very well for you to talk like that, but what am I to do? You tell me with one breath that if something isn't done people will die, and with another that because I try to get something done I merit a snubbing.'

'Exactly. This isn't a public institution; the girl has a right to resent your treating it as if it were. These people oughtn't to be here at all. Those who are responsible for some of them ought to be made to stand their trial for murder. This person, whoever he is, has promised nothing. They have not the slightest claim upon him. They are here as a pure speculation. Your men are to blame for allowing them to assemble in such a fashion, not the girl who endeavours to protect her guest from intrusion.'

Someone called out from the crowd:

'Ain't he coming, sir? I'm fair finished, I am-been here six hours. I'm clean done up.'

'What right have you to be there at all? You ought to be at home in bed.'

'I've come to be healed.'

'Come to be healed! I suppose if you want a hatful of money, you think you've only got to ask for it. You've no right to be here.'

Murmurs arose-cries, prayers, stifled execrations. An inspector said to his chief:

'If something isn't done, sir, I fancy there'll be trouble. Our men have difficulty in keeping order as it is. Half London must be here, and they're coming faster than ever. There's an ugly spirit about, and some ugly customers. If it becomes known that nothing is going to be done for these poor wretches, I don't know what will happen. How we are going to get them safely away is more than I can guess.'

'You hear what Sir William Braidwood says.'

'Begging Sir William's pardon, it's a choice of evils, and if I were you, sir, I should try again. They can't refuse to let you see this person. Not that I suppose he can do what they think he can, but still there you are.'

'He can do it.'

'With a word?'

'With a word.'

'Then he ought to.'

'Why? I can give you a thousand pounds with a word. But why ought I to?'

'That's different.'

'You'll find that a large number of people don't think it's different. These people want the gift of health; others in the crowd there want the gift of wealth. I dare wager there's no form of want which is not represented in that eager, greedy, lustful multitude. The excuse is common to them all: he can give it with a word. I am of your opinion, there will be trouble; because so many persons misunderstand the situation.'

Colonel Hardinge arrived at a decision:

'I think I will have another try. We can't have these people here all day, so if he won't have anything to do with them, the sooner they are cleared out of this, the better. What I have to do is to find out how it's going to be.'

He knocked again. This time the door was opened by Mr. Kinloch, who at once broke into voluble speech.

'It was you who came just now; what do you mean by coming again? What's the meaning of these outrageous proceedings? Can't I have a guest in my house without being subjected to this abominable nuisance?'

'I grant the nuisance, but would point out to you, sir, that we are the victims of it as well as you. If you will permit me to see your guest I will explain to him the position in a very few words. On his answer will depend our action.'

'My guest desires to be private; I must insist upon his privacy being respected. My daughter has been speaking to him. She tells me that he says that he has nothing to do with these people, and that they have nothing to do with him.'

'If that is the case, and that is really what he says, and I am to take it for an answer, then the matter is at an end.'

Ada's voice was heard at the back.

'Father, the Lord is coming.'

The Stranger came to the door. In a moment the Colonel's hat was in his hand.

'I beg a thousand pardons, sir, for what I cannot but feel is an intrusion; but the fact is, these foolish people have got it into their heads that they have only to ask you, and you will restore them to health. Am I to understand, and to give them to understand, that in so thinking they are under an entire delusion?'

'I will speak to them.'

The Stranger stood upon the doorstep. When they saw Him they began to press against each other, crying:

'Heal us! Heal us!'

'Why should I heal you?'

There was a momentary silence. Then someone said:

'Because you healed those others.'

'What they have you desire. It is so with you always. You cry to Me continually, Give! give! What is it you have given Me?'

The same voice replied:

'We have nothing to give.'

'You come to Me with a lie upon your lips.'

The fellow threw up his arms, crying:

'Lord! Lord! have mercy on me, Lord!'

He answered:

'Those among you that have given Me aught, though it is never so little, they shall be healed.' No one spoke or moved. 'Behold how many are the cheerful givers! I come not to give, but to receive. I seek My own, and find it not. All men desire something, offering nothing. This great city, knowing Me not, asks Me continually for what I have to give. Though I gave all it craves, it would be still farther off from heaven. It prizes not that which it has, but covets that which is another's, hating it because it is his. Return whence you came; cleanse your bodies; purify your hearts; think not always of yourselves; lift up your eyes; seek continually the knowledge of God. When you know Him but a thousandth part as He knows you, you need ask Him nothing, for He will give you all that you desire.'

With that He returned into the house.

When they saw Him go an outcry at once arose.

'Is that all? Only talk? Why, any parson could pitch a better yarn than that! Isn't He going to do anything? Isn't He going to heal us? What, not after healing those people yesterday at Maida Vale, and after our coming all this way and waiting all this time?'

The rougher sort who could use their limbs began to press forward towards the house, forcing down those who were weaker, many of whom filled the air with their cries and groans and curses. The police did their best to stem the confusion.

There came along the avenue on the pavement which the police had kept open Henry Walters and certain of his friends. They were escorted by a sergeant, who saluted Colonel Hardinge.

'This man Walters wants to see the person all the talk's about. There are a lot of his friends in the crowd, and rather than have any fuss I thought I'd let them come.'

'Right, sergeant. Mr. Walters is at liberty to see this person if this person is disposed to see him, which I'm rather inclined to doubt.'

'We'll see about that,' muttered Walters to his companions, as with them he hurried up the steps.

At the top he paused, regarding the poor wretches struggling fatuously in the street.

'That looks promising for us. So he won't heal them. Why? No reason given, I suppose. I dare say he won't heal us; for the same reason. Well, we'll see. Mind you shut the front door when we go in. I rather fancy we shall want some persuasion before we see the logic of such a reason as that.'

The door was closed as he suggested. In the hall he was met by Ada.

'What is it that you want?'

'You know very well what it is. We want a few words with the stranger who is in this house.'

'It is the Lord!'

'Very well. We want a few words with the Lord.'

'You cannot enter His presence uninvited.'

'Can't we? I think you are mistaken. Is He in that room? Stand aside and let me see.'

'You may not pass.'

'Don't be silly. We're in no mood for manners. Will you move, or must I make you? Do you hear? Come away.'

He laid his hand upon the girl's shoulder. As he did so the Stranger stood in the open door. When they saw Him, and perceived how in silence He regarded them, they drew a little back, as if perplexed. Then Walters spoke:

'I'm told that you are Christ.'

'What has Christ to do with you, or you with Christ?'

'That's not an answer to my question. However, without entering into the question of who you are, it seems that you can work wonders when you choose.'

There was a pause as if for a reply. The Stranger was still, so Walters went on.

'We represent a number of persons who are as the sands of the sea for multitude, the victims of man's injustice and of God's.'

'With God there is no injustice.'

'That is your opinion. We won't argue the point; it's not ours. We come to plead the cause of myriads of people who have never known happiness from the day they were born. Some of them toil early and late for a beggarly wage; many of them are denied the opportunity of even doing that. They have tried every legitimate means of bettering their condition. They have hoped long, striven often, always to be baffled. Their brother men press them back into the mire, and tread them down in it. We suggest that their case is worthy your consideration. Their plight is worse to-day than it ever was; they lack everything. Health some of them never had; they came into the world under conditions which rendered it impossible. Most of them who had it have lost it long ago. Society compels them to live lives in which health is a thing unknown. Their courage has been sapped by continuous failure. Hope is dead. Joy they never knew. Misery is their one possession. Under these circumstances you will perceive that if you desire to do something for them it will not be difficult to find something which should be done.'

Another pause; still no reply.

'We do not wish to cumber you with suggestions; we only ask you to do something. It will be plain to your sense of justice that there could be no fitter subjects for benevolence. Yet all that we request of you is to be just. You are showering gifts broadcast. Be just; give also something to them to whom nothing ever has been given. I have the pleasure to await your answer.'

He answered nothing.

'What are we to understand by your silence? – that you lack the power, or the will? We ask you, with all possible courtesy, for an answer. Courtesy useless? Still nothing? There is a limit even to our civility. Understand, also, that we mean to have an answer-somehow.'

Ada touched him on the arm, whispering:

'It is the Lord!'

'Is he a friend of yours?'

'He is a Friend of all the world.'

'It doesn't look like it at present, though we hope to find it the case before we've finished. Come, sir! You hear what this young lady says of you. We're waiting to hear how you propose to show that you're a friend of that great host of suffering souls on whose behalf we've come to plead to you.'

Yet He was still. Walters turned to his associates.

'You see how it is? It's as I expected, as was foreseen last night. If we want anything, we've got to take the kingdom of heaven by violence. Are we going to take it, or are we going to sneak away with our tails between our legs?'

The woman answered who had spoken at the meeting the night before- the fair-haired woman, with the soft voice and quiet eyes:

'We are going to take it.' She went close to the Stranger. 'Answer the question which has been put to you.' When He continued silent, she struck Him on the cheek with her open palm, saying: 'Coward!'

Ada came rushing forward with her father and her sisters. With a movement of His hand He kept them back. Walters applauded the woman's action.

'That's right-for a beginning; but he'll want more than that. Let me talk to him.' He occupied the woman's place. 'We've nothing to lose. You may strike us dead; we may as well be dead as living the sort of life with which we are familiar; it is a living death. I defy you to cast us into a worse hell than that in which we move all day and every day. If you are Christ, you have a chance of winning more adherents than were ever won for you by all the preaching through all the ages, and with a few words. If you are man, we will make you king over all the earth, and all the world will cry with one heart and one voice: "God save the King!" And whether you are Christ or man, every heart will be filled with your praises, and night and morning old and young will call with blessings on your name. Is not that a prospect pleasing even unto God? And all this for the utterance of perhaps a dozen words. That is one side of the shield. Does it not commend itself to you? I ask you for an answer.

'None? Still dumb? I'll show you something of the other side. If you are resolute to shut your ears to our cries, and your eyes to our misery, we'll crucify you again. Don't think that those police outside will help you, or anything of that sort, because you'll be nursing a delusion. You'll be crucified by a world in arms. When it is known that with a word you can dry the tears that are in men's eyes, and yet refuse to utter it-when that is generally known, it will be sufficient. For it will have been clearly demonstrated that you must be a monster of whom the world must be rid at all and any cost. Given such a capacity, none but a monster would refuse to exercise it. And the fact that, according to some narrow code of scholastic reasoning, you may be a faultless monster will make the fact worse, not better. For faultlessness of that sort is in continual, cruel, crushing opposition to poor, weak, human nature. Now will you give me an answer?'

When none came, and His glance continued fixed upon the other's face with a strange, unfaltering intensity, Walters went still closer.

'Shall I shake the answer out of you?' Putting up his hand, he took the Stranger by the throat; and when He offered no resistance, began to shake Him to and fro. Ada, running forward, struck at Walters with so much force that, taken by surprise, he let the Stranger go. She cried:

'It is the Lord! It is the Lord!'

'What is that to us? Why doesn't he speak when he's spoken to? Is he a wooden block? You take care what you do, my girl. You'd be better employed in inducing your friend to answer us. Lord or no Lord. There'd be no trouble if he'd treat us like creatures of flesh and blood. If he'd a spark of feeling in his breast, he'd recognise that the very pitifulness of our condition-our misery, our despair! – entitles us to something more than the brand of his scornful silence; he'd at least answer yes or no unto our prayers.'

Ada wept as if her heart would break, sobbing out from amidst her grief:

'It is the Christ! It is the Lord Christ!'

Her father, forcing his way to the front door, had summoned assistance. A burly sergeant came marching in.

'What's the matter here? Oh, Mr. Walters, it's you! You're not wanted in here. Out you go-all of you. If you take my advice you'll go home, and you'll get your friends to go home too. There'll be some trouble if you don't take care!'

'Go home? Sergeant, you see that Man? Have you anywhere a tender place? Is there any little thing which, if you had it, would make your life brighter and more worth the living? That Man, by the utterance of a word, can make of your life one long, glad song; give you everything you are righteously entitled to deserve; so they tell me. Go home to the kennels in which we herd when the Christ who has come to release us from our bondage will not move a finger, or do aught to loose our bonds, but, seeing how we writhe in them, stands mutely by? No, sergeant. We'll not go home till we've had a reckoning with Him.'

He stretched out his arm, pointing at the Stranger.

'I'll meet you at another Calvary. You've crucified me and mine through the ages, and would crucify us still, finding it a royal sport at which it were blasphemy to cavil. Beware lest, in return, you yourself are not crucified again.'

When Walters and his associates had gone, the sergeant said, addressing the Stranger:

'I'm only doing my duty in telling you that the sooner you clear out of this, the better it'll be for everyone concerned. You're getting yourself disliked in a way which may turn out nasty for you, in spite of anything we can do. There's half a dozen people dead out in the street because of you, and there's worse to come, so take my tip and get out the back way somewhere. Find a new address, and when you have found it keep it to yourself. We don't want to have London turned upside down for anyone, no matter who it is.'

The sergeant went. And then words came from the Stranger's lips, as if they had been wrung from His heart; for the sweat stood on His brow:

'Father, is it, then, for this that I am come to the children that call upon My Name in this great city, where on every hand are churches built for men to worship Christ? What is this idol which they have fashioned, calling it after My Name, so that wherever I go I find a Christ which is not Me? Lord! Lord! they cry; and when the Lord comes they say, It is not you we called, but another. They deny Me to My face. The things I would they know not. In their blindness, knowing nothing, they would be gods unto themselves, making of You a plaything, the servant of their wills. As of old, they know not what they do. Aforetime, by God's chosen people was I nailed unto a tree. Am I again to suffer shame at the hands of those that call themselves My children? Yet, Father, let it be so if it is Your will.'

CHAPTER XXII

A SEMINARY PRIEST

In the street was riot; confusion which momentarily threatened to become worse confounded. In the press were dignitaries of the Church; that Archbishop whom we met at dinner; Cardinal De Vere, whose grace of bearing ornaments the Roman establishment in England; with him a young seminary priest, one Father Nevill. The two high clerics were on a common errand. Their carriages encountering each other on the outskirts of the crowd, they had accepted the services of a friendly constable, who offered to pilot them through the excited people. At his heels they came, scarcely in the ecclesiastical state which their dignity desired.