A Second Coming

He said:

'Be comforted. Your son I know and you I know. To neither of you shall any harm come.'

Her husband called to her.

'Are you mad? What is the meaning of this extraordinary behaviour? Do you wish to cause a public scandal?'

She answered:

'It is the Lord!'

But her husband commanded her:

'Come back into the carriage!'

She cried:

'Lord, let me stay with You. You have my boy; where my boy is I would be also.'

The Stranger said:

'Return unto your husband. You shall stay with Me although you return to him.'

She went back into the carriage weeping bitterly.

The news of the strange procession which was coming went on in front. All the way were people waiting, so that the crowd grew more and more. All that came had to make room for it, waiting till the press was gone. Though the way was long, but few seemed to tire. Those that were at the first continued to the end, the bands playing almost without stopping, and the people singing hymns.

By the time they neared London it was evening. The throng had grown so great the authorities began to be concerned. Policemen lined the roads, ready if necessary to preserve order. But their services were not needed, as Mr. Treadman proclaimed:

'Constables, we are, glad to see you. Representatives of the law, He who comes is the Lord. Therefore shout Hosanna with the best of us and give Him greeting.'

Presently someone pressed a piece of paper into his hand on which was written:

'If the Lord would but stay this night in the house of the chief of sinners.

    'Miriam Powell.'

He took a pencil from his pocket, and wrote beneath:

'He shall stay in your house this night, thou daughter of the Lord.

    'W. S. T.'

From his seat on the box Mr. Treadman leaned over towards the fly.

'Lord, I entreat You to honour with Your presence the habitation of Your very daughter, Miriam Powell, whose good works, done in Your name, shine in the eyes of all men.'

He replied:

'Thy will, not Mine, be done!' Mr. Treadman shouted to the people: 'My friends, I am authorised by the Lord to announce that He will rest in the house of His faithful servant, Miriam Powell, whose name, as a single-minded labourer in Christ's vineyard, is so well-known to all of you. To mark our sense of His appreciation of the manner in which Mrs. Powell has borne the heat and burden of the day, let us join in singing that beautiful hymn which has comforted so many of us when the hours of darkness were drawing nigh, "Abide with me, fast fall the eventide."'

Mrs. Powell's house was in Maida Vale. It was late when the procession arrived. Even then it was some time before the fly could gain the house itself. The crowd had been recruited from a less desirable element since its advent in the streets of London, and this reinforcement was disposed to show something of its more disreputable side. The vehicle, with its weary horse and country driver, had to force its way through a scuffling, howling mob. For some moments it looked as if, unless the police arrived immediately in great force, there would be mischief done; until the Stranger, standing up in the fly, raised His hand, saying:

'I pray you, be still.'

And they were still. And He passed through the midst of them, with the charcoal-burner and the lame man. Mr. Treadman came after.

When He entered the house, He sighed.

Now Mrs. Powell, when she had learned that the Stranger was to be her guest, had hastened home to make ready for His coming, so that the table was set for a meal. But when He saw that there was a place for only one, He asked:

'What is this? Is there none that would eat with me?'

Mr. Treadman answered:

'Nay, Lord, there is none that is worthy. Suffer us first to wait upon You. Then afterwards we will eat also.'

He said:

'Does not a father eat with his children? Are they not of him? If there is any in this house that calls upon My name, let him sit down with me and eat.'

So they sat down and ate together. While they continued at table but little was said; for the day had been a long one, and they were weary. When they had eaten, the Stranger was shown into the best room, where was a bed which offered a pleasant resting-place for tired limbs. But He did not lie on it, nor sought repose, but went here and there about the room, as if His mind were troubled. And He cried aloud:

'Father, is it for this I came?'

In the street were heard the voices of the people, and those that cried:

'Christ has come again!'

And in the best room of the house the Stranger wept, lamenting:

'I have come unto Mine own, and Mine own know Me not. They make a mock of Me, and say, He shall be as we would have Him; we will not have Him as He is. They have made unto themselves graven images, not fashioned alike, but each an image of his own, and each would have Me to be like unto the image which he has made. For they murmur among themselves: It is we that have made God; it is not God that has made us.'

CHAPTER XIV

THE WORDS OF THE WISE

There began to be in London that night a feeling of unrest. A sense of uncertainty came into men's minds, a desire to find answers to the questions which each asked of the other:

'Who is this man? Who does he pretend to be? Where does he come from? What does he want?'

In the minds of some that last inquiry assumed a different form. They asked, of their own hearts, if not of one another:

'Why has he come to trouble us?'

The usual showed signs of the unusual. In a great city a divergence from the normal means disturbance; which is to be avoided. When the multitude is strongly stirred by a consciousness of the abnormal in its midst, to someone, or to something, it means danger. Order is not preserved by authority, but by tradition. A suspicion that events are about to happen which are contrary to established order shakes that tradition, with the immediate result that confusion threatens.

There was that night hardly one person who was not conscious of more or less vague mental disturbance. There were those who at once leaped to the conclusion that the words of Scripture, as they interpreted them, were about to receive complete illustration. There were others whose theological outlook was capable of less mathematically accurate definition, who were yet in doubt as to whether some supernatural being might not have appeared among men. There was that large class which, having no logical grounds for expectation, is always looking for the unexpected, ever eager to believe it is upon them. The members of this class are not interested in current theories of a deity; they are indifferent whether God is or is not. The phrase 'a Second Coming' conveyed no meaning to their minds. They would welcome any new thing, whether it was Christ Jesus or Tom Fool; though, when they realised who Christ Jesus was, their preference would be strongly in favour of Tom Fool. It was, for the most part, individuals of this sort who bent their steps towards the house in which the Stranger was, and, by way of diversion, loitered in its neighbourhood throughout the night.