A Second Coming

CHAPTER XIII
A TRIUMPHAL ENTRY

The people came to meet the Lord upon the Ripley road, and they were not a few.

The first that found Mr. Treadman were Mrs. Powell and Harvey Gifford. They took a fly from the station, bidding the driver drive straight on. Nor had they gone far before they came on Mr. Treadman sitting on a gate. They cried to him:

'What is the meaning of your telegram?'

'It means that the Lord has come again, in very surety and very truth.'

'Are you in earnest?'

'Did they not ask that question of the prophets? Were they in earnest? Then am I.'

'But where is He?'

'He has given me the slip.'

'Given you the slip? What do you mean?'

Mr. Treadman explained. While he did so, others arrived, men and women of all sorts, ranks, and ages. They were agog with curiosity.

'What like is He to look at? Does the sight of Him blind, as it did Moses?'

'Nothing of the sort. He is just an ordinary man, like you and me.'

'An ordinary man! Then how can you tell it is the Lord?'

'He is not to be mistaken. You cannot be in His presence twenty seconds without being sure of it.'

'But-I don't understand! I thought that when He came again it was to be with legions of angels, in pomp and glory, to be the Judge of all the earth.'

'The Jews looked for a material display. They thought He was to come in Majesty. And because, to their unseeing eyes, He appeared as one of themselves, in their disappointment they nailed Him upon a tree. Oh, my friends, don't let a similar mistake be ours! That is the awful, immeasurable peril which already stares us in the face. Because, in His infinite wisdom, for reasons which are beyond our ken, and, perhaps, beyond our comprehension, He has again chosen to put on the guise of our common manhood, let us not, on that account, the less rejoice to see Him, nor let us fail to do Him all possible honour. He has come again unto His children; let His children receive Him with shouts and with Hosannas. It is possible, when He perceives how complete is His dominion over your hearts and minds, that He will be pleased to manifest Himself in that splendour of Godhead for which I know some of you have been confidently looking. Only, until that hour comes, let us not fail to do reverence to the God in man.'

'But where is He? You told us to meet Him on the Ripley road. How can we do Him reverence if we do not know where He is?'

The question came in different forms from many throats. The crowd had grown. The people were eager.

A boy threaded his way among them. He addressed himself to Mr. Treadman.

'Please, sir, there's someone in the wood with Mr. Bates. When I took Mr. Bates his dinner he called him "Lord."'

Presently the crowd were following the boy. He led them some little distance along the road, and then across a field into a wood. There they came upon the Stranger and the charcoal-burner eating together, seated side by side; and the lame man also ate with them, sitting on the ground. Mr. Treadman cried:

'Lord, we have found You again!'

He looked at the people, asking:

'Who are these?'

They are Your children-Your faithful, loving, eager children, who have come to give You greeting.'

'My children? There are many that call themselves My children that I know not of.'

Mr. Treadman cried:

'Oh, my friends, this is the Lord! Rejoice and give thanks. Many are the days of the years in which you have watched for Him, and waited, and He has come to you at last.'

For the most part the people were still. There were some that pressed forward, but more that hung back. For now that they came near to the Stranger's presence they began to be afraid. Yet Mrs. Powell went close to Him, asking:

'Are you in very deed the Lord?'

He replied:

'Are you of the children of the Lord?

She drew a little back.

'I do not know Him; I do not know Him! Yet I am afraid.'

'Love casteth out fear; but where there is no love, there fear is.'

She drew still more away, saying again:

'I am afraid.'

Mr. Treadman explained:

'We are here to meet You, Lord, and to entreat You to let us come with You to London.'

'Why should you come with Me?'

'Because we are Your children.'

'My children!'

'Yes, Lord, Your children, each in his or her own fashion, but each with his or her whole heart. And because we are Your children, we are here to meet You-many of us at no slight personal inconvenience-to keep You company on the way, so that by our testimony we may begin to make it known that the Lord has come again to be the Judge of all the earth.'

'What know you of the why and wherefore of My coming?'

'Actually nothing. But I am very sure You are here for some great and good purpose, and trust, before long, to prove myself worthy of the Divine confidence. In the meantime I implore You to suffer those who are here assembled to accompany You as a guard of honour, so that You may make, though in a rough-and-ready fashion, a triumphant entry into that great city which is the capital of Your kingdom here on earth.'

'I will come with you.' To the lame man and to the charcoal-burner He said: 'Come also.'

He went with them. And when they came into the road nothing would content Mr. Treadman but that He should get into the fly which had brought Mrs. Powell and Mr. Gifford from the station. The lame man and the charcoal-burner rode with Him. As Mr. Treadman was preparing to mount upon the box Mrs. Powell came.

'What am I to do? I cannot walk all the way. It is too far.'

'Get in also. There is room.'

She shuddered.

'I dare not-I am afraid.'

So the fly went on without her.

As they went the bands played and the people sang hymns. There were some that shouted texts of Scripture and all manner of things. In the towns and villages folk came running out to learn what was the cause of all the hubbub.

'What is it?' they cried.

Mr. Treadman standing up would shout: 'It is the Lord! He has come to us again! Rejoice and give thanks. Come, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, for He has brought you rest.'

They pressed round the fly, so that it could scarcely move.

In a certain place a great man who was driving with his wife, when he saw the crowd and heard what they were saying, was angry, crying with a loud voice:

'What ribaldry is this? What blasphemous words are these you utter? I am ashamed to think that Englishmen should behave in such a fashion.'

Mr. Treadman answered:

'You foolish man! you don't know what it is you say. Yours is the shame, not ours. It is the Lord in very deed!'

The other, still more angry, caused his coachman to place his carriage close beside the fly, intending to reprimand Him whom he supposed to be the cause of the commotion. But when he saw the Stranger he was silent. His wife cried: 'It is the Lord!'

She went quickly from the carriage to the fly. When she reached it she fell on her knees, hiding her face on the seat at the Stranger's side.

'You have my son, my only son!'

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.

In the house itself a consultation was being held. Various persons who take a notorious interest in subjects of the hour were gathered together, like bees about a flower, desirous to extract from the occasion such honey as they could. Mr. Treadman, who presided, had explained to the meeting, in words which burned, what a matter of capital importance it was which had brought them there.

Professor Wilcox Wilson displayed his usual fondness for destructive criticism.

'Our friend Treadman speaks of the frightful consequences which would attend an only partial recognition of the Lord's divinity. He says nothing of the at least equally bad results which would ensue from giving credit to an impostor. Apart from the fact that there are those who are still in doubt as to which portion of the New Testament narrative is to be regarded as mythical-'

Mr. Treadman sprang to his feet.

'Mr. Wilson, this meeting is for believers only. We are not here for an academical discussion; we are here as children of Christ.'

'Quite so. I, also, am anxious to be a child of Christ. I only say, with another, "Help Thou my unbelief." It seems to me that the personage whom we will call our distinguished visitor-'

'Wilson, sit down! In my presence you shall not speak with such flippancy of the Lord Christ. It is to protest against such frames of mind that we are here. Don't you realise that He who is in the room above us has but to lift His little finger to lay you dead?'

'It would prove nothing if he did; certainly not that he is the Lord Christ. My dear Treadman, let me ask you seriously to consider whether you propose to conduct your crusade on logical lines or as creatures of impulse. If it is as the latter you intend to figure, you will do an incalculable amount of mischief. The Lord who made us is aware of our deficiencies. He is responsible for them.'

'No! No!'

'Who, then, is? Is there a greater than God? Do you blaspheme? He knows that He has given us, as one of the strongest passions of our nature, a craving for demonstrable proof. If this is shown in little things, then how much more in greater! If you want it proved that two and two are five, then are you not equally desirous of having it clearly established that a wandering stranger has claims to call himself divine? So put, the question answers itself. If this man is God, he will have no difficulty in demonstrating the fact beyond all possibility of doubt; and he will demonstrate it, for he knows that human nature, for which he is responsible, requires such demonstration. If he does not, then rest assured he is no God.'

Mr. Jebb stood up.

'What sort of proof does Professor Wilson require? What amount would he esteem sufficient? Would he expect that the demonstration should be repeated in the case of each separate individual? I put these questions, feeling that the Professor has possibly his own point of view, because it is asserted that miracles have taken place. A large body of apparently trustworthy evidence testifies to the fact. I am bound to admit that my own researches go to show that the occurrences in question are at least extra-natural. Does the Professor suggest that any power short of what we call Divine can go outside nature?'

The Professor replied:

'I will be candid, and confess that it is because the events referred to are of so extraordinary a nature that I am in this galley. I have hitherto seen no reason to doubt that everything which has happened in cosmogony is capable of a natural explanation. If I am to admit the miraculous, I find myself confronted by new conditions, on which account I ask this worker of wonders to show who and what he is.'

'He has already shown Himself to be more than man.'

'I grant that he has shown himself to be a remarkable person. But it does not by any means therefore follow that he is the Son of God, the Christ of tradition.'

Mr. Treadman broke into the discussion.

'He has shown Himself to me to be the Christ.'

'But how? that's what I don't understand. How?'

'Wilson, pray that one day He may show Himself to you before it is too late. Pray! pray! then you'll understand the how, wherefore, and why, though you'll still not be able to express them in the terms of a scientific formula.'

The Professor shrugged his shoulders.

'That is the sort of talk which has been responsible for the superstition which has been the world's greatest bane. The votaries of the multifarious varieties of hanky-panky have always shown a distaste for the cold, dry light of truth, which is all that science is.'

Jebb smiled.

'I am not so exigent as the Professor. I recognise the presence in our midst of a worker of wonders-a god among men. And although in that latter phrase some may only see a poetic license, I am disposed to be content. For I represent a too obvious fact-the fact that one portion of the world is the victim of the other part's injustice. As I came here to-night I passed through men and women, ragged, tattered, and torn, smirched with all manner of uncleanliness, who were hastening towards this house as if towards the millennium. Remembering how often that quest had been a dream, I asked myself if it were possible that at last it gleamed on the horizon. As I put to myself the question, my heart leaped up into my mouth. For it was borne in upon me, as a thing not to be denied, that it might be that, in the best of all possible senses, the Day of the Lord has arrived- the Great Day of the Lord.'

'It has arrived, Jebb, be sure of it!'

'I think-I say it with all due deference-that it will not be our fault if it has not, in the sense in which I use the phrase. I am told that we have Christ again among us. On that pronouncement I pass no opinion. I stand simply for those that suffer. I do know that we are in actual touch with one who has given proofs of his capacity to alleviate pain and make glad the sorrowful. Experience has shown that by nothing less than a miracle can the submerged millions be raised out of the depths. Here is a doer of miracles. Already he has shown that a cry of anguish gains access to the heart, and impels him to a removal of the cause. Here is a great healer, the physician the world is so much in want of. Would it not be well for us, sinking all controversial differences, to join hands in approaching him, and in showing him, with all humility, the wounds which gape widest, and the souls which are enduring most, doing this in the trust that the sight of so much affliction will quicken his sympathies, and move him to right the wrong, and to make the rough ways smooth? How he will do it I cannot say. But he who can raise a cancerous corpse from an operating table, and endue it with life and health upon the instant, can do that and more. To such an one all things are possible. I ask you to consider whether it will not be well that we should discuss the best and most effective manner in which, in the morning, this matter can be laid before him who has come among us.'

Scarcely had Mr. Jebb ceased to speak than there rose a huge man, with matted beard, untidy hair, eager eyes, and a voice which seemed to shake the room. This was the socialist, Henry Walters. He spoke with tumultuous haste, as if it was all he could do to keep up with the words which came rushing along his tongue.

'I say, Yes! if that's the Christ you're talking about, I'm for him. If this disturber of the peace is a creature with red blood in his veins, count me on his side. For he'll be a disturber of the peace with a vengeance. If at last Heaven has given us someone who is prepared to deal, not with abstractions, but with facts, then I cry: "Hallelujah for the King of Kings!" For it's more important that our rookeries should be made decent dwelling-places than that all the Churches should plump for the Thirty-nine Articles. The prospect of a practical Christ almost turns my brain. Religion is a synonym for contradiction in theory and practice, but a Christ who is a live man, and not a decoration for an altarpiece, will be likely to have clear notions on the problems which are beyond our finding out, and to care little for singing bad verses about the golden sea. We want a Saviour more than the handful of Jews did, who at least had breathing space in the 11,000 miles of open country, with a respectable climate, which you call Palestine. But he must be a Saviour that is a Saviour; not an utterer of dark sayings which are made darker by being interpreted, but a doer of deeds. Let him purify the moral and physical atmosphere of a single London alley, and he'll not want for followers. Let him assure the London dockers of a decent return for honest labour, and he'll write his name for all time on their hearts. Let him put an end to sweating, and explain to the wicked mighty that by right their seats should be a little lower down, and he'll have all that's worth having in the world upon his side. You talk about a Saviour of the poor. If such an one has come at last, the face of this country will be transformed in a fashion which will surprise some of you who live on the poor. There'll be no need of a second crucifixion, or for more tittle-tattle about dying for sinners. Let him live for them. He has but to choose to conquer, to will to extend his empire, eternally, from pole to pole. And since these are my sentiments I need not enlarge on the zest with which I shall join in the discussion suggested by Mr. Jebb as to the most irresistible method of laying before him who has come among us the plain fact that this chaos called a city is but a huge charnel-house of human misery.'

When Mr. Walters sat down the Rev. Martin Philipps rose:

'I have listened in silence to the remarks which we have just heard because I felt that this was pre-eminently an occasion on which every man, conscious of his own responsibility, was entitled to an uninterrupted exposition of his views, however abhorrent those views might be to some of us. I need not tell you how both the tone and spirit of those to which we have just been listening are contrary to every sense and fibre of my being. Mr. Jebb and the last speaker seem only to see the secular side of the subject which is before us. This is the more surprising as it has no secular side. If Christ has come, it is as a Divinity, not as an adherent of this or that political or social school, but as an intermediary between heaven and earth. I cannot express to you the horror with which I regard the notion that the purport of His presence here can be to administer to the material wants of men. To suppose so is indeed to mock God. We as Christians know better. It is our blessed privilege to be aware that it is not our bodies which He seeks, but our souls. Our body is but the envelope which contains the soul, and from which one day it emerges, like the chrysalis from the cocoon. The one endures but for a few years, the other through all eternity.

'I would not inflict on you these platitudes were it not necessary, after the remarks which we have heard, for us, as Christians to make our position plain. If Christ has come again, it is in infinite love, to make a further effort to save us from the consequences of our own sin, to complete the work of His atonement, and to seek once more to gather us within the safety of His fold.

'I had never thought that under any possible circumstances I should be constrained to ask myself the question, Has Christ come again? Strange human blindness! I had always supposed that, as a believer in Christ, and Him crucified, and as a preacher, I should never have the slightest doubt as to whether or not He had returned to earth. I see now with clearer eyes; I perceive my own poor human frailty; I realise more clearly the nature of the puzzle which must have presented itself to the Jews of old. I use the word "puzzle" because it seems to define the situation more accurately than any other which occurs to me. Looking back across the long tale of the years, it is difficult for us to properly apprehend the full bearing of the fact that Christ, the Son of God, was once an ordinary man, in manners, habits, and appearance exactly like ourselves. We say glibly: "He was made man," but how many of us stop to realise what, in their entirety, those words mean! When I first heard that someone was in London who, it was rumoured, was the Lord Jesus, my feeling was one of shock, horror, amazement, to think that anyone could be guilty of so blasphemous a travesty. If you consider, probably the same sensation was felt by Jews who were told that the Messiah, to whose advent their whole history pointed, was in their midst. When they were shown an ordinary man, who to their eyes looked exactly like his fellows-a person of absolutely no account whatever-their feeling was one of deep disgust, derision, scorn, which presently became fanatical rage. Exactly what they were looking for, more or less vaguely (for the promise was of old, and the performance long delayed), they scarcely knew themselves. But it was not this. Who is this man? What is his name? Where does he come from? What right has he to hold himself up as different from us? These were questions which they asked. When the answers came their rage grew more, until the sequel was the hill of Calvary.

'A similar problem confronts us to-day in London. We believe in Christ, although we never saw Him. I sometimes think that, if we had seen Him, we might not have believed. God grant that I am wrong! For nearly nineteen hundred years we have watched and waited for His Second Coming. The time has been long; the disappointments have been many, until at last there has grown up in the midst of some a sort of dull wonder as to whether He will ever come again at all. "How long?" many of us have cried-"O Lord, how long?" Suddenly our question receives an answer of a sort. We are told: "No longer-now. The great day of the Lord is already here. Christ has come again." When in our bewilderment we ask, "Where is He? What is He like? Whence has He come, and how? Why wholly unannounced, in such guise and fashion?" we receive the same answer as did the Jews of old.

'This is a grave matter which we have met to discuss-so grave that I hardly dare to speak of it; but this I will venture to say: I know that my Redeemer liveth; but whether I should know Him, as He should be known, if I met Him face to face, very man of very man, here upon earth, I cannot certainly say. I entreat God to forgive me in that I am compelled, to my shame, to make such a confession; and I believe that He will forgive me, for He knows, as none else can, how strange a thing is the heart of man. He who is with us in this house tonight has been spoken of as a worker of wonders. That I myself know he is, and of wonders which are other than material. When yesterday I stood before him, I was abashed. The longer I stayed, the more my sense of self-abasement grew. I felt as if I, a thing of impurity, had been brought into sudden, unexpected contact with one who was wholly pure. I was ashamed. I am conscious that there is a presence in this house which, though intangible, is not to be denied. Whether or not the physical form and shape of our Lord is in the room above us, He is present in our midst; and I confidently hope, when I have sought guidance from God in prayer-as I trust that we presently shall all do-to obtain light from the Fountain of all light which shall make clear to me the way.'

The Rev. Martin Philipps was succeeded by Mr. John Anthony Gibbs. Mr. Gibbs was a short, portly person, with a manner which suggested, probably in spite of himself, a combination of the pedagogue with the man of business.

'I believe that I am entitled to say that I represent certain religious bodies in the present House of Commons, and while endorsing what the last speaker has said, I would add to his remarks one or two of my own. I apprehend that it is generally allowed that we have among us a remarkable man. I understand that he is with us to-night beneath this very roof. The spirit of the age is inclined towards incredulity, but I for one am disposed to be convinced that he is not as others are. Admitting the bare possibility of his being more than man, even though he be less than God, I confidently affirm that it is to the Churches first of all that the question is of primary importance. I would suggest that representations be at once made to the different Churches.'