A Second Coming Part 33

'Show us another miracle!'

Ada said:

'You hear that? Why, father, I do believe that a miracle is beginning to be worked in you!'

She smiled at him. He took her in his arms and kissed her.

CHAPTER XX

THEY THAT WOULD ASK WITH A THREAT

There was a meeting of Universalists. This was a society whose meeting-place was in Soho. It called itself a club, using the word in a sense of its own, for anyone was admitted to its membership who chose to join; and, as a rule, all comers, whether members or not, were free to attend its meetings. It was a focus for discontent. To it came from all parts of the world the discontented, examples of that huge concourse which has a grudge against what is called Society--not of the silent part, which is in the majority, but of that militant section whose constant endeavour it is to goad the dumb into speech, in the hope and trust that the distance between speech and action will not be great.

The place was packed. There were women there as well as men--young and old--representatives of most of the nations which describe themselves as civilised; their common bond a common misery.

The talk was old. But in the atmosphere that night was something new.

Bellows had given vitality to the embers which smouldered in their hearts.

Henry Walters was speaking. They listened to him with a pa.s.sionate eagerness which suggested how alluring was the dream which he proposed to wrest out of the arena of visions.

'I said to a policeman as I was coming in that I believed we were going to have our turn. He laughed. The police have had all the laughing. We'll laugh soon. We've been looking for a miracle, recognising that a miracle was the only thing that could help us. The arrival of a worker of miracles is a new factor in the situation with which the police, and all they represent, will have to reckon. It's just possible that they mayn't find him an easy reckoning. He who can raise a woman from the dead with a word can just as easily turn London upside down, and the police with it.

'We've heard of taking the kingdom of heaven by violence. I believe that it has been recommended by high authorities as a desirable method of procedure. I propose to try it. I propose we go to-morrow morning to this worker of miracles, saying: "You see how our wrongs ascend as a dense smoke unto Heaven. Put an end to them, so that they may cease to be an offence unto G.o.d." He has shown that he has bowels of compa.s.sion. I believe, if we put this plainly to him, with all the force that is in us, that the greatest of his miracles will be worked for us. If he will heal the sick, he will heal us; for we are sick unto more than death, since our pains have dragged us unto the gates of h.e.l.l.

'The fashion of the healing we had better leave to him. Let us but point out that we come into the court of his justice asking for our rights; if he will give us what is ours we need not trouble about the manner of the giving. Let us but remind him that in the sight of G.o.d all men are equal; if he restores to us our equality, what does it matter how he does it? For the substance let the shadow go. But on so much we must insist; we must have the substance. We must be healed of our diseases, cured of our sores, relieved of our infirmities. If our just prayer is quickly heard, good. If not, the kingdom of heaven must be taken by violence, and shall be, if we are men and women. How are we profited, though miracles are worked for others, if none are worked for us? We stand most in need of the miraculous--none could come into this room, and see us, and deny it!--and we'll have it, or we'll know the reason why. He can scarcely smite us more heavily than we are already smitten. I wish to use no threats. I trust no one else will use them. I'm hopeful, since he has shown that he has sympathy for suffering, that he'll show sympathy for our sufferings. But--I say it not as a threat, but as a plain statement of a plain fact--if he won't do his best for us, we'll do our worst to him. G.o.d grant, however, that at last a Saviour has come to us in very deed!'

When Walters stopped a score of persons sprang to their feet. The chairman called upon a German, one Hans Kuntz, wild, lean, unkempt, with something of frenzy in his air. He spoke English with a volubility which was only mastered by an occasional idiom; in a thin falsetto voice which was like a continuous shriek.

'I am hungry; that is not new. In the two small rooms where I live I have a wife and children who are also hungry; that also is not new. I run the risk of becoming more hungry by coming out to-night, and leaving work that must be finished by the morning. But when I hear that there is come to London one who can raise people from the dead, I say to my wife: "Then He can raise us too." My wife says: "Go and see." So to see I am come. With Mr. Walters I say, Let us all go and see--all, all that great London which when it works starves slowly, and when it does not work starves fast. We need not speak. We need but show Him our faces, how the skin but covers our bones. If he is not a devil, he will do to us what he has done to others: he will heal us and make us free. What I fear is that it is exaggerated what he has done--I have got beyond the region of hope. But if it is true, if but the half of it is true--if this morning he healed that crowd of people with a word, why should he not do the same to us? Why? Why?

Did they deserve more than we? Are our needs not greater? We are the victims of others' sins. We are the slaves who sow, and reap, and garner, and yet are only suffered to eat the husks of the great stores of grain for which we give our lives. Surely this healer of the sick will give us a chance to live as men should live, and to die, when our time comes, as men should die! Oh, my brothers, if G.o.d has come among us He'll know! He'll know! And if He is a G.o.d of mercy, a G.o.d of love, and not a Siva, a destroyer, who delights in the groans and cries of bruised and broken hearts and lives, we have but to make to Him our pet.i.tion, and He'll wipe the tears out of our eyes. To-night it is late, but in the morning, early, let us all go to Him--all! all!--all go!'

Out of the throng who were eager to speak next a woman was chosen-- middle-aged, decently dressed, with fair hair and quiet eyes. Her voice was low, yet distinct, her manner calm, her language restrained, her bearing judicial rather than argumentative.

'Brothers Kuntz and Walters seem to take it for granted that the G.o.d of the Christians is a G.o.d of love. I thought so when I was a child; I know better now. The idea seems to be supported in the present case by the fact that the person of whom we have heard so much has done works of healing, of mercy. It is not clear that, in all cases, to heal is to be merciful. Apart from that consideration, I would point out that the works in question have been spasmodic rather than continuous, the fruits, apparently, of momentary whims rather than of a settled policy. This afternoon his a.s.sistance was invited in similar cases. He declined. The crowd continually entreated him to do unto them as he had done unto others. Their requests were persistently ignored. It is plain, therefore, that one has not only to ask to receive. Nor is any attempt made to differentiate between the justice of contending claims. If this person is Divine, which I, personally, take leave to more than doubt, he is irresponsible. His actions are dependent on the mood of the moment.

'I am not saying this with any desire to throw cold water on the proposition which has been made to us. On the contrary, I think the suggestion that we should go to him in a body--as large a body as possible--and request his good offices on our behalf, an excellent one. At the same time, I cannot lose sight of one fact: that it is one thing to pray; to receive a satisfactory answer--or, indeed, an answer of any sort to one's prayer--is quite another. In our childish days we have prayed, believing, in vain. In the acuter agonies of our later years prayers have been wrung from us--always, still, in vain.

There seems no adequate reason why, in the present case, we should pin our faith to the efficacy of prayer alone. The disease has always existed. Why should we suppose that the remedy has become accessible to whoever chooses to ask for it? If this person is Divine, he knows what we suffer; has always known, yet has done nothing. We are told that G.o.d is unchangeable, the same for ever and ever. The history of the world sustains this theory, inasmuch as it has always been replete with human suffering. That, therefore, disposes of any notion that it is at all likely that he has suddenly become sensitive to mere cries of pain.

'I would lay stress on one word which Brother Walters used more than once: violence. We are confronted with an opportunity which may never recur, and may vanish if not used quickly. Here is a person who has done remarkable things. The presumption is that he can do other remarkable things for us, if he chooses. He must be made to choose.

That is the position.

'Let us clear our minds of cant. We are going to him with a good case. The reality of our grievances, the justice of our claims, he scarcely will be prepared to deny. Still, you will find him unwilling to do anything for us. Probably, a.s.suming an air of Divine irresponsibility, he will decline to listen, or to discuss our case at all. Such is my own conviction. There will be a general rush for him to-morrow. All sorts and conditions of people will have an axe of their own to grind. In the confusion, ours will be easily and conveniently ignored. Therefore, I say, we must go in as large a body as possible, force him to give us an interview, compel him to accede to our request--that is, speak for us the same kind of word which he spoke for those sick people this morning. If he strikes us dead, he'll do himself no good and us no harm, for many of us would sooner be dead than as we are. Unless he does strike us dead we ought to stick to him until we have wrung from him our desire. It is possible that this is a case in which resolution may succeed. At the worst, in our plight, with everything to gain, and nothing--nothing--to lose, the attempt is one which is worth making, on the understanding that we will not take no for an answer, but will use all possible means to win a yes. We must make it as plain as it can be made that, if he will do nothing for us, he shall do nothing for others, at least on earth. What does it matter to us who enters heaven if the door is slammed in our faces?'

The next speaker was a man in corduroy trousers and a jacket and waistcoat which had once been whity-gray. He wore a cloth cap, and round his throat an old red handkerchief. His eyes moved uneasily in his head; when they were at rest they threatened. His face was clean-shaven, his voice husky. While he spoke, he kept his hands in his trousers pockets and his cap on his head. He plunged at once into the heart of what he had to say.

'I was one of them as shouted out this afternoon, "Show us a miracle!" And I was down at Maida Vale this morning, almost on top of them poor creatures as was more dead than alive. He just came out of the house, said two or three words, though what they was I couldn't catch, and there they was as right as if there'd never been nothing the matter with 'em, running about like you and me. And yet when I asked him to do something for me, though it'd have only cost him a word to do it--not he! He just walked on. I'm broke to the wide. Tuppence I've had since yesterday--not two bob this week. What I wanted was something to eat--just enough to keep me going till I'd a chance of a job. But though he done that this morning--and some queer ones there was among the crowd, I tell you!--he wouldn't pay attention to me, wouldn't even listen. What I want to know is, Why not? And that's what I mean to know before I've done.'

The sentiment met with approval. There were sympathetic murmurs. He was not the only hungry man in that audience.

'I'm in trouble--had the influenza, or whatever they call it, and lost my job. Never had one since. Jobs ain't easy found by blokes what seems dotty on their pins. My wife's in gaol--as honest a woman as ever lived; she'd have wore herself to the bone for me. Landlord wanted his rent; we hadn't a brown; I was down on my back; she didn't want me turned out into the street while I was like that, so she went and p.a.w.ned some shirts what she'd got to iron. They gave her three months for it. She'd done two of 'em last Monday. Kid died last week and was buried by the parish. Gawd knows what she'll say when she hears of it when she comes out. Altogether I seem fairly off my level. So I say what the lady afore me says: Let's all go to him in the morning, and get him to understand how it is with us, and get him to say a word as'll do us good. And if he won't, why, as she says, we'll make him! That's all.'

There was no chance of choosing a successor from among the numerous volunteers. A man who seemed just insane enough to be dangerous chose himself. He broke into a vehement flood of objurgation, writhing and gesticulating as if desirous of working himself into a greater frenzy than he was in already. He had not been on his feet a minute before he had brought a large portion of his audience into a similar condition to himself.

'Make him, make him! That's the keynote. Share and share alike, that's our motto. No favouritism! The world stinks of favouritism; we'll have no more of it from him. We'll let him know it. What he does for one he must do for all. If he were to come into this room this minute, and were to help half of us, it would be the duty of all of us to go for him because he'd left the other half unhelped. He's been healing, has he? Who? Somebody. Not us. Why not us as well as them? He's got to give us what we want just as he gave them what they want, if we have to take him by the throat to take it out of him!'

'We will that!'

'Only got to say a word, has he, and the trick's done? Then he shall say that word for us, as he has for others, if we have to drag his tongue out by the roots to get at it!'

'That's it--that's the way to talk!'

'Work a miracle, can he, every time he opens his mouth? Then he shall work the miracles we want, or, by the living G.o.d, he shall never work another!'

The words were greeted with a chorus of approving shouts. The fellow screamed on. As his ravings grew worse, the excitement of his auditors waxed greater. Buffeted all their lives, as it seemed to them, by adverse winds, they were incapable of realising that they were in any way the victims of their own bad seamanship. For that incapacity, perhaps, they were not entirely to blame. They did not make themselves. That they should have been fashioned out of such poor materials was not the least of their misfortunes.

And their pains and griefs, humiliations and defeats, had been so various and so many that it was not strange that their wit had been abraded to the snapping-point; the more especially since it had been of such poor quality at first.

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 pa.s.s. Only after considerable hesitation was sickness allowed to be a pa.s.sport. 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.'