A Second Coming Part 35

'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 pa.s.s.'

'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 mult.i.tude, the victims of man's injustice and of G.o.d's.'

'With G.o.d 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 circ.u.mstances 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 c.u.mber 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 a.s.sociates.

'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 h.e.l.l 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: "G.o.d 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 G.o.d? 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!-- ent.i.tles 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 a.s.sistance. 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!'