A Second Coming. Marsh Richard
the little game?'
'I bid you tell me what is this thing that you would do?'
Mr. Davis seemed to find in the words, which were quietly uttered, a compelling influence which made him curiously frank.
'I am going to pawn these here two coats which my wife's been making.'
'Is it well?'
Mr. Davis slunk farther from the Stranger. 'What's it got to do with you?'
'Is it well?'
There was a sorrowful intonation in the repetition of the inquiry, blended with a singularly penetrant sternness. Mr. Davis cowered as if he had been struck a blow. He turned to his friend.
'Say, Joe, who is this bloke?'
The Stranger spoke to Mr. Cooke.
'Look on Me, and you shall know.'
Mr. Cooke looked-and knew. He began to tremble as if he would have fallen to the ground. Mr. Davis, noting his friend's condition, became uneasy.
'Say, Joe, what's the matter with you? What's he done to you, Joe?'
Mr. Cooke was silent. The Stranger answered:
'Would that that which has been done to him could be done to you, and to all this city! But you are of those that cannot know, for in them is no knowledge. Yet return to your wife, and make your peace with her, lest worse befall.'
Mr. Davis began to slink out of the alley, with furtive air and face carefully averted from the Stranger. As he reached the pavement, a big man, with a scarlet handkerchief twisted round his neck, caught him by the shoulder. The big man's speech was flavoured with adjectives.
'Why, Tommy! what's up with you? You look as if you was just a-going to see Jack Ketch.'
Then came the flood of adjectives to give the sentence balance. Mr. Davis tried to wriggle from his questioner's too strenuous grip.
'Let me go, Pug-let me go!'
'What for? What's wrong? Who's been doing something to yer?'
Mr. Davis made a movement of his head towards the Stranger. He spoke in a husky whisper.
'That bloke-over there.'
The big man dragged the unwilling Mr. Davis forward.
'What's my friend been doing to you, and what have you been doing to him?'
There was the usual adjectival torrent. The Stranger replied to the inquiry with another.
'Why are you so unclean of mouth? Is it because you are unclean of heart, or because you do not know what the things are which you utter?'
The retorted question seemed to take the big man aback. His manner became still more blusterous:
'I don't want none of your lip, and I won't have any, and you can take that from me! I don't know what kind of a Gospel-pitcher you are; but if you think because preaching's your lay that you can come it over me, I'll just show you can't by knocking the head right off yer.'
'What big things the little say!'
The retort seemed to goad Mr. Davis's friend to a state of considerable excitement.
'Little, am I? I'll show you! I'll learn you! I'll give you a lesson free gratis, and for nothing now, right straight off.' He began to tear off his cap and coat. 'Here, some of you chaps, catch hold while I'm a-showing him!' As he turned up his shirtsleeves, he addressed the crowd which had gathered: 'These blokes come to us, and because we're poor they think they can treat us as if we was dirt, and come the pa and ma game over us as if we was a lot of kids. I've had enough of it-in fact, I've had too much. For the future I mean to set about every one of them as tries to come it over me. Now, then, my bloke, put up your dooks or eat your words. Don't think you're going to get out of it by standing still, because if you don't beg pardon for what you said to me just now I'll-'
The man, who was by profession a pugilist, advanced towards the Stranger in professional style. The Stranger raised His right hand.
'Stay! and let your arm be withered. Better lose your arm than all that you have.'
Before the eyes of those who were standing by the man's arm began to dwindle till there was nothing protruding from the shirtsleeve which he had rolled up to his shoulder but a withered stump. The man stood as if rooted to the ground, the expression of his countenance so changed as to amount to complete transfiguration. The crowd was still until a voice inquired of the Stranger:
'Who are you?'
The Stranger pointed to the man whose arm was withered.
'Can you not see? The world still looks for a sign.'
There were murmurs among the people.
'He's a conjurer!'
'The bloke's a mesmerist, that's what he is!'
'He's one of those hanky-panky coves!'
'I am none of these things. I come from a city not built of hands to this city of man's glory and his shame to bring to you a message-no new thing, but that old one which the world has forgotten.'
'What's the message, Guv'nor?'
'Those who see Me and know Me will know what is My message; those who know Me not, neither will they know My message.'
Mr. Cooke fell on his knees on the pavement.
'Oh, Guv'nor, what shall I do?'
'Cease to weep; there are more than enough tears already.'
'I'm only a silly fool, Guv'nor; tell me what I ought to do.'
'Do well; be clean; judge no one.'
A woman came hurrying through the crowd. It was Mrs. Davis. At sight of her husband she burst into exclamations:
'Oh, Tommy, have you pawned them?'
'No, Matilda, I haven't, and I'm not going to, neither.'
'Thank God!'
She threw her arms about her husband's neck and kissed him.
'That is good hearing,' said the Stranger.
The people's attention had been diverted by Mrs. Davis's appearance. When they turned again to look for the Stranger He was gone.
CHAPTER III
THE WORDS OF THE PREACHER
'They say that the Jews do not look forward to the rebuilding of their Holy City of Jerusalem, to their return to the Promised Land. They say that we Christians do not look forward to the Second Coming of Christ. As to the indictment against the Chosen People, we will not pronounce: we are not Jews. But as to the charge against us Christians, there we are on firmer ground. We can speak, and we must. My answer is, It's a lie. We do look forward to His Second Coming. We watch and wait for it. It is the subject of our constant prayers. We have His promise, in words which cannot fail. The whole fabric of our faith is built upon our assurance of His return. If the delay seems long, it is because, in His sight, a thousand years are as a day. Who are we to time His movements, and fix the hour of His coming so that it may fall in with our convenience? We know that He will come, in His own time, in His own way. He will forgive us if we strain our eyes eastward, watching for the first rays of the dawn to gild the mountains and the plains, and herald the glory of His advent. But beyond that His will, not ours, be done. We know, O Lord Christ, Thou wilt return when it seems well in Thy sight.'
The Rev. Philip Evans was a short, somewhat sturdily built man, who was a little too heavy for his height. His dress was, to all intents and purposes, that of a layman, though something about the colour and cut of the several garments suggested the dissenting minister of a certain modern type. He was a hairy man; his brown hair, beard, and whiskers were just beginning to be touched with gray. He wore spectacles, big round glasses, set in bright steel frames. He had a trick of snatching at them with his left hand every now and then, as if to twitch them straight upon his nose. He was not an orator, but was something of a rhetorician. He had the gift of the gab, and the present-day knack of treating what are supposed to be sacred subjects in secular fashion-of