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THE MARK OF THE BEAST

by

SIDNEY WATSON

Author of "In the Twinkling of An Eye"; "Scarlet and Purple"







New York
Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh
Copyright, 1918, by
Bible Institute of Los Angeles
Copyright, 1933, by
Fleming H. Revell Company




PUBLISHER'S NOTE.

After the Lord's Second Coming, what will happen to those left behind?
What will the Tribulation period be like?  What will happen during the
reign of the Antichrist?  What is meant by "The Mark of the Beast"?
What will be the fate of those who refuse to bear this mark?

All of these questions and many others connected with the mark of the
beast, are answered in this realistic, startling, awe-inspiring story.

Although entirely fictional, the author has based his narrative on just
what the Bible teaches concerning the Great Tribulation--that awful
period of distress and woe that is coming upon this earth during the
time when the Anti-christ will rule with unhindered sway.  It is a
story you will never forget--a story that has been used of God in the
salvation of souls, and in awakening careless Christians to the need of
a closer walk with Jesus in their daily lives.  This volume deserves a
wide reading.  It should be in every Sunday School Library and in every
home.




TO THAT CHAMPION OF "THE WORD OF GOD,"

THE

REV. G. CAMPBELL MORGAN, D.D.

THIS BOOK IS

(BY HIS PERMISSION) HUMBLY

DEDICATED

IN RECOGNITION OF THE SPIRITUAL HELP,

AND A DEEP QUICKENING

TO BIBLE STUDY RECEIVED BY THE

AUTHOR




CONTENTS.


PREFACE.

PROLOGUE.

CHAPTER.

    I.  TWENTY FIVE YEARS LATER
   II.  A "SUPER MAN"
  III.  "TO THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL"
   IV.  FORESHADOWINGS
    V.  CRUEL AS THE GRAVE!
   VI.  "A REED LIKE A ROD"
  VII.  "THE MARK OF THE BEAST"
 VIII.  THE INVESTITURE
   IX.  THE DEDICATION
    X.  A LEBANON ROSE
   XI.  HERO WORSHIP
  XII.  ANTI-"WE-ISM"
 XIII.  "THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION"
  XIV.  DEATH OF THE "TWO WITNESSES"
   XV.  FLIGHT!  PURSUIT!
  XVI.  MARTYRED
 XVII.  A GATHERING UP




ILLUSTRATION

The Mark of the Beast




PREFACE.


The great acceptance with which the Author's previous volume "In the
Twinkling of an Eye" was received, when published in Oct. 1910,
together with the many records of blessing resulting from the perusal,
leads him to hope that the present volume may prove equally useful.

The subjects treated in this volume are possibly less known, (even
among _some_ who hold the truth of the Lord's _Near_ Return in joyful
Hope) than the subjects handled "In the Twinkling of an Eye," but they
certainly should have as much interest as the earlier truths, and
should lead (those hitherto unacquainted with them) to a careful,
prayerful searching of "The Word."

The Author would here mark his indebtedness to Dr. Joseph A. Seiss, and
Dr. Campbell Morgan, for the inceptive thoughts _re_ Judas Iscariot,
and The Antichrist.  Dr. Campbell Morgan's very remarkable sermon on
"Christ and Judas"--under date December 18, 1908--while being
profoundly interesting and illuminating, it has proved to the Author to
be the only sound theory of explanation of that perplexing
personality--Judas Iscariot--he has ever met.

While cleaving close to Scripture, at the same time it has settled the
life-long perplexity of the writer of this book, as to the difficulties
surrounding "The Traitor."

The fictional form has again been adopted in this volume, for the same
reasons that obtained in the writing of "In the Twinkling of an Eye."
The use of the fictional style for the presentment of sacred subjects
is ever a moot-point with some people.  Yet, every parable, allegory,
etc., (not excepting Bunyan's Master-piece) is _fictional_ form.  So
that the moot-point really becomes one of _degree_ and not of
_principle_--if Bunyan, Milton, and Dante, be allowed to be right.
Certain it is that many thousands have read, and have been awakened,
quickened, even converted, by reading "In the Twinkling of an Eye,"
"Long Odds," "He's coming To-morrow," (Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe) who
would never have looked at an ordinary pamphlet or book upon the
subject.  One of the truest and most noted leaders (in the "Church") on
our great convention platforms, himself an authority, and voluminous
writer on the _pre_-milleniarian view of our Lord's near Return, (a
perfect stranger, personally, to the writer) wrote within a week or two
of the issue of "In the Twinkling of an Eye," saying:

"I have just finished reading your _wonderful_ book "In the Twinkling
of an Eye."  It has _solemnised_ me _very greatly_--more than anything
for a long time . . . .  May the Lord use your book to _STARTLE_ the
careless, ill-taught professing Christians . . .  Please send me 24
copies, etc., etc."

The desire of the author of "The Mark of the Beast" has been to further
"startle" and awaken "careless, ill-taught _professing_ Christians," by
giving some faint view of the fate of those _professors_ who will be
"_left behind_" to go through the horrors of The Tribulation.

To be true to his subject, and to his convictions, the author has had
to approach one or two _delicate_ subjects.  These he has sought to
touch in a veiled, a guarded way.  Each reader, if desirous of pursuing
more minutely the study of those special parts, can do so by referring
to other Christian author's works.

That there is a growing interest in the whole subject of "The Lord's
Coming," is very apparent in many ways.  The intense interest and
quickening that has accompanied the Author's many series of Bible
Readings on "The Near Return of our Lord," during the past twelve
months especially, would have proved the revived interest in the
subject--if proof had been needed.

SYDNEY WATSON.


"The Firs," Vernham Dean, Hungerford, Berks.

April 24th, 1911.




THE MARK OF THE BEAST


PROLOGUE.

It was late August.  The year 18-- no matter the exact date, except that
the century was growing old.  A small house-party was gathered under the
sixteenth century roof of that fine old Warwickshire house, "The Antlers."

"Very old famerly, very old!" the head coachman was fond of saying
to sight-seers, and others.  "Come over with William of Normandy,
the first Duerdon did.  Famerly allus kept 'emselves very eleck,
cream-del-al-cream, as the saying is in hupper cirkles."

The coachman's estimate of the Duerdon House will serve all the purpose
we need here, and enable us to move among the guests of the house-party
though we have little to do save with two of them--the most striking
female personality in the house, Judith Montmarte, and the latest society
lion, Colonel Youlter, the Thibet explorer.

Judith Montmarte, as her name suggests, was a Jewess.  She was tall--it
is curious that the nineteen centuries of Semitic persecution should have
left the Jewess taller, in proportion, than the Jew--Judith Montmarte was
tall, with a full figure.  The contour of her face suggested Spanish
blood.  Her hair--what a wealth of it there was--was blue-black, finer
than such hair usually is, and with a sheen on it like unto a raven's
wing.  Her eyes were large, black, and melting in their fullness.  Her
lips were full, and rich in their crimson.

The face was extraordinarily beautiful, in a general way.  But though the
lips and eyes would be accounted lovely, yet a true student of faces
would have read cruelty in the ruby lips, and a shade of hell lurking in
the melting black eyes.  A millionairess, several times over, (if report
could be trusted) she was known and felt to be a powerful personage.
There was not a continental or oriental court where she was not
well-known--and feared, because of her power.  A much-travelled woman, a
wide reader--especially in the matter of the occult; a superb musician; a
Patti and a Lind rolled into one, made her the most wonderful songster of
the day.

In character--chameleon is the only word that can in anyway describe her.
As regarded her appearances in society, her acceptance of invitations,
etc., she was usually regarded as capricious, to a fault.  But this was
as it _appeared_ to those with whom she had to do.  She had been known to
refuse a banquet at the table of a prince, yet eat a dish of macaroni
with a peasant, or boiled chestnuts with a forest charcoal burner.  What
the world did not know, did not realize, was that, in these things, she
was not capricious, but simply serving some deep purpose of her life.

She had accepted the Duerdon invitation because she specially desired to
meet Colonel Youlter.

To-night, the pair had met for the first time, just five minutes before
the gong had sounded for dinner.  Colonel Youlter had taken her down to
the dining-room.

Just at first she had spoken but little, and the Colonel had thought her
fatigued, for he had caught one glimpse of the dreamy languor in her
great liquid eyes.

An almost chance remark of his, towards the end of the meal, anent the
mysticism, the spiritism of the East, and the growing cult of the same
order in the West, appeared to suddenly wake her from her dreaminess.
Her dark eyes were turned quickly up to his, a new and eager light
flashed in them.

"Do you know," she said, her tone low enough to be caught only by him,
"that it was only the expectation of meeting you, and hearing you talk of
the occult, of that wondrous mysticism of the East, that made me accept
the invitation to this house--that is, I should add, at this particular
time, for I _had_ arranged to go to my glorious Hungarian hills this
week."

Colonel Youlter searched her face eagerly.  Had she spoken the tongue of
flattery, or of the mere conventional?  He saw she had not, and he began
to regard her with something more than the mere curiosity with which he
had anticipated meeting her.

In his callow days he had been romantic to a degree.  Even now his heart
was younger than his years, for while he had never wed, because of a
love-tragedy thirty years before, he had preserved a rare, a very tender
chivalry towards women.  He knew he would never love again, as he had
once loved, though, at times, he told himself that he might yet love in a
soberer fashion, and even wed.

"You are interested in the occult, Miss Montmarte?" he replied.

She smiled up into his face, as she said:

"'Interested,' Colonel Youlter? interested is no word for it, for I might
almost say that it is a passion with me, for very little else in life
really holds me long, compared with my love for it."

She glanced swiftly to right and left, and across the table to see if she
was being watched, or listened to.  Everyone seemed absorbed with either
their plates or their companions.

Bending towards the man at her side, she said, "You know what an evening
is like at such times as this.  We women will adjourn to the Drawing
Room, you men will presently join us, there will be a buzzing of voices,
talk--'cackle' one of America's representatives used to term it, and it
was a good name, only that the hen has done something to cackle about,
she has fulfilled the purpose for which she came into existence, and
women--the average Society women, at least--do not.  Then there'll be
singing, of a sort, and--but you know, Colonel, all the usual rigmarole.
Now I want a long, long talk with you about the subject you have just
broached.  We could not talk, as we would, in the crowd that will be in
the drawing-room presently, so I wonder if you would give me an hour in
the library, tomorrow morning after breakfast.  I suggest the library
because I find it is the one room in the house into which no one ever
seems to go.  Of course, Colonel Youlter, if you have something else you
must needs do in the forenoon, pray don't regard my suggestion.  Or, if
you would prefer that we walked and talked, I will gladly accommodate
myself to your time and your conveniences."

He assured her that he had made no plans for the morrow, and that he
would be delighted to meet her in the library, for a good long 'confab'
over the subject that evidently possessed a mutual attraction for them.

Mentally, while he studied her, he decided that her chief charm, in his
eyes, was her absolute naturalness and unconventionality.  "But to some
men," he mused "what a danger zone she would prove.  Allied to her great
beauty, her wealth, and her gifts, there is a way with her that would
make her almost absolutely irresistible if she had set her heart on
anything!"

An hour later that opinion deepened within him as he listened to her
singing in the drawing-room.  She had been known to bluntly, flatly
refuse an Emperor who had asked her to sing, and yet to take a little
Sicillian street singer's tambourine from her hand, and sing the coppers
and silver out of the pockets of the folk who had crowded the
market-place at the first liquid notes of her song.  She rarely sang in
the houses of her hosts and hostesses.  Tonight she had voluntarily gone
to the piano, accompanying herself.

She sang in Hungarian, a folk-song, and a love song of the people of her
own land.  Yearning and wistful, full of that curious mystical
melancholy, that always appealed to her own soul, and which characterizes
some of the oldest of the Hungarian folk-songs.

Her second song finished, amid the profoundest hush, she rose as suddenly
from the piano as she had seated herself.  A little later she was missed
from the company.  She had slipped away to her room, after a quiet
good-night to her table-companion, Colonel Youlter.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

At ten-thirty, next morning, Judith Montmarte entered the library.  The
Colonel was there already.  He rose to meet her, saying, "Where will you
sit?  Where will you be most comfortable."

There was a decidedly "comfo" air about the luxuriously-furnished room.
The eyes of the beautiful woman--she was twenty-eight--swept the
apartment and, finally, resting upon a delightful _vis-a-vis_, she
laughed merrily, as she said:

"Fancy finding a _vis-a-vis_, and of this luxurious type, too, in a
library.  I always think it is a mistake to have the library of the house
so stiff, sometimes the library is positively forbidding."

She laughed lightly again, as she said.  "I'm going off into a
disquisition on interiors, so--shall we sit here?"

She dropped into one of the curves of the _vis-a-vis_, and he took the
other.

For half-an-hour their talk on their pet subject was more or less
general, then he startled her by asking:

"Do you know the Christian New Testament, at all?"

"The Gospels, I have read," she replied, "and am fairly well familiar
with them.  I have read, too, the final book, "The Revelation," which
though a sealed book to me, as far as knowledge of its meaning goes, yet
has, I confess, a perennial attraction for me."

She lifted her great eyes to his, a little quizzical expression in them,
as she added:

"You are surprised that I, a Jewess, should speak thus of the Gentile
scriptures!"

Then, without giving him time to reply, she went on:

"But why did you ask whether I knew anything of the New Testament?"

"Because, apropos of what I said a moment ago, anent the repetition of
History, the Christ of the New Testament declared that "as the days of
Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be."

She nodded her beautiful head, as though she would assent to the
correctness of his quotation.

"Now I make no profession of being ultra-Christian," he went on, "but I
know the _letter_ of the Bible quite as well as most Teachers of
Christianity, and without intending any egotism I am sure I dare to say
that I know it infinitely better than the average Christian.  And if I
was a teacher or preacher of the Christian faith I would raise my voice
most vehemently against the wilful, sinful ignorance of the Bible on the
part of the professed Christians.  Members of the various so-called
'churches,' seem to know _every_thing _except_ their Bibles.  Mention a
passage in Spenser, William Wordsworth, Whittier, Longfellow, Tennyson,
Browning, or even Swinburne, William Watson, Charles Fox, Carleton, or
Lowell, and they can pick the volume off the shelf in an instant, and the
next instant, they have the book open at your quotation.  But quote Jude
or Enoch, or Job on salt with our eggs, and they go fumbling about in the
mazes of Leviticus, or the Minor Prophets."

He laughed, not maliciously, but with a certain pitying contempt, as he
said:

"The average _professing_ Christian is about as much like the New
Testament model of what he should be, as is the straw-stuffed scarecrow
in the field, in the pockets of the costume of which the birds conceive
it to be the latest joke to build.  But I am digressing, I was beginning
about the 'days of Noah' and their _near_ future repetition on the earth."

"'_Near repetition_?'  How do you mean, Colonel?"  Judith Montmarte
leaned a little eagerly toward him.  In the ordinary way, alone with a
man of his type she would have played the coquette.  To-day she thought
nothing of such trifling.  There was something so different in his
manner, as he spoke of the things that were engaging them, to even the
ordinary preacher.

The pair were as utterly alone as though they had been on the wide, wide
sea together in an open boat.  She had said truly, over-night, "no one
ever comes near the library."

"I mean," he said, replying to her question, "that the seven chief causes
of the apostasy which brought down God's wrath upon the Antediluvians,
have already begun to manifest themselves upon the earth, in such a
measure as to warrant one's saying that 'as it was in the days of Noah,
so it is again today,' and if the New Testament is true in every
letter--we may expect the Return of the Christ at any moment."

She was staring amazedly at him--enquiring, eager, but evidently puzzled.
But she made no sound or sign of interruption, and he went on:

"The first element of the Antediluvian apostasy was the worship of God as
Creator and Benefactor, and not as the Jehovah-God of Covenant and Mercy.
And surely that is what we find everywhere to-day.  People acknowledge a
Supreme Being, and accept Christ as a model man, but they flatly deny the
Fall, Hereditary Sin, the need of an Atonement, and all else that is
connected with the Great Evangel.  The _Second_ cause of Antediluvian
apostasy was the disregard of the original law of marriage, and the
increased prominence of the female sex."

Judith Montmarte smiled back into his face, as she said:

"Oh that you would propound that in a convention of New Women!  And
yet--yet--yes, you are right, as to your fact, as regards life, to-day."

The pair had a merry, friendly spar for a moment or two, then, at her
request, he resumed his subject, and, for a full half hour, he amazed her
with his comparisons of the Antediluvian age with the present time.  He
was an interesting speaker and she enjoyed the time immensely.  But,
presently, when he came to his seventh and last likeness between the two
ages, since it had to do with a curious phase of Spiritism, she became
more intensely interested.

"There seems to me," he said, "but one correct way of interpreting that
historical item of those strange, Antediluvian days: 'The sons of God saw
the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all
which they chose.'  The superficial rendering of this, sometimes given,
that it signifies nothing more than the intermarriage of Cainites and
Sethites, will not suffice when a deeper examination is made in the
original languages.  The term 'Sons of God' does not appear to have any
other meaning in the _Old_ Testament, than that of angels.

"Some of the angels, with Lucifer, fell from their high estate in Heaven,
and were banished from Heaven.  Scripture clearly proves in many places
that these fallen ones took up their abode 'in the air,' the Devil
becoming, even as the Christ Himself said: 'Prince of the power of the
air.'

"Now both Peter and Jude, in their epistles allude to certain of these
fallen, air-dwelling angels, leaving their first estate, and the mention
of their _second_ fall is sufficiently clear to indicate their
sin--intermarriage with the fairest of the daughters of men.  Their name
as given in the old Testament, 'Nephilim' means 'fallen ones.'  In their
original condition, as angels in Heaven, they 'neither married nor were
given in marriage.'  It is too big a subject, Miss Judith ----."

Hurriedly, eagerly, for she wanted him to continue his topic, she said:

"Call me Ju, or Judith, or Judy, Colonel, and drop the 'Miss,' and do
please go on with this very wonderful subject."

"Thank you, Ju," he laughed, then continuing his talk, he said:

"It is far too big a subject, Ju, in all its details, to talk of here and
now, but, broadly, the fact seems to me to remain, that fallen angels
assumed human shape, or in some way held illicit intercourse with the
women of the day, a race of giant-like beings resulting.  For this foul
sin God would seem to have condemned these doubly sinning fallen angels
to Tartarus, to be reserved unto Judgment.

"'Now as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the
Son of Man,' and----"

Judith Montmarte caught her breath sharply, and, in an unconscious
movement of eager wonder, let her beautiful hand drop upon his wrist, as
she gasped "you don't think--you don't mean--er--er--, tell me, Colonel,
do you mean to say that--"

"I do mean," he replied, "that I am firmly convinced that so far has
demonology increased--the door being opened by modern spiritualism--that
I believe this poor old world of ours is beginning to experience a return
of this association between fallen spirits and the daughters of men.  Of
course, I cannot enter into minute detail with _you_, Ju, but let me
register my firm conviction, that I believe from some such demoniacal
association, there will spring the 'Man of Sin'--'The Antichrist.'"

At that instant, to the utter amaze of both of them, the first luncheon
gong sounded.  They had been talking for nearly three hours.  With the
request from Judith, and a promise from him to resume the subject at the
first favourable opportunity, they parted.

Intensely, almost feverishly excited, Judith went to her room.  Beautiful
in face and form as she was, she was fouler than a Lucretia Borgia, in
soul, in thought.  And now, as a foul, wild, mad thought surged through
her brain, she murmured, half-aloud:

"Demon or man, what matters!  If I thought I could be the Mother of The
Antichrist, I would--so much do I hate the Nazarene, the Christ--."

She spat through the open window as she uttered the precious, though to
her the hated name of the Son of God.




CHAPTER I.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER.

The huge London church was crowded in every part, and men had been
standing in the aisles from the first moment that the service began.
The preacher who had attracted so huge a crowd at two-thirty on a
weekday afternoon, was one of the very youngest of the "coming men" of
the English church.  Tall, thin, with a magnificent head crowned by a
mane of hair that was fast becoming prematurely grey, and a face so
intense in its cast, and set with eyes so piercing, that strangers, not
knowing who he was, would almost inevitably turn to look at him when
they passed him on the street.  His career had been a strange one.
Ordained at quite an early age, he had been offered a living within six
months of his ordination.  He entered upon his charge, preached but
once only, then met with an accident that laid him low for seven years.
The seven years were fruitful years, since, shut up with God and His
word, he had become almost the most remarkable spiritually-minded Bible
student of his time.


The day came, at length, when once more he was strong enough to do
public service, and though without a living, from the moment that he
had preached his first sermon, after his recovery, he found himself in
constant request on every hand.  He lived in close communion with God,
and his soul burned within him as he delivered--not an address, not a
sermon, but the _message of God_.  The music of the voluntary was
filling all the church, while the offering was being taken.  Then, as
the last well-filled plate was piled on the step of the communion rail,
the voluntary died away in a soft whisper.  Amid a tense hush, he rose
to give out the hymn before the sermon.  Clear, bell-like, his voice
rang out:

"When I survey the wondrous cross."

The hymn sung, he gave out his text: "Did not I choose you the twelve,
and one of you _is_ a demon."

"You will note," he began "that I have changed the word devil to demon.
There is but one devil in the universe, but there are myriads of
demons, fallen angels like their master, the Devil, only they were
angels of lesser rank."

He paused for one moment, and his eagle eyes swept the sea of faces.
Then in quiet, calm, but incisive tones he asked:

"Who,--what, was Judas Iscariot?  Was he _human_, was he man, as I am,
as you are? or, was he a demon?  Jesus Christ our Lord, who knew as
God, as well as man, declared that Judas was a _demon_--a fallen angel."

The silence was awesome in its tenseness.  Every eye was fixed on the
preacher, necks were strained forward, lips were parted--the people
held their breath.

Again that clear, rich bell-like voice rang out in the repeated
question: "Who, I repeat, was Judas Iscariot?  Was he a man, in the
usual acceptance of the term, or was he a demon incarnated?  What does
the Bible say about him?  In considering this I ask you each to put
from your mind, as far as it is possible for you to do so, all
preconceived ideas, all that you have been accustomed to think about
this flame of evil in the story of Christ.

"And first let me say what my own feeling, my own strong personal
conviction is regarding Judas Iscariot.  I believe him to have been a
demon incarnated by the power of the Devil, whose intent was to
frustrate God's plans.  In all his foul work of destruction and
confusion, the Devil, from the time of the Fall in Eden, has ever been
busy counterfeiting all that God has wrought out for the salvation of
the human race, and as the time approaches for his own utter defeat so
the more cunning will his devices of evil become.

"In the foulness of his thoughts to frustrate God's purposes of
salvation, I believe that when he knew that the Christ had been born,
that God had Himself become incarnate, so that He might deliver
man--for we must never forget that 'God was in Christ reconciling the
world unto Himself--that he, the Devil, incarnated one of his demons,
who afterwards became known as Judas Iscariot, the Betrayer of Christ."

For one instant the preacher paused, for the awed and listening mass of
people who had been literally holding their breath, were compelled to
inbreathe, and the catch of breath was heard through all the place.

"To use a twentieth century expression," he went on, "I may seem to
have 'given myself away' by this statement of my own conviction.  But I
am not concerned with the effect, I am concerned only with a great and
important truth, as it seems to me, and a truth which will, I believe,
be curiously, fatefully emphasized in the days near to come, when our
Lord shall have taken away His church at His coming in the air.

"Now let me invite your attention to the actual Scriptures which speak
of Judas Iscariot.  But before doing so let me acknowledge my
indebtedness for the inceptive thought of all I have said, and shall
say, to Dr. Joseph A. Seiss, of Philadelphia, in his wondrous lectures
on 'The Revelation.'

"We will turn first again to my text, to the 6th of John, the 70th
verse, 'Did I not choose you the twelve, and one of you _is_ a devil--a
_demon_?  He spake of Judas Iscariot.'  The second text I want us to
note is in John 17, verse 12, and again it is Jesus who makes the
solemn declaration: 'Those whom Thou gavest me I have kept, and none of
them is lost, but the _Son of Perdition_.'  The third text I would draw
your attention to is in the 25th verse of Acts 1.  It is Peter who is
speaking, at the time of the choosing of another as apostle in Judas's
place; he says: 'Judas, by transgression, fell, that he might go _to
his own place_.'"

In spite of their intentness in the wondrous personality of the
messenger, and the extraordinary character of his message, not a few
found time to marvel at the facile ease and certainty of touch with
which he handled his little pocket Bible, and turned to the desired
places.  As he finished reading the third passage, and laid the open
book down upon the desk, the old hush deepened upon the people.

"Link those three passages together;" he went on, "and you will
instantly see what I meant when I said just now, that I believe Judas
Iscariot to have been an incarnated demon, and incarnated by the Devil
for the one fell purpose of frustrating God's designs for the World's
Salvation through Jesus Christ.

"There is not a single recorded good thought, word, or deed that ever
Judas thought, said, or did.  And do please remember that Christ was
never once deceived by him, for in the 64th verse of that 6th of John,
we read 'For Jesus knew _from the beginning who_ they were that
_believed not_, and _who should betray Him_.'  And knowing everything,
he said of the Betrayer, 'I have chosen--he is a demon.'  If our Lord
had said 'one of you _has_ a demon,' the whole statement would have
been different, for many, in Christ's days, we find, were possessed by
demons, and He, by His divine power cast out the demons.  But in Judas
we have something different, not a human man in whom a demon has taken
up his abode, but a demon who has had a body given him in which to pass
among men as a man.

"Christ's statement that he was a '_Son of Perdition_,' is equally
damning as to the real nature of Judas Iscariot.  He is called the 'son
of Simon,' as regards the human side of his life, as Jesus was called
'Joseph's son,'--more especially _Mary's son_.

"But, though, nominally, 'Simon's son,' Judas Iscariot was ever 'a Son
of Perdition.'  And because he was this--'a demon,' a Son of Perdition,
Peter, at Pentecost time, speaking in the Holy Ghost, was able to say
that he, Judas, 'went to his own place.'  We need spend no time in any
detailed arguments as to whether this 'place' to which he went in the
under-world, was Tartarus or elsewhere, it was '_his own place_,' _the
place of imprisoned demons_, the place where other demons who kept not
their first estate, but left their own habitation are reserved in
chains.'  Neither Tartarus or Hell were ever 'prepared' for lost
_human_ souls, 'but for demons, and, as a demon, Judas went to his
_own_ place.'"

He paused a moment.  His tall, thin form became rigid in the intensity
of his service.  In the silence, that deepened, the ticking of the
clock in the front of the gallery, could be heard plainly in every part
of the building.

Slowly he bent his lithe form forward until he leaned far over the
Reading Desk.  Then stretching out his arm, the long index finger
pointing forward, he said:

"Listen, friends!  Receive this next part of the message, if you will,
if you can.  I believe that 'The Man of Sin,' 'The Antichrist,' when he
shall be revealed, will be Judas re-incarnated.

"There can be no doubt, I think, but that any one studying Daniel's
description of the Anti-christ will realize that, in his _human_
personation, he will necessarily be a Jew, for otherwise, the Jews (who
will have largely returned to their own land, and will have built their
Temple, and resumed their Mosaic service,) would not accept him as
their leader, and make their seven years' covenant with him.

"Now, beloved, my last word is a very solemn one.  It is this, our
Lord's Return for His Bride, the Church, is very near,--'He is even at
our doors.'  Any day, any hour he may return.  We, here, may never
reach the point of the 'Benediction' at the _arranged_ close of this
service, for Jesus may come and call up to Himself everyone of His own
in this place.  Then what of you here who are not His?  For you, there
will remain nothing but the horrors of the Tribulation, (should you
seek and find God _after_ the Translation of the church.)

"Will you be among the Martyrs of the Tribulation, or of the final
impenitent, rebels who shall be cast into the Hell reserved for the
Devil, for Anti-christ, for the demons; or, blessed thought, will you
here and now yield to Christ, and become the saved of the Lord?"

Amid the most intense hush, he added: "Somewhere, even as I have
preached of him, and as you have listened, there is, I believe, a young
man, of noble stature, exceedingly attractive, wealthy,
fascinating,--bewitching, in fact, since 'all the world will wonder
after him'--yes, somewhere in the world, perhaps in this very city
where we are now gathered, is the young man who, presently, when our
Lord has come, when the Church, and the Holy Spirit are gone, will
manifest himself as the Anti-christ.  May God save everyone of us from
_his_ reign, for Jesus Christ's sake.  Amen!"

A gasping cry of amazed wonder broke from the thousand or more throats.
They bowed, as one man, under the silent request of his spread hands,
they heard the old, old "Benediction" as they had never heard it
before: "May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and
the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit, all unite in leading us into the
Peace of God which passeth all understanding, Amen."

Silent, awed, in many cases speechless, the great congregation passed
out of the several exits of the church.  Among them was the woman we
know as Judith Montmarte, and _her son_.

In spite of their pre-occupation, many of the outgoing congregation
turned to gaze with wondering eyes upon the handsome young fellow who
walked with such a regal air beside his mother, Judith Montmarte.  Like
Saul, in Israel, he stood a head and shoulders above the tallest of the
crowd.  And he was magnificently proportioned.

On the continent, and in New York and Chicago, Lucien Apleon, was
well-known, but only in certain of the _English_ circles was he known.
Those who knew him, whether men or women, fairly idolized him, in spite
of the impenetrable mystery that enveloped his birth.

For a full year Judith Montmarte had disappeared from the ken of the
world.  Where she went, what she did, what happened to her, none ever
knew.

On her re-appearance in her Hungarian home, she called herself Madame
Apleon, and her child was Lucien Apleon.  No one ever heard of a
husband, no one knew the history of that year of disappearance.

Lucien Apleon was now about twenty-five years of age, but with the
maturity of face and character of a much older man.  He was accounted,
by all who knew him, to be the most accomplished man in _everything_,
that the world had ever known.  The greatest scientists were babes
before him.  As artist, sculptor, poet, musician, he could not be
approached by any living being.  And there appeared an almost
_creative_ power in all he did, since works of every kind of art _grew_
under his hand.

Among those who had been in that service, and who turned to look at
Lucien Apleon, was Ralph Bastin.  It was his last day in London,
previous to those years of wandering recorded in "The Twinkling of an
Eye."

Often during those years of adventurous wanderings the memory of Ralph
Bastin had recalled that wonderful service.  One special moment of its
recall was during that fateful, sacrificial cave scene in that
Carribean Island.




CHAPTER II.

A "SUPER-MAN."

London was still in its first throes of wonder, speculation, and, in
some cases, fearsome dread, at the ever increasing discovery that a
number of its citizens had mysteriously disappeared.

"And the most curious part of the whole affair," a prominent London
philanthropist had remarked to an informal gathering of the Committee
of one of the Great Societies, "is this, that whether we look at the
gaps in our own committee, or of any other committee, or of any
church--as far as I have been able to gather, the story is the same,
the missing people are in almost every case those whom, when they were
with us, were least understood by us."

Some such thought had been filling the mind of Ralph Bastin, as he sat
in his Editor's chair in the office of the "Courier."  Allied to this
thought there came another--an almost necessary corollary of the
first--namely the new atmosphere of evil, of lawlessness, of wantonness
that pervaded the city.

With a jerk, his mind darted backward over the years to that remarkable
sermon on Judas and the Antichrist.

"It is true, too true," he murmured, "'the mystery of iniquity' that
has long been working undermining the foundations of all true social
and religious safety and solidity, is now to be openly manifested and
perfected.  The real Christians, the Church of God, which is the Bride
of Christ, has been silently, secretly caught up to her Lord in the
air.  She was 'the salt of the earth,' she kept it from the open
putrefaction that has already, now, begun to work.  Then, too, that
wondrous, silent, but mighty influence of restraint upon evil.--The
Holy Spirit, Himself, has left the earth, and now, what?  All restraint
gone, the world everywhere open to believe the Antichrist lie, the
delusion.  The whole tendency of the teaching, from a myriad pulpits,
during the last few years, has been to prepare the world to receive the
Devil's lie."

For a moment or two he sat in deep thought.  Suddenly glancing at the
clock, he murmured:

"I wonder what the other papers are saying this evening."

He rang up his messenger boy on his office phone.  The lad came
promptly.  Bastin handed him half-a-crown, saying:

"Get me a copy of the last edition of all the chief evening papers,
Charley, and be smart about it, and perhaps you will keep the change
for your smartness."

In six minutes the lad was back with a sheaf of papers.  Bastin just
glanced at them separately, noting the several times of their issue,
then with a "Good boy, Charley!  Keep the change," he unfolded one of
the papers.

The boy stood hesitatingly, a moment, then said:

"Beg yer pardin', Mr. Bastin, sir, but wot's yer fink as people's
sayin' 'bout the 'Translation o' the Saints,' as it's called?"

"I can't say, I am sure, Charley.  The careless, and godless have
already said some very foolish things relative to the stupendous event
that has just taken place, and I think, for a few days, they are likely
to say even more foolish things.  What is the special one that you have
heard?"

"Why they sez, sir--its in one o' the _h_eving peepers, they sez--that
the people wot's missin' hev been carted off in aeroplanes by some o'
the other religionists wot wanted to git rid o' them, an' that the
crank religiouses is all gone to----"

"Where?" smiled Bastin.

"I don't think anybody knows where, sir!"

"I do, Charley, and many others to-day, who have been left behind from
that great Translation know--they have been 'caught up' into the air
where Jesus Christ had come from Heaven to summon them to Himself.

"Mr. Hammond is there, Charley, and that sweet little adopted daughter
of mine, whom you once asked me whether 'angels could be more beautiful
than she was!'"

"Ah, yus, sir, I recollecks, sir, she wur too bootiful fur words, she
wur."

There was one moment's pause, then the boy, with a hurried, "it's all
dreadful confuzellin," slipped from the room.

Ralph Bastin opened paper after paper, glanced with the swift,
comprehensive eye of the practised journalist at here and there a
column or paragraph, and was on the point of tossing the last
news-sheet down with the others, on the floor, when his eye caught the
words, "Joyce, Journalist."

The paragraph recorded the finding of the body of the drunken
scoundrel.  "From the position of the body," the account read, "and
from the nature of the wounds, it would almost seem as though some
infernal power had hurled him, head on, against the wall of the room.
Whether we believe, or disbelieve the statements concerning the taking
away, by some mysterious Translation process, of a number of persons
from our midst, yet the fact remains that each hour is marked by the
finding of some poor dead creature, under circumstances quite as
tragically mysterious as this case of Joyce the reporter."

For a time Ralph Bastin sat deep in thought.  He had not yet written
the article for to-morrow's issue "From the Prophet's chair."  He felt
his insufficiency, he realized the need of being God's true witness in
this hour that was ushering in the awful reign of The Antichrist.  He
did the _best_ thing, he knelt in prayer, crying:

"O God, I am so ignorant, teach me, give me Thy wisdom in this
momentous hour.  If those who cleave to Thee amid this awful time must
seal their witness with death, must face martyrdom, then let me be
counted worthy to die for Thee.  In the old days, before yesterday's
great event, all prayer had to be offered to Thee through Jesus Christ.
I know no other way, please then hear my prayer, and accept it, for
Jesus Christ's sake.  Amen."

Rising from his knees, with a sense of solemn calm pervading all his
soul, he presently took his pen and began to write rapidly, his mind
seeming, to him, to be consciously under the domination of the divine.

Embodying the various items over which he had so recently mused, as to
the awfulness of the development of evil that would increasingly mark
the near coming days, now that all restraints were taken away, he went
on to show that now that the Devil, who had, for ages, been the Prince
of the Power of the air, with all his foul following of demons, had
been cast down out of that upper realm, where Christ and his translated
saints had taken up their abode, the forces of evil upon the earth
would be magnified and multiplied a million-fold.

"Christ and the Devil," he went on, "never can dwell in the same realm,
hence the coming of Christ into the air meant the descent to earth, of
the Devil and, with him all the invisible hosts of evil.  The wildest,
weirdest imagination could not conceive all the horrors that must come
upon those who presently will refuse to wear the 'Mark of the Beast'
and bow to worship him."

Suddenly, at this point in his writing, a curious sense of some
presence, other than his own, came over him, and slowly, almost
reluctantly he looked up.

He started visibly, for, seated in the chair on the opposite side of
his desk, was a visitor.  The man was the most magnificent specimen of
the human race he had ever seen, a giant, almost, in stature, handsome
to a degree, and with a certain regal air about him.

Bastin had involuntarily leaped to his feet, and now stammered:

"I--er--beg pardon, but I did not hear you come in."

Even as he spoke two things happened.  His mind swept backward over the
years to the day of that wonderful Judas sermon he had heard, and with
this recalled memory there came the recollection of his turning to look
into the face of that magnificent looking young man who had been the
cynosure of all eyes as he left the church with his mother.  He was
conscious also of a strange uncanny sense that this smiling handsome
man, with mocking, dancing light in his eyes, was no ordinary man.

In that same instant, too, Ralph Bastin knew who his visitor was, since
he had become familiarized by the illustrated papers and magazines,
with the features of "The Genius of the Age"--as he was often
styled--Lucien Apleon.

"My name," said the smiling visitor, "is Lucien Apleon.  As editor of a
great journal like the 'Courier,' you know who I am when you know my
name, even though we have never met before.  You were so busy, so
absorbed, when I came in that I did not so much as cough to announce my
presence."

Ralph longed to ask him if he came through the door, or how, since he
had heard no sound.  But he did not put his question, but replied:

"Who has not heard and read of Lucien Apleon, 'The Genius of the Age,'
sage, savant, artist, sculptor, poet, novelist, a giant in intellect,
the Napoleon of commercial capacity, the croesus for wealth, and master
of all courts and diplomacy.  But I had not heard that you were in
England, the last news _par'_ of you which I read, gave you as at that
wonderful city, the New Babylon, more wonderful, I hear, than any of
the former cities of its name and site."

Ralph had talked more than he needed to have done, but he wanted time
to recover his mental balance, for his nerves had been considerably
startled by the suddenness, the uncanniness of his visitor's appearance.

There was a curious quizzical, mocking look in the eyes of Apleon while
Ralph was speaking.  The latter noted it and had an uncomfortable
consciousness that the mocking-eyed visitor was reading him like a book.

"I only landed to-day," replied Apleon.

"Steamer?" asked Ralph.

"No, by a new aerial type of my own invention," replied Apleon.  "It
brought me from Babylon to London in about as many minutes as it would
have occupied the best aeronaut, days, by the best machines of a year
ago."

He laughed.  There was a curious sound in the laugh, it was mocking yet
musical, it was eerie yet merry.  Involuntarily Ralph thought of
Grieg's "Dance of the Imps," and Auber's overture "Le Domino Noir."

"But I have not yet explained my object in calling upon you," the
visitor went on.  "I have, of course, seen this morning's 'Courier,'
and have been intensely interested, and, will you mind, if I say it,
amused."

"Amused, Mr. Apleon?" cried Ralph.

"Yes, intensely amused," went on the mocking-eyed visitor.  "I do not
mean with the issue as regards its general contents, it was to the
'Prophet's Chair' column that I alluded."

Ralph, regarding him questioningly, inclined his head, without speaking.

"Do you really believe, Mr. Bastin," went on the visitor, "what you
have written in that column?  Do you really believe that a certain
section of Christians, out of every one of the visible Evangelical
churches of this land, and elsewhere, have been translated into the
air?  That the Holy Spirit of the Christian New Testament, the third
Person of the Trinity, whom that same New Testament declares was sent
to the earth when the Nazarene Christ went home to His Father--please,
note, Mr. Bastin, that I am using the terms of the orthodox Christian,
enough I tell you frankly I do not believe a word of the jumble which,
for nearly two thousand years, has been accepted as a divinely inspired
Revelation to so-called fallen man?"

"Yes," replied Ralph, and his voice rang with a rare assurance, and
every line of his face held a wondrous nobility.  "Yes, I believe it
all.  If I had not been a blind, conceited fool of a sinner, a week
ago, I should have known that all this, and much more was true, and I
should have found my way in penitence and faith to the feet of the
Nazarene, of Jesus Christ the World's Redeemer, and, finding pardon for
my sin, as I should have done, I should have been made one of the
Church of God, as my friend, and Editor-in-chief, Tom Hammond, had
done.  And, had I listened to him, I should now have been with those
blessed translated ones of whom I have written in that article of which
you speak, Mr. Apleon.

"I sat in that chair where you now sit," Ralph went en.  "Mr. Hammond,
in his eagerness to win me to Christ, leant forward over this desk--he
was sitting where I am--to lay his hand on my wrist, when, with angry
impatience, I leaped to my feet, and declaring that he must be going
out of his head, I swung round on my heel.

"Instantly there fell upon the room an eerie stillness.  I swung back
on my heel to reply to my friend, but his chair was empty, he was
gone--gone to the Christ whom he loved, 'caught up in the air' to meet
his Lord, where all those other missing saints have been taken.

"Yes, yes, Mr. Apleon, a thousand times yes, to your question, 'do I
believe all that I have written there in that article.'  Here in this
little pamphlet--"  He laid his hand, as he spoke, upon a small book
that had been Tom Hammond's, which bore the title "THE SECOND COMING OF
OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.  Systematically arranged from passages in the
Holy Scriptures, for Students, Teachers, and others.  By the Rev.
Robert Middleton."

"Here, in this little book," he went on, "there is not only set out
with the most luminous clearness, with the actual Bible texts, all that
I have written in that article, but also many other truths and texts
which have already been literally fulfilled during the last forty-eight
hours--even as the book said that they would be."

With the old mocking, quizzical smile, the handsome Apleon interrupted
him, asking:

"What do you mean by the _real_ Church of God?  The Romish Church, The
Greek Church, The Anglican Church or any one of the multitude of
dissenting churches?"

It was Ralph's turn to smile now, as he said:

"None of those churches could be called THE CHURCH OF GOD.  The _true_,
the _real_ church was composed of true believers, men and women who had
been born again by the Spirit of God, and who, numbered among every
section of so-called Christians--and some who were wholly
unattached--made up in their wide-world entirety the true Church of
God, the Bride of Christ."

"And what," asked Apleon, "of the rest, the vast bulk of the
worshippers at the various churches?  What is their fate to be?"

"God only knows!" replied Bastin.  "Some, at least, have already
sought, and found God, or believe they have, even as I have sought, and
believe that I have found God.  But the vast bulk of the people already
seem to be rollicking in a curious sense of non-restraint.  I remember
some years ago, hearing a lady say that visiting the houses of one of
the worst streets in Winchester, and speaking to the people as to their
eternal welfare, she found one woman particularly hardened.  To this
woman she said: 'But, my dear sister, think of what it will be to be
eternally lost, to be separated from God, and from all that is pure and
good, for ever, and in a state and place which the Bible calls Hell.'
And the woman laughed, as she said: 'Well, there's one thing, I shall
not be lonely there, for I shall have all my neighbours around me, for
every one in this street is on the same track as me.'"

A sardonic smile curled the full lips of Apleon, as he said:

"Poor deluded soul!  For if there is such a place as that Hell, that
underworld of lost souls of which your Bible speaks, and declares that
it was prepared for the Devil and his angels, and that woman and her
neighbours find themselves there, they will realize that hell, for its
lost, is the loneliest spot in the universe, since each soul will hate
the other and will live alone, apart in its own hideous realm of
anguish and remorse."

Lifting his eyes to his visitor's face, as the latter delivered himself
to this strange speech, Bastin was startled to note the expression on
the handsome face.  The eyes, unutterably sad for one instant, turned
suddenly to savage hate, the mouth was as cruel as death, the eyes grew
baleful, like the eyes of a snake that is being whipped to death.

He was startled even more by the tones of his voice when he said:

"And what of the Anti-christ of whom you have spoken and written?  Do
you believe what you have written?"

"I most certainly do," replied Ralph.

Again the sardonic smile filled all Apleon's face as he returned:

"Then if all that you say and write be true, as regards the coming
Anti-christ, and you continue to wear the late editor's mantle when you
write 'The Prophet's chair' articles, how long do you suppose that that
powerful _super_-man, the Anti-christ of your belief, will let you
alone.  If he is to be so powerful, and if the devil is to energize
him, as you say;--even as you profess to believe that he has called
into being--is now actually dwelling on the earth, though invisible,
and all his angels (demons, I believe they are called in the Bible) are
moving about invisibly among the people on the earth, among the people
of this wonderful London, if all this, I say, be so, how long do you
suppose you will be allowed, by his Satanic Majesty, to ply your trade
of warner of the peoples?  Why, man, your life is not worth the snap of
a finger?"

Ralph smiled.  The smile transfigured his face, even as the same sort
of smile transfigured the faces of the martyrs of old time, beginning
with Stephen.

"I care not how long I live," he replied.  "The only care I have now is
to be true to my convictions, true to my God."

The telephone rang at that instant.  "Excuse me one moment, Mr.
Apleon," he said, turning to the instrument.

There followed a few moments exchanges on the 'phone, then replacing
the receiver he turned.  But his visitor was gone.

"That's curious!" he muttered.  "I did not hear a sound of his going,
any more than I did of his coming.  Uncanny, eerie, creepy, almost!"

There was a tap at the door.  "Come in!" he called.  The messenger boy,
Charley, entered with a sheaf of proof galleys.

"Did you see that tall gentleman pass out, Charley?" he asked.  "Did he
go down stairs, or into one of the other offices?"

"Tall gennelman, sir?  There aint bin no one come along this way, sir,
nobody couldn't pass my little hutch wivout me a seein' on 'em.  I
ain't been out no wheres, an' I knows no one aint come by--least ways,
not this way, not past my place."

"If any tall gentleman does come up, Charley, show him in to me, at
once please."

Ralph had had time, during Charley's extended answer, to recover
himself from the amaze that the boy's first sentence has produced in
him.

"That's all, Charley!" he added, turning to his desk.

The boy gave him a curious, puzzled look, lingered for the fraction of
a second, then slowly turned and left the office.

When the door had closed behind him, Ralph, who had _felt_ all that had
passed in that moment of the boy's hesitancy, though he had purposely
refrained from looking up, lifted his head and glanced around him.

"If I did not know better," he murmured, "I should suppose that the
whole incident was but a dream, or hallucination."

A perplexed look filled his face, as he continued:

"What does it all mean?"

Again, in a flash, the memory of that Judas sermon swept back over him,
and the startling statement recurred to him "Somewhere, even as I have
preached of him, and as you have listened, there is, I believe, a young
man of noble stature, exceedingly attractive, wealthy, fascinating,
bewitching in fact, since 'all the world will wonder after him'--yes,
somewhere in the world, perhaps in this very city where we are now
gathered, is the young man who, presently, when our Lord has come, when
the Church, and the Holy Spirit are gone, will manifest himself as the
Anti-christ."

Coming back at this particular moment, Ralph asked himself: "Is Lucien
Apleon the Anti-christ?"

He paused an instant, then, as a sudden startling sense of assurance of
the fact swept into his soul he cried:

"He is!  I have seen the Anti-christ!"

For nearly an hour he sat on his chair, his mind wrapped in deep
thought, and occasionally referring to a book of prophecy which Tom
Hammond had evidently deeply studied.

At the end of the hour, he bowed his head upon his hands, and held
silent communion with God, seeking wisdom to write and speak and live
the Truth.




CHAPTER III.

"TO THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL"

The next day was Sunday.  It was also the first Sunday of the month.
As he bathed and dressed, Ralph found himself wondering whether the
churches and chapels would be filled, whether the awe and fear that had
fallen upon so many Christian professors during the first hours after
the "Rapture," would drive them to the churches.

"The first of the month," he mused.  "The Lord's Supper has been the
order of the day in most places.  I wonder if it will be celebrated
to-day?"

"_Until He come_!" he mused on.  "He _has_ come, so that the Lord's
Supper, as part of the worship of the churches is concerned, can have
no further meaning.  Will any attempt be made to celebrate it, to-day,
I wonder?"

Every available moment of the fateful week that had just passed he had
occupied in deep reading the prophetic scriptures referring to The
Coming of the Lord, and the events which follow.  He had also studied
deeply every book on the subject which he could secure, that was likely
to help him to understand the position of affairs.  Again and again, he
had said to himself: "How could I have been such a fool? a journalist,
a bookman, a lover of research, professing to have the open mind which
should be the condition of every man of my trade, and yet never to have
studied my Bible, never to have sought to know what all the startling
events of the past decade, pointed to.  Surely, surely, Tom Carlyle was
right about we British--'mostly fools.'"

At breakfast he ate and drank only sufficient to satisfy the sense of
need.  Previous to "The Rapture" he had been a bit of an Epicure, now
he scarcely noted what he ate or drank.

Almost directly his meal was finished, he left the house.  The
journalistic instinct was strong enough within him to make him desire
to see what changes, if any, would be apparent in London on this first
Sunday after the momentous event that had so recently come upon the
world.

Turning out of the quiet square where his lodgings were, he was
instantly struck by a new tone in the streets.  There was an utter
absence of the old-time "Sabbath" sense.

The gutterways were already lined with fruit and other hawkers, their
coarse voices, crying their wares, making hideous what should have been
a Sunday quiet.

It was barely ten, yet already many of the Tea Rooms were open, and
most of them seemed thronged, whole families, and pleasure-parties
taking breakfast, evidently.

He passed a large and popular theatre, across the whole front of which
was a huge, hand-painted announcement, "Matinee at 2, this afternoon.
Performance to-night 7-45.  New Topical song entitled "The Rapture," on
the great event of the week.  Living Pictures at both performances:
"The Flight of the Saints."

Ralph, in his amaze, had paused to read the full contents of the
announcement.  He shuddered as he took in the full import of the
blasphemy.  Surveying the crowd that stood around the notice, he was
struck by the composition of the little mob.  It was anything but a
low-class crowd.  Many of them were evidently of the upper middle
class, well-dressed, and often intellectual-looking people.

He was turning to leave the spot, when a horsey-looking young fellow
close to him, in a voice loud enough to be heard by the whole crowd--he
evidently meant that it should--cried:

"Well, if it's true that all the long-faced puritans have been carted
off, vamoused, kidnapped, "Rapturized," as they call it, and that now
there's to be no Theatre Censor, and every one can do as they like,
well then, good riddance to the kill-joys, I say."

"And so say all of us," sang a voice, almost everyone present joining
in the song.

When twenty yards off Ralph could hear the blasphemy ringing out "The
Devil's a jolly good fellow, and so say all of us!"

"What will London be like in a month's time!" he mused.

He moved on quickly, but even as he went the thought thrust itself upon
him, that half London, for some reason or the other, was abroad in the
streets unusually early.  His own objective was a great Nonconformist
church, where one of London's most popular and remarkable preachers had
ministered.  He had been one of the comparatively few whose ministry
had been characterized by a close adherence to the Word of God, and an
occasional solemn word of expository warning and exhortation _anent_
the "Coming of the Lord."

Ralph was within a stone's throw of the great building when the
squeaking tones of Punchinello, reached his ears, while a deep roar of
many laughing voices accompanied the squeakings.  A moment more and he
was abreast of a crowd of many hundreds of people gathered around the
Punch and Judy show.

Sick in soul at all that told of open blasphemy everywhere around him,
he hurried on, not so much as casting an eye at the show, though it was
impossible for him to miss the question and answer that rang out from
the show.

"Now, now Mr. Punch, where's your poor wife?  Have you done away with
her?"

"No," screamed the hook-nosed puppet, "Not me, I aint done away with
her, she done away with herself, she's gone and got 'Rapturized.'"

Then, above the ribald laughter of the crowd, the squeaking puppet sang:

  "Oh, p'raps she is, p'raps she aint,
    An' p'raps she's gone to sea,
  Or p'raps she's gone to Brigham Young
    A Mormonite to be."


Ralph shivered as with chill, as he went up the steps of the great
church to which he had been aiming.  It was filling fast.  Five minutes
after he entered, the doors had to be closed, there was not even
standing room.

He swept the huge densely-packed building with his keen eyes.  Many
present were evidently accustomed to gather there, though the bulk were
curious strangers.  A strange hush was upon the people, a
half-frightened look upon many faces, and a general air of suspense.

Once, someone in the gallery cracked a nut.  The sound was almost as
startling as a pistol shot, and hundreds of faces were turned in the
direction of the sound.

Ralph noticed that the Communion table, on the lower platform under the
rostrum was covered with white, and evidently arranged as for the
Lord's Supper.

Exactly at eleven, someone emerged from a vestry and passed up the
rostrum stairs.  A moment later the man was standing at the desk.  Many
instantly recognized him.  It was the Secretary of the Church.

A dead hush fell upon the people.

The face of the man was deathly pale, his eyes were dull and sunken.
Twice his lips parted and he essayed to speak, but no sound escaped
him.  The hush deepened.

Then, at last, low and husky came the words "My dear friends--for I
recognize some who have been wont to gather here on the Sundays, though
the majority are strangers, I think."

His eyes slowly swept the great congregation.  "We have, I believe,
many of us, gathered here this morning more by a new, strange, common
instinct, than by mere force of Sunday habit.  Yet, I cannot but think
that many of us, solemnized by the events that have transpired since
last Sunday, have met more in the Spirit of real seeking after God than
ever we have done before."

A few voices joined in a murmur of assent, but something like a ripple
of mocking laughter came from others.  And one voice in the gallery
laughed outright--it was the man who had cracked the nut.

Momentarily unnerved by that laughter the speaker paused.  Then
recovering himself he went on:

"Our pastor has gone; the Puritans (as we were wont to call them) are
gone; and we know now--now that it is too late for those of us who are
'left'--that they have been 'caught up' into the air, to be with their
Lord forever."

He glanced down at the white-draped communion table, as he continued:

"Our church officer has performed his usual monthly office, and has
spread the Table for the Lord's Supper, but it dawns upon us, friends,
how useless, how empty is the symbol since it was only ordained 'until
He should come.'  He has come, and we, the unready, have been left
behind."

"Tommy Rot!"

The expression came angrily, sneeringly from the man in the gallery,
the man who cracked that nut, and who had laughed so boisterously a
moment ago.

Many eyes were turned up to the man, but no voice of reprimand came, no
cry of "shame!" or of "Turn him out," was raised.

All that had happened during the days of the past week, had served to
fill many of the people gathered there that morning, with a curious
mingling of doubt, hesitancy, fearsomeness, and uncertainty, as well as
an unconscious growth of a new strange skepticism, and a carelessness
that almost amounted to recklessness.

"As it is with many more here, this morning," the Secretary went on,
"some members of my family have gone, been caught up--"

"Aviated!" laughed a ribald voice, and this time it came from another
part of the building.

Disregarding the interruption, the secretary went on:

"My wife has gone--"  His voice shook with the deep emotion that
stirred him, and for a moment he was too moved to speak.  Then
recovering himself with an effort he continued:

"My daughter, too, who against my wish had offered herself as a Foreign
Missionary, has gone.  Both wife and daughter lived in the spirit of
expectancy of the Coming of Christ into the air.  Now they are with
Him, to be with Him for ever."

The ribald voice that had last interrupted, again broke into the
Secretary's touching words.  This time the interrupter roared out a
stanza or two of a wretched song:

  "Will no one tell me where they're gone,
  My bursting heart with grief is torn,
  I wish I never had been born,
    I've lost, I've lost my vife."


A hundred or more voices roared with laughter.  The devil of blasphemy
was growing bolder.

But in the silence that immediately followed the laughter, the
Secretary went on again:

"I have been a deeply _religious_ man, even as Nicodemus and Paul were,
before their conversion.  But now that it is too late to share in the
bliss of the glorious Translation, I have discovered that Religion,
without Christ, without the Regeneration of the New Birth, is evidently
useless, otherwise, I, with scores of others in this church, this
morning, who have, for years, listened to a full-orbed gospel from our
God-filled translated pastor, would be now with those of our loved ones
who have 'ascended up on high.'"

He paused for the briefest fraction of a second, a look of keenest
anguish filled his face, his eyes grew moist with unshed tears, and
were full of appeal, of enquiry, as he swept the great assembly, crying:

"There must be thousands upon thousands left in our land, who, like
myself, deceived themselves, and thus, unwittingly deceived others, and
in whose souls there rises the cry: 'How can we find God?  Who will
show us the way?'

"Friends, I have searched my New Testament from end to end.  I have
been up two whole nights, and I have read the New Testament through
from Matthew to Revelation, twice.  But I can find no provision for the
position I find myself in.  I can find no guidance as to how to be
saved.  The whole situation is too solemn, too awful for any fooling.
Does anyone here know?  Can anyone here tell us how we may find God,
now that the salt of the earth--the real Christians are gone, and now,
too, that the Holy Spirit who, of old time--not yet a full week, but it
seems an eternity--led souls to God through Christ."

There was something so solemn, so pathetic in the man's manner and
utterance, that even the ribald fools who had previously interrupted,
were silent.

The hush was intense.  The ticking of the clock could be heard
distinctly.

Impelled by a power which he could not have defined or described, Ralph
Bastin rose to his feet.

The hush deepened.  Then a voice broke the silence, crying:

"Bastin, editor of 'The Courier'!"

He was very pale, but the light of a rare courage flashed in his eyes.
He acknowledged the recognition of himself by an inclination of the
head.  Then amid a strange hush he began to speak, his voice husky, at
first, rapidly clearing as he went on:

"Friends, I take it that this is the most momentous Sunday that has
ever been, since the first one--the day of the resurrection of the
Christ.  Our friend who has just spoken has surely voiced the question
of many hearts here this morning, and many other troubled hearts the
wide world over.

"Let me say, right here, that my friend and colleague, Mr. Tom Hammond,
the originator and late editor of 'The Courier,' was in the very act of
explaining the wonderful, expected return of Christ (expected by him
though scoffed at by myself) when he was 'caught up' from my very
presence, and then I knew what a fool I had been to neglect God and His
salvation."

The nut-cracking interrupter in the gallery, with a burst of laughter,
began mockingly to sing the old revival chorus, "Come to Jesus, come to
Jesus, come to Jesus, just now, just----"

"Silence! you blasphemous, ribald fool!"  The words leaped from the
lips of Ralph Bastin, in a tone of command that literally awed the
interrupter.  The effect, too, upon the hesitating, vacillating mass of
people was, for the moment at least, to arouse their sympathy with
Ralph, and a little murmur of applause followed.

At the same time a soldier in uniform, a man of giant proportions, who
was sitting almost immediately behind the disturber, rose in his seat,
and addressing the man in front of him, cried, in a stentorian voice:

"See here, mouthy, we're about fed up with your gas, so if you give us
so much as one wag of that cursed red rag of yours, I'll pick you up
and snap you in half across my knee, as I would snap a stick."

This time the applause broke out all over the crowded church.  When it
ceased, Ralph standing straight as a larch, and looking up at the
soldier, gave a military salute, as he said: "Thank you, brave soldier."

Coming back to his audience, he went on, as if there had been no
interruption:

"I, too, like the gentleman who addressed us just now, have read the
whole of the Bible through, and the New Testament _twice_, and I can
find no _definite_ provision or Revelation for those who are left
behind--that is as to the _how_, I mean, of salvation.  Yet that there
are to be many saved during the next seven years, is evident, since
there is to be a great multitude come out of _The Great Tribulation_,
and thousands of these will be martyrs for God, refusing to wear the
Mark of the Beast.

"In one of the pamphlets I have been studying on 'The second coming of
the Lord,' I have found this statement, that Christ, during His
ministry, preached the Gospel _of the Kingdom_, which is explained as
referring to the fact that, as a Jew, as the Messiah, He came to His
own people the Jews, the chosen _earthly_ people of God, and that if
they would have accepted Him as their Messiah, His Kingdom--with
Himself reigning as King--might have been set up there and then.  But
they rejected Him, yes, even when Peter, at Pentecost, after the
Ascension of Christ, made the final offer in those wonderful words of
his.

"As a nation, they rejected Him, rejected their Lord and King, and
henceforth, until He should come again.  (He came last week, as we
know, now that it is too late for us to share in the glory of that
coming.)  Until that coming, as I said, the Gospel to be preached was
to be the 'Gospel of the Grace of God,' and not the 'Gospel of the
Kingdom.'  'The Gospel of the Grace of God,' included all peoples,
Gentile as well as Jew, while 'the Gospel of the Kingdom,' in its first
preaching, was especially a message to the Jew.

"Now, friends, since there appears to be no _special_ Revelation left
as to how men and women are to be saved, I have been forced to the
conclusion that we must go back to the Old Testament word: 'Seek ye the
Lord'--'Call upon the Name of the Lord'--'Trust ye in the Lord'--'Come
now and let us reason, saith the Lord.  Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they
shall be as wool.'  'The Lord is nigh unto them who are of broken
heart, and _saveth_ such as be of a _Contrite_ spirit.'

"I have taken my own stand upon this, that God, the God of the Old
Testament, is the same God, who pities like a father, and that if we
confess our sin, and witness a true confession, He will forgive us our
sin, and though we can never be part of that wondrous _Bride_ of
Christ, whom, last week He caught up to Himself into the Heavenlies,
yet we may be eternally saved.  And, friends, whether I am right or
wrong, I am daily pleading the Name of Jesus Christ in all my
approaches to God.  I plead the Blood of Jesus Christ, and the power of
that Blood, to save me; for, as far as I understand myself, in this
matter, my belief, my trust is the same as that which inspired the
saints who were translated at the 'Rapture'--as that event has come to
be called.

"In my studies during the past week--would God I had been wise, and
given myself to all this a month ago, I should then have shared in the
glory of that Rapturous event of which all our minds are so full.

"But, as I was saying, in my studies during the past week, I have seen
that in Revelation Seven, in the account of those who are to be saved
_during_ the seven years of the present dispensation, (and which has
just begun) that they 'have washed their robes and made them white _in
the blood of the Lamb_.'  So that though I am not able to reduce my
standing to an actual theological position--statement--yet I pin my
soul, my faith on the Eternal character of God, and on the efficacy of
the Blood of Jesus, as shown in Revelation Seven, fourteen."

He paused for an instant, and his eyes swept the great assembly
sorrowfully, sadly, as he went on:

"But it is forced upon me that what is done by us, in this matter of
seeking God, must be done by us _now, at once_.  Every hour increases
the danger of delay because the powers of evil, of the Antichrist, are
already growing more and more rampant, more and more pronounced.
Presently, friends, we know not but that any hour or even moment now,
the awful delusion of the Antichrist lie, may be actually formulated
into speech and print, and it will be so almost universally absorbed by
mankind, and its influence be so pervading, so saturating, in every
class, of society, that it will every hour become harder, more
difficult for the individual soul to turn to God."

He paused again for one instant.  Then startlingly, suddenly, the words
"Great God!" leaped from his lips.  They sounded like a mighty sob.

"Great God!" he repeated with an anguish that awed the people.  "The
great mass of people in London, are already mocking God.  They laugh at
the notion of there being a God, of there being any Retribution.  The
great mass of the people are ripe for anything, even for a public,
official denial of the very existence of God.  Deluded, they will
believe any lie, THE FOUL LIE.

"How long is it since, in France, in the Revolution, the leading men,
the 'flower' of that capricious nation, carried in triumph in grand
procession the most beautiful harlot of Paris, to the Cathedral of
Notre Dame, and, unveiling and kissing her before the high altar,
proclaimed her as the 'Goddess of Reason,' exhorting the multitude of
people to forget all the childish things that they had been taught as
to the thunders of the wrath of God, for God was not, and had never
been.

"And all that happened while the 'salt of the earth,' was abroad, and
while that great, divine restrainer of evil, the Holy Spirit, the third
Person of the Trinity, was still upon the earth exercising His
restraint.

"And, in a week from to-day, I believe it will be absolutely impossible
to get a gathering like this.  The world, the Flesh, the Devil, the
Antichrist, will have almost absolute sway, and if any of us will live
to God, we must be prepared to suffer the direst persecution, and all
the horrors of the Great Tribulation, with its thousands of martyrs,
will be the portion of those who will cleave to God, and flout
Antichrist."

A deep, sullen growl, like that of some huge savage beast, rose here
and there from a number of dissenters to these predictions.

Ralph lifted his head proudly, and fearlessly for his God, as he cried:

"There rises the first growl of the slumbering demon of Antichrist,
which, only too soon, shall possess almost the whole world.  Soon, a
year, or two, less than that, doubtless.  Antichrist will dominate the
earth's peoples.  None will be able to trade, to buy or sell, unless
they bear on their forehead or their _right_ hand, the Mark of the
Beast.  What will that mark be?  I cannot tell.  I do not know, no one
save Antichrist, and the Devil who has incarnated him, can as yet know,
I think."

Again that growl rose from the throats of some of the listeners.  This
time it was deeper, fuller more voices joined in it, and the savage
note was more pronounced.

Suddenly, a mighty roar of thousands of voices, mingled with the blare
of brass instruments penetrated into the building from the street.
There followed, instantly, a general rising to their feet, and a rush
of the people to the exits.  The crush at the exits was terrible.
Screams of women mingled with the hoarse cursings of men--men who had
never uttered an oath before, found their mouth filled with hideous,
blasphemous oaths.  It was as if the very devil himself had suddenly
possessed the crowd.

Ralph found himself alongside the Secretary of the church, the man who
had preceded him in speaking.  The pair watched and listened for a
moment while noisily, slowly, painfully the people passed out of the
building.

Involuntarily there sprang to Ralph's lips, and, before he realized it,
he was uttering the words:

"The whole herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and was
choked."

The two men were strangers, yet as they turned and faced each other, by
some common impulse they clasped hands.  For one instant it looked as
though each would have spoken.  Then, as though some strange power had
tied their tongues, they moved on silently, side by side, down the wide
aisle of the church, and passed out through the entrance doors of the
now empty building.

The streets were filled with surging masses of people, and there was a
glare of ruddy flames, while dense volumes of smoke poured into the
upper air from the first of two huge cars drawn by hundreds of excited
men, boys, and even women and girls.

In the center of the platform of the first car was a huge, altar-like
construction in polished iron or steel.  The center of the altar was
evidently a deep hollow cauldron, into which a score of men, costumed
as satyrs, were pitchforking Bibles.  The four sides of the
Altar-cauldron had open bars, so that, fanned on every side by the
double draught of the car's motion, and the fairly stiff breeze that
was blowing, the furnace roared fiercely, fed, as it incessantly was by
the copies of God's Word.

Hundreds of wildly-excited men and women--many seemed
semi-drunken--attired in every conceivable grotesqueness of costume,
and forming a kind of open-air fancy-dress ball, disported themselves
shamelessly about the cauldron car, and the triumphal car that followed
in its wake.

The latter was a gorgeous structure, finished in gold, purple, and
imitation white marble.  Its center was a kind of _tableaux vivant_.
On one side was an effigy of a parsonic kind of man, crucified head
downwards upon a cross.  A second side showed a theatre front with a
staring announcement "_seven_ day performances."  A third side showed a
figure of "Bacchus" crowned with vine-leaves and grape-bunches.  A
fourth side showed an entrance to a Law Court, with an announcement:
"Closed Eternally, for since there is no marriage, there is no divorce."

Above all this was a golden throne, and in a deep purple-plush-covered
chair sat a florid, coarsely-beautiful woman, with long hair of golden
hue hanging down upon her shoulders and blowing in the breeze.  She was
literally naked, save for a ruffle of pink muslin about her waist.
Upon her head was a crown, in her right hand she held a gilded crozier.

The most wanton, hideous licentiousness was the order of the hour among
the mob of fancy-costumed people.

Ralph Bastin and his companion followed in the wake of the foaming,
raging sea of semi-mad people.

"The French Revolution business over again," said Ralph--he had to
shout into his friend's ear to be heard.

His companion nodded an assent, then bawled back:

"Whither are they bound, I wonder?"

Ralph pointed to a banner bearing the inscription.  "To St. Pauls."

The procession swept on, and seven minutes later the cars were rounded
up in front of the open space before the Cathedral.

A score of policemen had managed to muster on the upper step of the
flight.  But the rush of the mob was irresistible.  They took entire
possession of the steps and all the open space around even to the head
of Ludgate Hill.

Ralph had got separated from his companion, and found himself swept
close up to the great triumphal car.  Above him seated smilingly on her
purple throne, in all her shameless nakedness, was the beautiful form
of the foul souled harlot.  Her gilded crozier was upheld between her
naked knees, and now, in her right hand she held a goblet of champagne,
just passed up to her.

A bugle sounded for silence.  The hush was instantaneous.  Then as she
held the goblet high aloft, her clear, shrill voice rang out in the
toast she gave:

"To the World, the Flesh, and the Devil!"

She drained the sparkling draught, and tossed the goblet down into the
upraised hand of a handsome, but dissolute-looking man, who, attired in
the theatrical idea of Mephistopheles, appeared to be a kind of Master
of Ceremonies.

A mighty roar of applause, mingled with cries of "Dolly Durden!  Dear
little Dolly Durden!" accompanied the drinking of the toast.

Again the bugle rang out for silence, and amid a hush as before,
Mephistopheles shouted:

"The Sunday of the Puritans is dead and _damned_!  Their Bible is
burned and a dead letter!"

He pointed, as he uttered the last sentence, to the Satyrs who were
piling the last of their stock of Bibles into the fiery furnace of the
cauldron-altar.

His blasphemies were greeted with a roar of applause.  Then, as he
obtained a comparative silence by the raising of his hand, he yelled:

"To Hyde Park."

The band struck up "Good St. Anthony," and the monster procession,
swept down Ludgate Hill, hundreds of throats belching out the words of
the song, to the music of the band:

  "St. Anthony sat on a lowly stool,
    A large black book he held in his hand,
  Never his eyes from the page he took,
    With steadfast soul the page he scanned.
  The Devil was in his best humour that day,
    That ever his Highness was known to be in,--
  That's why he sent out his imps to play
    With sulphur, and tar, and pitch, and resin:
  They came to the saint in a motley crew,
    Twisted and twirl'd themselves about,--
  Imps of every shape and hue,
    A devilish, strange, and rum-looking rout.
  Yet the good St. Anthony kept his eyes
    So firmly fixed upon his book,
  Shouts nor laughter, sighs nor cries,
    Never could win away his look."


Verse after verse belched forth from the now more or less raucous
throats of the blasphemous mob, until, with unholy unctiousness,
reaching the last verse but one, they screamed laughingly, vilely:

  "A thing with horny eyes was there--
    With horny eyes just like the dead,
  While fish-bones grew instead of hair
    Upon his bald and skinless head.
  Last came an imp--how unlike the rest,--
    A lovely-looking female form,
  And while with a whisper his cheek she press'd,
    Her lips felt downy, soft, and warm;
  As over his shoulder she bent, the light
    Of her brilliant eyes upon his page
  Soon filled his soul with mild delight,
    And the good old chap forgot his age.
  And the good St. Anthony boggled his eyes
    So quickly o'er his old black book,--
  Ho!  Ho! at the corners they 'gan to rise,
    And he couldn't choose but have a look.

  "There are many devils that walk this world,
    Devils so meagre and devils so stout,
  Devils that go with their tails uncurl'd,
    Devils with horns and devils without.
  Serious devils, laughing devils,
    Devils black and devils white,
  Devils uncouth, and devils polite.
    Devils for churches, devils for revels,
  Devils with feathers, devils with scales,
    Devils with blue and warty skins,
  Devils with claws like iron nails,
    Devils with fishes' gills and fins;
  Devils foolish, devils wise,
    Devils great, and devils small,--
  But a laughing woman with two bright eyes
    Proves to be the worst devil of them all."


It was all of Hell, Hellish, and should have proved conclusively, it
proof had been desired, that with the translation of the Church, and
the flight of the Holy Spirit, the last restraint upon man's natural
love of lawlessness had been taken away.

Sweeping westwards, the hideous, blasphemous procession was continually
augmented by crowds that swarmed up from side-streets, and fell-in in
the rear of the marching throng.

Somewhere on the route, owing to a kind of backwash of the surging
people, Ralph Bastin and the Secretary of the Church had become
separated.  At Picadilly circus they came suddenly face to face again.

"What is this foul, blasphemous movement?  What does it mean?" asked
the Secretary.  "Is this a beginning of _organized_ lawlessness on the
part of the Anti-christ?"

"I think not," replied Ralph.  "I should rather say that it was a bit
of wanton outrage of all the decencies of ordinary life, and arranged
by some of the rude fellows--male and female--of the baser sort.  You
noticed, of course, that most of those immediately connected with the
two cars, looked like the drinking, smoking, sporting fellows who are
the _habitues_ of the music-halls and the promenades of the theatres."

An uproarious cheering of the mighty throng interrupted Ralph for a
moment.  Only those well to the front of the procession could know the
cause of the cheering, but the whole mass of people joined in it.  As
the roar died away, Ralph Bastin took up the broken thread of his reply:

"Yet, for all I have just said, I feel it in my bones as Mrs. Beecher
Stowe's old negress 'mammy' used to say, that this foul demonstration
on this golden Sunday morning, is the unauthorized unofficial beginning
of the Anti-christ movement."

There was a couple of hundred yards between the tail of the actual
procession, and Ralph and his companion.  Hundreds of people thronged
the sidewalks, but the road was fairly clear, and along the gutter-way
there swept a gang of boys with coarse, raucous laughter,
kicking--football fashion--two or three of the half-burned Bibles that
had fallen from the cauldron-altar on the car.

The church Secretary visibly shuddered at the sacrilege.  A pained look
shot into Ralph Bastin's face, as he said:

"Such wanton, open sacrilege as that could only have become possible by
the gradual decay of reverence for the word of God, brought about
largely by the so-called 'Higher critics' of the last thirty years, the
men who broke Spurgeon's heart, the Issachars of the nineteenth and
early twentieth century, those 'knowing ones' who, like Issachar,
thought that they knew better than God."

The two men walked on together in deep talk.  Ralph learned that his
companion was Robert J. Baring, principal of the great shipping firm,
and of merchants and importers.

Baring was an educated man, and of considerable culture, and Ralph and
he found that they had very much in common.  But that which perhaps
constituted the closest tie between them was the fact that both had
lost their nearest and dearest, and were _left_ to face the coming
horrors of the Anti-christ reign, and the hideousness of the great
Tribulation.

"God grant," Ralph said once, as they talked, "that when the moment
comes, as come it will, that we are called upon to stand for God, or
die for Him, that we may witness a good confession."




CHAPTER IV.

FORESHADOWINGS.

A month had elapsed since the translation of the church.  A new order
in everything had arisen--Religious, Governmental, Social.  The spirit
of lawlessness grew fiercer and fouler each day, it is true, yet there
was a supreme authority, a governmental restriction, that prevented the
fouler, the more destructive passions of the baser kind of men and
women, having full scope.

A curious kind of religion had been set up in many of the churches.
The services were sensuous to a degree, and were a strange mixture of
Romanism, Spiritism (demonology,) Theosophy, Materialism, and other
kindred cults.  Almost every week some new ode or hymn was produced,
every sentiment of which was an applauding of man, for God was utterly
ignored, and the key-note of the Harvard college "class Poem," for the
year 1908, became the key-note of the Sunday Song of the "worshippers"
in the churches:

  "_No_ God for a gift God gave us--
  MANKIND ALONE must save us."


It was a curious situation, since it was "man" worshipping himself.
Presently, the centre of worship would shift from man, to _The_ Man of
Sin--the Anti-christ.

These religious services were held, as a rule, from twelve-thirty to
one-fifteen on the Sunday once a day only, (without any week-night
meetings.)  They were held at an hour when, in the old-days, the
congregations would have been home, or going home, from their services.
But this arranged lateness was due to the fact, that there had grown up
in all sections of society an ever-increasing lateness of retiring at
night, coupled with a growth of indolence caused by every kind of
sensual indulgence, not the least of which was gluttony.  Music of a
sensuous, voluptuous character formed a chief part of the brief Sunday
services, and every item was loudly applauded as though the whole
affair had been a performance rather than a professedly religious
service.

Most of the interior arrangements in many of the old places of worship
had been altered.  The theatre style of thing--plush-covered tip seats,
etc.--had taken the place of the old pews and the wooden seats.  In
many of these Sunday services, too, people of both sexes smoked at
will--for smoking among women had become almost universal.

There were no Bibles, or Hymn books, the odes, etc., were printed on
double sheets, after the fashion of theatre programmes, and, like them,
contained numerous advertisements of the Sunday matinees and evening
performances at the theatres, music-halls, etc.

All this had been brought about much more easily than would at first
appear, until we remember one or two factors that had long been working
silently, subtly among the attendants--mere church professors--of the
various places of worship, such as, the insistance on shorter services,
and fewer--for long, before the Rapture, the unspiritual had clamoured
for a _single_ service of the week, that of a late Sunday morning one.
Then for years, religious services (those of the Sunday) had grown more
and more sensuous, unspiritual.  Every real _spiritual_ doctrine had
first been denied, then expunged from the _essay_ that had largely
taken the place of the old-time sermon.  Again, all spiritual
restraints had now been taken away--the true believers, the Holy
Spirit, every spiritually-minded, born-again pastor and clergyman.

The new Religion (it could not be called a Faith) was a universal one.
The powers of the Priest-craft had invented a religion of the Flesh,
fleshy to a degree.  Every type of indulgence was permissible, so that
men everywhere gloried in their religion, "having a form--but denying
God."

The performances at all theatres, music-halls, etc., had grown rapidly
worse and worse, in character,--licentiousness, animalism,
voluptuousness, debauchery, these were the main features of the newer
type of performances.  Salome dances, and even the wildest, obscenest
type of the "_can-can_" of the French, in its most promiscuous
lascivious forms, were common fare on the varied English stages.

But if the stage was filthy and indecent, what could be said of the
books!  There was not a foulness or obscenity and indecency that was
not openly, shamelessly treated in the bluntest of phraseology.
Thousands of penny, two-penny, and three-penny editions of utter
obscenity were issued daily.  And the vitiated taste of the great mass
of the people grew voraciously by feeding upon them.

Marriage was a thing of the dead past.  There had been a growth of
foul, subtle, hideous teaching _before_ the translation of the church.
Marriage had been taught (in many circles) to be "an unnecessary
restraint upon human liberty."  "Women"--it had been written, _absolved
from shame_, shall be _owners_ of themselves."  "We believe" (the same
writer had written) "in the sacredness of the family and the home, the
legitimacy of _every_ child, and the inalienable right of every woman
to the absolute possession of herself."

All this foul seed-teaching of the days before the Translation of the
Church, burst into open blossom and fullest fruit when once the
restraint of Christian public opinion had been withdrawn from the earth.

The friendship between Ralph Bastin and Baring had grown with the days,
and as they watched the rapid march of events, all heading towards
ultimate evil, they talked of the possible _finale_, while they
encouraged themselves in their God.

One evening, when they met, Baring said:

"I suppose there will soon come the time when no one will be able to
trade without bearing "the mark of the Beast."

"Some new indication that way?" asked Ralph.

"I think so," Baring returned.  "You remember that I told you that
previous to the taking away of the Church, the vessels of my firm had
been _tentatively_ chartered for the transport of the various parts of
the Temple to Jerusalem.  To-day, the negotiations have been quashed by
those who had previously approached us."

"For what reason?" asked Ralph.

"They gave no reason," Baring went on, "but I have not the slightest
doubt, myself, that the real reason is this, that I have, of late,
continually spoken warningly against Anti-christ."

"But how could that be known in circles purely Anti-christ?"  Ralph's
tones were eager; his eyes, too, were filled with a puzzled expression.

"You know," Baring returned, "what we were speaking of the other night,
that now that the devil and his angels had been cast down from the air,
they are (though invisible) yet actively engaged all about us on the
earth?"

Ralph nodded assent.

"I believe, I am sure they are everywhere present."  Baring smiled a
little sadly, as he added, his eyes sweeping the room in a swift,
comprehensive way: "There may be, there probably is, one or more
present in this room, at this moment, their object espionage.  They
have doubtless been present when I have spoken against Anti-christ,
and----"

"Yes, but this shipping matter of which you spoke, Bob, is a _Jewish_
affair," interrupted Bastin, adding:

"For I presume, since the cargoes would be composed of the Temple
parts, that it would be financed by Jewish capitalists, religionists,
or what not?  How then would Anti-christ have anything to do with it?"

Slowly, deliberately, almost solemnly Baring replied:

"Lucien Apleon is a Jew!"

Bastin started sharply.  Some idea of what his friend meant flashed
upon him.

"Lucien Apleon!" he cried hoarsely.  "But what----"

Baring broke in with: "I believe that Lucien Apleon will presently be
_revealed_ as the Anti-christ, and----"

The conversation had been going on in Ralph's Editorial office.  It was
now interrupted by a startling call over the tape-wire, and Baring
suddenly realizing the hour, took a hurried temporary farewell of his
friend.

An hour later Ralph was seated at his table penning the "Prophet's
chair" column for the next morning's issue of his paper.  It was only
natural, under the new order of life and thought that prevailed, that a
daily paper, conducted on the lines of the "Courier," should drop
heavily in circulation.   The "Courier" had so dropped, though it still
paid to issue it.

"_My enemies_, the enemies of God and of righteousness," he murmured,
as he took up his "Fountain," (he preferred a pen to a type-writer)
"are, I am inclined to believe, the chief purchasers of the paper new,
and they only buy it to see what I say from the 'Prophet's Chair.'"

For a moment, as was now his invariable custom, before beginning his
daily message, he bowed his head and prayed for wisdom to write God's
mind.

When next he lifted his head, and put pen to paper, he wrote with great
rapidity, and without an instant's hesitation:

"Resuming the subject of which we wrote yesterday, we tried to show
from Revelation XII, that the teaching was this, that, full of rage
because of his casting out from the heavens, Satan, the great Dragon,
the old Serpent, determined to destroy all lovers of God, that were yet
found among mortals.  But even Satan himself is a spirit, and 'cannot
operate in the affairs of the world except through the minds, passions
and activities of men.'  He needs to embody himself in earthly agents,
and to put himself forth in earthly organisms, in order to accomplish
his murderous will.

"Through this wonderful Revelation of God to John, God makes known to
us what that organism is, and how the agency and the domination of the
enraged Dragon will be exerted in acting out his blasphemies, deceits,
and bloody spite.  The subject is not a pleasant one, but it is an
important one.  It also has features so startling and extraordinary
that many may think it but a wild and foolish dream.  Nevertheless it
is imperative that we should all look at it, and understand it.  God
has evidently set it out for us to learn and know just how things will
eventually turn out.[1]

"John, 'in the Spirit,' finds himself stationed on the sands of the
sea--the same great sea upon which Daniel beheld the winds striving in
their fury.  He beholds a monstrous Beast rising out of the troubled
elements.  He sees horns emerging, and the number of them is ten, and
on each horn a diadem.  He sees the heads which bear the horns, and
these heads are seven, and on the heads are names of blasphemy.
Presently the whole figure of the monster is before him.  Its
appearance is like a leopard or panther, but its feet are the feet of a
bear, and its mouth as the mouth of a lion.  He saw also that the Beast
had a throne, and power, and great authority.  One of his heads showed
marks of having been fatally wounded and slain, but the death-stroke
was healed.

"He saw also the whole earth wondering after the Beast, amazed at his
majesty and power, exclaiming at the impossibility of withstanding it,
and celebrating its superiority to everything.  He beheld, and the
Beast was speaking great and blasphemous things against God,
blaspheming His name, His tabernacle, even them that [Transcriber's
note: line missing from book here] tabernacle in the Heaven the
translated saints), assailing and overcoming the saints on the earth,
and wielding authority over every tribe, and people, and tongue and
nation.  He saw also that all the dwellers on earth, whose names are
not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain, did worship this
Beast.  And for forty-two months the monster holds its place and enacts
its resistless will.

"This is the picture!  What are we to make of it?  What does it mean?
How are we to understand it?  It would seem to be a symbolic
presentation of the political sovereignty of _this world at the final
crisis_.

"The Beast has horns, and horns represent power.  On these horns are
diadems, and diadems are the emblems of regal dominion.  The Beast is
said to possess power, a throne, and great authority.  He makes war.
He exercises dominion over all tribes, and peoples, and tongues, and
nations.  He is a monstrous Beast, including in his composition the
four beasts of Daniel.

"From the interpreting angel we know that Daniel's four beasts denoted
'four kingdoms' that arose upon the earth.  The identification thus
becomes complete and unmistakable, that this monstrous Beast is meant
to set before us an image of earthly sovereignty and dominion.  And if
any further evidence of this is demanded, it may be abundantly found in
Rev. XVII. 9-17, where the same Beast is further described, and the ten
horns are interpreted to be 'ten kings.'

"This Beast is therefore the embodiment of this world's political
sovereignty in its last phase, in the last years of its existence.
Daniel's beasts were successive empires, the Babylonian, the
Medo-Persian, the Graeco-Macedonian, and the Roman.  But the lion, the
bear, the leopard, and the nameless ten-horned monster, each distinct
in Daniel, are all united in one in Revelation.

"This Beast appears to be, undoubtedly, an _individual_ administration,
_embodied in one particular man_.  Though upheld by ten kings or
governments, they unite in making the Beast the one sole Arch Regent of
their time.

"This he--the Beast, the Anti-christ--gets a grip of the nations, who
willingly submit to his rule, being under the spirit of delusion,
'believing _the_ lie' of the Anti-christ.

"Already, we see that this confederacy of nations is being called into
an almost sudden existence.  The seers of our nation, before this
strange order of things that has arisen in our midst, since the taking
away of the church, were wont to say to certain political changes--'at
the back of all the known forces that have helped to bring so-and-so to
pass, there almost _seems_ to have been some unseen, unknown
Master-mind at work.'

"'Tis so now, and the startling events that are following each other so
rapidly, are the product of a master-mind, the 'Man of Sin,'
Anti-christ, the Beast who has been energized by Satan, the Old Dragon,
who though he has not _yet_ avowed himself, may be expected to do so
any day or hour now.

"It will hardly be news to any one who reads this column regularly,
that the building of the Temple which is to be reared in Jerusalem, by
the Jews, who have largely returned to the 'Promised land' in unbelief,
is being pushed on with the utmost celerity.  The fact that, for some
years previous to the Translation of the Church, all its parts, made to
perfect scale, were prepared and fitted, enables the builders to erect
this wonderful structure with almost magical speed.

"Simultaneous with this work, there has just appeared in Jerusalem, two
remarkable men, who would appear to be Enoch and Elijah of old.  These
men are witnesses for God, and are testifying against Anti-christ.

"We say that these men would _appear_ to be Enoch and Elijah, and not
Moses and Elijah, as some, in the old days before the Rapture, had
supposed.  The allusion to water turned to blood, in the eleventh
chapter of Revelation (which treats of God's two witnesses) very
probably led some writers to connect the _first_ of the two witnesses
with Moses--since Moses turned water into blood.

"The main point of identification, we think, in the case of these two
witnesses, however, lies in the fact that since it is appointed unto
men _once_ to die, the two witnesses must needs be men who have never
passed through _mortal_ death.  _Moses did die_, hence it seems to us
that he was disqualified from being one of the two witnesses, both of
whom have presently to pass through mortal death in the streets of
Jerusalem.  Now Enoch and Elijah did not pass through mortal death,
hence we believe the event will prove that these two witnesses are
Enoch and Elijah.

"Each day that we pen this particular column we are conscious that it
may be the last we shall pen, hence our anxiety to warn all our readers
against the Anti-christ, and his lie--the strong delusion of 2
Thessalonians II 12."

For a few moments longer Ralph wrote on in this strain, then, just as
he had completed the last sentence, his special Tape-wire rang him up.
He summoned Charley to carry his _M.S._ sheets to the comp. room.  With
a word to his Secretary, (who was divided from him by one thickness of
wall only, communication being by a 'phone,) he turned to his Tape.



[1] The Apocalypse, by Joseph A. Seiss, D.D. p. p. 401.




CHAPTER V.

CRUEL AS THE GRAVE!

Lucien Apleon's eyes held the cold, cruel malignity of a snake.  His
brows were cold, straight, unruffled.  His smile held the polished
brutality of the most Mephistophelian Mephistopheles.

Judith Apleon knelt at his feet, her beautiful face working painfully.
A smile as cruel as his mouth crept into his eyes as he noted her
grovelling, as he watched the anguish in her face.

She shuddered as she saw that smile creep into his eyes.  She had seen
it before--more than once.  The first time had been among the glorious
mountains of her beautiful Hungarian home.  An old peasant woman, with
the reputation of a witch, had scowled upon him, and had uttered a
curse on him.  The spot where the three had met was in a lonely pass.
At the utterance of the curse he had cut the poor old hag down, with
one fierce slash of his heavy riding whip.  She had howled for mercy,
and for reply he flogged the poor frail old prostrate form until life
had fled, then, with a lifting spurn of his foot, he had hurled the
body over the edge of that mountain pass, into the unknown depths of
the ravine beyond.  And all the time his eyes had smiled, as they
smiled now--and Judith shuddered, for the smile was as cruel as the
grave, and was a reflection of Hell.

She knew the diabolical cruelty which lay hidden behind that smile, and
remembering the fate of those upon whom he had bent that smile, she
sickened with a shuddering fear of her own life.

They had quarreled, that is to say she had _tried_ to thwart him in a
trifling thing.  She hardly, herself, realized _what_ he was, or the
power he possessed.

"Lucien," and her voice shook with the agony which filled her, with the
fear that had her in its shuddering grip.  "Lucien, don't look like
that at me."

With an affrighted scream she cried: "Don't!  Don't!  Lucien!  No one
on whom I ever saw you look, as you look now, ever lived an hour,
and----."

His gaze of diabolical hate hypnotized her.  She wanted to take her
eyes from his, but could not.

He made her no audible reply.  He only smiled on.  A faint cry, like
the low scream of a terrified coney, escaped her.  Her face paled until
it was like the grey-white of a corpse.

"Spare me, Lucien, spare me----."

She would have said more, but the chill of his hellish smile froze the
words upon her lips.

He never once changed his attitude.  His left elbow rested on the
corner of the mantel, the fingers of his right hand played with the
gold watch-guard he wore.

A full minute elapsed, then with a cry of passionate, painful entreaty,
she lifted her beautiful clasped hands, and wringing them in agony,
cried:

"Lucien--Lucien--."  Then a sob choked her.

For another long minute there was a tomb-like silence.  He never moved
a muscle of his face.  The chill of the smile in his eyes deepened, and
seemed, as it was bent upon her, to numb her faculties.

Her whole frame seemed to wilt under the ice of his smile.  She
shivered with the concentrated hate his eyes expressed.

Lower and lower she crouched at his feet.  And as he saw her wilt and
shiver the smile of Hell deepened in his cruel eyes.

Suddenly he spoke.  The words were uttered in dulcet tones.  But their
meaning had, to her, the sentence of death, as softly, calmly, there
fell from his lips:

"I have no further need of you!  You are in my way!"

For one instant her eyes remained fixed upon his face.  Then slowly her
limbs relaxed, her body swayed lightly forward, and sank rather than
fell upon the thick pile of the carpet.

With a low, mocking laugh Lucien Apleon turned away from the dead form.
But before he passed out of the room he did a curious thing.  A Bible
rested on one of the shelves of the room, he took the volume from its
place, opened it at the 13th of Revelation and taking a pen, he dipped
it into the red ink, and ran a red line around the 15th verse of the
chapter.

A moment later he had passed from the room.

The verse he had red-scored, read: "He had power to give life unto the
_image_ of the Beast, that the image of the Beast should both speak,
and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast
should be killed."

No wonder that Lucien Apleon smiled.  For if presently, he was going to
cause the _image_ of the Beast to cause death to those who defied him,
how much more could he himself strike dead by the power of the Satanic
energy given to him.

Judith Apleon's body was conveyed to the crematorium and consumed.  A
doctor had certified heart-disease; there was no inquest.  Lucien did
not attend the funeral.  The whole affair was carried through by the
undertaker.  There were no mourners.

The Anti-christ spirit is marked by "Without natural affection," one
could not therefore expect Anti-christ himself to possess _any_
affection.




CHAPTER VI.

"A REED LIKE A ROD."

Events moved with startling rapidity.  Events which, in the
swift-moving times of the last years of the nineteenth century, would
have occupied a decade to bring to pass, now occupied no more than the
same number of days.  The revived Roman Empire was an established fact.
Moved by Satan, the ten kings had united to make Lucien Apleon their
Emperor.  The nations, having cast off all belief in the orthodoxy of
the previous centuries, refusing to believe God's truth, utterly
scouting it, in fact, they had laid themselves open to receive
Anti-christ's lie, and had swallowed it wholesale.

Babylon had been rebuilt, and had become the _Commercial_ centre of the
reign of Lucien Apleon, even as Jerusalem was now to become his
religious centre.

Ralph Bastin was still Editor of the "Courier," though each week, each
day, in fact, he wondered if it would be his last of office, even as he
often wondered if he might not have to seal his testimony as a
God-inspired editor, with his blood, his life.

Already, all who, like himself, would live Godly, had to suffer bitter
persecution.  Many of the Godly had been found mysteriously murdered,
and always the murders had been passed over by those who were in
authority.

Ralph was on the point of leaving his office for luncheon, (he always
lunched in the city,) when a visitor was announced.

"Rabbi Cohen, to see you, sir," announced Charley.

"Show him in at once," replied Ralph, and rising to his feet he went to
the door to meet his friend.

The Rabbi entered with a little eager run, and the two men grasped
hands heartily, their respective faces glowing with the gladness they
each felt.

As it had been with Tom Hammond and that other Cohen, the Jew, who had
shared in the translation of the Church, so with the Rabbi who was now
visiting Ralph, he had been drawn to call upon Ralph, in the first
place, because of his editorial espousal of the Jewish people and their
interests.

Between Ralph and the Rabbi, there had grown up a very strong
friendship, and though for some weeks, they had not met, each knew that
the other's friendship was as ever.

After a few ordinary exchanges between the pair, the Rabbi, suddenly
looked up eagerly, saying:

"I have come to say good-bye, to you, my friend, unless, by any
fortunate chance, I can persuade you to accompany me, or, at least,
follow me soon."

"Good-bye, Cohen?" cried Ralph, "Why--what--where are you going?"

"To Jerusalem, Bastin!"  There was a curious ring of mixed pride and
gladness in the manner of his saying "Jerusalem."

"You know," he went on, "that we Cohens are the descendents of Aaron,
that we are of the priestly line.  I am the head of our family, and my
people have chosen me as the _first_ High priest for our new Temple
worship."

Brimming with his subject, he spoke rapidly, enthusiastically: "The
Temple is to be formally opened on the tenth of September.  The
tradition among my people, and handed down to us in many of our
writings is this, that the Great Temple of Solomon--opened in the
seventh month, as all our scriptures, yours as well as ours, say--was
dedicated and opened on a day corresponding with the modern tenth of
September.  Our new Temple will be opened on the tenth of this month."

On entering the room he had laid a long, cylinder-shaped japanned roll
upon the table.  This he now took up, took off the lid, and drew out a
roll of vellum.  Unrolling the vellum, he held the wide sheet out
between his two outstretched hands, saying:

"I brought this on purpose for you to see, friend Bastin."

He smiled pleasantly as he added: "I expect you are the only Gentile
who has seen this finished drawing."

For a few moments both men were silent.  Ralph was speechless from
amazement, the Rabbi from eager interest in watching his friend's amaze.

The "drawing," as the Rabbi had called it, was in reality a superb
painting of the most marvelous structure possible to conceive.  The
bulk of the vellum surface was occupied with an enormous oblong
enclosure.  The outer sides of the enclosure showing a most exquisite
marble terracing, the capping of the marble wall was of a wondrous
red-and-orange-veined dark green stone.  The bronze gates were capped
and adorned with massive inlayings of gold and silver, while the floral
parts showed the colours of the precious stones used to produce each
separate coloured flower.

A huge altar, the ascent to which, on three of the sides was by flights
of wide steps, occupied the fore-part of the courtyard inside the gates
of the main entrance--there were five entrances, each with its own
gates.  Two entrances on each side of the oblong enclosure, and one at
the courtyard end.

Beyond the altar was a huge brazen sea, resting upon the hind-quarters
of twelve bronze oxen.  Beyond the brazen sea was the temple itself,
entered by a wide porch of wondrous marble, the pillars of which were
crowned with golden capitals of marvellous workmanship.  The porch was
surmounted by a dome.  Then came the temple proper, its form a square
above a square, the upper square surmounted by a huge dome, supported
upon columns similar to those found in the porch, and in the
base-square.

What the actual building must be like Ralph could not conceive!  The
picture of it was a bewildering vision of almost inconceivable
loveliness.

Now and again he asked a question, the Rabbi, at his side, delighted
with his admiration, answering everything fully.

"What has your wonderful temple cost?" Ralph presently asked, as the
picture was being rolled up, and replaced in the japanned cylinder.

"Twenty million pounds, a full third of which has been spent upon
precious stones for studding the walls, and gates, and pillars!"

Ralph gasped in amaze.  "Twenty--million--pounds!" He repeated the
words much after the manner of a man who, recovering from a swoon,
says, "Where--am--I?"

They talked together for a few moments of the _how_ of the financing of
such a costly undertaking.  Then suddenly, Bastin faced his friend, a
rare wistfulness in his face and in his voice, as he said:

"I wish, dear Cohen, you, and your dear people could see how futile all
this work is!  I do not want to hurt you by speaking of Jesus of
Nazareth.  But suffer me to say this, that probably the only references
which God's word makes to this Temple of yours, are in Daniel xii. 11
and in the Christian New Testament, Matthew xxiv.  Mark xiii 2, 2
Thessalonians ii 14, and Revelation xi 1, _and there it is mentioned in
connection with Judgment_.  In the first verse of _our_ eleventh of
Revelation, the temple is to be measured, but it is with a reed _like a
rod_.  Not the ordinary measuring reed, but like a _rod_, the symbol of
Judgment.

"And that, dear Cohen, will be the end of your beautiful temple--it
will be destroyed in Judgment, and soon--all too soon--it will be
cursed and defiled by the abomination of desolation of which your
beloved prophet Daniel speaks, in the twelfth chapter and the eleventh
verse."

With a sudden new eagerness, but as sad as he was eager, he said: "In
your extremity, and in your desire to be established in the land of
your fathers, you talk of making a seven years covenant with Lucien
Apleon, Emperor of the European confederacy?"

Cohen, evidently impressed by Ralph's manner, nodded an assent, but did
not speak.

"Oh, Cohen, my friend, my friend!" Ralph went on.  "Would to God you
and your people had your eyes open to the true character of that man,
Lucien Apleon!  If you had, you would see from your own prophets that
he was prophesied to be your foe.  Remember Daniel nine, twenty-seven
(according to the modern chaptering and verses) "He shall confirm the
covenant with many for _one week_: (a week of years, of seven years)
and in the midst of the week (at the end of the first three and a half
years) he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and on
the battlements shall be the idols of the desolator."

Cohen's face was a picture of wondering amaze.  Twice his lips parted
as though he would speak, but no sound came from them, and Ralph went
on:

"I could weep with very anguish of soul, dear friend, at all that you,
and every truly pious Jew will suffer; when, at the end of the three
years and a half ('the midst of the week') the foul fiend whom you are
all trusting so implicitly, will suddenly abolish your daily sacrifice
of the morning and evening lamb, and will set up an image of himself,
which you, and all the _Godly_ of your race, will refuse to worship.
Then will begin your awful tribulation, 'the time of Jacob's deadly
sorrow.'

"It is in your own Scriptures, dear friend, if you would but see it.
And in _our_ New Testament, in Matthew twenty-four, which is _all
Jewish_ in its teaching, our Lord and Saviour, foretold all this as to
come upon your people.  He even showed them to be in their own land,
saying, 'let them which are in Judea flee into the mountains . . . and
pray that your flight be not on the Sabbath day:' (for you Godly Jews
would not go beyond Moses' 'Sabbath day's journey,' and Anti-christ's
myrmidons would then soon overtake you.)"

As if to jerk the talk into a new channel, Cohen said, almost abruptly:

"Why do you say, my friend, that _our_ temple, the temple which we
shall dedicate on the tenth of this month, has probably so few mentions
in the Scriptures, and those in judgment.  When we say that the whole
of the nine last chapters of our prophet Ezekiel are taken up with it.
Nearly all our plans have followed the directions, the picture of
Ezekiel's Temple?"

"That temple, sketched in Ezekiel," replied Ralph, "is the millennial
temple.  There was no temple in the nineteen hundred odd years between
the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, and the translation of
'The church,' a few months ago.  There could be no temple as regards
God's people--The Church--because all that nineteen hundred years was a
_spiritual_ dispensation.  God's Temple then was composed of living
stones, wherein a _spiritual_ priesthood offered up spiritual
sacrifices.

"But to go back to the temple described by Ezekiel in the last nine
chapters of his prophecy--this is the temple which will be reared in
the Millennium, but it will _not be_ in Jerusalem.  Read carefully over
all that Ezekiel's description, and you will see that when your
Messiah, our Christ, comes to reign for that wonderful time of a
thousand years of perfect righteousness, that your land--the land given
in promise by God to your father Abraham--is to be _re_-divided
(Ezekiel forty-five one to five).  Ezekiel's Temple, and the division
of the land, stand and fall together, and it is a subject that cannot
be symbolized.

"Now when the land is divided into straight lines, 'a holy oblation' is
commanded of sixty square miles--if the measurement be by _reeds_, or
fifteen square miles if the measurement be by _cubits_.  This oblation
land will be divided into three parts.  The northern portion will be
for the priests, and the new temple will be in the midst.  The second
division of land, going South will be for the Levites.  And the third,
the most Southerly portion, will contain Jerusalem.  So that that
temple of the Millenium--Ezekiel's temple--will be fully thirty miles
from Jerusalem.

"Solomon's temple, and the one your people have just reared are both
situated on Mount Moriah, but Ezekiel's temple will not be on Mount
Moriah, for according to Isaiah two, two, 'It shall come to pass in the
last days, that the mountain of Jehovah's House shall be established in
the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all
nations shall flow unto it.'

"Read carefully, dear Cohen, your own loved Scriptures (in this
connection, especially Isaiah 50) and you will see that Gentiles shall
help, financially, as well as by manual labor to build the place, which
shall make the place of Jehovah's feet glorious--that must be His
_Temple_, and _not the city_.  Though Gentiles will also help to build
the walls of your new city of Jerusalem in _that_ day."

For fully another half hour the subject was pursued.  Cohen was amazed,
puzzled, but because his mind was not an open one to receive the
Truth--nothing blinds and obstructs like a preconceived idea--he failed
to grasp the Scriptural facts as presented by Ralph.

The moment came for the farewell word between them.  "I may never see
you again on earth, dear friend," Ralph remarked.  "For, believe me,
the day is near at hand when all of us who will cleave to _our_ God,
_your_ God--the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, will have to seal our
testimony with our blood.

"In three years and a half you, dear Cohen, and all the Godly ones of
your race, will be at issue with Lucien Apleon, for according to your
own prophet, Daniel (apart from our _New_ Testament Scriptures) he, the
Anti-christ, will autocratically put a stop to your sacrifices in your
Temple, and will set up his own image to be worshipped, and if you will
not worship that image, or if you do not succeed in fleeing to a place
of safety, your lives will be forfeited.  May God bless you dear, dear
friend, and lead you into the Truth of His own plain statements of the
facts you have to face."

Cohen was quiet, subdued, almost sad.  Then, as if to bridge an awkward
moment, he said, with a forced eagerness:

"Why not come to the opening of the Temple yourself, instead of sending
a representative to report to your paper?"

Ralph shook his head; "I could not get away, dear friend."

He did not voice the actual thing which weighed with him, that any day
now he might cease to be Editor of the "Courier."

The two men shook hands, and parted as men part who never expect to
meet again.

Bastin left alone dropped into a "brown study."  He was suddenly
recalled to the present, by the arrival of the mail.  The most
important packet bore the handwriting of Sir Archibald Carlyon, Ralph's
proprietor.

He smiled as he broke the envelope, recalling the thought of his heart
only twenty minutes ago, and wondering whether his foreboding was now
to be verified.

The letter was as kindly in its tone as Sir Archibald's letters ever
were.  But it was none the less emphatic.  After kindliest greetings,
and a few personal items, it went on:

"All the strange happenings of the past months have strangely unnerved
me.  I cannot understand things, 'I dunno where I are,' as that curious
catch-saying of the nineteenth century put it.  I live like a man in a
troubled dream, a night-mare.  Several members of our church have been
taken, and I, who prided myself on my strict churchmanship, have been
left behind.  My boon companion, the rector of our parish, a man who
always seemed to me to be the beau ideal clergyman, he too is left, and
is as puzzled and angry as I am.  I think he is more angry and
mortified than I am, because his pride is hurt at every point, since,
as the Spiritual head (nominally at least) of this parish, he has not
only been passed over by this wonderful translation of spiritual
persons, but being left behind he has no excuse to offer for it.

"The curate of our church and his wife, whom we always spoke of as
being 'a bit _peculiar_,' they disappeared when the others did.  By the
bye, Bastin, good fellow, what constitutes '_peculiarity_,' in this
sense?  It seems to me now, that to be out and out for God--as that
good fellow and his wife were, as well as one or two others in our
parish--is the real peculiarity of such people.  God help us, what
fools we have been!

"Our village shopkeeper, a dissenter, and a much-vaunted _local_
preacher, is also left behind, but his wife was taken.  A farmer, a
member of our own church, who used to invite preachers down from the
Evangelization Society, London, is gone, but his wife, a strict
churchwoman like myself--but a rare shrew--is left.

"But to come to the chief object of my letter, I am afraid you will be
sorry--though perhaps not altogether unprepared for what I have to
say--'_I have sold the 'Courier._'  It may be the only daily paper, (as
you wrote me the other day) that 'witnesses for righteousness,' but my
mind is too harrassed by all this mysterious business of the
_Translation_ of men and women, to think of anything else but the
future, and what it will bring.  I have sold the paper to Lucien Apleon
(through one of his agents, of course, since now that he is made
Emperor of this strangely constituted confederation of kings and
countries) he cannot be expected to personally transact so small a
piece of business as the purchase of a daily paper."

Ralph lowered the letter-sheet, a moment, and a weary little smile
crept into his face.

"I might have guessed that Apleon would have done this," he mused, "if
he is, as I believe, the Anti-christ!"

He lifted the letter again, and read on:

"He wanted to take possession at once, and give me 5,000 pounds extra
as a retiring fee for you.  But I was obstinate on this point, and told
his agent that he could not have possession until a month from today.

"Between this and then I shall hope to see you, dear Bastin.  I want to
see you very much on my own account.  Your utterances from 'The
Prophet's chair,' have aroused strange new thoughts and desires within
me, and I want you to help me to a clearer view of the events of the
near future.  Then, as to the sundering of our business relations, you
know me so well that you know I shall treat you handsomely when you
retire from the Editorship.

"Talking of finance, what special use can money be to a man like me
now, if all that you have lately written in the 'Courier'--as to _the
future_--be true?"

The letter wound up most cordially.  Then there followed a "P. S."

"My old friend, the Rector of the parish, who has always been keen on
theatricals--he would have made a better actor than parson--is having
the church seated with plush-covered tip-seats like a theatre, and
proposes to have a performance every Sunday Evening, and as often in
the week as funds, and interest in the affair, will warrant.  Good
Heavens!  What has the world come to?  Then only to think that
England's King, is under the supreme rule of a Jew, whose antecedents
no one appears to know--that is to say, previous to his meteoric-like
appearance when he was twenty-five.  'How are the mighty fallen!"

"How, indeed!" murmured Ralph, with a sigh, as he let the letter fall
on his table.

For a moment or two he stared straight in front of him, then, half
aloud, he murmured:

"A month only!  God help me to make good use of the thirty days!  If I
can but wake up some of the people of this land to the real position of
affairs, I shall be only too thankful."

For a few moment's longer he sat on, deep in thought.  Then suddenly he
started sharply, grew alert in every sense, and sounded a summons for
his messenger boy.  When the lad appeared, he asked:

"Do you know if Mr. Bullen is on the premises?"

"Yus, sur, he is!"

"Ask him to step this way, at once, please!"

George Bullen, was a keen, up-to-date young journalist, a man of
thirty-two only, but with a fine record as regarded his profession.  A
close personal friendship existed between his chief and himself, for he
had been wholly won to God through Ralph's efforts.

In a few words Ralph explained to the younger man, the changes that
were near at hand.  Then continuing:

"But while you and I, George, represent 'The Courier,' we will make it
all the power for God and for humanity that lies in our power.  Though
I am not sure that we can do much with _humanity_, now.  The strong
delusion has got such an almost universal grip upon the race, that they
will gladly, eagerly swallow all the lie of the Arch-liar, the
Anti-christ.  In the old days, before the translation of the church,
the Bible spoke of 'the whole world lieth in the arms of the Wicked
One,' and that is truer than ever now.  Well, George, _we_ must do all
_we_ can.

"But now to the chief thing for which I sent for you.  The new temple
at Jerusalem is to be opened on the tenth.  I want you to go, to
represent the 'Courier.'  What I am especially anxious for you to do,
is to note everything that will show the true _inwardness_ of things,
so that the little time left to us, on the dear old paper, shall be a
time of holy witness for God.

"Your knowledge of the East, your acquaintance with Yiddish, and Syrian
and Hebrew, the very swarthiness of your skin, and blackness of your
hair, dear boy, may all serve you in good stead.  For, if you feel led
to it, I should suggest that you adopt that Syrian costume I once saw
you in.  This course would have many advantages, for while you could
the more readily mix with the people, and obtain _entree_ often where
you otherwise could not, your identity as representative of 'The
Courier,' would not be made known.

"I am not sure, George, but that if you presented yourself as our
representative, that all kinds of obstacles might not be put in the way
of your obtaining information, or, more likely, in transmitting it.
You might even be quietly put out of the way.  Spare no expense, dear
boy, where other men spend five pounds, spend a hundred, if it will
serve us better."

For a time the two men held deep consultation.  Then when they gripped
hands in parting, each commended the other to God.

George Bullen started for the East next afternoon.  His stock of
Eastern garments was full and varied, and not one Eastern in a million
would have known him from a Syrian native.




CHAPTER VII.

"THE MARK OF THE BEAST."

George Bullen was no stranger to Jerusalem, yet it was a strange
Jerusalem that met his sight as he entered it by the Jaffa gate.  For
interest, picturesqueness, even amusement, there is no time so rich as
at early morning, at the Jaffa gate.

Bullen had been perfectly familiar, in the old days (eight years ago)
with the scene, but there were differences this morning.  The long
strings of donkeys and camels, laden to within the proverbial "last
straw" and led by foul-smelling, unkempt Bedouins were there, as usual,
in spite of the fact that railways now ran in every direction.  Eastern
women, robed in their loose blue cotton wrapper garments--sleeping, as
well as day attire--were there in galore, only now all of them walked
unveiled, whereas, in the old days, most of them were veiled.

Pilgrims from every land were pouring into the city.  The cafes were
crowded.  The aroma of strong black coffee was often _fortunately_,
stronger than the less pleasant odours of the insanitary streets.

Early as it was, the money changers were doing a stirring trade.
Water-carriers moved about with their monotonous cry of "_moyeh_,"
supplemented, in some cases, by the same word in English--"_Water_."

Market garden produce, the finest in the world, and now proving how
literally Palestine, under the fertilizing power of the "_latter_
rain," had become "a fruitful garden," was piled everywhere about at
the sides of the streets.  Cauliflowers thirty-six inches around, with
every other vegetable equally fine, melons, lemons, oranges, grapes,
tomatoes, asparagus, onions, leeks, lettuce, water-cress, even garlic,
all were here, with turbaned dealers sitting cross-legged among the
produce.

Early as it was, crowds of American, English, and Continental tourists
were abroad, their gleaming white drill attire and tobies and helmets,
conspicuous among the grander colour of the natives.

But George Bullen had seen all this many times before, his eyes now
took but little note of the streets and their contents, except that he
noted the fact under the new order of things, since the Jews had come
into possession of the city, that there was scarce a Moslem of any kind
to be seen, and that most of the tumble-down, smaller houses, of a few
years back, had been pulled down, and that the streets in consequence
had been considerably widened.  Hundreds of new houses of bungalow
type, had taken the places of those pulled down.  Most of these were
built on the "Frazzi" system, or else after the fashion known as
reinforced concrete.

All these changes were note-worthy, and full of meaning, but George
Bullen's eyes and attention were almost wholly absorbed by the Temple
that crowned Mount Moriah.  He had not, of course, seen that wonderful
painting on Vellum which Rabbi Cohen had shown Ralph Bastin.  It is
true he had seen photographs and sketches reproduced in the English
illustrated papers.  But none of these had prepared him for the actual.

Robed in his Syrian garb, and looking for all the world like the "real
article," he passed through the cosmopolitan crowd always making his
way upwards to where the marble and gold of the wonderful Temple reared
itself.

Arrived outside the great main gates, he stood awed at the wonder and
magnificence of all that he saw.  The whole structure was complete.
Not a pole or plank of scaffolding was left standing, no litter or
rubbish heaps were to be seen; every approach, every yard of the
enclosure was beautifully swept.  A few officials, in a remarkable
uniform moved here and there about the great enclosure.

For two hours George Bullen moved slowly round the Temple, making long
pauses at intervals, and taking in every item of the wondrous
architecture and still more wondrous ornamentation.  When he finally
left the Mount, and took his way down the wide, steep decline--the
whole of this wide road was composed of marble blocks, reminding him of
the Roman Appian way--his mind was in a whirl, his head ached with the
glare of the sun on the gold, and with the deep concentration of his
sight upon so much colour and glitter.  Again and again he paused, and
looked upwards and backwards, he had a difficulty in tearing himself
away.  But he had much to do, and could not afford to linger.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

It was the day before the official opening of the Temple.  Jerusalem
was thronged--inside and outside, for Jerusalem, (according to
Zechariah ii. 4) was "inhabited as a town _without walls_."  The
environs, and the suburbs had spread in every direction.  For the first
time in the history of the world, the hills, Gareb and Goath, _outside_
Jerusalem, had, a few years before this, been covered with villas,
bungalows, hotels, etc., absolutely fulfilling Jeremiah xxxi. 38-40.

Lucien Apleon's Palace, which had been built concurrently with the
Temple, and which, in its way, was almost as gorgeous a building, was
filled with the ten Kings of the Confederacy, and their suites.

Soldiers of every one of the ten nationalities--though all wearing one
uniform, save that the "facings" were different to denote the land to
which they belonged--were everywhere to be seen.

Itinerant venders moved about among the throngs bawling their chief
ware--"Programs for the Temple, to-morrow."  George Bullen bought one
of the Programs.

It was an amazing production, and as blasphemous as it was amazing.  It
was most sumptuously got up, printed in a style unknown to the days of
even the end of the first decade of the 20th century.

But before he began to read the order of the events, or even to note
the marks of sumptuousness of the appearance of the program, his
attention was arrested by a bold, curious hieroglyphic which headed the
program.  This figuring was in richest purple and gold, and bore this
form:

[Illustration: Mark of the Beast]

For a long time he puzzled over the sign.  Then, suddenly a memory
returned to him.  One night when Ralph Bastin had been speaking to him
about the Anti-Christ he had said:

"Here is a curious thing, George!  I have just read in the Revelation,
thirteen, eighteen, that The Number of the Beast--the Anti-christ--is
THE Number of MAN; and his number is 666."  Now this number, _in the
Greek_, is made up of two characters which stand for the name of
Christ, with a third character, the figure of a crooked serpent put
between them--the name of God's Christ, the Messiah, turned into a
devil sacrament (i. e. oath of fidelity.)

"Ralph would have shown me the sign, I know," Bullen mused, "but that
at the very moment we were talking together, there came that scare of
fire in the stereo room, and we both rushed away.  But now I know that
this sign on the program is the 'Mark of the Beast,' and that it
_signifies the oath of Fidelity to Anti-christ_."

He caught his breath sharply, as he murmured:

"So it has begun!  He has begun to show his hand!"

Then he let his eyes take in the contents of the program.

Beneath the Hieroglyphic was the greeting:

  "TO ALL THE WORLD!
  APLEON, EMPEROR,
  by the election of
  MAN.

  Commands the following events in connection
  with the Dedication and
  opening of the Temple at Jerusalem.

  4-30 p. m. 9th Sept., year 1 of Apleon.
  (Subject to minor alterations.)

  Appointment of the High Priest elect,
  by the Emperor.
  Address by The High Priest.
  Confirmation of the 7 years Covenant
  between the Hebrew Nation and the Emperor.
  Affirmatory Signatures and Seals affixed.
  Sign of the Sacrament
  to be distributed and donned by all present.

6-30 p. m.  Bureaus will be opened all over the city, and in the
immediate neighbourhood of the Temple for the free distribution of the
sacramental signs, with directions for wearing the same.  The donning
of the sign will be, of course, entirely voluntary.


"For how long," murmured Bullen to himself, "will this be voluntary?"

He continued his reading:

"At 7-30 a. m. 10th Sept.  The Dedication of the Temple.  The
procession of Kings, headed by Apleon, Emperor of the World, will start
from the Apleon Palace at 7-0 a. m.  Imperial troops will line the way.

"Fanfare of trumpets will greet the procession on its arrival at the
Temple Gates.

"Opening ode will be sung by 1,000, singers massed in the courtyard.

"Ceremony inside will commence by the investiture of the High Priest
with his glorious robes of office, the investiture will be performed by
the Emperor.

"The 7 years Covenant to be read aloud by the High Priest.

"Ode of Adoration of the Emperor to be sung by the Priests, choristers,
and others.

"The ceremony is to be held at the above early hour, that there may be
no undue exposure to the heat of the later fore-noon."

In pursuance with the liberty of these more enlightened days, all
persons may worship with covered or uncovered heads, as may seem fit to
each person.  This applies to Jews and Jewesses also, and, (N. B.)
there will be no division of sex for the Jew and Jewess, they will
worship together.  The days of the _grille_ are past.

"LONG LIVE THE EMPEROR!"


"Of all the extraordinary productions--!" murmured George Bullen.  He
did not finish his sentence, he would have been puzzled to have found
terms to have expressed all that he felt.

"I wonder if these programs can be procured in London?" he went on.

A seller passed him at that moment, and he bought a second program, to
send to Ralph Bastin.

They had made an arrangement, before parting, that everything--letters,
wireless, and all other messages--should be sent in code, and to an
address, and under a name that should not be recognized as having any
connection with the 'Courier'--"if," Ralph had added quietly, "there
are no demons present here who can divulge our talk."

This was always one of the difficulties that the godly, at that time,
had to contend with, the ignorance of how far _invisible_ demons could
spy upon, and report their sayings and doings.

Hour by hour, the streets grew denser, for each hour brought new
arrivals, and always some of the _elite_ of the earth.  To George
Bullen, with the journalist instinct, there was "copy" everywhere, and
he was not slow to take full notes.

Things were quieter from one to four, for the heat, in the open, was
almost unbearable.  At four o'clock, Bullen was close by the chief gate
of the Temple.  He would watch the arrival of the chief actors in the
first part of the great ceremonies.

Through the mighty hosts of acclaiming peoples which lined that wide
marble upward road, King after King rode, all on white horses.
Merchant princes from Babylon; Royal princes from many lands.

The last of the Kings to arrive was the King of Syria.  At the gate,
close to where George Bullen was standing, the horse of the Syrian
monarch grew restive.

Quick to seize an opportunity of getting into the Temple to see the
ceremony, George caught the rein of the horse, and with a soothing word
and touch, led the beast through the gate, flinging back a word in
Syrian to the King in the saddle.

Hearing his own tongue, and noting the garb of his horse's leader, the
King flung a word of thanks to George, who led the horse right up to
the door of the sanctuary.

Each monarch kept his saddle.  Five were drawn up on one side, and five
on the other.  They waited for Apleon.  A moment or two only, then amid
a thunder of acclaim of "Long live the World's Emperor!" Lucien Apleon,
the Anti-christ, the Man of Sin, riding a jet black horse, cantered
through the gate.

He was a marvellous figure of a man.  In stature he was nearer seven
feet than six.  His form as erect as a Venetian mast.  His costume was
strange, but very striking, and gave him a regality of appearance.

It was partly Oriental, partly occidental, and consisted of a
curious-toned darkish green military tunic, heavily-frogged with gold,
and with a wide, gold-braid collar.  The buttons of the tunic were
separate emeralds set in circles of diamonds, and enclosed in a wide
circlet of gold.  He wore white knee-breeches, and high Hessian boots,
adorned at the heels with gold spurs.  Over his shoulders, clasped at
the neck with a large gold-and-precious-stone buckle of the same
mysterious form as the hieroglyphic crest at the head of the Programs,
he wore a wonderful burnouse of white and gold fleece, the gold
predominating over the white, and flashing fiercely, gorgeously in the
sun.  His leonine head was surmounted with a dazzling covering that was
neither a crown, a mitre, nor a turban, but partook of the nature of
all three.  It was profusely bedecked with the most costly of precious
stones.  The largest diamond ever seen, shaped as an eight-pointed
star, and measuring nearly six inches from point to point, was set in
the front-centre of the mitre-turban-crown.  With the sun shining upon
it, it was impossible to gaze upon the diamond.

Riding up to the door of the porch of the Temple, his horse's
fore-hoofs resting on the upper of the four steps, he paused only to
return the salutes of the ten kings, then flung himself from the
saddle, and waited a moment until his horse was led away.  Then turning
outwards towards the way by which he had come, he surveyed the scene
below him.

Never in the history of the world had anything more Wonderful been
seen.  Several million people were gathered--streets were blocked;
walls of the city, roofs of the houses and palaces and public buildings
were packed.  Every window that faced the mount was crowded.  Flags
flew everywhere within the city, and beyond the walls, where hundreds
of thousands of acclaiming people were gathered, every eye was directed
towards that Temple entrance where Anti-christ, the World's Emperor
stood.

As he turned to face the millions of acclaiming people, a gun was fired
from the grounds of his palace, and at the same instant, a ball of
white, which had hung at the head of the flag-staff on the roof of his
palace, suddenly broke, and there swept out upon the light breeze, an
enormous white silk flag, the centre of which bore the mystic
inscription that had already appeared on the official programs, and
which he wore in gold jewels for a buckle of his bernouse.

The eyes of Apleon flashed with a curious pride as he saw the great
white flag break in the air, while a smile, diabolical as Hell itself,
curled his lips.  It seemed almost as though it was to see that
damnable challenge flung forth to the wind, that he had turned, more
than to acknowledge the acclaim of the gathered millions of the
deceived, lie-deluded people.

A moment later, he turned into the Temple.  The ten kings, Babylonian
merchant-princes, and others of note following.

George Bullen, walking directly behind the King of Syria, passed in
with the others.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE INVESTITURE.

A great hush fell upon those who gathered within that Temple.  It was
not an awe from the sense of the divine--for God was not there in His
glory and power, since Anti-christ's spirit filled the place.  It was
not the awe of silence and subjection to the world's greatest
ruler--though, presently, something of that would come upon those
gathered when they had eyes, ears, and mind for Apleon the Emperor.
Neither was the silence one of curiosity in the character of the
service in which they had been called to take part.  The hush upon the
assembly was one of wonder and amaze at the splendour of the Temple's
interior in which they found themselves.

Gold--there was no silver--, precious stones, sandalwood, marbles such
as had never been seen by any eye before, all fashioned into a wondrous
style of architecture peculiarly unique, yet withal holding a perfect
harmony--such is (not a description, for a description, in detail would
baffle the clearest mind and cleverest pen)--a bold mention of a few of
the chief materials.

The artist--architect--he must have been as much an artist as an
architect to have designed the style--had taken _some_ ideas from the
description, in Ezekiel, of the Millennial Temple.  There was the palm,
the cherub with two faces, (the young lion and the man) "so that the
face of a young lion was on the one side toward the palm, and the face
of a man on the other side toward the palm."  The vine and the
pomegranite were there.  In spite of the most profuse detail all was
rendered with a perfection of minuteness, while throughout the whole of
the interior the harmony of colour was beyond praise--and beyond
description.

For the technical skill exhibited in each separate item of colour,
carving, and "cunning" workmanship, had, with truest artistic sense,
been subordinated to that wondrous balance of the whole appearance that
went to make up the amazing harmony that was as a veritable atmosphere
in the place.  To combine in a chromatic scheme so much brilliance and
colour without even a suspicion of gaudiness, or the _bizarre_, was a
triumph of art.

The light in the place was a true adjunct to the effects produced by
the wondrous composition of the blended glory and colour.  There was no
window anywhere, but "Radiance," the newest light of the day, tempered
by rose-pink and palest electric blue prisms, filled the place with a
wondrous radiance, while at the same time the eye could not detect the
various spots where the separate lights were located.

The company gathered was in harmony with the place, since the many
otherwise gaudy tints of costume and uniform were softened, blended,
and harmonized by the power of colour-tone of the prisms through which
the otherwise fierce, flashing "Radiance" was shed.

The _outer temple_ interior--the place where the brilliant throng was
gathered--would hold a thousand persons comfortably.  (There was no
seat in Solomon's temple, as there was no seat in the Tabernacle, which
was a symbol of the ever unfinished work of the earthly priesthood.)
And there was no seat here, save a throne-chair of gold, ivory,
mother-of-pearl, and precious stones, that occupied the centre of a
magnificent dais just in front of the entrance into the very small
"Holy of Holies."  A wonderful curtain of purple velvet--not the fine
twined linen as of old--screened off this narrow strip of the interior,
from the larger outer section.  The curtain was worked with marvellous
needlework in gold and pearls of almost priceless value, the pattern
being a wonderful blending of cherubim, palm, and pomegranate.

On entering the building The Emperor Apleon, seated himself on the
Throne, when each person present made a deep bow of obeisance.  One man
only remained upright--George Bullen.  Taking advantage of his position
behind a marble pillar, he held himself erect.  Had he been detected,
he would have rapturously sacrificed his life rather than have bent to
the Anti-christ.

The platform of the dais, on which the throne-chair stood, was reached
by three wide marble steps that sprang from the floor-level.  At the
foot of these steps, Cohen the High-priest elect, stood clothed in a
single garment of pure white linen, that reached from his shoulders to
his feet.  Attendant priests stood by, each holding one garment or
ornament, as the case might be, ready for the investiture.

Apleon rose from his throne, a magnificent, but a sardonic figure for
all that.  As he rose, soft, weird music came from an angle where a
screen of palm-ferns was placed.  Though mechanical, the music was of
an exquisite character.

Then, suddenly, swelling above the low weird music, came the voices of
a score or more white-robed priests chanting:

"Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God!"

George Bullen's eyes were fixed upon the face of Apleon, and he noted
the mocking, contemptuous smile that curled his lips at the language of
the chant.

As the chant finished, Cohen turned and faced Apleon, and slowly
climbed the steps.  The music had ceased now, and, amid an absolute
silence, Apleon took "the embroidered coat" from the offered hands of
one of the subordinate priests.  The garment was of white linen
wonderfully, beautifully embroidered.  It reached from the shoulders to
the feet and fitted the body closely, a draw-string of white linen tape
fastening the sleeves at the wrists, and drawing the breast of the
vestment close about.

A linen girdle "four fingers wide," and long enough when tied to reach
the feet, was next put about Cohen by Apleon.  Then a third priest
handed the Emperor, "The Robe of the Ephod."  This was a long, loose
garment of Royal blue satin, with a wide neck-opening, the opening
bound with a wide gold band.  The Robe was slipped over the head, and
it dropped to the feet of the High-priest.  Upon the lower hem of the
Robe was a rich, deep fringe of alternate blue, purple, and scarlet
tassels made in the form of pomegranates.  Between each pomegranate was
a golden bell.

Still amid an absolute silence, the investiture proceeded.  Apleon took
the costly and beautiful Ephod of a fourth priest.  This vestment was
in two pieces, one for the front, the other for the back.  They were
joined together, at the shoulders, by bands of wide gold braid, and
buckled with two of the Anti-christ covenant badges.  Apleon had
provided himself with these, and no one probably, save George Bullen,
noticed of what the bucklings consisted.  But nothing escaped Bullen,
for while the attention of everyone else in the place was given only in
a _general_ way to the robing of the High Priest, _his_ whole and
absolute attention was concentrated on Apleon, all that he did, every
varying expression of his handsome but sardonic face, and every
movement of his fingers.

Another priest handed "The curious girdle of the Ephod."  But, unlike
the ordained adjunct, as given in Exodus, in this case it was a
separate piece, and instead of being of the same stuff, was a cunningly
worked band of gold studded with many gems.  The girdle handed to
Apleon, fastened with a clasp.  The clasp was worth a Jew's ransom, and
like the breast-plate--presently to be slung about the neck of
Cohen--was a gift to the Temple by Apleon.

But the gift was accursed, for among the curiously, twisted gold of the
clasp, the "Mark of the Beast" could be traced, if carefully
scrutinized.

The Ephod Girdle being clasped, a priest handed the breastplate to the
Emperor.  It should, according to the Mosaic command, have been made of
the same material as the Ephod--"of gold, of blue, of purple, of
scarlet, and of fine twisted linen."

But in this case it was made of gold, and slung by a gold chain about
the High-priest's neck.

The gold filigree setting for the stones, held within its cunning
workmanship that same damnable sign--"The Mark of the Beast," though
only a very keen, clever eye would have detected the foul hieroglyphic
among the twistings of gold patterning.  The whole plate was about ten
inches square, the centre divided by gold ribs, across and across, into
twelve sections, each section holding a separate precious stone of
fabulous wealth.  Just for a moment or two the wondrous mechanical
music stole out again upon the silence.  Lovers of music recognized
part of Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony."  What wondrous melody there
was in the fragment!  The priests' voices chanted again, and all the
time the face of Apleon wore its mocking smile.  Reading from the
top--right to left, as the breastplate hung on the breast--the stones
and their significance ran as follows:

  CARBUNCLE,       TOPAZ,        SARDIUS,
  Zebulun          Issachar.     Judah.

  DIAMOND,         SAPPHIRE,     EMERALD,
  Gad.             Simeon.       Reuben.

  AMETHYST,        AGATE,        LIGURE,
  Benjamin.        Manasseh,     Ephraim.

  JASPER,          ONYX,         BERYL,
  Naphtali.        Asher.        Dan.


The last piece of this wonderful Robing, was the Mitre.  It was really
a turban of pure white linen, an oblong shield-shaped plate of pure
gold, being attached to the fullness of the deep, front roll of the
turban.  Engraved in Hebrew characters upon the plate, were the words:
"HOLINESS TO THE LORD."  Here again, keen and practised eyes would have
detected the foul sign of the "man of sin," among the wondrous, and
delicate chasing of the gold around the Hebrew lettering.

It has taken twenty times longer to record this robing than the time
actually employed.  As a matter of fact it occupied but a few minutes.
Then, at last, the work was complete, and the silence was broken.

It was the Emperor who spoke: "Behold the Priest of the Most High God!"
he cried.

Every soul present, save George Bullen, was more or less under the
spell of the Arch-Deceiver, or they would have caught the sneer in the
rich full voice, even as George Bullen caught it.

True to his journalistic instinct, as well as to his new desire as a
Christian, to know well the Word of God, Bullen had read over, the
night before, the passages in Exodus and Leviticus, relating to the
robing of the High-priest, and had been struck with this fact, that the
High-priest himself did _nothing_, took no active part in his robing.
Moses, as _God's representative_, did _everything_.

Now as he recalled this, and while he considered why Apleon should have
"acted valet" to a Jew priest, there recurred, with startling power to
Bullen, the words of prophecy by Daniel, concerning the "Man of Sin:"
"he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every God--"

"He has purposely chosen to do this robing business, quietly setting
himself up as God," was the thought of Bullen.  There was no time for
further musing.  The newly-invested High-priest was speaking:

"Bring hither the '_Torah_'--Roll of the Law."

A serious-faced young Jew, a praying shawl over his head, bore towards
the High-Priest--the parchment scroll loosely-cased in a silken
slip-off.  As he bore the sacred roll he reverently kissed the tassels
of the drawstring of the silken slip.

The attendant drew off the cover, and dropping it across his left
shoulder, unrolled the scroll, and held it extended for the High-priest
to read.

Cohen made a sign to a priest who held a Shophar (hallowed ram's horn)
in his hand.  Instantly the priest covered his head with his "_talate_"
(praying shawl) and lifting the horn to his lips he blew "the great
Teru-gnah."

Every Jew presently covered his head with his prayer shawl, and the
High-Priest, cried:

"Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God!"

Then turning to the scroll, he read in a curious, monotonous intone,
part of Solomon's prayer at the opening of the Temple:

"Now then, O Lord God of Israel, let Thy word be verified (on the
morrow of this day).  Thy word which Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant
David.  Amen."

Inclining his head towards the scroll-bearer, as a sign that he had
finished his brief reading, he cleared his voice and addressing his own
people, said:

"Brethren, fathers, sons of Father Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, because that
the good hand of our God hath been upon us, we are once more restored
to our own land.  No longer trodden down by stranger's feet, Jerusalem
is again for the Jew, and the Jew for Jerusalem.  We meet here this
afternoon in our own Temple, reared by Jewish gold and patriotism.  Our
Father's Temple, Solomon's could have been but a poor synagogue
compared to this in which we are now found.  To-morrow, all the world
will be gathered to this place, (all that part of the world worth
calling _The_ World) to the formal, official opening of this Temple.
To-morrow, for the first time since this city, and since "Herod's"
Temple were destroyed, we shall slay the morning and evening lamb, the
daily sacrifice ordained by our God.

"Today we have an accredited place among the nations.  There may be
special _Jewish_ reasons for the coming to pass of this universal
recognition of our race, but chief among the factors that have gone to
bring all this about, is the friendship of Lucien Apleon, Emperor,
Dictator of the world."

Cohen turned and bowed to the throne where Apleon sat, his face filled
with a smile in which pride in his position and quizzical mirth at
Cohen's allusion to the soundness of the Jewish position, were mingled.

There was a slight movement among the kings, and other grandees, and
amid murmurs of assent at Cohen's allusion to the Emperor, the member
of the Royal confederation bowed to the throne.

Cohen proceeded: "In spite of our position, today, fathers and
brethren, we could not maintain it a week, and certainly we could not
strengthen and consolidate it, but for our Emperor.  We desire to
maintain, to strengthen our position, hence it has seemed good to the
great International Jewish committee to seek to have a covenant with
Lucien Apleon, Emperor--Dictator of the World.  The covenant is for
seven years.  We on our part are to serve him in every way, he on his
part to guarantee our protection--for we have neither Army or Navy--in
return for our allegiance to him.

"This covenant, duly drawn up, is here for final signature this
afternoon.  As your elected High-Priest, and representative of our
race, I shall sign it on behalf of our people, our Emperor will also
affix his signature.  Then all of us, as a sign of our covenant and our
allegiance, will wear a badge which has been prepared.  The badge can
be worn--like the written Law of our God, as commanded by our father
Moses, 'as a sign upon our hand, or as a frontlet between our eyes--.'

"Many millions of the badges have been prepared, made in white metal
for _free_ distribution to the poorest of the world, or jewelled, gold
or silver, for those who would fain purchase something more in
accordance with their rank, station, or wealth.  The time is at hand
when no one will be able to buy or sell, save he who wears this sign."

He paused, and turning to where a little knot of white-robed priests
stood, they parted, and showed an exquisite little table of gold and
pearl, and on the table a jewelled casket of marvellous workmanship.

Two of the priests bore the table to the centre of the floor where
Cohen stood.  He opened the casket, drew forth a small silk-tasselled
parchment roll, and laid it open upon the table.  The two priests held
down the curling corners.

A fountain pen--the cylinder of jewelled gold--lay in a hollow of the
casket.  Cohen took the pen, and wrote at the foot of the text of the
covenant:

"In the Name of our God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and on
behalf of His chosen people, I Solomon Isaac Cohen (Aaron,) First
High-Priest of the new era, in the City of Jerusalem, on the ninth day
of September, 19--, (_world's_ calculation) subscribe myself."

As he lifted his form erect again, he made a sign to the two priests.
They lifted the table and bore it up to the platform of the dais.

Apleon, without rising from the throne, took the pen and made his
signature.  Two seals were affixed, Cohen and Apleon, touched them,
then the table was once more lifted to the floor level, and the ten
kings signed the covenant, _as witnesses_.

Then every one present, save George Bullen, donned one of the badges.
In the crowding, his non-compliance was unnoticed.  All the kings and
most of the princes and others, from Babylon, received massive and
costly signet rings from the hands of Apleon, himself.  Each signet was
engraved with "The _covenant Sign_," as it was called.

_God calls it "The Mark of the Beast."_

The recipients of the rings, all wore them on the third finger of the
right hand, as did others of the minor personages.  Many of the Jews,
in their enthusiasm, wore one of the "Signs" in the centre of the
forehead, held in position by a fine gold chain that passed round the
head, as well as one on the right hand.

When the "Covenant" badges had been donned, Apleon was hailed as the
world's deliverer, the whole Temple ringing with the plaudits of the
kings and others.

A moment, and he passed outside, and stood on the top step of the
Temple flight.  Again the "Hurrahs" were raised, and caught by the
multitudes that thronged that wide marble approach to the gates of the
Temple, and caught again and again by ever more distant peoples, until
in a moment or two, from three to four million people, inside and
outside the city, were belching forth their acclaimings of a demon,
counting him almost God.




CHAPTER IX.

THE DEDICATION.

Save for the Bible record of the opening of Solomon's Temple, Cohen and
his colleague-priests, had no precedent upon which to base their order
of procedure as regarded the official opening of the Temple, and the
consequent re-commencement and re-establishment of the daily sacrifices.

Then, too, the ideas of the Jew of the period, as regarded worship,
were more or less of a hybrid character, while the modern repugnance to
blood-shedding, and all the consequent unpleasantness of the
sacrificial ceremonies, caused the Jewish leaders to construct a very
much more simple ritual than anything approaching the original Mosaic
standard.

One thing had been decided by them in council, that was, to make this
great epoch in their renationalization to synchronize with their New
Year, which would properly fall the next month, on October 2nd, to be
correct.  The usual New Year's ceremony of Shophar-blowing would be
observed.

Cohen, and his fellow priests, were early at the Temple, and long
before the hour advertised on the programmes--7-30, every arrangement
(from their stand-point) was complete.

At seven o'clock, sharp, the gun was fired at the "Palace Apleon," and
the great silken flag, with its "Covenant" sign, flew out upon the
breeze.  The whole city and its suburbs were astir.

Suddenly a burst of brazen music rent the more or less silent air of
the city, and Cohen and his fellow priests knew that the procession had
started from the Palace.  Soon it was in sight.  Oh the wonder, the
gorgeousness, the BLASPHEMY of it!  Riding on a white horse, there came
first the standard bearer.  The heel of the standard pole was socketted
in a deep barrel of leather that ran from the saddle to the stirrup.
The rider was a man of enormous strength, and he had need to be, to
bear the strain of the breeze that tugged at the many square yards of
white silk, of which the standard was composed.  Like the flag on the
place, like the brand on the brows and right hands of many of the
multitude, the "_Covenant_" sign appeared in the centre of the standard
borne aloft by that mounted bearer.

Behind the standard came the band, fifty mounted players.  Behind the
band there was a gap of sixty or seventy feet.  Then, alone, proud,
regal, handsome, mighty of stature, noble in pose, mounted on his
jet-black mare, and attired as he had been overnight, rode Apleon, the
Emperor--Dictator of the World.  After him, but with fifty feet of
space between, rode the ten kings, then their respective suites.  Then
came the Babylonian merchant princes, and others.

It was a triumphal procession for Apleon.  For it was _his_ name that
filled throats of the acclaiming multitudes as they roared out their
"Huzzahs!"

The scene in the Courtyard of the Temple was one of wondrous pomp, and
of even deeper significance.  As Apleon rode in, a fan-fare of trumpets
gave him greeting.  Then when the last intricate brazen note had
sounded, the mighty multitude drowned even the memory of the trumpets,
by the deafening roar of their Huzzahs!

Ten bugles sounded "Silence."  It took a full minute for the command to
pass from lip to lip to the uttermost reaches of the people.  Then, in
the comparative stillness, Apleon dismounted from his horse, took the
diamond-studded key from the hand of the High-Priest, opened the door,
flung it wide, and proclaimed The Temple opened, "in the name of
Apleon, Emperor--Dictator of the World."

That opening word truly translated, meant, "in the name of the Devil,
by the person of his Anti-christ."

The High-Priest, standing on the top-step of the wide flight that led
to the porch, faced the people and priests, and began to recite
selected parts of Solomon's prayer at the Dedication of _his_ Temple.
These finished, he cried, with a loud voice:

"It having pleased our God to restore us, His chosen earthly people,
the Jews, to our own land, and to our own beautiful Zion," joy of the
whole earth, "we make the occasion to be as the beginning of a new era,
a new year.  And as the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, in Egypt,
saying: 'This month shall be the beginning of months: it shall be the
_first month of the year to you_,' so we proclaim to _our_ people
today, this month shall be the beginning of our New Year, and of a New
Dispensation to us."

Dropping his proclamation loudness of voice, he slipped into his
synagogue recitative tone, as he went on:

"On the first of the month, shall be a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing
of trumpets and holy convocation.  Ye shall offer an offering unto the
Lord."

He signed to the Tokeang--the Shophar blower--and instantly the weird,
curious, quavering, vibrating sounds broke on the still air.

As the last note of the shophar died away, Cohen cried:

"Let all the house of Israel, sacrifice unto the Lord!"

Lifting his hand as he spoke, a turbaned priest led a lamb to the foot
of the altar.  A gleaming knife, snatched from his girdle flashed for a
moment in the air; there was a swift movement of the sacrificial
priest's arm, a gurgle from the silent lamb, and the little fleecy
thing sank dying upon the grating before the altar.

Only those immediately near could see all that followed, until the
moment when the carcass of the lamb was reared to the grating on the
summit of the altar.

A strange stillness rested upon the people gathered, as another
turbaned priest brought a torch to fire the wood beneath the altar.

Before he could reach the altar, the voice of Apleon stayed his feet.

"Let no fire be brought!" he cried, in commanding tones.  "I will
consume the offering!"

He stretched his right hand forth, the fingers closed.  Then opening
his fingers, he drew back his arm suddenly, sharply, then jerked it
forward again--it was the old mesmeric pass of the magicians.

Instantly, the interior of the altar blazed with long, fierce forks of
many coloured flames, and as they finally resolved themselves into a
blood-red fiery cloud that hung over the sacrifice, the "_covenant_"
sign floated in white amid the blood-red cloud.  Another movement and
the red cloud melted away, but like a quivering golden light the "Sign"
remained an instant hovering over the altar.  When that, too, melted,
it was seen that not a vestige of the lamb was left.

Awed and silent, the onlookers wondered!  For a moment George Bullen
was puzzled.  Then he recalled the words of prophecy, as regarded The
Anti-christ.

"_His coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs
and lying wonders . . .  And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh
fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and
deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles
which he had power to do._"

The greatest tribute that could have been given to the supernatural
power exhibited by Apleon, was the awed silence, and the bowed heads of
all who had witnessed his satanic miracle.

Its effect upon Cohen and the rest of the Jews, was, if possible,
greater than upon any of the Gentiles who had witnessed the wonder.

Upon the awed silence there suddenly fell a deep growl of thunder.  The
startled people lifted their heads.  With almost an instantaneousness,
the heavens darkened.  It might well have been a moonless midnight, so
dark did it suddenly become.

The thunders roared and cannonaded, while fierce lightnings, like
liquid fires, raced earthwards down the blackened heavens.  No one,
native of the land, or foreigner, had ever known thunder or lightning
such as now broke upon them.

For days afterwards men were as deaf as though born thus, stunned by
the thunder; and scores lost their sight from the lightning's flash,
never to recover it again.

As sudden as the darkness, there now came a hurricane blast that tore
at the Temple walls as if it would hurl its gold and marbles into the
valley below.  No man could keep his footing in the courtyard or on
that summit, and everyone flung themselves prone to the earth--save
Apleon.  He stood smiling his sardonic, contemptuous smile.

Cohen and a few others crawled towards the wide, folding-doors of the
Temple.  But the hurricane was before them, and the doors slammed to,
and, in some way jammed.

The horses started in stampede, terrified by the storm.  Apleon spoke
the one word "Soh!" and they stood absolutely still, save for a long,
shuddering kind of shiver that ran through each beast at the same
instant.

Now, for a few minutes, the thunder roared louder and deeper, until it
drowned the thunderous roar of the wind.  Peal followed peal with
hideous, horrible swiftness.  The lightning was a succession of fierce,
white ribbons of blood-red flaming fire.

For ten minutes this extraordinary storm raged.  There was not one drop
of rain.  Then, with a suddenness only equalled by that of the starting
of the storm, it ceased.  The blackness of the heavens rolled away like
mist before the rising sun, and while all the western horizon suddenly
glowed with the fierce red glow of a furnace blaze, the sun appeared
once more over-head shining as though nought had happened.

The procession now re-formed, in the order in which it had arrived, and
to the lilt of the gay music of the powerful band, the volatile spirits
of the multitude revived, and the loud "huzzahs" rent the air as
Apleon--the Anti-christ--passed through the waiting masses of the
people.

George Bullen contrived to keep Apleon full in view.  In a general way
no item of the procession of the ceremony at the Temple, or of aught
else had escaped him--but it was _in_, and _on_ Apleon that his special
attention had been concentrated.

He watched the procession sweep through the great gate-way of the
Emperor's Palace.  Then, when the last of the guests had passed in, the
huge folding gates closed, and the multitudes began to disperse.

The vast bulk of the people were lodged _out_side the city, and now
poured out through the gates--for, with the practical re-building of
the city, the exits had been made very numerous.

Bullen was lodging with a Christian Syrian about half-a-mile outside
the city.  He moved on in a line with one of the exodus streams.

As he cleared the city, he became conscious that just ahead of him
there was a great and ever increasing gathering of people--a mighty
throng, in fact.  Arriving at the fringe of the crowd which grew closer
and closer, as well as greater, every moment, he was amazed to see two
very striking looking Easterns, clothed in sackcloth, and standing high
upon a mound of stone.  The appearance of the two men was
extraordinary.  The face of the elder of the two was cast in a
wonderful mould.

George Bullen was fairly well versed in the facial characteristics of
all the known races--_past_ as well as present.  But this man's face
bore no relation to any type he had ever seen depicted.  Eastern, it
was, it is true, but unlike, and more beautiful than anything he knew
of.  The calm of it was wondrous, and George involuntarily found
himself saying over: "Thou wilt keep him in _perfect peace_ whose mind
is stayed on Thee," and instantly there flashed upon him, in connection
with that word, one other: "Enoch _walked with God_, and was not, for
God took him."

"He might be Enoch returned to earth," he told himself.

The other man was a different specimen.  His features were strongly
Jewish marked.  There was a fierceness of eye, a power for a blazing
wrath in his deep-set orbs.  Not that the first man's eyes and face
were incapable of fiery indignation, but they gave indication of having
been schooled by long intercourse with the divine keeping power of the
God of Peace.

The men were evidently preachers--prophet-preachers.  They spoke
alternately, their voices clear, far-reaching, their tones perfectly
natural--there was no raising of the voice--yet reaching as far as the
farthest listener.

Their message was a Testimony to God, to His power, His might, His
Holiness, even to His mercy.  They told of judgments, near at hand,
upon all who would not cleave to God in righteousness.  Then in deeply
solemn tones, they spoke of the presence of the "Mark of the Beast,"
upon the persons of so many thousands of the people, and warned all who
would not discard the badge, and throw over their allegiance to
Apleon,--"The Anti-christ--that they would presently share in the awful
destruction which should overtake Anti-christ and his followers."

A roar, savage and full as from ten thousand lions, with the snarl of
wolves in it, greeted this last part of the testimony, while a thousand
throats belched forth the cry:

"Down with them! murder them!"

There was a savage rush towards the sackclothed prophets.  But though
the multitude of would-be murderers swept over, around, and past the
mound on which the two faithful witnesses had been standing, and though
they did not _see_ them disappear, yet they were not found.

"_And when they shall have completed their Testimony, the Beast that
cometh up out of the abyss shall make war with them, and overcome them,
and kill them--._"

"Yes," mused George Bullen, "when they have completed their Testimony,"
and not an hour, or a day before.  For these are evidently God's two
faithful witnesses, Enoch and Elijah, the only two men who never passed
through mortal death, and hence are the only two saints who can become
God's witnesses, in this hideous Anti-christ time, for, as witnesses,
they must be slain in the streets of the city of Jerusalem--"_where
also their Lord was crucified_."

There was much angry talk, and savage swearing among the enraged,
mystified, disappointed multitude, at the loss of their vengeance upon
the witnesses, but, had they known it, they had come off very lightly
in being only disappointed, for God's witnesses had the power "_when
any one willed to injure them, to send forth fire out of their mouths,
and to devour their enemies_," and in the days that were to follow this
first encounter with them, the multitude would learn this to their cost.




CHAPTER X.

A LEBANON ROSE.

With the disappearance of the two witnesses there came a gradual
darkening of the heavens, until in the space of a couple of minutes,
the whole district became as dark as it had been when the sacrifice in
the Temple courtyard had finished.

Thunder and lightning accompanied the darkness, and this time heavy
rain.  Baffled by the darkness, the multitude ran hither and thither,
aimlessly, wildly, in search of their homes.  Presently the vivid
lightning flashes gave them fitful direction, and gradually the crowds
melted away.

George Bullen had swerved from his homeward way, to reach the crowd
about the "two witnesses."  The gleaming lightning gave him his
direction now.  He was already drenched to the skin, for the rain was a
deluge.

As he moved on through the black darkness, (illumined only with the
occasional lightning flashes) he stumbled over something.  Some
instinct told him it was a human form.  Stooping in the blackness, and
groping with his hands, he made out that the form was that of a slender
woman.  There was no movement, and in response to his question, "are
you hurt?" there came no reply.

The face, the lips which he touched with his groping fingers, were
warm, so that he knew it was not death, though the form was as still as
death.

"Whoever she is," he mused, "she will die in this storm if she is left
here."  So he stooped and gathered the drenched form up in his arms.
Her head fell upon his breast, her limbs were nerveless in his clasp.

Another, a longer, a more vivid flash of lightning, came at this
instant, and showed him his path clearly, he was close to his lodgings.

Two minutes later he had reached the door of the house.  It was on the
latch, and he entered with his burden.  He found his way to his room,
laid the warm, breathing form down upon a rug upon the floor, and lit
the lamp.

By the light of the lamp he saw that the poor soul he had rescued, was
a sweet-faced Syrian girl, by whose side he had found himself standing
on the evening before, when he had stood in the throng on the Temple
mount.  They had exchanged a few words of ordinary tourist-interchange,
and he had been surprised to find that she could speak good English,
though with a foreign accent.

But realizing now that she needed immediate attention, if she was to be
saved from taking a chill, he lit a tiny hand-lamp and carrying it with
him to light his way, he went in search of the woman of the house.

As recorded on an earlier page, the people with whom he had found
lodgment were Christian Syrians--a husband and wife.

He went all over the premises, but though he shouted several times,
neither the husband or wife answered or appeared.  There was no sign of
them anywhere.

"They were probably caught, as I was, in the storm," he told himself,
as he returned to where he had left the rain-soaked Syrian girl.

He had a bottle of mixture, which he always carried on Eastern travel,
as a preventive of chill.  He poured out a little of the warming stuff,
and raising the unconscious girl he poured a few drops through her
parted lips.

She drank by mere instinct.  He repeated the experiment, and she caught
her breath sharply as she swallowed the second draught.  A faint sigh
escaped her, her eyelids trembled, and, a moment more they unclosed.

At first her gaze was unseeing, then slowly she took in his anxious
face.  "Where--am--I?" she murmured brokenly.

"You are safe, and with friends!" he replied.  "I stumbled over you in
the road, you had fallen, somehow, in that dreadful thunder-storm."

Her eyes met his, and for one long instant she seemed to be searching
his face.  Then a weak, little smile trembled about her mouth, as she
said:

"We met last night--I remember I thought how _true_ your face was--I
can trust you, I know."

A sigh, more of content than aught else, escaped her, and he felt how
she let herself rest more fully in his supporting arm.  He gave her
another sip of the cordial, and she thanked him as some sweet child
might have done.

For a moment she lay silent and still, then she spoke again, in a
vague, speculative way, as though she was searching her mind for the
clue:

"Ah, yes, I remember now.  The great darkness came on, after those good
men of God had spoken.  And the crowd got frightened and ran hither and
thither,--to find their homes, I suppose--and in the darkness some
rushed against me, knocked me down, and--and--"

She shuddered, as she added, "I believe some others kicked me and
trampled upon me, and--"

"Are you hurt?" he cried anxiously.  "Do you feel as if any bone was
broken, anywhere?"

She smiled back into his anxious face: "Hurt? not much!  Certainly no
bones are broken.  But I feel bruised and sore, and--so--"

She shivered, as she added: "so cold!"

He awoke to the immediate necessity for her to get out of her wet
clothes, and gently lifting her until she stood upon her feet, he said:

"Can you stand alone, do you think?"

"Let go your hold," she answered, "and I will see."

Very reluctantly George released his hold of her, though his eyes were
anxious, and his hands were stretched out within reach of her, lest she
should give way.

She put her hand to her head, as she said: "I feel a little dizzy, but
that will pass off."

"When did you eat anything last?" he inquired.

"Oh, I had a good breakfast, before I started out this morning.  If I
could lie down somewhere,--and sleep--for I slept but badly last
night--I think I should soon be all right."

He explained that he could not find the man or wife of the house, but,
(pointing to a room beyond) he said:

"There is a bed there, and there are female clothes hanging in a recess
(they were there when I occupied the room) go in there, dear child."

She seemed but a child, to him, so sweet and innocent was her face.

"Divest yourself of every rag of your wet clothes (drop them out of the
window, and I will gather them up, and get them dry for you) chafe
yourself with the towels you will find in the room, then wrap yourself
in one of the sheets or rugs, and try and sleep."

"Ah, kind friend!  How good you are!" she said, softly, a deep sense of
what she owed him, (for he had doubtless, she realized, saved her life)
moving her heart strangely.

With the shy, tender grace of a child, she caught his hand and kissed
it, leaving two great warm teardrops upon it, as she cried:

"May God reward you!  You saved my life!"

Her long silken lashes held great quivering drops upon them.  Her
hair--what swathes there were of it--had become loosened, and hung
about her in long, thick, wet tresses.  Her cheeks were warmed to a
vivid tinting by the cordial, the excitement by the deep emotion that
filled her, so that, in that moment she looked very beautiful.

He led her to the room he had indicated, and glancing around to see
that the towels were in the place, he said, "what is your name?"

"In English?" she asked.  Then without waiting for him to reply, added:
"Rose!"

"Mine is George!" he returned.  Then with a final word of: "Sleep, if
you can!" he left her.

When the hanging over the door-way had dropped behind him, and he was
alone in his little living room, he tried to think out the many
wonderful things that had happened since he had sallied forth at
half-past six that morning.

Taking his note-book from his breast, he tore the sheaf of short-hand
notes he had already made, along the perforated line, and began to
compose his message for the "Courier" in the code that had been
previously arranged.

It took him an hour and a half to complete the work, as writing in
code, took longer than the ordinary method.

By the time he had finished, it was past noon, and he wondered at the
stillness of the house.  Once more he made a tour of the other part of
the premises, calling the names of both the man and woman of the house.

They were still absent.  It was very mysterious!  He could not know
that they were among the scores of those who had been trampled to death
in the horrible darkness on the Temple mount that morning.

Passing back to his room, he listened at the hanging over that inner
room, where the rescued girl lay.  He could hear her softly, regularly
snoring, and decided to get his message off while she slept.

He was a little dubious about leaving the house door unlocked, yet
feared to lock it lest the man and wife should return.

He was gone an hour.  Both going and returning, he had been struck with
the general desertedness of the streets, but realized that in all
probability every one would be resting after the scenes of the morning.

Entering the house he found it exactly as he had left it, and beginning
to feel hungry, he hunted about for the wherewithal to make a meal.

Deciding that his _protege_ might soon be stirring, he carried into his
living-room all the materials for a meal.  When he had spread his
table, he remembered the clothes for his _protege_ (he had spread them
in the sun to dry, having found them where she had dropped them, by his
instructions, out of the window.)

Passing quietly back to the hanging between the two rooms, he listened
again.  This time she was awake and softly humming the air of "The
sands of Time are sinking."

Lifting the hanging a few inches at the bottom he thrust the clothes
underneath, and called:

"Do you feel well enough to get up, Rose?  If you do, I will make
coffee, and we will have a meal!"

"Thank you, thank you, good George!" she cried, with the _naivete_ of
an innocent child.  "I will dress and come out, for oh, I am so hungry
and thirsty!"

He smiled to himself at her sweet child-likeness, and hurried away to
make the coffee.

Whether the aroma of the coffee reached her senses and hurried her, it
would be impossible to say, but certainly, in an incredibly short space
of time (for a woman) she drew aside the hanging a little, and asked:

"May I come, please?"

He flung aside the hanging, his smile, as well as his voice saying:
"Come!"

Then as she appeared before him, bright, fresh from her sound restful
sleep, her hair carefully groomed and coiled in a crown on her head,
her cheek glowing with the prettiest, tenderest blushes, he thought how
beautiful she was!

A woman, evidently in years, (as she would be judged _in the east_) yet
a pure child in character and manner.

"How do you feel, little Rose?" he asked, taking her hand in greeting.

"A little stiff," she answered, "but that is more from the bruises than
ought else, I think, for--"

Her cheeks warmer to a deeper tint, as she said:

"I have a dozen or more bruises!"

"Let us sit down," he laughed, "and we can do two things at once, eat
and talk."

Half an hour passed; they ate and drank, and grew almost merry as they
exchanged a few notes.  When, however, in response to her question:

"But you are English, George?" he replied.

"Yes!  Though as I speak Syrian perfectly, and Hebrew fairly, it seems
better for me not to appear to be English, hence my Syrian costume.  I
feel I can trust you, Rose, my new little friend, so I do not mind
telling you that I belong to a great English newspaper, and as many of
those _now_ in authority are opposed to our paper, I am passing as a
Syrian, that I may better get my reports, for our paper, through to
England."

She had started when he began to speak of his connection with a great
English Newspaper.  Now she interrupted him, saying, in a cautious
whisper:

"Are you Mr. Ralph Bastin?"

It was his turn to start now, and in amaze, he cried:

"No, I am not Ralph Bastin, but I _am_ his representative.  But----"

His voice grew hoarse with excitement, as he added, low and cautiously:

"What do you know about Ralph Bastin?"

She glanced frightenedly around, then with her finger raised, she
whispered:

"The very air seems full of spies here, as it was at Babylon."

She leant towards him until her lips almost touched his ear, and
whispered:

"Lucien Apleon, The Emperor, has decreed that Ralph Bastin is to be
slain!"

"Tell me more, Rose, trust me absolutely, dear child!"  His voice was
very hoarse as he spoke.

"How do you know this?" he added.  "But perhaps you had better tell me
who and what you are, dear child!"

He leant to her that his voice might be a whisper only, for he realized
her warning of a moment ago.  "Do not fear, dear child, I shall hold as
sacred as my faith in God, anything that you tell me!"

She laid her pretty little plump hand in his, and looked at him
confidingly out of her great Eastern liquid eyes, as with a beaming
smile, she said:

"I could not be afraid of you, good George, you saved my life, and----"

She sighed, and there was a sound of supreme content this time in the
sigh.  "No," she went on, "I could not be afraid of you, my saviour
from death.  And I can, I will, confide in you, for I sorely need a
friend, and I feel, I know I can trust you.  I had been asking God,
yesterday, to help me, to guide me to a friend, and I feel that He has
sent you into my life at this point when I, a lone girl, need most a
friend.  Someday I may be able to tell you all the story of my life.
It will be enough here, however, to tell you that, for two months, I
have been in Babylon, with my brother--my only living relative, as far
as I know.  Babylon----"

She shuddered as she repeated the name, and her face flushed scarlet,
then paled as swiftly, while a look of horror leaped into her eyes, and
she gazed fearfully round as though she feared some terror of the foul
and mighty city might even here have pursued her.

"No tongue dare, no tongue _can_ tell a thousandth part of the
abominations of that sink of iniquity.  I came here with my brother
three days ago, and he has joined hands with "The People of the Mark."
He is clever, very clever!  They know that, and because he will be
useful to them, he has been placed in high office among them, and----"

She paused abruptly, and with another frightened glance around,
whispered:

"Do you know what 'the mark' is, and what it means?"

"Is it what has been flying over the 'Eternal City' here, in the centre
of that great white flag that floats over the Apleon Palace?  I think
you must mean that, and if so it is the two Greek characters for the
name of Christ, with a crooked serpent put between them!"

"Yes!" the one word came in merest whisper from her, then leaning
closer to him, she went on:

"But do you know, George, the _import_ of the foul Mark?"

"I believe I do!" he whispered back.  "I believe it is what our
Scriptures call the 'Mark of the Beast.'  If that be so, as I am
convinced it is, it is the brand of the Anti-christ--and----"

He, too, seemed to feel the need of increased caution, for he glanced
fearsomely round, as he added:

"And I believe I know who the Anti-christ will prove to be."

She shot a swift glance upwards to the casement window, and with
upraised finger, leant towards him until her warm lips touched his ear,
as she repeated what she had said once before:

"The very air here, seems full of spies.  It was so at Babylon!
_Lucien Apleon_ is THE ANTI-CHRIST."

Again her frightened glance travelled to the casement Then she went on:

"My brother always confided everything to me.  And in telling me the
secret of the Emperor Apleon--though exactly how he learned it, I
cannot say--he never dreamed that I should have any scruples about
serving the Anti-christ.  But I love God!  I missed the great
'Rapture,' when God's true children were taken 'into the air' with
their Lord, but, though it cost me torture, or my very life, during
these coming days of awful persecution, I can do no other than cleave
to our Lord."

In an unconscious gesture of loyalty to her God, she had drawn herself
up to her full height, while her vow of fidelity had been uttered aloud.

For awhile longer they talked on together of Babylon, of "The Mark," of
Anti-christ, of the probable coming days of horror and persecution,
then a chance question of his as to how she came to learn to speak
English so well, led her to say:

"Shall I tell you my story?  The sun is too hot for you to go out for
another two hours, and----"

"Yes, tell me, Rose," he cried, not giving her time to finish her
sentence.

He glanced towards a low Eastern couch on the other side of the room,
as he added: "But before you begin, I want to see you lying upon that
couch; after all you have passed through, and in view of unexpected
contingencies that may arise, any hour, you must rest all that you can."

He made her comfortable, with cushions, on the couch, then seating
himself cross-legged on the floor by her side--the posture was a
favorite one of his, and had been acquired, long ago, during his
residence in the East--he bade her go on.

"I was born," she began, "in a little village at the foot of Lebanon,
but when I was only six years old my father got work in the
neighbourhood of Trebizond, and we migrated thither.  Within a week of
our arrival, at our new home, I became a scholar in a lady Missionary's
class of native children, where, among other things, I learned English.
When I was eleven, my father and mother died of small-pox, and I became
a little waiting-maid to my dear American missionary teacher.  Miss
Roosevelly, living in the house, with her, of course.

"My brother Hassan, was eight years older than me, and he lived with a
schoolmaster, in Constantinople.  I had also a dear old grandmother, my
mother's mother, who lived about four miles from the tiny mission where
I lived, and, now and again, I was allowed to visit grandmother for two
or three days at a time.

"My life was an even, regular, but never monotonous one, for I was
always busy.  Then, a year or more ago, there came an awful event in my
life.  I was sixteen, and I had gone to spend a few days with dear old
grandmother, and----"

There came the faintest click in her voice, and she glanced toward the
lemonade caraffe.  His watching eyes saw her need, and he reached the
caraffe and a glass, and poured out a draught.  She took a big gulp,
then sipped more slowly.  And while she drank, he watched her and he
realized more than ever, how true and sweet as well as how beautiful
her face was.

Young as she was, in development she was a woman, as is invariably the
case of maidens born under tropical skies.  It is true that her beauty
was, as yet, of the tender, budding type, but it was the full bursting
bud of the queen of flowers, and already foreshadowed the wondrous
brilliance of the full-blown blossom.

Eastern though she was, she had blue eyes--forget-me-not-blue--though
the long silken eye-lashes, and the thin, arched, pencilled-like
eye-brows were raven black.  When she had finished her lemonade, and
had replaced the glass on the table, she went on with her story.

"It was the first evening of my home-coming to dear grandmother.  The
sun was setting, and the roseate gold of his departing glory was
illuminating everything.  How lovely it all was!  The gold of that
sunset--I shall never wholly forget it, I think--was everywhere.  It
glittered among the tree-tops, gilded the hill-crests, changed the
eastern horizon into a molten sea of warmest gold and colour; and----"

"Transfigured Rose, eh," he broke in, with a smile.

She laughed merrily as she said: "I am afraid I was forgetting myself,
talking so much description!"

A shadow passed over her face, as she went on:

"How quickly everything was to be changed, though!  Grandmother's voice
called me from inside, Come, Rose, my child, and we will give God our
evening chant!

"I am afraid I sighed, as I turned from watching all that sunset
loveliness.  It was not that I disliked our evening devotions, but
somehow felt that evening--as I have often done, in fact--that I would
fain worship God with all His evening miracle before my eyes, and would
fain then have lingered on in the glorious after-glow, though that
after-glow lasted all too short a time.

"I turned into the house, but I did not close the door, for it would
have seemed like sacrilege to have shut out all that glory.  I took my
place by grandmother's side, with my hands folded across my breast, as,
together, we chanted 'Our Father who art in Heaven!  Hallowed be Thy
name.'

"How it all remains with me, and ever will, all the little items of
that last night of dear grandma's life!  I can seem to hear her voice
even now, she was very old, and it quavered and quivered like one of
our hill-country dulcimers!

"Our chant over, grandmother prayed, she prayed extra long that night
and our quick night had come down before she had finished.  I lit a
little lamp, and we went to bed.  Then----"

A shudder passed through her beautiful, reclining frame, as she
continued, and her voice had a new note in it, a note of pain:

"It was about midnight.  The whole country slept.  There were sixteen
small houses in our little village.  They all huddled close together,
(for once there had been a wall enclosing them) suddenly there was a
sound of gun-fire.  I leaped from my bed--Ah, me!  I cannot describe
it.  In half-an-hour the awful tragedy was completed.  Every old man
and woman was killed, slain with a sword, or hacked to death, or
speared.  Babies, and little children were brained against the walls of
the houses; strong men--fathers, lovers, sons--had been murdered with
every wantonness of savagery conceivable.  The only persons spared had
been the budding girls, and one or two of the best looking of the women.

"Everything of value, that was readily portable, had been seized, each
raider keeping his own lootings.  Then, at last, at a given signal, the
murderers and robbers reformed themselves into a solid company, and
rode away, setting fire to the village in half-a-dozen separate places
before they left.

"I was, of course, one of the girls whose life had been spared.  The
man who had seized upon me, when, in my fright, I had run from my bed
to the cottage door, had flashed the light of a torch upon me, and even
now I can recall the fierce delight and satisfaction that leaped into
his greedy eyes, and the manner of his mutterings:

"Good!  Good!  She'll _sell_ well!"

"He stood over me while I dressed warmly, then hurried me out into the
open again.  Grandmother had made no sound, given no sign of waking,
and I wondered.  I wanted to go into the little room where her bed was,
but my captor would not let me--I never saw her again, and can only
fear that, if God had not already taken her in her sleep (and sometimes
I think this must have been the case), she was slain with the rest of
the old people.

"Of the next week I have no distinct remembrance.  I believe I
travelled, travelled, travelled, ate, drank, slept, but all my
faculties seemed numbed, and my mind was largely a blank.  It was when
I was being taken into Constantinople, that I began to arouse from my
strange mental and physical stupor.

"It was through the cool mist of the morning that I got my first
glimpse of the city of which I had heard so much.  Santa Sophia, rising
like some beautiful dream-structure, with the points of its four light,
airy, minarets flashing in the sunlight.  Then, little by little,
kiosks, tall sad-looking cypresses, sycamores, and the other
thousand-and-one wonders of that city of beautiful and revolting
contradictions, took shape and form.

"By seven o'clock we were in the heart of the city, and breakfasting.
My captor had treated me with a certain rough kindness through all the
journey, and done his best to hearten me.  He had told me my fate--to
be sold into a harem--but he had pictured it as glowingly, as
glitteringly as his rough eloquence would let him.  And, with all the
blood of countless centuries of Eastern races coursing in my veins, and
in the more or less stunned, stupified condition in which that awful
night-tragedy had left me, I yielded, for the time, to the fatalism
with which we Easterns are familiarized from our babyhood.

"My captor was no novice at the business of selling a girl, neither was
he a stranger to the house to which he had taken me.  For, after
breakfast, he showed me into a little room with one quaint, Arabesque
window.  In this room there was a bath, and every toilette requisite,
while, from a tin box that he brought in, he took out a number of most
exquisite outer and under garments.  Telling me to make myself as
beautiful-looking as I knew how, he presently left me.

"I am afraid that for a time I was too overwhelmed to do more than
weep.  Then as I remembered that it would be the worse for me if I
angered my master, I bathed and anointed myself, though I remember how
once I paused, as I scented my body, and said, through my blinding
tears: 'This is like preparing myself for a sacrificial altar.'

"I was sitting an hour later, on an ottoman in the room outside the
bath-room, when I heard voices, and steps, and a moment later my
master, accompanied by a little tub of a man, with fatted-hog kind of
face, greasy-looking, and wrinkled with fat, out of which peered two
tiny black eyes--like currants stuck in a bladder of lard--and
twinkling most villainously, entered the room.

"He was very richly dressed, and bore the name of Osman Mahmed, and, as
I afterwards learned, he was very high in office and in favour with the
Sultan.  He was fabulously rich, and, excepting the Sultan, had the
most extensive harem in the city.

"I had, as a child, learned the Turkish tongue, and had no difficulty
in following all that passed between the seller and buyer.  Then after
being lightly pinched, pressed, and squeezed, and ogled, the bargain
was struck, the money for my purchase was paid, and my captor was
instructed to take me, veiled, to the purchaser's palace at two o'clock
that afternoon.

"I was taken, as arranged, to the Palace, and given in charge of the
head eunuch.  A few minutes later, two female slaves took me to a large
dressing-room.  Here I was bathed again, and sprayed with a very
valuable perfume, a curious blending of rose and patchouli.

"I have three crosses tatooed on my body.  Each cross consists of
eleven blue dots, one on each of my shoulders, and one on my breast,
and I noticed a look of horror come into the faces of the two
slave-women who were attending me, but neither of them asked any
question of me.

"My hair was well-groomed, and beautifully dressed, and strings of gold
sequins, and glittering jewelled stars were twisted amid the swathes of
my hair.  Then came my robing in garments, so rich, so wonderful, that
they almost took my breath away.  When the very last touch had been
given to this wonderful toilette, one of the attendants gave me a
_cachou_ from a box to sweeten my breath.

"Then, for a time, I was left alone, a strange and awful fear of some
coming evil stealing over me.  For I could not forget the looks of fear
and of terror of the slave-women, at the sight of the crosses on my
arms and breast.

"Wondering what type of place I was in, I got up and looked out of the
casement.  A marble court lay just below the window, and, in the centre
of the court was a most beautiful marble basin, quite twenty feet
across, from the heart of which there rose a fountain, with a graceful
_jet d' eau_, flinging its spray high in the air.  Two flights of
balustraded steps led down into the basin, a few white doves fluttered
about the steps.  Flower borders and beds were artistically dotted
about the court; and cool-looking, shady bowers clung to the high walls
like swallow-nests to the house-eaves.

"But the beauty of all I saw could not drive from me the strange sense
of dread of some coming disaster.  Suddenly, a huge Sudanese eunuch
appeared, and signed for me to follow him; and a minute later I was
ushered into a room where the chief eunuch, and that hideous little tub
of a Vizier, who had bought me, were.

"The fat, greasy face was distorted with rage, the eyes were blood-shot
and fierce, and his voice was almost a scream, as he cried out to me:

"'What is this they tell me of you, you Lebanon beast?  Are you one of
those dogs, the Christians?'

"'I am!' I replied.

"The fat little beast on the dais spat at me, the foul expectoration
falling short of my robe by barely a foot.

"'Your body, the body I bought,' he yelled, 'is damned by the cursed
sign of the cross, they tell me.'

"I gave him no reply, and he yelled, 'I will see for myself.'  Then to
the two eunuchs, he yelled: 'Strip her!'

"The men did his bidding, and nude, and shamed, I stood before that
foul tyrant.

"'Bring her closer!' he yelled, and the big Soudanese lifted me bodily,
and dropped me upon my feet on a mat not a yard from the Vizier.

"He glared at the tatooed cross upon my breast, then with a fearful
curse, he spat full into my breast, the vileness running down the
sacred sign.  Then, as a fiendish look filled his face, he ordered the
chief eunuch to send me for sale in any market that would be open for
such carrion.

"At a word from the chief eunuch, the big Soudanese snatched me up in
his brawny hands, tucked me under his arm, as a father might laughingly
carry his five-year-old boy, and bore me off.

"The rest of the story is all too wonderful for more than the merest
outline.  I was being taken through the streets, veiled, of course, to
a dealer in girls, when suddenly I saw my brother Hassan, coming
towards me.  My veil, of course, would prevent his knowing me, but
tearing off my veil, I leaped towards him, crying:

"Hassan, Hassan, save me!"

She paused in her recital, her voice choked with deep emotion for a
moment, then, as she recovered herself, she went on:

"'How wonderful are God's providences!  His ways are past finding out!'

"Hassan was walking--when I met him--with an officer of the American
Embassy--Hassan was clerking for this officer--and though the eunuch
tried to make a fuss, when he knew who the officer was, he scuttled
back to the Palace as hard as he could go.

"That night, Hassan and I left the city, lest there should be any
attempt to seize me, and--"

She paused suddenly, and he leaped to his feet at the same instant,
for, from the direction of the city, there came sounds of loud and
prolonged hurrahing.

"I will go out and see what is going on!" he said.  "Perhaps," he
added, "in these disturbed times, it would be well for you to fasten
the doors, while I am gone.  Whether the people of the house or I,
return first, you can easily ascertain who it is, before you open.
Meanwhile, find your way to the other parts of the house, and make
yourself coffee or anything else that you may need--and,"

He held out his hand--: "Good bye, for the present, and, another time,
you must tell me the rest of your wonderful story, and especially how
it came about that you knew so much of Christianity and yet did not
share in the 'Rapture' of Christ's own."

With the warmth of her Southern, Eastern nature, remembering how he had
saved her, she lifted the hand he gave her, to her lips, and kissed it
passionately, leaving two heavy tear-drops on it, when she dropped it.

A moment later she was alone.  She had barred the outer doors, when he
left.




CHAPTER XI.

HERO-WORSHIP.

Neither George Bullen, or the "Lebanon Rose," whom he had so
opportunely saved, had had any idea of how rapidly time had fled during
that afternoon.  On reaching the street, and looking at his watch,
George was amazed to find that it was past six o'clock.  Moving as
briskly as it was wise to do, so as not to call attention to himself,
he made his way to where the noise of the multitude told him that
something extra was happening.

He soon discovered that the excitement came from a kind of impromptu
mass meeting that had followed upon the appearance of Apleon riding on
his now celebrated black charger.

The first thing which struck Bullen was the fact that, already, every
one seemed to be wearing the "Covenant" sign--"The Mark of the Beast."
He himself appeared to be the only person who was not wearing it.
And--was it fancy? or did Apleon's eyes fix on him with a momentary
scowl.

The second thing which struck him, was the intense admiration and
homage of the great crowd--all classes alike seemed absolutely
infatuated--for this Emperor-Dictator of the world, Lucien Apleon, "The
Anti-christ."

Two cries rose loud and laudatory from the multitude "Who is like
Apleon?  Who dare oppose him?"  It was the ultimate fruit of the
jingoism of the previous years!

"This is what John beheld," Bullen told himself, "_all the world
wondered after the Beast_!"  They are, already, worshipping him, in
their poor deluded hearts, as a God!

Almost, it seemed to the young journalist as though there was headed up
in this one man--the Man of Sin--all that men through the by-gone ages
had worshipped.  The captivating power of ancient Babylon.  The mighty
prowess of the Medo-Persian, the power that held all the world in
subjection and awe.  The Grecian polish.  The Roman legal acumen, and
martial perfection.  All these things seemed combined in this one
notable man.  And added to all this, there was his resistless
attractiveness, his beauty of face, his grace of form, his wondrous
voice, his regal air--"_all the world wondered after him_."

As, after awhile, he walked slowly homewards, George Bullen asked
himself the question:

"How can it have come to pass, that in comparatively so short a time,
it should be possible for all the world to be ready to yield an almost
idolatrous obedience to one man?"

Unconsciously to himself his pace slackened, it was as though his mind
had willed to have time to review things that should answer his
question, before he should reach his rooms, and the consideration
should be broken into.

"There was first," he mused "that gradual falling away from the Truth
of God, for a full half of the nineteenth century--very gradual, very
slow, and very subtle at first, but growing bolder each year, until, in
the early part of the first decade of the twentieth century, men
calling themselves Christians, taking the salaries of Christian
ministers, openly denied every fundamental truth of the Bible--Sin, the
Fall, The Atonement, The Resurrection, the Immaculate Birth of Christ,
His Deity, the Personality of Satan, the Personality of The Holy
Spirit, and everything else in God's word which clashed with the flesh
of their unregenerate lives.

"Then there was the giving heed to seducing spirits _and teachings of
demons_ (demonology, called spiritism) '_forbidding to marry_'
(doctrine of Lust, known as 'Free Love.')

"Great forces were at work during the latter part of the nineteenth
century, and more especially in the early part of the twentieth, all of
which were preparing the way for the Anti-christ.

"What blinded intellects called 'Progress,' was really Apostasy.  And
Scientists, Materialists, and Humanists, and the _world's_ teachers
were all looking for some great outstanding genius, some super-man.

"The Believing Church, before the 'Rapture,' had its Hope, a Hope given
by God of _A Man_ who should head all things up in Himself, and clothe
His Church with His own glory.  And that Man came, the Man Christ
Jesus, the Lord of Glory.  And all the time the world had _its_ hope,
and just as Christ, the Hope of the Church, said '_I will come again_,'
so He also said, as regards the world's hope, '_Another shall come in
his own name_,' and now--"

George Bullen paused in his walking and looked back to where the
laudatory shouts of the deluded multitude, still rose around Apleon.

"And now," he continued, "that other _has_ come, come in his own name,
and the world has received him.  As late as nineteen hundred and eight,
one of the world's so-called 'great thinkers,' a D.D., too, said:

"'We still wait for _The Genius_ who shall state our fundamental faith
in accordance with that insight which the _modern man_ has gained.'

"That '_great thinker_,' if he is living, ought now to be satisfied,
for his '_Genius_' has appeared.  And if he still possesses a Bible,
let him turn to Revelation, thirteen-eighteen, and he will know how all
his fancied man-progress was prophesied for nearly two thousand years
ago in the words: '_Here is wisdom.  Let him that hath understanding
count the number of the beast; for it is_ THE NUMBER OF MAN; _and his
number is 666_.'

"Oh, yes, in a hundred and one ways, the coming of the Anti-christ, and
the consequent worship of his Satanic-energized personality, was
well-paved; for the world relegated to the limbo of the past, God's
evangel as effete, superstitious, worn-out, and it was then prepared
for the Devil's lie, the Great Delusion."

By this time George's feet had carried him to the door of the house.
He knocked, as arranged before leaving, three slow, deliberate knocks
and two others, sharp, quickly-following.

Almost instantly Rose appeared at the door.  She had prepared an
evening meal, and over the supper-table he told her all that he had
seen and heard, while out, adding:

"The whole world will be abjectly at the feet of that man of Satan,
presently."

For a few moments they talked on together, then she rose to clear the
table.  His eyes followed her in all her movements, for, in spite of
her bruised stiffness, all that she did was done so deftly, and every
movement of her beautiful form was full of the grace of perfect ease.

Now, almost for the first time, it came to him with full seriousness,
"What am I to do with her? since, saving her, housing her I have, to a
certain extent, made myself responsible for her?"

When she returned to the room, after clearing the last thing from the
table, he said:

"We must face your future, Rose!  What are your plans, or haven't you
any?"

"I am afraid I have no plans," she returned.  "You see, good George, I
was so terrified at all I heard from my brother, that I simply got away
as quickly as I could, without any plan for the future, other than that
there has always been, at the back of my mind, an idea, that should I
ever (from any cause whatever) become a refugee, I should make my way
to England.  For, rightly or wrongly; I believe the peoples of all the
world have always associated with England the two thoughts of safety
and liberty."

Lifting her eyes to his, a bright smile filling all her face, she went
on:

"I am not without money.  I have nearly twenty-five pounds with me.
The question is, where would one--who would rather die than wear the
'Mark of the Beast'--be safest?  In England, do you think?"

"I don't know, Rose.  _My_ place is there, because my _duty_ lies
there.  And now that I have, I think, finished all that I can do here,
I ought to be getting back, at once.  I ought, I think, to go to-night.
At ten-thirty there is a good service to the West, but I cannot leave
you alone here.  I fear that death, in some way, must have overtaken
the people of this house, so that I cannot remain here, but must leave
the house to its fate.  But about you, Rose?  I cannot leave you, like
the house, to your fate!"

With the absolute trust of a little child, she stretched her hands
towards him, saying:

"Good George, my saviour already from one dreadful death, save me again
please.  Take care of me until we get to England, take me with you, I
will be no expense to you, I will give no trouble, I will--"

Her clinging, child-like trust moved him greatly.  He took the two
pretty, plump little hands in his, and holding them in a clasp, firm
and tight, as though by his grip upon her he would give her an
assurance of safety, he said:

"Take you with me, little one, of course I will.  And now that is
settled we will talk over our plans, for I think we ought to leave by
that ten-thirty Western-bound service.  Each hour after to-night, the
service will become more crowded, and we had better avoid the crowd, if
we can."

George Bullen had never had much to do with women.  No woman had ever
quickened by one extra beat his heart or pulse.  Yet now he felt
himself strangely, mysteriously drawn to this sweet young Lebanon girl.
He realized that it was no time for love-making, yet he would have been
of marble not to have been moved by her trust in him, and by her sweet,
gracious personality.

At ten-thirty that night they were clear of the place, and
homeward-bound to England.




CHAPTER XII.

ANTI-"WE-ISM."

Sir Archibald Carlyon, proprietor of the "Courier," and Ralph Bastin's
employer, had just arrived at the "Courier" office.  The whilom
middle-aged, sprightly old man was as bowed and decrepit as a man of
ninety.

As he entered the editorial private room, Ralph, for one instant, did
not recognize him.  Then, as he realized who it was, he sprang forward
with an almost son-like solicitude, and helped him to a chair.

"Sir Archibald, what has happened?" he cried.

The old man lifted weary, hopeless eyes, out of which all the old-time
flash had gone, and nothing but heavy dullness remained.  "Have _you_
heard from my boy, from George?" he asked.

"No, why, is there anything the matter, Sir Archibald?"  Ralph's tones
were full of alarmed anxiety.

The baronet's hand had been thrust into his breast-pocket, as he spoke.
He took out a letter and handing it to Ralph, groaned out the two words:

"Read that!"

Ralph caught his breath as his eyes took in the first lines: "Dear
Uncle, by the time you receive this, I shall be beyond _this_ life,
though _where_--in that outer world, that world beyond--I can--not
tell."

Ralph had not turned to the signature, he knew the writing too well,
and knew it for bright, happy jocund George Carlyon's.  He read on:

"All that has happened in the world, of late, has driven me mad.  Dear
old Tom Hammond wrote me fully of his change of heart, and besought me
to face the whole matter of my 'eternal destiny,' as he termed it.  I
simply did not reply to his letter.  Three days later he was taken,
with all those others, to God.  Since then I have plunged into
everything trying to drown thought, and remorse, but I cannot, so I am
ending all--there's a mad thing to say, as if death could end all.
Though I do not doubt but what many other fellows will do what I am
doing now.  Good bye, good old Hunky Archie,

  "Your unhappy, rotten,
      "GEORGE."


As Ralph lifted his eyes from the paper he found Sir Archibald's fixed
upon him, and the anguish in the poor old dull eyes drew tears to
Ralph's.

"We found him," cried the old man, "in the boathouse, by the lake, with
a bullet through his temples.  My poor boy!  My noble boy!"

Dry-eyes, but with a soul full of anguish, his features, too, twisted
with the anguish of his soul, the old man rocked himself for a moment
in his chair.

Looking up suddenly, he startled Ralph by the bitterness of his tones,
as he said:

"God forgive me!  But I could find it easy to curse our clergy, our
ministers, our bishops, our teachers, for that when we looked to them,
and _paid_ them, to tell us the right, the true thing, they let us go
on deluded by the belief that attendance upon the _outward form_ was
sufficient to make us sure of Heaven in the future.  Why, Bastin, good
fellow, do you know that more than half of the clergymen with whom I
was _well_ acquainted, are among those whom God has left behind, and
not one of those whom I know, thus left, has a mite of concern about
their state, but seem to have gone right over to the Devil, if I may so
say it.  What does it all mean?"

Ralph began to speak kindly, sympathetically to him, but the old man
suddenly interrupted with:

"And yesterday's article in 'the Courier' upon the opening of that
Temple at Jerusalem, with all that about the 'Mark of the Beast;' that
mock (I suppose it was _mock_) miracle, with the fire consuming the
sacrifice, and then that awful portent of darkness, thunder, and
lightning--but no rain.  It reminded me of the scene at Calvary, when
the Christ was crucified.  What _does_ it all mean, Bastin?"

"What I have said in that article, I believe, Sir Archibald.  The
events in Jerusalem, during the last three days are the beginning of
the reign of Anti-christ.  For years, blinded by Satan whom most of us,
unknowingly, served, and blinded by what we termed the 'Progress of the
Age,' and of the World, but which ought to have been recognized for
what it really was, the growing of the Apostasy, which has now begun to
be avowed and absolutely universal--blinded, I say, by all this, Sir
Archibald, we suffered many mighty forces to stealthily, powerfully
work together so that the climax that has come upon us, was made
absolutely easy.

"If we had known our Bibles only a tithe as well as we knew our
newspapers, we should have seen that all we were glorying in, under the
name of 'Progress,' was but a perfecting of human systems, leaving God,
and His purposes, and His plans utterly out of the question.  We went
to our churches, our chapels, we had a '_form_ of Godliness,' but we
tacitly, and controversally, in print and speech, 'denied the _power_
thereof.'  We not only made it possible, but easy 'for one man of
Master-mind to assume universal dominion, and to be the object of
universal worship, as Apleon, the Anti-christ, soon will be.'

"And now, Sir Archibald, we are on the eve of a gigantic blend of all
religions, with all commercial undertakings.  The more I study God's
word in the light of all that is happening, the more clearly I see this.

"How often, in the old days--say from the mid-eighties--professing
Christian men, when expostulated with as to the difference between
their professed creed of the Sunday, and their daily practice in
business, would say, 'oh, bosh! religion is one thing, business is
another!'  Then, as the years moved on, all kinds of trading concerns
sprang up professedly religious, and conducted on professedly religious
lines.  But even the truest Seers in the Church of God would hardly
have dared to predict that in a comparatively few years the final
outcome of this trend in events would be an absolute coalescence into
one vast system of the world's many religious systems and of the
world's commerce.  The most that the Seers of God, in His church, dared
to say of the future was that the _principle_ of such a _combined_
system was suggested by the text of Rev. xiii.  For the second Beast
'caused the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first
Beast . . . .  And he had power . . . to cause that as many as would
not worship the image of the Beast should be killed.  And he causeth
all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a
mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads, and _that no man might
buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or
the number of his name_.'  Here, for nearly two thousand years, was the
principle of this Hell-devised, Devil-developed combined system of
religion and commerce, prophesied, but now few even of God's choicest
saints realized all that would mean.

"The nineteenth and early twentieth century Christendom had lost the
Bible ideal of Christianity, and had substituted a very material idea
for God's idea.  The two decades--last of the nineteenth, and first of
the twentieth centuries--were marked by immense religious activities,
but while a merely religious movement might manufacture a Christendom,
it could never make Christians.

"To be religious is one thing to be a Christian quite another thing.
The vast bulk of the members of the so-called Christian Churches of
those years, had never been born again from above.

"Christian in name (by virtue of membership in a Church; or by virtue
of their subscription to a creed; or by a careful attendance upon the
forms of their own particular church) they were yet _only religious_,
because God's word regards those only as _Christians_ in whom Christ
indwells, and none can be indwelt by Christ save those into whom He has
come in the birth from above.  ('Born again' ones.)  '_Except_ a man be
born again, he CANNOT _see_ the Kingdom of God' much more live in it.

"'That which is born of the _flesh_ is flesh,' and 'flesh and blood
cannot inherit the Kingdom of God,' but only those _spiritually_
born--born from above.  We only become Christians by _re_-generation.

"In the years immediately before the 'Rapture,' _professing_
Christians, and even _professedly_ Christian ministers, men who had
taken vows before God to preach the 'whole counsel of God,' and who
received their salary avowedly for this purpose, scouted, and often
publicly denied the necessity of the New Birth.  Blind leaders of the
blind, they surely will have the greater punishment.

"But to return to the other thought.

"The last twenty years of the nineteenth century, and more so the first
ten years of the twentieth century, was marked as an age of
centralization and concentration of all kinds of interests, commercial,
and religious.  Each year, the trusts and monopolies in the commercial
world became more and more concentrated, until it has become perfectly
easy for Lucien Apleon, Emperor-Dictator of the World, to govern and
control (from that beautiful, hellish city, Babylon the great,) every
business interest in the world.

"Two days ago, at Jerusalem, the 'Covenant Sign'--so called--but which
God calls the 'Mark of the Beast'--was donned by three or four million
people, in the _holiday_ spirit.  But what was donned voluntarily, in a
holiday spirit, forty-eight hours ago, will have to be _branded_ on
every one's person in the universe in three and a half years time--or
less--or else the refuser of the degradation will have to seal his or
her loyalty to God by their life.

"In three and a half years from now, Sir Archibald, the image of Lucien
Apleon, will be set up in the Temple of Jerusalem, and, I believe, in
every other great religious centre of the World--St. Peter's, Rome; St.
Paul's, London; and so on in all our great cities, and world centres.
I have been studying this subject naturally, and I find that one great
scholar (Hengstenberg) says, that though _one_ image is spoken of, yet
having regard to the sense of the original, 'a multitude of images is
meant.'"

"But _religiously_, Bastin, religiously?" cried the old man.  "How did
the condition of things in the end of the nineteenth, and the beginning
of the twentieth centuries, help to make it possible for all the world
presently to _worship_ the Beast, and his image?"

There was an almost childish querulousness of tone in the old baronet's
questioning.

"All those years," began Ralph, "were marked by a wonderful activity on
new lines of deliverance for the human race, from the ills that had
grown up around the vast bulk of that race.  God's plan was for man's
_regeneration_, a change of heart and life--a working from the centre
to the circumference.  But the churches--_all_ denominations--of the
years we are speaking about, began endless schemes of deliverance that
the man, as they hoped, might be changed from the _out_side--that is to
say, man's idea of benefitting man was by an _outward_ reform.

"They failed to recognize the fundamental fact that all the 'Ills of
Humanity,' so called, proceeded from man's natural depravity, from man
_himself_, and not from his environment.  We failed to see that a
_reformed_ race would only mean a perpetuation of all the old natural
lusts, and presently, bring about a return to the old condition of
things, while a _regenerated_ race would hold reform in it, and that
that reform would not only be perpetual, but ever increasing in its
perfecting.

"Then, too, the great religious denominations became fired with the
idea of a consolidating, unifying process that should smelt down all
denominations into one.  To do this every type of religion should find
a place.  What would it matter if one or more of the religions denied
the Deity of Christ? that others did not accept the Bible as the
Inspired word of God and so on?  'The doctrine of Christ,' was
gradually eliminated from almost all preaching and the doctrine of a
divine humanism--'The divinity of man,' became largely the new cult.

"I believe, from all that I can gather, one of the first steps towards
this elimination of 'the doctrine of Christ,' could be traced in the
continued elimination from the various denominational hymn-books (as
_new_ ones were issued beginning as far back as the late seventies) of
hymns relating to the facts of the Atonement and other kindred
subjects, and the substitution of odes, poems, etc., in which
aspiration took the place of experimental religion.  The hymn-books of
more than one, or two, or three denominations, showed this retrograde
movement, through their several successive issues.

"Then, side by side with this _Anti_-christian movement, there went on
silently that gathering out from the world, and from the merely
professing Christian church, those who were, by virtue of their New
Birth, through faith in Christ, the recipients of Eternal life, and
who, when that glorious 'Rapture' took place awhile ago, were caught up
into the air as a _body_ of living believers to be joined for ever, to
their head--Christ; thus robbing the world of what Christ Himself
called 'the salt of the earth.'"

With a groan, Sir Archibald cried:

"God help us, Bastin!  What fools we were!"

Then with a weary upward look into Ralph's face, he rose to his feet,
saying:

"I must be going.  I've arranged to meet the lawyers in half-an-hour
from now.  Good-bye, dear fellow.  I will come up to town to see you,
or you must come down to see me, before the wind-up of the paper.
Good-bye."

The two men wrung each other's hand, then parted.

Ten minutes later George Bullen and Rose arrived.  Amazed to see his
friend with an extraordinary beautiful girl, Ralph was presently
listening to all the wonderful story of their meeting, etc.

Later on, when, for a moment or two, the two men were alone together,
in the inner room, Ralph asked George what he proposed to do with the
beautiful girl?

"There is but one thing I can do," he replied.  "I must marry her, and
that soon.  It is no time, in the ordinary sense, to be thinking of
'marrying and giving in marriage,' yet, under the circumstances, I can
do no other.  I care for her already, as I never cared for any woman,
and her affection for me is touching in its clingingness."

He smiled a little sadly, as he added:

"It is well that there is a little company of us here in London,
Believers in God, and therefore believers in marriage."

      *      *      *      *      *      *

George Bullen and Rose were married within the week of their landing in
England.  The ceremony took place in a little company of believers, who
gathered on Sunday (old-count of time) and once on a week-night, in a
little hall that had been used for a Sunday School in the old days.
Sunday Schools, like many of the other religious institutions, of the
old days before the "Rapture," were quite a thing of the past.

Marriage was one of the things of the past.  Some years before the
"Rapture," a booklet entitled "We-ism" had been published, in which the
author had unblushingly declared: "Women, _absolved from shame_,
servitude, and inequality, shall be enfranchised, owners of themselves
* * * We believe in the sacredness of the family and the home, _the
legitimacy of every child_, and the inalienable right of every woman to
the absolute possession of herself."

The doctrines and practice of "affinity," the "problem" plays, and
"sex" novels, of the first decade of the twentieth century, had all
materially helped to make the unregenerate mind and heart ready to
receive "free love" in its widest, grossest forms.  While a certain
teaching of "Christian Science" had had an overwhelming power in the
same direction.[1]

All these forces had helped to make the doctrine of illicit love
acceptable in these early days of the Anti-christ reign, so that it was
only among the little gatherings of true Believers, that marriage was
sanctified into the sacrament it had been in the _good, true_ old days.



[1] We prefer, in a book of this character, to keep back the actual
terms of the filthy statement.  Author.




CHAPTER XIII.

"THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION."

The three-and-a-half years since the Covenant with Lucien Apleon, on
the night before the opening at the Temple in Jerusalem, had been
signed, had practically expired.

God's judgments had been seen in many ways upon the earth during these
forty-two months.  The position which Apleon now held, as the "World's
Dictator," had not been the work of a day.  Wars, no longer local, but
practically universal had, for many long months at a time, been the
order of the history of the world.  "Nation shall rise against nation,
and kingdom against kingdom."

These wars occupying only months at this period, would have occupied
scores of years had they been events of the mid-nineteenth century.
But with the perfection of hideousness--one might safely write
_Hellishness_--of war's latest devices the work of destruction, and
almost annihilation became short and sharp.

Aerial warfare helped to bring about this consummation more speedily.
The firing of a bomb or of a torpedo from an aerial war engine often
accomplished in an hour what could not have been accomplished, a few
years before, under months, often years of old-fashioned war.

These fearful conflicts were not confined to those of kingdom and
nation against kingdom and nation, but citizens of one city fought with
themselves, civil war was "on the rampage."  The lust of war, the lust
of blood, born of vile passions, burned in the breasts of men and
women--for with the growth of the "woman's rights" question, and the
establishment of the "equality of the sexes," bands of women fought
bands of women.

These Amazons, indeed, wrought even fouler cruelties and butcheries
than the men, for as there is no fouler odour under the sun than that
of rotted lilies, so the depths to which "the lilies of the human
kind"--women--will descend is fouler and deeper than the abysses of
fall of men.

The hideous wars--international, civil, and _personal_
conflicts--resulted, as wars ever do, in famine and pestilence.  Only
in this case, these later horrors had been fearfully aggravated,
terribly prolonged.

The picture of the famine is most striking.  The rider of the black
horse is shown bearing a pair of scales, typifying the exactitude of
weight--for single grains counted in these days.  A man's full day's
wage would purchase only a pint and a half of wheat (a choenix) and
that would form but a _scant_ feeding for the day for himself.  But
there will then not be wheat enough to go round, and people will hail
barley with the rapture of starving souls.

The tendency of the days in which we write these lines, is an
ever-increasing luxury in eating and drinking, and this, too, among all
classes.

That tendency will increase more and more, so that the inhabitants of
the famine stricken earth will feel scarcity more than they would
otherwise have done.

The pestilence followed the famine, until from war, famine, and
pestilence a fourth of the entire population of the earth was swept
away.

During the last twelve months quite a crop of false Christs had arisen.
Each of these, in his turn, had had a certain following for a brief
period, and each had had an untimely end.

The only really notable impostor was a man who had suddenly appeared in
London, and who had immediately attracted immense attention.  His
knowledge of scripture, of the prophecies especially, was marvellous to
those whom he addressed.  No one ever attempted to verify his
quotations, much less his connections of scriptures.  For as Jannes and
Jambres, Pharaoh's two chief Magicians, withstood Moses by demonology
and jugglery, so, by a hellish jugglery, did "Conrad the Conqueror" (as
this false Christ styled himself) juggle with the scriptures.

Apleon, the Anti-christ, had, apparently, taken no notice of any of the
petty tribe of mushroom-like false Christs.  That he was well
acquainted with the sayings and doings of each of them goes without
saying, as it was equally so as regarded this more presumptious of the
crew "Conrad the Conqueror."  There were many, in London especially,
who wondered that Apleon did not appear and refute this man's claims,
if they had no foundation.

The evident success of the imposter wrought his own downfall.  Inflated
with his success he publicly declared that Apleon would perish beneath
a blast of his (Conrad's) nostrils, and announced that on a certain
evening at ten o'clock on St. Paul's steps he would publicly re-state
his claims, and also defy Apleon.

In the first year after the Rapture, the whole of the shops and
warehouses on both sides of Ludgate hill, with all the purlieus at the
back of each range of buildings, had been demolished, so that a huge
open space, spreading fan shape, (the handle at St. Paul's) swept out,
ever-widening, on the left as far as the approach of Blackfriar's
Bridge, on the right through Farringdon Street to the Viaduct Bridge.

Within this space a million people could not only have congregated, but
have heard distinctly, without any effort, the merest whisper spoken
into the latest phone discovery the "Hearit."  As, too, every bit of
that open space was many yards below the level of St. Paul's steps,
every one had a perfect view of all that transpired there.

The night in question, when the latest and greatest of the false
Christs, "Conrad the Conqueror," had arranged to defy Apleon, proved to
be exceptionally dark.

Three quarters of a million people were gathered in "The Fan"--that
open space had been christened "The Fan" on account of its shape.  It
was admirably lit by the new light "Radiance," while a perfect blaze of
radiance illumined the huge scarlet-covered, scarlet-draped platform
that had been erected immediately in front of the steps of the
Cathedral.  (It was all very stagey, very theatrical, but then that was
characteristic of the new age and regime.)

The false Christ appeared, and was greeted with a curious mixture of
groans and hisses, and of cheers.  (A keen judge might have been
pardoned if he had said that the bulk of the cheers were ironical.)

Speaking in his ordinary voice, the suction plates of the "Hearit"
transmitted his words to the farthest remove of that "Fan" so that all
could easily hear.

With a kind of gentle gravity, at first, he began by saying:

"Nearly nineteen hundred years ago when I walked this earth, at my
first advent, I warned my disciples--and through them the world--that
many false Christs would come, but when it was said 'Lo, here!' or 'Lo,
there!' that they were not to go hither and thither, many of these
false Christs have appeared, and have tried to lead the people astray.
Oh foolish people!  How easily were they bewitched!  And how worse than
foolish the imposters were.  They might have known that I should not
have suffered them to take My Name in vain."

For ten minutes he talked thus, then suddenly changed his tone, and
raising his right arm--it was long, thin, gaunt, and the wide-flowing
sleeve of his white seamless robe, fell back showing the lean limb
almost to the shoulder--he poured out a defiant speech against Apleon,
adding "I have challenged!  I wait for my challenge to be accepted."

A sudden, awesome silence fell upon all the gathered, listening
thousands.  They had not long to wait, for in that same instant a
fierce crimson light shone in the dark heavens above them, and looking
up they saw a fiery ruby scroll like flame rushing downwards through
the sky.

An instant later the fiery scroll resolved itself into the characters
of the "Covenant Sign" ("The Mark of the Beast.")  With a swoop, like
that of some crimson Albatross, the thing descended until it seemed
almost to touch the platform where the challenger "Conrad" stood.
Then, to the amaze and delight of the vast audience in "The Fan," out
from convolutions of the central sign of the "Mark," Apleon stepped on
to the platform.

His aerial chair (on this occasion made in the form of his own "number
and sign") rose swiftly again and hovered mid-air.

The false Christ was as white of face as his robe.  He visibly cowered
and shrank before the coming of the giant figure of the World's
Dictator, as the latter strode in three long strides across the
platform.

For one brief second, amid the hush and silence of the absolute awe
that rested on the mighty audience, challenger and challenged stood
facing each other.  Then Apleon's voice was heard, as with a sweep of
his hand he uttered the one word:

"PERISH, thou Fool!"

As his hand swept the air in the direction of the false Prophet, a wide
sheet of flame leaped out of space, enveloped the white-robed figure,
and it was instantly consumed.  As at the burning of the sacrificial
lamb at the dedication of the temple at Jerusalem, so now, the flame
that had consumed the challenging imposter floated a yard or two over
the spot where he had stood, and slowly resolved itself into "The Sign
of the Covenant" ("Mark of the Beast,") in pure ruby flame.

"_He doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven
on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the
earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do._"

Apleon turned towards the mighty gathering, and said triumphantly: "So
perish all impostors!"

A thunder of cheers rose from three quarters of a million throats!
Instantly followed by the chorus of the Apleon ode!

  "Hail!  Hail!  Hail Man of Men!
  World's Deliverer!
      APLEON!"


Like a living thing of writhing flames, the brilliant car swept
downwards from the sky, where it had waited.  Almost, it seemed to skim
the scarlet floor of the platform and to scoop up its owner, for none
saw Apleon lift a foot to step into it, yet the next moment he was
soaring away seated within the upper convolution of the serpent sign.

For hours, thousands of the people remained within the sweep of the
great "Fan," talking of all that had occurred, and more absolutely
convinced than ever that Apleon was God--_their_ God.

Thrice during the next hour after Apleon's departure, three separate
faithful souls--one of the three a woman--raised a testimony against
the Man of Sin.  But each one met with death within thirty seconds of
their first utterance.

"_And white robes were given unto everyone of them; and it was said
unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their
fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they
were, should be fulfilled._"

There were, scattered over all the earth, many thousands of believers
in God, praying "Thy kingdom come."  Many of these had turned to God
during the first days of the shock of realization of "things as they
truly were," when the "Church" had been translated to the heavenlies.

The number of these believers had been added to considerably, during
the awful times of war, pestilence and famine, for these horrors (so
plainly predicted in the word of God) had taught them to read their
Bibles with new eyes, and to receive its truths and obey them.  Of
these believers, many had been, and many, many more were yet to be
"_slain on account of the Word of God, and on account of the testimony
which they held fast_.

The whole of the three-and-a-half years had been rife with growing
horrors, with licentiousness, and every evil possible to the
unregenerate mind, and heart, and life, when full license is given to
them.

The license and indulgence permitted--even arranged for, in the first
instance--by the apostate church with a view to the more perfect
enslavement of the world's worshippers, had brought forth a full
harvest of evil.  The effect of license is disorder, and presently
anarchy.  For three-years-and-a-half the apostate church had grown in
assumption and in all abominations, and the effects of the license
permitted, and _fearfully abused_, had produced a condition of things
which became such an intolerable burden, that the time had become ripe
for the authority in all this, to be destroyed.

The apostate church was the cause and the authority for all the excess
of evil of the times, hence the ten-kingdomed confederacy which had at
first buttressed the impious system, now, by united action, destroyed
it.  "_And the ten horns which thou sawest, and the Beast, these shall
hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat
her flesh, and shall BURN HER UTTERLY WITH FIRE.  For God did put in
their hearts to do His mind, AND TO COME TO ONE MIND, and to give their
Kingdom unto the Beast, until the words of God shall be accomplished._"
(Rev. 17:16-17)

"Man is a religious animal!"  And Lucien Apleon, endowed with special
wisdom of his father and Master--the Devil--recognized this necessity
for a religion from the outset of his career.

The Devil has always recognized religion, encouraged it, and has even
instigated it in a hundred forms, during the last 6,000 years.  Only
every effort of his Satanic power and force has been directed towards
the luring of the religious soul _away from God_.  The Devil is a
Ritualist!  He loves to entangle souls in a ritual, and the more
sensuous the ritual, the better he is pleased, because such
sensuousness and ritualism ministers to the "flesh," and while men and
women's religion is fleshly, it cannot be spiritual.  And the FATHER
seeketh spiritual worshippers, "for they that worship Him, must worship
Him in Spirit and in Truth."  Then, too, Satan knows that all
religiousness that is of the "flesh," tends to make its devotees
anxious for the development of a good-self within them, while true,
spiritual life _in Christ_, leads to the continual consciousness that
"_in me, that is IN MY FLESH, dwelleth no good thing_."

Lucien Apleon encouraged religion, but not the religion of the Lord
Jesus Christ--for he, Apleon was The _Anti_-Christ.  It was he, with
his emissaries, taught and guided by Satan, the Arch-enemy of God, and
of His Christ, that had subtlety, secretly energized the
world-religion, that followed the taking away of the church.  That
world-wide system had been an amalgamation of all the then existing
false systems of religion.  With the taking away of the church every
type of license had been gradually permitted to the worshippers in the
churches of this infernal system, until, at last, as we have seen, the
governments had been compelled to abolish what at first they had helped
to establish--for license had bred such a character and temper in the
peoples that it became a menace to all order.

All this was part of Satan's organized plan, for, when the moment of
the crushing out of this licentious, abominable religious system
arrived, his plans, as regarded Lucien Apleon, The Anti-christ, were so
perfected, by the ripeness of the world for the Anti-christ rule, that
all else seemed plain sailing.

The poor, duped world knew Apleon only as the great SUPER-MAN, "long
looked-for, come at last," the World's Deliverer, who was presently to
be universally acclaimed as the World's Dictator.

The world had long been familiar with the system of private chaplains
attached to great men's households.  It was familiar knowledge to them
that Dan, the Free-booter, (in the days of "The Judges") must needs
have a renegade, runaway Levite for a priest, his salary thirty
shillings a year, a suit of clothes and his victuals (as much as a
renegade was worth).  Absalom could do little, in his revolt, without
the religious brand, so must needs have Ahithophel.  And down to their
own times, the World, at the period of Apleon's coming, was familiar
with private chaplains.

Apleon's chaplain, a swarthy-skinned Jew (to all outward appearance,)
was undoubtedly like Apleon himself, a Satanic resurrection, or if not
a resurrection, certainly energized by the same infernal power.  The
Holy Ghost calls this man "The False Prophet."  He exercised all the
authority of Anti-christ, "_in his presence_," as well as in his
absence.  _Eight_ times the emphatic word "_he causeth_" is written of
him, by the Holy Spirit, and a more hideous, lying, extraordinarily
wicked catalogue of deeds is no where else to be found in the world's
history:

"_He causeth the earth, and those that dwell in it_," (does that refer
to the foul spirits who dwell in that awful under-world, from which we
believe the Anti-Christ, as Judas re-incarnated came, or does it refer
only to dwellers on the earth?  It may well mean _both_!)--"_To worship
the first beast_."

As well as his co-associate, Apleon--The Anti-christ, the false Prophet
not only claimed the power to work miracles, but he _did_ work them,
showing a baleful but powerful supernatural control over the forces of
nature.  "_And he doeth great miracles . . .  And he deceiveth those
that dwell ON the earth by reason of the signs which it was given him
to work in the presence of the Beast_."  In Egypt, three thousand four
hundred or more years ago, it was demonstrated by Jannes and Jambres
that there is a supernaturalism of the Devil, as well as of God,
_against_, as well as _for_ God.

Both Anti-christ and his subaltern, the false prophet, dealt largely in
the miracle of fire.  The _two witnesses_, who had testified that they
had come from God, had consumed their persecutors, again and again by
fire, and the Hell-born imposters felt the necessity of showing that
they, too, could command fire.

Utterly destroyed by the ten kings, the world was without an organized
religion, and was ready for the fouler, fuller rule of Satan--the
worship of Anti-christ, and his image.

As God had ever had a Trinity of personality and power in Himself, so
Satan in his damnable, deceivable counterfeiting has now _his_ trinity.
Himself (Satan) the embodiment of evil, the suggester, creator,
energizer, he makes a _mock_ Christ--Apleon, the Anti-christ, answers
to the second Person of the divine Trinity.  While Apleon's chaplain,
the false prophet, answers to the third person of the divine Trinity.

Energized by Satan, even as Anti-christ himself is, the false Prophet
becomes a mighty force among the world's peoples, persuading them that
Apleon really is God, and worthy of worship.  The whole world has seen
and heard of the marvellous miracles of "The Prophet," as he is called.

The infatuation of all the world for the Man of Sin, Lucien Apleon, was
almost absolute and complete.  He ruled the world, every department of
it--social, political, commercial, religious.  He blasphemed God.  He
blasphemed the translated Church that occupied the Heavenlies with her
Lord.

Day by day, week by week, month by month he grew bolder, more impious,
more cruel, more persecuting to the saints that were then living to God.

And through all this time Enoch and Elijah continued their "witness"
for their Lord.  As judgment prophets, they had been sent in this age
of judgment, to resist the awful, the gigantic blasphemies of
Anti-christ, and to give to the poor, vain, deluded world its last
awful warning.  For bad as had been the apostate Church, so recently
destroyed, the worship of Anti-christ himself, would be infamously more
impious.

The world hated them, yet _feared_ the two witnesses.  More than once
when blatant blasphemers, agents of Apleon, had openly opposed them,
and cursed them and their witnessing, these witnesses of Jesus Christ,
"_the faithful and true witness_," had sent forth fire from themselves
and consumed their enemies.  And the world had learned to fear them,
though they ignored their warnings.

Many times, too, they had wrought fearful, havoc-making miracles, so
that as it was with the Egyptians so, the days of Moses, so it came to
be with all the peoples who witnessed the miracles of these prophets,
Enoch and Elijah, for they shut the Heaven, in many places, "that rain
should not fall during the days of their prophesying."  They turned the
waters into blood, and "smote the earth with every plague as often as
they willed."  Until the people hated, and _feared_ them, yet, all the
time, they hardened themselves against God, and the testimony of the
two prophets, as Pharaoh hardened himself against God.

The multitudes learned that though they were absolutely powerless to
hurt the TWO WITNESSES themselves, yet, given that THE WITNESSES were
not present the mob found that they could work their will upon their
followers--and they did, continually.

It was the morning before the great event that had been announced, the
nature of the coming event was not known, though a hundred speculations
were rife.  The city was astir early, for the night had been too sultry
for much sleeping, and everyone was more or less excited, as to what
would be the great event which the next thirty hours--more or less--was
to bring.  As the sun mounted higher and higher the whole of the
districts around the city belched forth their tens of thousands of
curious people of every nationality, their goal the city itself.

Suddenly--the suddenness was like some magical effect--the two
worst-hated beings in all the world, appeared on a mound of marble
blocks, within a hundred yards of and _out_side the Jaffa Gate.

They were God's two gracious, faithful WITNESSES.  The multitudes began
to converge towards the spot where they had suddenly appeared.  (It was
a curious fact, however much people might hate the testimony of the TWO
WITNESSES they seemed to have no power to pass on, when once the men of
God began to preach.)

"Men and brethren of every clime," rang out the voice of Enoch.  "Once
again, in the name of Jehovah--Jesus, we lift our voices to warn you of
the shortness of the time left unto you in which to repent, and to turn
unto God.

"Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die? as die you certainly will under
the breath of the Christ, when He presently shall come--for He shall
'slay with the breath of His mouth.'

"We preach not the gospel of the grace of God which, aforetime, before
'The Rapture,' was preached, that gospel which was good news of glad
tidings to all sinners.  That gospel told how He had lived on earth for
over thirty-years--God inhabiting a human body, for God was in Christ
reconciling the world unto Himself--it told how He died a death of
shame and agony, a substitute for sinners, so that whosoever should
believe on Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.  And as
many as believed on Him gave He power to become the sons of God.

"It told of His coming again to receive all those sons of God, dead or
living, unto Himself in the Heavenlies.  Less than four years ago He
came.  Thousands who knew the truth, but had not accepted it, before He
came, did so after the RAPTURE of the saints, and thousands of those
have already sealed, and many more thousands will yet, seal their faith
with their blood.

"The days of our testimony draws shorter now, we have few more
opportunities of warning you, and of witnessing to our God.  But here,
once more, this morning, we preach unto you the gospel of the Kingdom.
The gospel of the coming Kingdom of Christ.

"'For He shall reign whose right it is, and of His kingdom of peace,
and joy, and love there shall be no end.'  For nearly two thousand
years men have prayed 'Thy kingdom come.'  It is coming soon, but
before He begins His reign, He shall put down all enemies under His
feet.  None will be able to hide from Him for His eyes will be as a
flame of fire.

"Those who will _now_ seek Him, accept Him as their king, whether He
comes in their life-time, or whether they lay down their lives as
faithful witnesses to His coming, all such we proclaim, shall live the
glorious life which He has for such."

The crowd numbered a hundred thousand now, and the majority of them
kept up a sullen murmur against the preaching.

A native prince of a notable eastern realm, plucked a javelin-type of
weapon from his cumberband and hurled it full into the face of the
preacher.  It never reached its mark, but, boomerang like, it returned
to the thrower and shattered and entered his right temple.

But for the density of the crowd, the eastern would have dropped to the
earth like a stone--for he was dead.

A way was made for a few to drag the body clear of the mob, then, once
clear, those who dragged it thence returned to the crowd.  "Without
natural affection,"--a trait of the Times--had degenerated into
"without common humanity."

For half-an-hour longer THE TWO WITNESSES preached, warned, pleaded
with the multitude.  Then they stepped from the pile of marble blocks,
and passed quietly away.

As was customary after every such session of testimony, the crowd split
up into many groups and discussed the whole situation.

On this occasion some five hundred men and women, mostly Jews, who had
received the testimony,[1] were moving off in a body, when an unlocked
for incident occurred.

Through all the witnessing of God's two prophets, there had stood among
the listening crowd, a tall, swarthy-faced man, richly attired, a Jew
by race, (that was evident from the marked Hebrew lines of his face).
The expression of his face, during the WITNESSING, had alternated
between mocking and rage.  Now his eyes followed the departing band of
men and women who were loyal to the Gospel of the Kingdom.

With a scornful, devilish laugh, he pointed to the departing people, as
he cried: "If we cannot kill the spawn that preaches, why not kill the
hatched-out ones?"

The crowd was ripe for anything.  With a roar, like unto Hell itself,
they raced after the godly band and in a moment surrounded them,
brandishing the long murderous knives of the east, and revolvers of the
west.

The foul work of wiping out the whole band of faithful ones began.
Every shot went home, every knife found a faithful heart.  The twin
lusts of hate and of religious fanaticism burned in the breasts of the
mob.  It was a carnival of cruelty and blood.  Everyone wanted to see
it.  Other thousands hearing the sound of the shots, poured through the
gates of the city.  Everyone wanted a sight of the _entertainment_--for
this the slaying was regarded, as, of old-time, Rome entertained
herself by filling the eighty thousand seats of the great theatre, to
see the Christians thrown to the lions.

There was not a coign of vantage to which the mob did not climb.  They
climbed upon the roofs, the balconies, held themselves perilously upon
the sloping verandas, they stood upon window-sills, and hung from
electric light pillars, and tram-line standards.  They shouted, and
sang, and urged upon the slayers to mutilate as well as kill "the
carrion."

Then, suddenly, above all the din, and above even the crack of
revolvers, the great song of Apleon, that foul ode of idolatrous
laudation, set to most wonderful music, rang out from thousands of
excited throats.  The song was Hell-born, and hellishly sung.

When, a moment later the whole mob had trampled upon the slain
believers--wantonly, heedlessly trod upon them,--in their passage
towards the city, the swarthy Jew who had incited the crowd to their
deed of blood, lit a cigarette, and crossed to where his aerial-chair
waited him.  He stepped into the upholstered seat, and turned his head
to watch the mob, then with that evil laugh of his, he muttered: "Men
are but sheep after all, and will follow any bell-wether!"

To his waiting driver, he said: "Esdraelon."  The next moment the chair
rose in the air, and like some wondrous bird soared away, northwards.

The swarthy Jew was Apleon's Chaplain, the false prophet.

Jerusalem was enormously crowded.  Thousands upon thousands of people
had come up from Babylon, as well as from every part of the world.  The
news had been flashed all over the earth, that some world-important
event in connection with the Emperor-Dictator, would take place during
this last week of the first three-and-a-half years of the "Great
Covenant."

At the time of the offering of the Morning Lamb, just as the course of
officiating priests were preparing for the slaughter of the lamb,
Apleon's resident viceroy, entered the Temple enclosure, followed by a
military detachment, and, accompanied by Apleon's chaplain, he whom God
the Holy Ghost has called the false Prophet.  The latter ordered the
priest in charge of the "Course," to cease the offering, and to the
amazed protest of the priest, he laughed scornfully, vouchsafing no
other explanation than that it was his and the Emperor's command, that
_all_ Jewish worship-ritual should cease.

The priests could do no other than obey the command, enforced, as it
was, by the presence of the Viceroy, _and the military force_.

The High-Priest lived a mile away from the Temple.  One of the minor
officials went off to apprise him of this strange new order.

As the man made his way down the marble road to the city level, he met
a ponderous motor-driven trolley of great length--the thing was
evidently bound for the Temple.  Two hundred workmen followed behind
the trolley, and the Temple-messenger noticed that on the trolley,
lying beside the huge coffin-like packing-case that formed its chief
burden, were a number of hoisting and hauling tackles, with a pile of
handspikes, jacks, etc.

It was an hour before the messenger returned, the High-Priest
accompanying him.  By that time wonders--infernal wonders--had been
wrought.

From the packing case there had been taken a gigantic image of Lucien
Apleon, and it had been reared upon a plinth of dark green marble, upon
the tessellated platform _within_ the Temple.

The statue was of gold, and upon the green marble plinth was engraved:
"I AM THAT I AM!"

In amazed, frightened horror, the High-Priest gazed for one moment upon
the idolatrous abomination, then, as his blood boiled with a holy,
righteous indignation, he thundered forth the words:

"Thou shalt have no other God before me.

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, . . . .  Thou shalt
not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am
a jealous God--."

"Take that foul, idolatrous thing hence!" he cried, with passionate
warmth.  His eyes were fixed upon Apleon's chaplain, (the false
Prophet) whose mocking smile, as he stood by the gang of workmen,
angered him beyond measure.

Not a man moved at the order of the High-Priest, and he thundered forth
his command again:

"Take that abomination down, and hence, or I will call upon Jehovah to
send His judgment fire down and consume you all, and the idol as well."

With a blasphemous oath, the false Prophet, spat in the forehead of the
fulminating Priest, and hissed:

"Silence, fool, idiot, driveller!"

As the foul spittle touched the face of the Priest, he fell prone upon
his back on the pavement of the Temple.  A dead hush fell upon everyone
present, for as they gazed upon the face of the dead Priest they saw
that the whole forehead became filled with the "Mark of the Beast."

The silence of this awesome hush was suddenly, startlingly broken by a
peal of mocking laughter.  It came from Lucien Apleon's deputy, the
false Prophet.

Then, more startling still, the lips of the golden image parted, and in
deep, solemn tones the idol cried:

"So perish all who shall dare to oppose the Emperor Lucien's will."

This was no trick.  It was not a mechanical device within the image.
It was not a clever piece of ventriloquism.  Of this we are
assured--the image actually spoke.  God's word cannot lie, and John,
under the command of God, wrote it down: "_It was given the false
Prophet to give spirit to the image of the Beast, that the image of the
Beast should even speak_."

"_To give SPIRIT to the image_!"  What does that mean?  Does it mean
that life was given to it, temporarily?  Who shall say?  Certainly it
_spoke_!

Unseen, unnoticed, at the very moment that the High-Priest fell, slain
by the false Prophet, there had entered the Temple, Cohen, who had been
High-Priest for the _first_ year of this new Temple's history.

He slipped away as the image uttered its speech.  He met many of the
priests of other of the Courses, as they were approaching the Temple,
also numbers of the devout Jews of the city and its suburbs, and many
from other parts of the world, who had been specially drawn hither by
the news that had been flashed world-wide, as to some great event about
to happen in Jerusalem.

"Stay!" he cried.  His looks told of something serious, and in an
instant he was the centre of an eager, anxious, enquiring crowd of Jews.

"Jehovah help us!" he went on.  "For those who would be true to Him
now, must be prepared for flight or for death.  Apleon, is a traitor!
'_He hath put forth his hands against such as be at peace with him; he
hath broken his covenant._'  Psalm lv. 20.  '_He confirmed a covenant
with us for seven years_.'  Daniel ix. 27.  '_The words of his mouth
were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were
softer than oil, yet were drawn swords_.'  Psalm lv. 21."

Cohen, even while he had been speaking had led the crowding Jews away
from that main road, and now, in a _cul-de-sac_, he was continuing his
words.

"Blind!  Blind! that we were, all of us, I, especially, for my Gentile
friend, the editor of 'The Courier'--London daily paper--warned me.  He
told me of the meaning of our own prophet Daniel's words, '_In the
midst of the week_ (the seven years of the covenant we made with that
apostate) _he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease_.'

"This he has done this morning.  The priests were stopped in their
preparations for the morning sacrifice.

"'_And,_' said our father, Daniel, '_for the over-spreading of
abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation_.'
Daniel ix. 27.

"Brethren, of the House of Israel, the Lord our God is one God.  I am
no Mehushmad, but in common with many of our rabbis, I have read the
Gentile New Testament, and there, in the words of the Nazarene Prophet,
(Matt. xxiv. 15, 16.) He prophesied exactly what has come to pass this
morning in our beautiful Temple, for he said:

"'_When ye_ (that is we of the House of Israel) _therefore, shall see
the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand
in the holy place_ (of the Temple)--_whoso readeth, let him
understand:--then let them which be in Judaea flee into the
mountains . . . and pray ye that your flight be not on the sabbath day.
For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the
beginning of the world to this time, nor ever shall be_.'

"Jehovah help us, brethren!  This morning has convinced me that these
times are upon us.  What _this_ day will bring none but Jehovah can
tell!  My last word to you, my advice to you all, is, flee this city,
flee the neighbourhood.  For weeks I have had it borne in upon my soul,
that the man we have covenanted with, was working some deep, subtle,
hellish scheme.  Now he hath shown his hand, there are but three
courses open to us, _idolatry_--worshipping that idol set up in our
holy place, yonder; _flight_; or _death_."

Even as Cohen harangued his crowd of priests and Jews, Apleon rode up
the white marble road to the Temple.  The Hebrew crowd was quite hidden
from any observation from that main road.  It was well for them,
doubtless, that it was so.

A moment or two after Apleon and the mighty throng which followed him
had passed, the crowd of Jews left the _cul-de-sac_, and silently,
anxiously dispersed in various directions.

Cohen found himself walking with the man who had been Hight-priest last
year.  Together they conversed in low, serious, guarded tones, until
they suddenly discovered themselves close up to a mighty throng
gathered about the now well-known witnesses, Enoch and Elijah.

The two priests paused to listen to the witnesses' denunciations of
Apleon, whom they designated "The Beast."--"The Anti-christ."  Both men
had listened often before to these prophets of God, and both had often
been well-nigh convinced of the truth of the testimony of the two
witnesses.

"It is said," whispered Cohen, to his fellow-priest, "that these two
men are the two prophets of the Most High God, Enoch and Elijah--those
two of God's servants who never passed through death."

"The three and a half years of their witnessing," replied the second
priest, "have been crowded with incident, miracle, and much that has
been supernatural.  They say that no man has seen them eat.  That, like
Elijah, when upon earth, they too have been super-naturally fed.  Then,
too, nothing has been able to harm them.  Apleon (the priest's voice
was lowered to the merest whisper) has directed his agents to war
against them over and over again.  They have shot at them, hurled
vitrol upon them, and tried to seize them, to bind them, but as they
have themselves testified again and again, nothing can harm them _until
they have finished their testimony_."

Cohen bent closer to his fellow-priest, as he whispered: "The book of
Revelation, in the Gentile New Testament, declares that '_they shall
prophesy a thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sack-cloth.
And when they have completed their testimony, the Beast that cometh up
out of the abyss_ (I believe that is Apleon) _shall make war with them,
and overcome them, and kill them_.'"

"Now if this come to pass, then they will die to-day, for it is a
thousand two hundred and sixty days, this very evening, since they
began their preaching, and----.  But, listen, to what the one of them
is saying."

The voice of Enoch rang out as it had done five thousand years before,
when he had prophesied, saying, "_Behold! the Lord cometh with ten
thousands of His saints to execute judgment upon all; and to convince
all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they
have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly
sinners have spoken against Him--_."

But now the message of the prophet had in it testimony as well as
warning:

"Have we not warned you for three years and a half, that the man,
Apleon, whom you have all trusted in, was but the tool of his father,
the Devil?  Have we not told you often that he worked upon your deluded
minds and imaginations for one purpose only, to keep you from 'The God
of Salvation,' and that, presently, he would set up his own image to be
worshipped in that gilded thing of unbelief, upon that mount, yonder?"

A peal of derisive, mocking laughter greeted this statement.

The voice of the prophet cut the laughter, with its supernatural
incisiveness, so that it rose clear and distinct above the laughter:

"And now all that we prophesied has come to pass.  The image of Apleon
(the abomination of desolation) spoken of by Daniel the prophet, has
this morning been set up in the Temple over there.  '_And that Man of
Sin . . . opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God,
or that is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the Temple of
God, showing himself that he is God_.'  2 Thess. ii. 4.

"Upon the pedestal of his image, that was reared this morning, he has
caused to be engraved the very name of our Jehovah God--'I AM THAT I
AM!' as he supposes it to be, because it is thus translated in the
Bibles of the world.  There is no sense in that way of putting it, as
there is no sense, nothing but vanity and coming failure and fall, in
that 'Man of Sin' himself.  But he has chosen to ape Jehovah-God by
using '_I am, that I am!_' instead of the true translation which has
evidently been hidden from him and which is: 'I AM HE WHO AM FOR EVER!"

"_He is Anti-christ, that denieth the Father and the Son_.  1 John ii.
22.  The Scriptures have been issued by millions, every soul of you
here has had an opportunity of knowing the things whereof we again
testify.  You have heard, or read, or both, (or you could have done if
you would) that he, the Man of Sin, '_would cause an image of himself
to be made, that he would give life to it, and that the image should
speak_' (Rev. xiii. 14, 15).  All this has happened this morning, and
all else will happen that is prophesied.  Therefore we cry:

"_Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?  Why should ye be stricken any
more?  Ye will revolt more and more.  From the sole of the foot even
unto the head there is no soundness in you, but wounds and bruises and
putrefying sores: Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your
doings from before God's eyes; cease to do evil.  Turn ye, turn ye, for
why will ye die?_"

Strangely affected by the power and earnestness of this witness of God,
Cohen and his fellow-priest turned reluctantly away.  In the heart of
each of them was the determination to be clear of the Jerusalem
neighbourhood that very forenoon, if possible.  In fact before one
o'clock had struck, that mid-day, there had taken place a really
remarkable exodus from the city and its neighbourhood.  Of these, many
were Jews, in whose composition there was deeply engraved a deep-seated
antagonism to all idolatry.

Then, too, there were many "Kingdom believers" (by what other name can
we call them, since, having missed Salvation by the "Gospel of Grace,"
they now served God, while waiting for Christ's coming to set up His
kingdom.) Many of these fled the city and its neighbourhood, for they
counted not their lives dear when it came to a case of blasphemy and
idolatry.  Yet, because the love of life is inherent with the race, and
because, too, these "Kingdom believers," learned to bring others to
God, before the final judgments came, and knowing that it was written
"that as many as will not worship the image of the Beast shall be
killed," they fled Jerusalem.



[1] The Author, in common with every other public speaker, and writer,
on these themes, has been so often asked the question, "What of my
loved ones who are out of Christ, how will they fare when we are gone,
and the Church is gone?"  Let me say that the more I study the
Scriptures of the times of which this volume speaks, the more I am
convinced that of the many who are brought to accept Christ (in the
Gospel of His coming to reign, "the Gospel of the Kingdom,") through
the sudden translation of the Church, even though they be ill-taught,
perhaps only half-hearted, they will, under the preaching of the TWO
WITNESSES, be wholly brought into fellowship with Christ, and will,
themselves in turn, become faithful witnesses to the TRUTH.  There is
nothing in Scripture to warrant the belief that the preaching of the
TWO WITNESSES will be confined to Jerusalem, and it is surely
reasonable to suppose that London, Edinburgh, New York, Chicago,
Berlin, and all other chief cities, will hear their voices in witness
and warning.  They will doubtless have thousands of converts, Jew and
Gentile alike, or where will the great multitude whom John saw, come
from.  But all those left behind when Christ comes, who may be won to
Him afterwards, will not only miss the glories of _the Heavenlies_ with
Christ, but will suffer persecution, and many of them death at the
hands of Anti-christ and his emissaries.  (Author.)




CHAPTER XIV.

DEATH OF THE "TWO WITNESSES."

Apleon had been on the Temple mount for two hours.  Part of that time
he had been in the Temple itself, in and out of which there passed
continually, streams of people, all curious to see the wonderful image
of Apleon, the image that had spoken, and that had slain "unbelievers."

Apleon had watched the ever-moving crowds of dupes, and noticed how
every one of them bowed, or prostrated themselves before his image.  He
noticed, too, whenever his own presence had been realized, that the
worshippers, while bowing _before_ the image faced him, Apleon, so that
they really gave _him_ the worship.

In spite of all that Romanists, and others of a similar cult, may say,
the _worship_ of an image or of a statue, means the worship of the
person imaged or sculptured--this is the very essence of all
image-worship.  The great Chrysostom, in one of his records of his
time, says:

"_When the images of the Emperor are sent down and brought into a city,
its rulers and multitude go out to meet them with carefulness and
reverence, not honouring the tablet or the representation moulded in
wax, but the standing of the Emperor._"

Athanasius wrote:

"_He who worshippeth the image, in it worshippeth the emperor; for the
image is his form and likeness._"

And the worship, in the Jerusalem Temple, of the _image_ of Apleon,
("The Beast") was the worship of the man himself.

There is a very curious word in Habakkuk ii. 9, "_Woe to him that saith
to the wood, 'Awake!' to the dumb stone, "Arise, it shall teach._"
Apleon, the Anti-christ actually qualifies himself for that "woe" of
God's.

A notice had been promulgated that in the "Broadway"--the wide, open
square from which the great marble road to the Temple opened
out,--throughout the whole day, the new "Covenant" brands would be
affixed.

The "Covenant" sign, had for three years and a half been mostly worn
(as we have seen) in the form of a ring on the right hand, or as a
pendant frontlet upon the forehead.  Some few million enthusiasts, it
is true, had worn it _branded_ on the flesh of the forehead, but this
had not been universal.

Now it had been decreed by Apleon, and endorsed by his second, the
false Prophet, that the wearing of a _detatchable_ "Sign," be no longer
permissable, that _all must be branded--or die_.

Brands, in several sizes, had been prepared, which, when pressed
against the forehead, and worked by a spring-lever, left the damnable
mark upon the skin in deep, rich purple characters.  The surface of the
branding instrument was peculiarly soft and yielding, so that when, by
the automatic inking, the mark was made, there was never an imperfect
sign, but every character was truly formed.  The ink used, claimed to
be absolutely indelible, and those who had tried it, more than two
years before, had found no break in any single line or curve if either
of the characters.

For two hours, a hundred branders had been at work at their truly
hellish task, and if the _donning_ of the badges, three and a half
years before had been in a veritable _holiday_ spirit, the acceptance
of the brand, now, was with a blend of rapturous joy, and of actual
worship.

With the infernal cunning which has ever characterized Satan's efforts
to thwart God and His Christ, he has counterfeited every rite, every
sacrament of Christ's Church.  Hence Apleon, Satan's tool, is very keen
upon this matter of a baptismal sign.  He makes a sacrament of it (i.
e. an oath or covenant of fidelity.)  To show their allegiance to his
infernal lordship, Anti-christ's subjects must now wear his brand so
that it can never be erased or removed, and his chaplain ("The False
Prophet") "_causeth all, the small and the great, and the rich and the
poor, and the free and the bond, to receive_"--literal translation--"_a
stamp or brand, on their right hand, or on their forehead_."

The preaching of the cross, of Jesus Christ as the World's Redeemer,
the putting away of sin, and the gift of eternal life by faith in God's
word of grace, the baptism into the name of Christ, had, for several
decades, been growingly scouted as "foolishness."  "An obsolete
doctrine," all that was voted.  "Men are far too intelligent to be
bound by such a Bible creed as that.  New times need new doctrines,"
etc., etc.

The twenty years immediately preceding the manifestation of the "Man of
Sin," had been characterized by such utterances, and many others
infinitely more impious, blasphemous, and senseless.  "_But after the
world by its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through
the foolishness of the thing preached, to save them that believe_ . . .
Because THE FOOLISHNESS OF GOD is WISER THAN MEN."  But when
Anti-christ shall promulgate his devil-doctrines, senseless,
idolatrous, humiliating, the bulk of men of every grade and class, will
suffer themselves to be branded like cattle in a round-up.  Believing
"the lie," deluded by that universal lie, they will have no choice,
save to be branded, or to die.  And to yield themselves to the infernal
brand will mean to be cut off for ever from God.

"_If any man worship the Beast and his image, and receive his mark in
his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the
wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His
indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the
presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and the
smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever; and they have no
rest day or night, who worship the Beast and his image_, AND WHOSOEVER
RECEIVETH THE MARK OF HIS NAME." (Rev. xiv. 9-11.)

Simultaneous with the beginning of the branding, the two witnesses had
taken up a position close by the branders, and had persistently
witnessed to the near coming of the Lord in judgment upon those who
wore the Mark of the Beast, while, at the same time, they denounced
Apleon as the Anti-christ.

Over and over again during their testimony, attempts had been made to
silence them, every conceivable death-attack had been made upon
them--but nothing harmed them.  No weapon formed against them could
prosper, until their "witness" was completed.  And every one who had
assisted in any form, in attacking them, had died in the act.

Now, Apleon, attended by the ten kings, who had been summoned to
Jerusalem, rode down from the Temple.  At the branding station, the ten
kings dismounted, and each received the foul mark on the forehead.

As the last of them received the brand, a startled wondering cry burst
from some of the multitude who thronged "The Broadway," and following
the many pointing fingers of the startled ones, every one saw how that
purple, lambent flames played about Apleon's forehead in the form of
the "Covenant" sign.

"_He doeth great wonders in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that
dwell on the earth by means of these miracles._"  Rev. xiii. 12, 14.

"_Power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations._"
Rev. xiii. 7.  "_He shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt
himself, and magnify himself above every God._"

Acclaiming him as very God, the people suddenly prostrated themselves
in worship before the great deceiver.

Suddenly the voices of the two witnesses were heard.  Both voices were
clear and distinct, yet neither clashed with the other, even though
each voice used separate terms.  They stood about a hundred yards apart
from each other.

Everyone rose to their feet, every eye was fixed upon the two grand,
fearless faces, as they thundered forth their words of warning of
judgment, of entreaty.  Then suddenly they turned their gaze and their
speech upon Apleon himself.

As the "Te Deum" sprang spontaneously from the lips of Ambrose and
Augustine, each saint voicing an alternate stanza, so now the two
witnesses hurled their fulminations against the Man of Sin:

"_Thou heart of all foulness and deceiveableness, with the breath of
His lips shall the Christ slay thee._"  Isa. xi. 4.

"_Thou marked one, the Lord shall consume thee with the spirit of His
mouth, and shall destroy thee with the brightness of His coming._"  2
Thess. ii. 8.

"_O thou enemy!  Thy destructions shall soon come to a perpetual end._"
Ps. lx. 6.

"_It shall come to pass in that day_ (when Jehovah shall deliver His
people out of thy hands) _saith the Lord of Hosts, that I will break
thy yoke_ (Apleon Emperor, Man of Sin, Anti-christ) _from off the
'peoples' neck._"  Jer. xxx 8.

"_Judgment shall sit, and Christ shall take away thy kingdom, to
consume and to destroy it unto the end._"  Dan. vii. 26.

"_Tophet is ordained of old, yea for thee, thou Man of Sin, it is
prepared: God hath made it deep, and large; the pile thereof is fire
and much wood: the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth
kindle it._"  Isa. xxx. 33.

"_And thou shall be taken, and with thee The False Prophet, thy
co-adjutor, he whom thou hast deputed to work miracles before thee, and
in thy foul name, and with all those whom thou and thy False Prophet
have deceived, who have received thy brand on them, and who have
worshipped thine image.--These all, you, your prophet, and your dupes,
shall be cast into a lake of fire burning with brimstone_".  Rev. xiii.
2, 3.  Rev. xix. 20.

Low and mocking, a laugh broke from Apleon, upon whose brow there still
played that lambent flame.  The laugh was caught up by the multitude,
until one far-reaching volume of mocking, derisive laughter went
rolling out-and-away from The Broadway, to Gareth and Goab, and every
other suburb of the city, and back again.

As the last echo of the laughter died away, Apleon called, to his
Viceroy:

"Where is the axe and the block?"

"Here, Sire!"

A score of men bearing broad, gleaming axes, with thrice a score of
others, bearing, each three, a blood-red enamelled block, came forward
into the centre of the square.

"Take those two drivelling prophets, and behead them!" cried Apleon.

A thousand hands were stretched towards the witnesses.  This time they
were readily taken.  Their bodies were dragged to the blocks, and with
one stroke to each, they were beheaded.

With a shout of triumph, that spread far and wide, the people acclaimed
Apleon as "God Almighty."

"Let no man touch that carrion, to bury it!"

Was the order of Apleon.

That was to be doubly his hour of triumph.  All arrangements had been
made for his official coronation.  An immense awning of purple and gold
silk, was stretched over the whole of "The Broadway."

The time occupied in stretching the whole thing was not more than sixty
seconds.  A throne of Ivory, Pearl, and gold was set in the centre of
the pavement, beneath the awning.  Everything was done with the
rapidity of a stage-setting in a theatre--_it was all very theatrical_!

A score of trumpeters executed a wonderful fanfare, then, amid more
pomp than the world had ever yet seen, a crown, of fabulous value and
of extraordinary magnificence, was set upon the head of Apleon, who
occupied the throne, each of the ten kings actually touching, and
helping to set the crown upon his head.

Hitherto, Apleon, though upheld by the ten kings and governments, had,
after all, been an un-crowned Dictator.  Now, in the hour of his
seeming triumph over "The Two Witnesses," he was crowned Roman Emperor
of the ten-kingdomed confederacy.

When the coronation ceremony was finally completed, and Apleon, mounted
on his black horse, and surrounded by the ten kings, started to ride
back to the Palace, he ordered messages to be flashed to all the cities
of the world, announcing three days of rejoicing over the slaying of
the Witnesses, and also the announcement of his own coronation.

The rejoicings in Jerusalem, Babylon, and elsewhere, over the death of
"The Witnesses" was wilder than the "Mafficking" [Transcriber's note:
Mafeking?] in England of the Boer war days.  The two Witnesses had been
a source of torment and fear upon all peoples (save those who clove to
God) and now that their headless bodies lay stark and dead on the
marble pave of "The Broadway," the people "_rejoiced upon them, made
merry, and sent gifts one to another_."  Rev. xi. 10.

The outrage upon decency, sanitation, and even common humanity, in
suffering the two bodies to remain unburied, lasted three days and a
half.  Three days and a half was long enough period for the
representatives of every nation, gathered in the city and
neighbourhood, to be perfectly assured that they were dead.  "_And
certain ones from among the peoples and the tribes and tongues and
nations behold their corpses three days and a half, and suffer not
their corpses to be put in sepulchre_."  Rev. xi. 9.

When Edward the 7th of Britain, lay dead in the great Abbey of the
Empire, it was counted high honour to be part of the _silent_ guard
over the coffin.

And men almost fought for the privilege to stand guard over the
headless forms of the Two Witnesses lying on that marble pave in
Jerusalem: "_It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem_."
Luke xiii. 33.

But _these_ death-guards were not silent.  They laugh scornfully,
derisively, and crack jokes upon the now silenced testimony of the Two
Witnesses.  Caricatures, and comic cuts upon their lives, their death,
their oft-repeated warnings, were printed and sold in the streets of
the city.

It was the evening of the fourth day after the setting up of the image
in the Temple, and three and a half days since the Witnesses were
slain.  A last, a final public function before the dispersal of the
kings, and others specially gathered for the coronation, and other
ceremonies, had been arranged for 6 o'clock in "The Broadway."

Apleon, and the other kings had gathered.  The trumpeters had blown one
blast upon their silver instruments, when a cry of horror burst from
the gathered multitudes.  For the bodies of the Two Witnesses suddenly
stood upon their feet.

They were facing Apleon, as they stood up.  Their eyes met his
startled, fearsome gaze.  His face was deathly pale.  A tomb-like hush
of awe and fear was upon the gathered peoples.

Suddenly, overhead, _three_ deep notes, like thunder rolled through
space.  The multitude thought it was thunder, the resurrected Witnesses
knew it for the voice of their Lord, crying "_Come up hither!_"

And instantly their bodies rose in the sight of all the people.  No
awning was spread over the square, this evening, and every eye beheld
the ascent of the resurrected saints, a wondrous cloud seeming to
upbear them upon its billowy whiteness.

An overwhelming fear fell upon everyone.  The arranged kingly function
was suspended.  Yet still the people remained.  It was as though they
were spell-bound.

And while everyone waited, wondering and fearing, a low, deep rumbling
was heard beneath their feet.  Then the earth trembled, and rocked.

For one long, shuddering instant every voice was hushed, horror got
hold of the people.  Then in a moment yells and shrieks of terror
escaped men and women alike.  From the roofs of the houses there came
piteous cries for help, for, with the trembling of the earth, the
houses rocked like children's houses of cards.

It grew dark, and bewildered by the sudden awfulness of the whole
situation, and maddened by the hopelessness born of the sense of
insecurity of even the foot of ground upon which each stood, the mob
rushed blindly hither and thither.  Panic, in its most hideous form got
hold of them.  In their blind, unseeing rushes they collided with each
other, and a score of fierce passions leaped to life within them, chief
of which was a lust for war.  Madly, savagely, senselessly, neither
knowing or caring with whom they fought, they stabbed and shot, and
clawed and scratched, and boxed and wrestled with each other.

The many horses stampeded, and beat down hundreds of the people beneath
their iron hoofs.

The darkness deepened, it grew sooty, inky.  The horrors pressed upon
the people, women and children, and even men grovelled on their faces
in the dust, clutching and clawing at the ground.

Thunder in the heavens, and thunder under the earth deafened and
terrified every soul.  Fierce, wide, jagged ribbons of awful flame came
out of the blackened heavens.  Scores of thunderbolts, red and flaming,
leaped out of the blackness of cloud above, and, hissing as they came,
wrought awful death among the mobs upon which they descended.  The
smell of burning flesh filled the air, making a new horror.

The thunder and rumble beneath the earth increased.  The whole surface
of the city heaved like the swell of a storm-tossed sea.  Chasms,
fissures, gulfs yawned every-where, and thousands of people toppled
into the opened earth.  Suddenly, the whole heavens were filled with an
appalling succession of frightful crashings; it was as though hundreds
of millions of powerful rockets were exploding in successive volleys of
millions each.  Beneath the earth, thunders and crashings went on at
the same time.  Then, in every direction, the earth fissured and gaped
and yawned wider than ever, and with blood-curdling roarings and
crashings, a whole tenth part of the city tottered and fell into the
yawning gulfs, with thousands upon thousands of people.

Slowly, the rumble of falling buildings, and the hideous thunders below
and aloft died away, and a strange, awesome hush fell upon the city.
Slowly, too, the darkness melted, leaving the sky blood-red.  The blood
gradually merged into pink towards the centre of the dome, the pink
became gold, then every living eye in the city and suburbs became
centred upon that golden centre, and all saw the forms of the TWO
WITNESSES, with a pavement of dazzling white cumulus beneath their
sandalled feet.

The wondrous scene was as the very voice of God to the watching
multitudes, if they could but have understood, the voice testifying to
the power and truth of God and His word.

It was the _new_, the fashionable part of the city that had suffered in
the earthquake and its attendant horrors--the part of the city where
"Satan's seat was," chiefly.

With the engulphing of the most fashionable part of the city, there was
a consequent heavy toll of human life.  Seven thousand men of name, of
notable rank, perished in the earthquake.

When the last building had tottered into the yawning chasms of the
riven earth, and the souls of the late deriders of God had toppled into
their hell; when the clouds of dust had cleared away; when no further
earth-rumble came, then with a gasp of terror the remainder of the
gathered thousands of people "_Gave glory to God_."

There was no worship; no sorrow for their sin; no repentance; not even
any remorse; certainly no conversions of the whole mass, any more than
were of Jaunes and Jambres, when they declared, of the Miracles of
Moses and Aaron, "_This is the finger of God_."

Some there were, who had been near to yielding to the pleadings of the
Two Witnesses, who were wholly won to God in this hour, but the vast
mass of the people continued to worship the Beast.  Their cry to God
had been but a terror-stricken cry.

By the morning the gathered masses had wholly recovered themselves, and
the suspended public function was carried out.  One part of this
function was the partition of Palestine among certain rulers,
millionaires, and others.  "_He_ (Anti-christ) _shall divide the land
for gain_."  Dan. xi. 39.

With the horror and fear of the survivors of this earthquake, the
"_Second Woe" was finished, "and behold the third woe cometh quickly_."




CHAPTER XV.

FLIGHT!  PURSUIT!

Throughout the latter half of the "Day of Blasphemy," when the
"Abomination of Desolation," had been set up in the Temple of
Jerusalem, the exodus of fearsome, fleeing people went on.  With nearly
three million visitors, from every land, the more or less rapid
departure of a hundred thousand or more, was not noticed.  In fact,
more than that number of persons might be expected to leave every
twenty-four hours--the ordinary exit of visitors after the special
visit.

But, presently, it was reported to Apleon, that a mighty exodus of Jews
and Gentiles, few of whom wore the "Brand of the Covenant," had taken
place, and was still taking place.  He had spies everywhere.

The whole of Jewish population, with those on visit to the city for
this special occasion, were either _for_ the Anti-christ or _against_
him, those against him were but a very small minority.

The deluded, idolatrous Jews will hate and betray their nearest and
dearest relations and friends, as Micah prophesied that they would:
"_Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide; keep the
doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom_."  Micah vii. 5.
_And endorsing this, Jesus said: "They shall deliver you up to be
afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all, for my
name's sake.  And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one
another, and, shall hate one another_."  Matt. xxiv.

With father, mother, brother, lover, sister, friend all acting as
betrayers of their own kith and kin, Apleon soon learned much that he
needed to know as to the fugitives.  He discovered that the many
thousand fleeing Jews had, first, at least, travelled southwards, and
he instructed his emissaries to ascertain the objective point of these
fleeing Jews.  He left the whole thing in the hands of his chaplain,
"The False Prophet," who had the essence of all the subtlety of Hell in
his composition, with all the devilish ingeniousness of cruelty of
every Inquisitor who had ever practised in past days.  A "lamb" in
seeming, he was a "dragon in actual nature."  Rev. xiii. 11.

Spies had informed him that Cohen, the first high-priest, was
undoubtedly the leader of the fugitives, but that his wife and daughter
had refused to accompany him.  "They are wholly with our World-Lord,
Apleon," one of the spies had said.

"Will Cohen, think you," asked the chaplain, "steal back under cover of
one of the dark nights and try to induce his wife to join him?"

"No," laughed the spy.  "He will think himself well rid of her.  She
has been the plague of his life.  Every drop of her blood is as sharp
as the juice of a lime.  Her lips distil wormwood.  And vinegar is a
cloying sweetness compared to her kindest thought or utterance, and----"

"But the daughter," interrupted the chaplain, sharply, "What of her?
Is she a replica of her mother?"

"Not a bit, not a bit of it!"  And the eyes of the betrayer flashed
with a new light.  "Miriam is as beautiful as a houri, as fair as the
light of a sun-lit day after a black night of tempest, and as sweet in
disposition as Rachel, the favoured of our father Jacob."

"If she is all this, why is she unwed? or perhaps she loves, and
perhaps we could make her a tool of her lover, and thus find out where
her father has led those dogs of fugitives."

There was a look of hate and malice in the eyes of the betrayer, as he
answered: "Yes, she loves, loves as her very life, but the man she
loves is an even greater zealot than her father, and he has gone with
Cohen--curse him! may he never more be seen by Miriam!"

The chaplain laughed maliciously: "Oh! the wind blows in that quarter,
eh?  You love the fair Miriam, but another has cut you out!"

The betrayer was inclined to be surly, but the chaplain knew how to
speak like the "_lamb_," and quickly mollified the young Hebrew.  Then,
together, they plotted and conferred, their plotting based on the
supposition that young Isaac Wolferstein, the fugitive lover of Miriam
would return, secretly, to induce Miriam to share the loyal-to-Jehovah
flight of himself and her father.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

The vineyard of Cohen was an eighth of a mile from his villa, and the
villa was a mile and a half from the Jaffa Gate of the city.  Miriam
had wandered out as far as the vineyard, for her heart was too sore to
sleep that night.  She made her way to the arbour, where so often Isaac
and she had held sweet and tender intercourse.  During the last twelve
hours, she had turned unto God and unto the Messiah who was so soon to
come to deliver His people and to set up His kingdom.

She had gazed upon the resurrected Two Witnesses, as they had appeared,
glorified, in the Heavens, after that awful earthquake.  And, recalling
the words of their preaching, and all that her lover and father had
urged upon her before they reluctantly left her, to flee the city, she
had been suddenly bowed before God, in penitence and prayer.

"If only Isaac would come back for me," she moaned, as she dropped
wearily upon the seat of the arbour.

"He has come back, Mirry, darling!"

At the first sound of the voice that spoke, she leaped to her feet,
crying: "Isaac!  Isaac!  Forgive me, dear, that I----"

She got no further, his arms enclosed her fair form, his hot lips gave
and received love's pure caress, and when at last he spoke again, it
was to say: "God has given us again each other, darling, and nothing
but death must ever part us again."

The hours passed and to them they seemed but as minutes.  He had much
to tell of the flight of the Believers, as he termed them, and had many
words of message from her father.

The morning comes early in Palestine.  At the first blush of dawn they
stole out of the vineyard, to where his motor waited.  They had eyes
only for each other, as, hand in hand, they moved through the morning
twilight.  Then, with a bewildering suddenness, from the off-side of
the motor, a dozen crouching men sprang out.

Five minutes later, amid the mocking, jeering laughter of their
captors, they were being taken to the city--only not together.  Miriam
was forced to ride _in_ the car seated by the side of their betrayer,
the man whom she hated, and whose love-overtures she had scorned and
repulsed.  Her wrists and her ankles were bound with cords, and she had
been lifted into the car, bodily, by the man of her hate.  To humble
her and to shame her, the cur had kissed her again and again before her
captive lover, then with a carefully judged malice, he had seated her,
by his side, on the seat that _faced_ the rear of the car, so that her
captive-lover would be further tormented by the sight of her, compelled
to accept his, his rival's, caresses.

Isaac Wolferstein was cruelly bound, fastened to the rear of the car,
and made to stumble over the road, and often to be dragged, when the
pace of the car carried him off his feet.  Once or twice he almost
fainted, for the soles of his feet were skinned--his captors had
purposely divested him of his shoes and socks.  The ants found out the
bare, bleeding feet and added torment to his pain.

The city was astir as the car entered.  The news was shouted from the
car, that one of the accursed, who defied "The Lord, Apleon," had been
captured, and was to be tortured in the Broadway.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

The great open space was crowded with people.  As, of old, the Roman
populace gathered in holiday, theatre mood to see the Christians
tortured and slain, so had this great concourse gathered about the
beautiful Miriam, and her handsome lover Isaac Wolferstein.

One of the Kiosks, from which "Covenant" brands were worked, was
opened, and the spring instrument was brought out.  Apleon's chaplain
was there, and in a voice heard clearly by everyone at the farthest
remove from him, he asked:

"Isaac Wolferstein, will you worship "The Lord Apleon?"

Wolferstein was hoarse with pain and thirst, but lifting his head
proudly, he looked the "_False Prophet_" full in the eyes, as he cried
fearlessly:

"Never!  Apleon, is a demon, and of his father Beelzebub!"

"Silence, you beast!" yelled his tormenter, and he struck him across
the lips with the stick he carried.  Then he turned towards the
beautiful Jewess, saying:

"Miriam Cohen.  Will you worship our Lord Apleon, and wear his brand?"

"Never!" she cried.

He spat at her, as he said, "Well, we shall see!"

He turned to Wolferstein again, saying: "Where has Cohen, the
ex-priest, and that herd of disloyal pigs gone?"

"I will not tell you!" replied the captive, proudly.

"You defy me, so be it.  Aha, aha!"  The "_False Prophet_" laughed
mockingly.  Turning to some of the Apleon guards who were massed on two
sides of the Broadway, he said:

"Strip him! and lash him----."  He lifted his eyes to the sun,
calculated how it would travel, then, with a fiendish smile, he
indicated one of the pillars of the colonnade, "lash him there were the
sun will reach him."

They tore the clothes from the fine form of the loyal young Jew.  Then,
when he was absolutely nude, they fastened him to the pillar.

A honey-seller stood in the crowd.  An officer of the guards spied the
man, and called him out.  "Take a handful of that fellow's honey," he
ordered one of his men, "and lightly smear that foul Jew's back and
shoulders, his face and ears too.  Don't put it on thickly, but as
light as you can, that the insects may find his flesh _through_ the
honey."

The officer's bidding was done.  Then began as hideous a martyrdom for
Isaac Wolferstein, as had ever come to a soul loyal to God.  The flies,
ants, and a score of other stinging things found him out.  His
honey-smeared flesh was black with them.

In his agony and torture he turned his eyes upon Miriam.  "My darling!"
he cried, as well as his dried leather tongue and throat would let him.
"God will pardon you, surely, if you bend to circumstances, and wear
the foul sign!"

"But I should never forgive myself, Isaac," she called.  "And how could
I meet Jehovah's searching eye, if I failed Him now.  Courage, courage
dear one!"

She knew, as we know, that Wolferstein meant no disloyalty to his God,
but that he was momentarily beside himself with the agony of his
torture and his love for her.

With a very suave, mocking smile, "_The False Prophet_" spoke across
the six yards that separated him from Miriam, saying:

"Tell us where your father and that foul herd that went with him, are
located."

"I will not, not even if you torture me to death," she cried.

"Wait until your torture begins, before you brag!" this to Miriam.
Then turning to some of the soldiers, he cried: "Strip her, don't leave
a rag upon her, and treat her from top to toe with that smearing of
honey!"

Wolferstein shut his teeth sharply with the agony that swept over him
at this order.  In that moment he was unmindful of his own torture, in
his dread contemplation of his loved one's shaming and torment.  He
shut his eyes that he might not see all that followed.

The brutal soldiery took a fiendish delight in fulfilling the order
given them.  They literally rent the clothes off the beautiful girl in
strips and ribbons.  Then when she stood absolutely nude before them,
they smeared the beautiful form with the honey.

"Lash her to that pillar," cried Apleon's hellish deputy.  He indicated
a pillar, adding: "While they will both get the full benefit of the
sun, they can see each other--lovers are never really happy out of
sight of each other!"

There was a roar of laughter at this thrust.

We cannot--there is no need to detail all their sufferings.  In less
than two hours both were crazed with the blistering sun, and the
ravening of the foul and biting insects.

Once, just before the crazing robbed him of coherent thought, the mind
of Wolferstein travelled to the Psalm he knew so well from his
childhood's days, and his black backed lips feebly murmured:

"Be not far from me, O God, for there is none to help me.  Many bulls
of Bashan have compassed me.  I am poured out like water, my heart is
like wax, it is melted within me.  My strength is dried up like a
potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; I am brought into the dust
of death; for dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked have
enclosed me.  Be not Thou far from me, O Lord: O my strength, haste
Thou to help me.  Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the
power of the dog."

The lovers were alike, both past speech a moment later, and it looked
as though they would soon be past consciousness.  Not a single eye,
apparently, in all that vast crowd, had cast a glance of pity upon
them, no voice had been raised in sympathetic pleading for them.
Devilism was the heart of all things, and it changed men and women into
veritable demons.  Their persecutors had been as fiends in their
torturing, and the onlookers enjoyed the scene as of some fine sport.

And now it looked as though both were dying.  Both were losing
consciousness.  The half-closed eyes were blood-shot; the lips were
baked black, and hideously swollen; their mouths were open; and where
the suffused blood--from the fierce knottings of the cords that bound
them--showed blue and purple, the veins were swollen to the bursting
point.

"The block and the axe!" commanded "_The False Prophet._"  The grim
things were brought.

"Loose the carrion!" came the next command.

A dozen hands were busy in a moment with the knotted cords.  Miriam was
the first to be fully released.  Her eyes were closed; her breaths were
heavy, slow throbs; her beautiful form bent and swayed; and the soldier
who held her had to bear all her weight.  He carried her to the block;
then, waiting, glanced for instructions to where the officer of the
guards, and "_The False Prophet_" stood.

An executioner, toying with his axe, stood by the side of the block.

"Off with it!" called "_The False Prophet_," laughingly.

The soldier lifted the nude, insensible form of the beautiful girl so
that her neck rested in the hollow of the block.  He held her in
position.  The axe fell.  The head rolled to the stone pave.  A woman
close by, caught the head by the hair, twisted her fingers well into
the beautiful black swathes, and swinging the gory thing around her
head, let it fly from her hand, shouting, as it hurled through the air.

"A kick-off, for the _first_ team!"

The mob, among whom the head fell, began to play football with it.  A
moment later, the head of Isaac Wolferstein rolled to the pavement, and
a second woman caught that and hurled it over the heads of the people
in the opposite direction to that in which Miriam's head had gone.

"A kick-off," shouted the hurler of the head, "for the _second_ team."
[1]

      *      *      *      *      *      *

This effort to trace Cohen and the fugitives had failed, but the
knowledge soon came in, in four or five different ways.  One of the
wireless messages had brought a clue.  Some traders brought in a fuller
clue, and rapidly other news came to hand.

It soon became perfectly clear that there existed some kind of evident
understanding between the various fleeing crowds, and that their first
place of united meeting was to be one of the agricultural colonies near
to the old Kadesh-Barnea.

By this time the fugitives had had four good days start.  Apleon
ordered an enormous body of troops to go in pursuit, and to slay or
capture the fugitives--capture, by preference, that they might be
publicly tortured and beheaded.

Mad with the lust for blood, and that fouler lust of Religious revenge,
the pursuing host sped southwards.  The wondrous new motor-trains, that
would career over hillocks easier than a thoroughbred hunter gallops
over a turfy down, carried the expedition.  There were a hundred trains
of thirty cars each, besides a thousand or more single Motor-Cars,
carrying from twelve to twenty persons.  Worked on the then latest
principle,--ether-driven--the cars and trains swept onward at the rate
of a hundred miles an hour.  Over head, travelling at the same rate,
was a fleet of aerial war-ships, armed with infernal torpedoes, that if
dropped into any town or community, would wipe out every living soul,
and destroy the stoutest city, in a few minutes.

It looked as though the devoted band of Jews and Gentiles who had fled
south were doomed.

Wild, exultant shouts of ironical laughter and unholy glee burst from
the land and aerial pursuers, as they came within a moment or two (at
their rate of travelling) of the fugitives.

The latter had seen them, heard them, and, as a body, were bowed in
prayer for----.  They scarcely knew what to ask, for deliverance or for
fortitude, so that the essence of their prayer was "_undertake for us,
Lord!_"

The sky lowered over their heads.  They thought it was the aerial fleet
hiding the sun--but the winged warriors were not _quite_ come up over
their place of gathering.

The prostrate refugees remained, to a man, upon their faces.  Souls in
direct dealing with God have no curiosity as to outside events.

Suddenly, like the hiss of ten thousand times ten thousand snakes, a
rushing sibilation passed through the momentarily darkened air.  At the
same instant the earth trembled, and there was an awful, thunderous
rumbling in the nether world.

Simultaneous with both of these phenomena there came yells and screams,
then,--anon--silence.

The mass of refugees raised themselves, and stood silent with awe and
thankfulness.  Sheets of flame had rushed out of the heavens,
overwhelmed the aerial fleet of vengeful pursuers, fired the vessels,
and hurled men and machines downwards into a mighty gulf.  For the
trembling, and thundering of the earth had been the result and
accompaniments of a terrible earth-quake, that now swallowed up the
whole pursuing host--land and aerial, alike.

For a moment or two no sound came from the mighty crowd of
miraculously-delivered refugees.  Then, suddenly, one of the late
priests of the Temple, a chorister-priest, burst into song:

"_Sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously.  The Lord is my
strength and my song, and He is become my salvation: He is my
God . . . .  My father's God, and I will exalt Him.  The Lord is a Man
of war: the Lord is His name.  Our enemy's chariots and his host hath
He cast into the earth . . . .  Thy right hand, O Lord, is become
glorious in power: Thy right hand, O Lord, dashed in pieces the enemy.
And in the greatness of Thine excellency Thou hast overthrown them that
rose up against Thee; Thou sentest forth Thy wrath, which consumed
them._"

Almost in the instant of the starting of the song, thousands of Jews,
(and Gentiles, as well) had recognized the Red Sea Triumph Song, and
had joined the voice of the leader.  What a swell of triumph it was!
On, on they sang:

"_The enemy said: I will pursue, I will overtake; my lust shall be
satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, and my hand shall destroy
them.  Thou didst blow with Thy wind, and they were destroyed._

"_Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the Gods!  Who is like Thee,
glorious in Holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders.  Thou
stretchedst out Thy right hand, the earth swallowed them.  Thou in Thy
mercy hast led forth the people which Thou hast redeemed: Thou hast
guided them in Thy strength.  The people shall hear, and be afraid:
sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestine.  Fear and dread
shall fall upon them: by the greatness of Thine arm they shall be as
still as a stone; till Thy people, O Lord, till the people pass over,
whom Thou hast purchased._

"_Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of Thine
inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which Thou hast made, in the
Sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established.  The Lord shall
reign for ever and ever._"

Three times over, led by the impromptu priest-precentor, that grateful,
jubilant, delivered people sang the last sentence.

Then, as their song of praise finished, the leaders took counsel
together as to what they should do next.  It was the unanimous feeling,
and expressed opinion, that Apleon would send forth other expeditions
to destroy them, if he learned that they had escaped the fate of his
aerial and land pursuit.

"I do not believe," cried Cohen, the chief spokesman among the Jews,
"that God Jehovah has permitted one of our pursuers to escape.  God's
judgments, like His mercies, are full and complete.  Will Apleon, the
Traitor to his covenant-word, ever know the fate of our pursuers?  I
believe not, unless anyone of us here retrace his steps to Jerusalem to
tell him, and that would mean public torture and death to the
tale-bearer."

He paused, and glanced around on the throng nearest to him, as he asked:

"Does anyone present know anything in the Scriptures relating to this
present position, that will serve as a guide to our movements now?"

A tall, fine-looking man responded by lifting his right arm.  He was
asked to speak.  He came forward and stood upon the hillock where Cohen
stood.  Holding aloft a Bible, he cried:

"Men and Brethren, of the stock of Israel, and Gentiles associated with
them.  I was a Christian minister, so-called, in Australia, when the
'Rapture' took place.  I was _left behind_, because, though I could
preach eloquently enough, and could keep my church filled to
over-flowing.  I was not a converted man; I had been trained for the
church, as my only brother had been trained for the bar.  I never
realized the need of conversion, my soul was filled with pride in my
gifts, hence I was left behind when Christ came for His own,--and,
among His own, thank God, were many 'Israelites indeed,' as well as
Gentiles.

"Since my conversion, friends, (and though too late for the Rapture,
yet still the glorious event took place within forty-eight hours of the
Rapture) I have _studied_ my Bible, to see what should happen.
Everything _has_ happened according as the New Testament has laid it
down: The 'people of God,' the Jews, have built their Temple.  They
made their seven-year covenant with Apleon.  The Anti-christ, the
Scripture calls him.   At the end of the three and a half years (_half_
of the covenant time) he orders the Sacrifice to cease in the Temple at
Jerusalem--and everybody here knows how _literally_ all this has
happened.

"He has set up his own image to be worshipped, as was foretold, and
God's ancient people, with those of us here who are Gentiles, have
fled.  We are here, to-day, here at this moment, living out exactly
what the New Testament had all along prophesied would come to pass.  In
that wonderful book, which deals with these times in which we are now
living,--Revelation twelve, it says, that the faithful Jews, and
others, '_were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly
into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time,
and times, and half a time_, (three and a half years from now,)
friends, which period will complete the seven years of Apleon's
(Anti-christ's) reign.

"Now listen again to that same prophesy, friends: '_And the Serpent_
(Apleon) _cast out of his mouth water as a flood, after_ (the
fugitives, us who are here today) _that he might cause them to be
carried away of the flood.  And the earth helped_ (the fugitives) _and
the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon
cast out of his mouth._'  Has not every item of this been actually
fulfilled, has not God opened the earth and swallowed up the flood, and
delivered us?  Then that wonderful prophecy goes on:

"_And_ (the fugitives) _fled into the wilderness, where they had a
place prepared of God, and where they should be fed for twelve hundred
and sixty days_, (three and a half years.)

"I do not pose as a prophet, friends, but I cannot help thinking from
all I read, some of which I have quoted to you, that God's mind for us
is that we should make our way into the wilderness beyond here, where
God's people of old time went, after God had swallowed up Pharoah's
hosts, even as He has just swallowed up Apleon's hosts.  For, did you
notice, in the word I quoted to you just now, it not only said '_the_
wilderness,' but '_her place_.'  It was the wilderness yonder there----"

He pointed Southwards with his finger.  "In Sinai; where Moses fled
from the wrath of Pharoah; where Israel fled when pursued by the
Egyptians; where Elijah fled from bloody Jezebel, and where, again and
again, God's people have found shelter, so that God calls it '_her_
place.'  It comes to me, as I speak thus, that since Apleon's attempt
to destroy us has failed, (whether he will learn that, or not, he will
know that his punitive expedition does not return to him) his rage will
be fixed against all, in every part of the world, who will not Worship
him, and his image.  So that the persecuted ones, in each land, against
whom his rage shall blaze, will probably flee to some wilderness in
their own land, while thousands of those who cannot flee will meet
martyrdom.

"But wheresoever the wilderness shall be, whether down there in Sinai,
or in that vast desert in my wonderful land of Australia, or in one or
other of America's deserts, or the desert of whatever land it may be.
God will, I believe, miraculously feed, as He miraculously fed the
fugitive millions of Israel with manna, and fed Elijah with food from
Heaven by ravens.  He could send 'manna' again, or any other food he
pleased.  Or he could as readily feed if he pleased, with one meal to
last the three and a half years, as he could make his servants of old
'go in the strength of one meal for forty days.'"

There was a little more in this strain, then there followed a kind of
general conference upon the matter in hand.  The whole thing was too
serious to be delayed, or trifled with, and, eventually, it was agreed
to travel as swiftly as might be to the "Wilderness of Sinai," where
waiting upon God, they would hope to be directed in any future
movement, or be sustained by his wonder-working hand.



[1] May God arouse readers of this scene to reflect that there must be
thousands living to-day, who will suffer thus hideously.  Some, too,
who to-day are members of churches, others, children of Christian
Parents, many too, of the "Almost persuaded" among us.




CHAPTER XVI.

MARTYRED.

It was three months since the image of Apleon had been set up in the
"Holy" place in Jerusalem.  Now all the world worshipped "The Beast,"
for the images had been multiplied until every town and city and almost
every church, etc., had its own idol.

The world had begun by "_Wondering after_" the Beast, it gave itself up
to error, despised the Truth, opened itself to receive the "_Strong
delusion_," the _Anti_-christ lie, so that the _worship_ of the Beast
himself, then of his image, became but just consequent steps one after
the other.

In Ancient Roman days its Emperors took divine titles, accepted homage,
worship, honor, all of which belonged, by right, to Deity alone.
Augustus had temples reared for the worship of himself, and, through
all the ages since, the remains of one of these temples (at Angora) has
remained, and inscribed upon a great stone lintel is the significant
word: "To THE GOD AUGUSTUS."  Near by, in the same district, is a
kindred inscription, "To MARCUS AURELIUS . . . . _by one most devoted
to his Godhead_."  Nero and Domitian, fiends of blood and lust, were
styled, while they lived, "GOD," and "OUR GOD AND LORD."

And Apleon fulfilled, to the minutest letter, all that was prophesied
of him as regarded his assumption of the divine.  "_He will exalt
himself_," wrote Daniel "_and magnify himself above God.  He will speak
marvellous things against the God of gods.  He will not regard any God,
for he will magnify himself above all."  "He opposeth and exalteth
himself above all that is called God," Paul said, "or that is
worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing
himself that he is God_."

Whatever may be the cause of it, the fact remains that ever since the
Devil's lie in Eden was absorbed by, and ruined man, there has been a
proneness, a latent tendency to idolatry in the human race.  And the
_manifestations_ of this tendency have not been confined to peoples who
in their recent past have been won from idol worship.

As late as the revolution days, in cultured, polished France, busts of
Marat and others, were greeted in the streets with bursts of
Hallelujahs, by the populace, and, even in the churches, all over
France, the people sang odes and Hallelujahs, and bowed themselves
before these busts, and at the mention of their names.   Marat,
especially was treated as divine and "was universally deified," and
"divine" worship of his image was everywhere set up in churches.

And the "worship of the Beast" came about easily, and as the natural
transition from the world's earlier adulation of the "Man of Sin."

Millions upon millions of his image, in the form of charms, were worn
like the _eikons_ of the Greek church.  In the hour of death these
_eikons_ (likenesses) "of the Beast," were held before the eyes of the
passing soul, as the crucifix was held, (in the old days before the
destruction of the older ecclesiastical systems,) before the eyes of
the dying Romanist and Ritualist.

In that first three months of the _second_ half of the seven years of
Anti-christ, much had changed in every way in the world.  Under the
supreme dictation of Apleon changes commanded by him were effected
throughout the whole world, in one week, that would have occupied a
century in the old days of the nineteenth century, say.

Babylon the Great, which had long since been rebuilt, had become the
world's commercial centre.  It was exclusively a _commercial_ city,
there was nothing ecclesiastical (Babylon _ecclesiastical_, the
religious system had been destroyed, when all _religious_ head-ship had
been summed up in Apleon).

There was nothing military, in the New Babylon, and though every
vileness in the form of entertainment was to be found in the great
city, all this was but the recreative side of the life of the
commercial people of the world's metropolis.

Ever increasingly, during the 19th century, and the first decade of the
20th, commerce had been growing as clamorous and as exciting as the
"horse-leech," never satisfied, ever crying "give, give."  It had
clamoured for a common currency, common weights and measures, common
code of terms, and a hundred and one kindred things.

But it was in Babylon the Great, that the woman of Zechariah v.
1--Commerce--had found all she had been insisting for, through all the
past years,--and it all emanated from, and was centred in Apleon.  And
it was all connected with worship.  "_Covetousness, which is idolatry_."

With the utter destruction of "Mystic Babylon," the vast religious
system, (whose destruction we have seen,) there came a mighty impulse
of commerce, and of consequent wealth to "Babylon the Great" the City.

Apleon had made it his head-quarters.  "_The kings of the earth lived
wantonly with her_."  Her wharves and warehouses--built on that
wondrous Euphrates--were packed with "_merchandise of gold, silver,
precious stones, of pearls, fine linen, purple, silk, scarlet, and all
rare woods, and all manner of vessels of ivory, brass, iron, marble,
cinnamon, odours, ointments, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour,
wheat, beasts, sheep, horses, chariots, slaves--and souls of men_."

Her vessels traded with the whole world.  Her liners, travelling at 100
miles per hour, were in easy touch of every land.  Her pride in her
Maritime and commercial power, was overwhelming: "How much she hath
glorified herself, and lived deliciously. . . .  For she saith in her
heart, I sit a queen!"  Her aerial merchandise fleets, too, were
amazing!

      *      *      *      *      *      *

The three months had brought great changes to the trio in whom we are
specially interested--Ralph Bastin, George Bullen, and Rose, his young
wife.

Ralph, in quitting the editor's chair of the Courier, had received a
handsome _doucier_, from Sir Archibald Carlyon, and this, at his
special request, had been paid to him in the new paper currency of the
time--there was a world-common currency, under the Apleon regime, as
there was also a world-common code, weights and measures, etc.

He had also contrived to turn his savings into the paper currency.
George Bullen had done the same, though in the case of each of them it
had not been easy work, for both were marked men.

They knew themselves to be hated--and watched.  Again and again they
had narrowly escaped death, and each day they realized that it might be
the last.

The news of the wondrous enthusiasm of the world's peoples gathered in
Babylon and Jerusalem, in their new worship of the golden images of
Apleon, had stirred London, New York, Berlin, Paris--_atheistical_
Paris; and all other great world-centres, and in each city many images
had been set up.

Though neither Ralph Bastin, or George Bullen had now anything to do
with journalism--they could not obtain work of any kind because of the
absence of the "mark of the Beast" upon their foreheads.  But both were
journalists by nature, hence when they knew that the image of the Beast
was to be set up in St. Paul's on a given Sunday, they determined to be
present to see how far this basest of idolatry had really laid hold of
London.

The trio lived together in a little house, in a by-street in
Bloomsbury.  Rose would never allow her husband to go out without her;
the times were too perilous, either for him to be in the streets, or
for her to remain alone at home.  In the actual language of Ruth, she
had said to him:--

"_Entreat me not to leave thee:--for whither thou goest I will go;
where thou lodgest, I will lodge; . . . where thou diest, I will
die; . . . the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part
thee and me_."

On reaching the Mansion House--the old building was still there, though
used for another purpose--they were amazed at the excitement which
prevailed in the streets.  Thousands of excited people were moving
westwards, many of them evidently bound for St. Paul's.

_Every_one seemed to be wearing the brand of the "Beast," and more than
once our trio came very near to being set upon, for that they were
defying public opinion, as well as the command of the All-Supreme
Director of consciences as well as lives--Apleon--by the absence of the
"Mark" upon them.

Arrived at the cathedral they had no difficulty in getting in, since
the hour was early, and a rumour having obtained credence that the
great idol was to be wheeled out upon the steps of the cathedral, the
vast bulk of would-be worshippers remained outside of the huge building.

Presently these outside must have become acquainted with the falseness
of the rumour for there was a tremendous rush into the building, until,
in three minutes, it was packed to its utmost limits.

Ralph, George and Rose had secured seats, in the centre of the third
row, almost under the great dome, for they wanted to get as perfect a
view of the image as possible.

The hum of several thousand voices, as the gathered people gossipped
about the image, made quite a volume of sound.  Every eye was fixed on
the great golden statue.  It was a wondrous piece of work and the
likeness of Apleon was an extraordinary one.  The people who were
seated far back could see only from the breast upwards.  But those
nearer (Ralph, and George, and Rose among them) who could see not only
the whole figure, but the plinth and the pedestal upon which it stood,
saw that the inscription on the plinth was the same as that which had
been reported as upon the first image, the one set up in the Temple at
Jerusalem--"I AM, THAT I AM!"

A shudder passed over our trio, as they read the blasphemy.

Now, suddenly, a richly-robed priest, holding a silver bugle to his
lips, stood out on the altar steps.  The shrill bugle call for
"silence" rang through the great building, and a tomb-like hush fell
upon the multitude.

Another priest, more gorgeously costumed than the first, came slowly
forward chanting clearly and distinctly:

"We believe in Man, in the Religion of Humanity, Man is God, and God is
man.  We believe that all the excellencies which of old, were
attributed to the God of the Bible, were but sparks struck out of the
goodnesses that were within the man Himself.  Hence we no longer need
to be Divine by proxy." [1]

The organ rolled out a gay note to which the gathered thousands chanted
a gay "Amen!"

"_We believe_," the priest went on in his chant--"_that the living God,
is the marriage of Force and matter, of Head and Hand.  And we believe
that the product of this co-ordination is in our Great Superman, the
God of the Universe, Apleon, our Superior-God, and Him we worship and
adore--_"

The priest made a well-understood sign, and the whole mass of the
people _knelt_--they were too crowded to prostrate themselves.  The
great organ pealed forth in some wondrous chordings, that were dying
down into zephyr-like breaths, when the voice of the priest broke the
comparative silence.

In harsh, commanding tones, he cried:

"You three rebels, kneel at once!"

The whole congregation lifted their eyes to see two men, and a
beautiful woman between them, standing proudly, fearlessly, amid the
great kneeling throng.

"Kneel, you apostate rebels!" thundered the priest.

For answer, Rose lifted her strong, powerful, beautiful voice, in a
God-inspired spontaneous burst of _true_ worship, singing:

  "All Hail the power of Jesus' Name,
  Let angels prostrate fall."


Ralph and her husband caught the inspiration and the musical key, and
the trio had reached the "Bring forth the Royal Diadem," before the
great congregation of blasphemers awoke to the full meaning of what the
song of the trio meant.  Then, with a roar like ten thousand lions,
they shouted:

"Kill them!  Murder them!"

The priest raised his hand, the bugler sounded "Silence."  The old hush
fell upon the people, instantly, and the priest, with a triumphant note
ringing in his voice, and with an equally triumphant smile on his face,
cried:

"We have anticipated the action of such rebels as these, and have
prepared for them.  Outside there has been already set up an
automatically-locked scaffold--"

With a wave of his hand towards our trio, he cried; "To the block with
them, unless they instantly worship."

Pointing with his long index finger to the three Protesters, he
shouted: "Kneel!"

For answer they drew themselves upright, and with a ringing gladness
began to sing:

  "Crown Jesus Lord of all!"


Instantly they were seized, and hurried out of one of the side
entrances.  With the utmost difficulty a way was cleared for the
passage of the priests and the three victims--the bugler going ahead
sounding sharp notes of warning on his instrument.

They reached the front of the cathedral, at last.  The whole of the
space in the front, at the sides, and far away into "The Fan" was
packed with a seething, excited mass of human life.

Twenty feet high, a light but strong scaffold had been rapidly, and
practically silently, erected--the whole structure having all its
separate parts fitted with automatic lockings.  The scaffold stood just
_out_side the railings that fenced the cathedral from the "Fan."

On the platform of the scaffold was a conical-shaped block, enamelled
in a brilliant red.  A huge fellow, leaning on the handle of a
wide-bladed gleaming axe, stood by the side of the block.

The trio of _Protestants_ were taken up the steps of the scaffold.  Two
priests accompanied them.  The chief of the two priests, he who had led
the chant in the cathedral, held up before the trio a silver figure of
Apleon, about eighteen inches long, and, (amid the intense silence all
around, his words were distinctly heard) cried: "Will you worship God?"

"We _do_ worship God--but we will not worship either the Anti-christ,
Anti-God, or his image!"

It was Ralph who, in ringing fearless tones, replied, the other two
responding with:

"Amen! Amen! to our God who sitteth on The Throne, and to the Lamb, for
ever!"

A savage roar swept upwards from the maddened mass below.

Ralph was told to bow his head upon the block.  He did so, while Rose
sang clear and strong:

  "Am I a soldier of the cross,
  A follower of the Lamb,
  And shall I fear----------"


The chief of the two priests, struck her heavily across the mouth and
silenced her.  At the same instant the executioner held aloft, by the
hair, the severed head of Ralph Bastin.

Yells of delight, mingled with "Long live our God Apleon!" greeted the
sight of the head.

George Bullen's head was now upon the block, while Rose, the light of a
holy triumph in her eyes, unable to sing because of her bleeding mouth,
shouted, "Jesus!  Jesus!  Precious Christ!"

She kept her eyes from the block, and turned slightly away, as the head
of her dear one was held aloft amid the frantic delighted cries of the
murderous mass below.

It was her turn now, and she turned rapturously towards the block.  But
before she could lay her head upon the blood-stained horror, the chief
of the priests thrust her forward to the near edge of the floor of the
scaffold, and, holding his hand up for silence, cried:

"Is she too beautiful for the block?"

He caught her up suddenly in his arms, and held her as high aloft as
his strength would permit, as he shouted:

"Does any one want her, if you do, say so, and I will hurl her down!"

"Behead her!" roared a voice in the crowd, and thousands of voices
joined in the cry.

The priest dragged her to the block and laid her neck in the hollow of
it.  There was a flash of steel in the sunlight, and the beautiful head
rolled into the basket.  The next moment it was being held aloft by the
long, lovely hair, the people below yelling with joy.

At a sign from the priest, the bugler sounded for "silence."  Then the
priest cried:

"So shall die every rebel against our LORD GOD, _The Emperor_!"

With a wave of his hand towards the Cathedral behind him, he added:

"Our worship will be continued in our Temple and, for today, at least,
worship will continue all day."

The fools, the dupes, flocked back to the cathedral--as many as could
crowd in.  Those who could not get in watched the bodies and heads of
the three martyrs for God hurled down from the scaffold on the stones
below.

Someone suggested the river, and six lengths of line were quickly got,
and amid the howls of mingled execrations, and the notes of a fiendish
joy, the three heads and three trunks were dragged down to the
blackfriars end of the embankment.

Here men cut the clothes from the three bodies, and the naked forms
were kicked into almost shapeless masses, before they were eventually
hurled over the embankment into the swirling muddy Thames.

"_He, (The False Prophet) had power . . . to cause that as many as
would not worship the image of the Beast should be killed_."

From this day there began a perfect reign of terror on the earth, for
the vast bulk of the people who had yielded utter allegiance to the
"Beast," and to his worship, became heretic-hunters.  Natural affection
appeared to be actually absent from the world, and sons and daughters
betrayed fathers and mothers, husbands betrayed wives, wives husbands,
and the friend his friends.

Thousands were beheaded every month, taking the earth over--men, women,
and children, who had learned to trust God, and who waited for the
coming Kingdom of Christ, when, having put down all enemies under his
feet, he should begin his reign of a thousand years.  These saved ones,
and martyred ones, were "an innumerable multitude saved out of T H E
great tribulation, from all nations, kindreds, and peoples, and
tongues."



[1] This creed, in its essence, and often in its terminology is taken
from a book already published, in which the religion of Humanism exalts
man to the place of God.  (Author.)




CHAPTER XVII.

A GATHERING UP.

At this stage it seems well to the writer to gather together in a
brief--but necessarily very fragmentary fashion--some of the chief
events of the second half of Anti-christ's reign, and those immediately
preceding the millenial reign of Christ.  The object of this little
volume, as well as its predecessor--"In the Twinkling of an Eye"--being
chiefly to incite in the readers of the two books, a desire to look
into the wonders of the "After Events," we can only touch upon these
things in the most disjointed fashion, many events, from necessity of
space, being untouched altogether.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

The two scenes recorded in previous chapters--the torture and beheading
of Isaac Wolferstein and his beautiful _fiancee_, Miriam Cohen, and the
beheading of three at St. Paul's--were duplicated many thousands of
times, every town and city of the wide world had its own hideous tale
of torturing and of death.

The effect upon the bulk of the people was to deepen "the strong
delusion," as to Anti-christ, under which they laboured, so that they
fed upon "The Lie," and became abject slaves in their wills and worship
of the "Man of Sin."

The effect of the persecution and martyrdoms upon most of the
believers--kingdom believers--was to stiffen their faith, and to
confirm their hope in the near Coming of the Christ, to take vengeance
upon his foes and deliver his people.

The licentiousness and blasphemy of the times was as a veritable
atmosphere abroad, so that, affected by it, the love of the many
towards God waxed colder and colder, until they flung off the last
semblance of allegiance to Him, in thought, word, or deed, and wholly
given up to "The Lie," they ripened rapidly for Judgment.

But amid the almost universal declension, there was ever the
remnant--Jew and Gentile--who "endured, seeing the invisible," and
strengthening their souls in the special tribulation promise "_He that
shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved!_"

And these endurers shall be God's witnesses unto all nations.  No
suffering, privation, no spending or being spent will be counted too
much by these tribulation-time witnesses; they will live only to serve
God in witnessing.

The chief source of temptation and danger to the "Kingdom Believers"
will be from the ever multiplying "False Christs."  Each new imposter
parading some new notion, but each in turn, either publicly slain by
order of the "False Prophet," or mysteriously disappearing.  The only
likeness of imposture in them all, existed in their claim to be the
Saviour who should deliver from the awful days of tribulation which the
would-be godly were passing through.

A similar thing preceded the first advent of our Lord, only _then_, the
sole trust of these imposters was in their own statements; but before
the coming of Christ again _to the earth_, when the cry will often be
"Lo here is Christ," and "Lo there is Christ," these imposters will
buttress their claims with the exhibition of supernatural powers.

The "remnant" of faithful Jews which we saw in our last chapter,
escaping to the "wilderness," will be only a remnant.  The main body of
the Jews of the world will have concentrated themselves in Jerusalem,
its neighbourhood, and parts of Palestine left to them after the
partition of the land by Anti-christ.  Dan. xi. 9.

It would seem as though the "remnant," meanwhile learn of God so
intimately that they become the Evangelizers of the world, preaching
the Gospel of the _coming kingdom of Christ_.  Rev. xiv. 6, 7.  Matt.
xxiv. 14.

Among those Jews who were unable to escape with the "remnant," there
are also others who are loyal to God, who would not worship the Beast
or his image, many of whom are betrayed by their bigoted Jewish
relatives.  All these, alike, are delivered up to Anti-christ and to
his creatures, to be tortured and to be killed.

"_Then shall be great Tribulation, such as was not since the beginning
of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.  And except those
days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the
elect's sake, those days shall be shortened_."  Matt. xxiv. 21, 22.
Dan. xii. 1.  Jer. xxx. 7, 11, 14, 15.  Zech. xiii 8, 9.

May it not well be that the imprecatory Psalms, otherwise so difficult
to understand, in the virulence of their desires for vengeance, etc.,
are prophetic of these days of persecution and tribulation?  As well,
too, must be many of the _Prayers_ of the Psalms, etc.  Ps. xxv. 2.
Ps. lxxiv.  Ps. cxl.  Ps. lxxix.  Isaiah xxxv. 3, 4.  Isaiah li. 12-15.
Micah vii. 8, 9.  Luke xviii. 7, 8.

The almost universal return of the Jew to his own land, with all the
aims of Zionism, and other kindred movements among the Hebrew people
today is, curiously enough, not marked by the _religious_ spirit, but
purely national.  The comparatively few pious souls (certainly not more
than a quarter of a million, if that) who built the Temple, and
afterwards flee into the "wilderness," or are beheaded rather than
worship the Beast, or who, unable to get away in time, are beheaded for
their loyalty to God, are now left out of future count in the history
of the final fate of Jerusalem.

The city will probably be enormously enlarged and will come to embrace
miles of suburbs, as London has absorbed towns as far distant, almost,
as Croydon, in Surrey.

In the latter years of the great Tribulation there will appear to be a
general rising of the nations against Jerusalem--against the Jews.  It
may well be, that all the powers will have become so indebted,
_financially_, to the Jews, that there shall be an universal outbreak
of Anti-Semitism, the real cause of the outbreak being inability on the
part of the nations to pay their debts, when they shall make common
cause against the Jew, hoping thus to clear off their debts, by the
destruction of their creditors.

Preparatory to this great and final struggle, the great eastern
boundary river, the Euphrates, will be dried up.  The _literal_
accomplishment of this great physical wonder, is an absolute necessity,
if the vast hordes of the Eastern armies are to be marched to Jerusalem.

Even as those days of the end draw nearer and nearer God's people of
that time will suffer more and yet more.

"_Happy the dead who in the Lord do die from henceforth.  Yea (saith
the Spirit) that they may rest from their toils, for their works do
follow with them.  Ceased only that form of service which brings
weariness, and have found perfect happiness in the ability to continue
service without weariness_."--ROTHERHAM.

While this is true of all the saints of all the ages, it is
specifically true of those who, in The Great Tribulation, shall lay
down their lives for God in faithful, enduring obedience.

And now the end draws ever more rapidly near.  North, East, South and
West of Palestine the armies of allies against Jerusalem close in upon
her.  Had the Jewish race been as loyally devoted to their God and His
Word as they had been to Anti-christ the Deceiver, and his vile,
promulgated laws, they would have, inevitably, recognized Psalms
lxxxiii. 3, 4, as a prophecy of this time and the approach of their
foes: "They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted
against thy hidden ones."  They have said, "Come, and let us cut them
off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in
remembrance."

But God has not forgotten His promises to Israel, and the time of her
worst visitation, is to be His opportunity:

"_Wait ye upon Me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the
prey; for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may
assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my
fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my
jealousy_."  Zeph. iii. 8.  "_Now also many nations are gathered
against thee (Zion,) but they know not the thoughts of the Lord,
neither understand they His counsel: for He shall gather them as the
sheaves into the floor_."  Mich. iv. 11, 12.  "_In that time, when I
shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also
gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of
Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for My people and for My
heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted
My land_."  Joel iii. 1, 2, 9-12, 14.  Zech. xiv. 1, 2.  Zech. xii. 2,
3.  Ps. lxviii. 1-3.  Joel ii. 32.

Against the gathered multitudes of the armed nations--every devilish
instrument of war then known, being brought to bear against the doomed
city, doomed as the allies consider it--the Jews can bring but a
comparatively feeble resistance.  With seeming ease, Jerusalem would
appear to be taken.  "_The city shall be taken, and the houses rifled,
and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into
captivity_, AND THE RESIDUE OF THE PEOPLE SHALL NOT BE CUT OFF FROM THE
CITY."  Zech. xiv. 2.

With great spoil, full of unholy rejoicing, their souls steeped in
pride, their hands stained with blood, the victorious armies march to
the great plain of Esdraelon to hold a mighty revel, and to prepare for
any future event.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

  "How oft after anxious provisions of man
  Flashes in with a silence God's unforseen plan!"

  "God is a tower without a stair
  And His perfection loves despair."


The residue of the people of Jerusalem, who were left in the city on
the triumphant departure of the allies of Hell, were utterly broken in
spirit.  Their discomfited hearts will be being prepared for some word
or sin.  Will they then begin to see their national, as well as their
individual folly?  Who can say for certain?  But the near-to-come
events with them, would almost seem to point to something like this.
Certainly, God's unforseen plan was about to flash in upon their
despairing condition.

The world's peoples were "_fully ripe_" for the Judgment, and the
"_sharp sickle_" of Judgment was now waiting to fall into the earth.

First come "signs," every sign a warning, yet the peoples, the enemies
of Christ, will not hear nor see.  "_Immediately after the Tribulation
of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give
her light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the
heavens shall be shaken_."  Matt. xxiv. 29.  Isaiah xiii. 9-10-13.
Joel ii. 30, 31.  Joel iii. 15.  Rev. vi. 12-14.

"_And then_" (_after_ the Tribulation, and _after_ these
 physical signs and disturbances) "_shall appear the sign
of the Son of Man in Heaven_."  Matt. xxiv. 30.

What will this sign be?  We cannot actually say.  The only Scriptural
hint we know of is our Lord's own word that "the Manifestation of His
Presence will be as the lightning which flashes from the one end of
heaven to the other."

It may be that this will occur while men are horrified with the
unnatural darkness, and that the "sign" will be a sudden and momentary
cleaving of the black heavens, so that the glory of the Lord will break
through, and He will, for an instant, be revealed in close proximity to
earth.  Will it be thus that the Jew will receive his sign from heaven?

That which follows, and which should be rendered: "_Then shall all the
tribes of the land mourn_," points to the connection of this verse with
Zechariah's prophecy: "_And I will pour upon the house of David, and
upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and
supplications: and they shall look upon ME Whom they have pierced, and
they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall
be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his
firstborn_."  Zech. xii. 10.

"And again, the manner in which Zechariah's prophecy is quoted in the
Apocalypse may, perhaps, afford some slight argument in favour of the
explanation of the sign suggested above, namely, that it is Christ
Himself seen for a moment through a rift in the clouds, for John says,
'_Behold He cometh with the clouds: and every eye shall see Him, and
they also which pierced Him: and all the TRIBES OF THE LAND shall mourn
because of Him_.'

"Thus the Jews, although they may not as yet understand all, will at
least know that it was the Messenger of Jehovah whom they slew, and
that in so doing they pierced Himself.  And they will mourn with no
feigned lamentation, but as one mourns for his first-born, nay, his
only son.  All their pride will have broken down; for the word will
then have been fulfilled, '_I will take away out of the midst of thee
them that rejoice in thy pride, and thou shalt no more be haughty
because of My holy mountain.  I will also leave in the midst of thee an
afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the
Lord_.'  Zeph. ii. 11, 12.

"Then will God look down upon the stiff-necked and rebellious people,
whom long centuries of chastisement could not subdue, and lo! a
remnant, broken-hearted and contrite, humbly confessing that '_all
their righteousnesses are as filthy rags, that they are all fading as a
leaf, and that their iniquities, like the wind, have carried them
away_.'  They long for the personal interposition of God their Father,
and cry, '_Oh that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, that Thou wouldst
come down!_'  They are ready at last, for their Messiah.  Christ has
become precious to them: there is no need that He, the true Joseph,
should longer refrain Himself.  He had indeed said, 'Ye shall not see
Me henceforth till ye shall say, "_Blessed is He that cometh in the
name of the Lord_."'"

"But that word withholds Him no longer; for now their eyes are waiting
for the Lord their God, until that He have mercy upon them: their souls
are watching for Him more than they that watch for the morning."


(PEMBER'S "GREAT PROPHECIES.")

_Then shall He suddenly come, "His feet shall stand in that day upon
the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east; and the
Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and
toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley, and half of
the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the
south.  And ye shall flee to MY valley, when He shall touch the valley
of the mountain to the place He separated_."  Zech. xiv. 4, 5.

In this great valley of His special making it is possible, probable,
that our Lord will shelter His people, while He is destroying the
hordes of Anti-christ.  It is of this that Isaiah speaks: "_Come My
people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee:
hide thyself as it were for a little moment_, UNTIL THE INDIGNATION BE
OVER PAST.  _For behold the Lord cometh out of His place to punish the
inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity_."  And when that awful
judgment shall be over--"_which shall burn as an oven_," they shall
come out of their shelter "_skipping as calves of the stall_."  A
wondrous figure of the frolicsome calves coming out of the darkness of
their stalls into the glorious light, and into the full freshness of
the luscious meadows.

All this time Anti-christ and his warrior hosts are camped in the plain
of Esdraelon, preparing for a fresh attack that is to utterly demolish
the Jews as a nation.

To Apleon, The Anti-christ, word comes of the appearance of Christ, and
that He is espousing the cause of Israel.

Satan, and his colleagues, self-blinded, suppose that they can war with
and overcome even Christ and His hosts of saints; and, determined to do
this: "_the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take
counsel together, against His Anointed_."  Psa. ii. 2.

Armageddon--the Valley of Megidda; "The Valley of Jehosaphat;"
"Bozrah," all these names are mentioned as the scene of the great final
conflict between Anti-christ and Christ, between the armies of the
earth, and the translated Saints of God who return with Christ.

It is probable that the line of the encamped hosts of Anti-christ will
extend from Bozrah, on the southeast, to Megidda, on the North-west.
Is it we wonder, merely a coincidence that this should measure exactly
1,600 _Stadia_, the actual distance named in Rev. xiv. 16, as that over
which the blood of the judgment wine-press flowed.

Surely Habakkuk's wonderful prophetic vision covered this great
battle-field.  "God came _from Teman_, and the Holy One _from Mount
Paran_."  The march of God's indignation would seem to be from Sinai,
through Idumea, past Jerusalem, and on to the mighty field of
Esdraelon's plain.

Oh, what a scene it will be!  The glory, the judgment! our Christ on
His White Horse; His eyes a flame of fire; on his head many crowns
(diamens,) vestured and girded with his title "KING OF KINGS AND LORD
OF LORDS!" his bride is with Him--for the "_Marriage of the Lamb_" has
taken place; the bride is every believer who has been gathered out of
the world by the Spirit.  You, who read this, he who writes this, if so
be we are in Christ, "_looking for, and hasting the coming of our
Lord_," yes, we shall be there, we shall be His army.

"_On white horses_," whether literal horses or not does not matter, the
term implies force, power, swift movement, even triumph.  Christ's army
will be a cavalry force.  Like our Lord we shall wear no
armour,--"clothed in fine linen, white, pure,"--we shall be immortal,
"_no weapon that is formed against us shall prosper_."

Every enemy, every foe of Christ will be there.  The earth-armies, the
dwellers of the earth, Demon-possessed, will be blinded, deluded by the
lie of the Anti-christ, and "The False Prophet."  There is no madness
or delusion into which the most rational of men will not run when they
are demon-possessed.

"_Outside the city_, the battle takes place, for the city has become
Holy by the recent presence of Christ.  Not even a private soldier of
Anti-christ's hosts is _inside_ the city, for, it may well be, that
Christ has already appropriated it.

"_Outside the city, the wine-press is trodden_!" wonderful figure!
"Fully ripe," is said to be the condition of the "_grapes of the vine
of the earth_."  What grape, more so a _ripe_ grape, can stand the
weight of a man as his foot crushes down upon it?  And the iron heel of
"The Lion of Judah," crushes out the life of these gathered hell-led,
hell-inspired hosts, "_and blood came forth out of the wine-press of
God's wrath, up to the bits of the horses for distance of 1,600
stadia_."  A river of blood 160 miles in length, and reaching to the
horses' bits in depth!  Even if it be taken as a figure only, the
figure is never so great as the fact it prefigures!  "_The land shall
be drunk with blood, and its dust made fat with fatness, for it is the
day of Jehovah's vengeance, the year of recompenses for the controversy
against Zion_."  Isaiah xxxiv. 7, 8.

As a picture of the absolute triumph of God, on this occasion, the
Psalmist uses the most awful figure of any in the Bible--THE LAUGHTER
OF GOD!  "_He that sitteth in the Heavens SHALL LAUGH; the Lord shall
have them in derision_."  Ps. ii. 4.  "_God is not mocked_!"

"_And the Beast (Anti-christ) was taken_."  The ring-leader is first
taken, not slain with the others.  Taken alive, he is cast into the
Lake of Fire.  The confidence of the mighty host of Hell-inspired
warrior hosts, had been "_Who is like unto the Beast?  Who can war with
him?_"  But they see him taken, taken alive, taken without being able
to lift a finger against his captors.  Tophet had been prepared for
him, and into that awful abyss he sinks to rise no more.

"_And with him the False Prophet who wrought the miracles in his
presence_."  Colleagues in evil on earth, the two are hurled into the
same Lake of Fire.

"_And the rest were slain with the Sword of the Sitter on the horse_,
(The Conquering Christ,) _which sword proceeded out of His mouth_."
"_He speaks and it is done_."

"_And a certain angel standing in the sun_," has been placed there
ready to call forth the final actors on this hideous battle-field,
"_cried with a great voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in
mid-heaven, 'Hither be gathered together to the great supper of God,
that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and flesh of captains of thousands,
and flesh of mighty men, and flesh of horses, and of those that sit on
them, and flesh of all (classes of people,) both free and bond, and
small and great . . . and the fowls were filled from their flesh_."
Rev. xix.

At the great and terrible conflict there are lightnings and thunders of
unheard of force and might.  "_The Lord of Hosts_," says Isaiah xxix.
6, "_shall visit with thunder, with earthquake, and great noise, with
storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire_."  All through
God's judgments, during the seven years of Anti-christ, aerial
convulsions will be continual.  One reason for this, during the later
events will doubtless be to overwhelm and destroy the myriad _aerial_
engines of war used by the senselessly deluded attacking hosts arrayed
against Jerusalem and against Christ and His Saints.

"_And there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon
the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great_."  Rev. xvi. 18.
Jerusalem will be split into three parts, as a result of this
earthquake.  But the effect upon the nations is _utter_ ruin,--"_the
cities of the nations fell_."  London, New York, Paris, Berlin,
Chicago, every other city, collapses like a rent balloon, and the
opened earth swallows up palaces and cots, men and women, and what the
overwhelming and the falling shall not slay, shall perish in the awful
conflagrations produced.

"_And Babylon the great was remembered in the presence of God to give
her the cup of wine of the fierceness of His anger_."  Babylon, the
great, the colossal city of mighty splendor, re-built, as we saw
earlier in this book, will have become exclusively a _commercial_ city.
All the vice and sin and voluptuousness of all the vilest cities of the
whole world, through all the ages, gathered up into one whole foulness,
would be as virtue compared with the foulness and vice and
voluptuousness of the Great Babylon.

"_Fallen, Fallen, Babylon the Great_."  May we gather from the
twice-repeated word "Fallen," that the collapse comprises the two
things "_Babylon, mystery!_"--the foul religious system, the false
worship,--and also Babylon _the city_?

God does not settle His accounts every Saturday night as petty
tradesmen do.  Babylon had been garnering judgment for herself, from
the beginning.  And the cry of doom goes out against her, from Heaven.

"_Render to her even as she rewarded, and double the double according
to her works; in the cup which she mixed, mix for her double; insomuch
as she glorified herself and was wanton, TO THAT PROPORTION give to her
torment and grief.  Because she saith in her heart, I sit a queen and
am not a widow, and shall see no mourning, therefore, IN ONE DAY, shall
come her plagues, death, and mourning and famine, and with fire shall
she be burnt, because strong is the Lord who hath judged her_."

And never more after this shall the foul city arise.

Awful convulsions of the earth will take place all over the world.  The
whole configuration of the earth shall be changed.  Mountains and
islands, well known before, will disappear.

With all the other aerial and other convulsions of nature, a hailstorm,
covering an enormous area, will be one of the horrors, when, putting
the weight of the stones at the lowest average, they will probably be
quite a hundred-weight each.

And so event will follow event in such rapid succession as to puzzle
the writer how to place them wholly in consecutive order.  Satan will
be taken and bound for a thousand years.   The _living_ nations will
have been judged as regards their treatment of the Jews, and as to
their acceptance of the Gospel of the Kingdom.

On, on, on, event upon event, until the glorious millennial reign of
Christ shall be ushered in.

But before anything of which we have written in these pages can come to
pass, our precious, loving Lord must come into the air to take up His
own people to Himself.  For this every true Christian should be
looking, waiting, watching,--and _working_ while they wait, for He has
said "_Occupy_ till I come."


  "So I am watching quietly
        Every day,
  Whenever the sun shines brightly
        I rise and say,--
  "Surely it is the shining of His face,"
  And look unto the gates of His high place
        Beyond the sea,
  For I know He is coming shortly
        To summon me.
  And when a shadow falls across the window
        Of my room,
  Where I am working my appointed task,
  I lift my head to watch the door, and ask
        If He is come?
  And the Angel answers sweetly
        In my home,----
  "Only a few more shadows,
        And He will come."
  "Even so, Lord Jesus!  Come!  Come quickly!"




"FINIS?"  No!  WAITING!




