Into his pleasantries on the monotony of life in 'Eaven, I do not feel inclined to follow this gentleman. The Atonement, he went on to remark, if necessary at all, came 4000 years too late. It should have been—so we were to believe on his ipse dixit—contemporaneous with the Fall. This atonement we were to avail ourselves of by means of faith. Idiots could not have faith, but were allowed to be saved. Consequently, argued Mr. Ramsey, in conclusion, the best thing for all of us would have been to have been born idiots, and, consistently enough, Christianity tried to turn us all into idiots.
Such were some of the statements. I refrain from quoting the most offensive, which were deliberately put forward at this al fresco infidels' meeting; and with what result? Though a vast population kept moving to and fro along that great highway there were never, I am sure, more than a hundred people gathered at the shrine of Mr. Ramsey. They laughed at his profanities, yes; but directly he dropped these, and grew argumentative, they talked, and had to be vigorously reduced to order. Gallio-like they cared for none of these things, and I am quite sure a good staff of working clergy, men like Mr. Body or Mr. Steele of St. Thomas's, who could talk to the people, would annihilate Mr. Ramsey's prestige. As for Mr. Harrington, he meant well, and had splendid lung-power, but his theology was too sectarian to suit a mixed body of listeners embracing all shades of thought and no-thought.
Supposing Mr. Ramsey to have put forth all his power that morning—and I have no reason to doubt that he did so—I deliberately say that I should not hesitate to take my own boy down to hear him, because I feel that even his immature mind would be able to realize how little there was to be said against Christianity, if that were all.
CHAPTER XXXII.
AN "INDESCRIBABLE PHENOMENON."
When the bulk of the London Press elects to gush over anything or anybody, there are at all events, primâ facie grounds for believing that there is something to justify such a consensus. When, moreover, the object of such gush is a young lady claiming to be a spirit-medium, the unanimity is so unusual as certainly to make the matter worth the most careful inquiry, for hitherto the London Press has either denounced spiritualism altogether, or gushed singly over individual mediums, presumably according to the several proclivities of the correspondents. Of Miss Annie Eva Fay, however—is not the very name fairy-like and fascinating?—I read in one usually sober-minded journal that "there is something not of this earth about the young lady's powers." Another averred that she was "a spirit medium of remarkable and extraordinary power." Others, more cautious, described the "mystery" as "bewildering," the "entertainment" as "extraordinary and incomprehensible," while yet another seemed to me to afford an index to the cause of this gush by saying that "Miss Fay is a pretty young lady of about twenty, with a delicate spirituelle face, and a profusion of light hair, frizzled on the forehead."
I made a point of attending Miss Annie Eva Fay's opening performance at the Hanover Square Rooms, and found all true enough as to the pretty face and the frizzled hair. Of the "indescribable" nature of the "phenomenon" (for by that title is Miss Fay announced, à la Vincent Crummles) there may be two opinions, according as we regard the young lady as a kind of Delphic Priestess and Cumæan Sibyl rolled into one, or simply a clever conjuror—conjuress, if there be such a word.
Let me, then, with that delightful inconsistency so often brought to bear on the so-called or self-styled "supernatural," first describe the "indescribable," and then, in the language of the unspiritual Dr. Lynn, tell how it is all done; for, of course, I found it all out, like a great many others of the enlightened and select audience which gathered at Miss Annie Eva Fay's first drawing-room reception in the Queen's Concert Rooms.