All the wealthy, comfortable, easy-going folk who grudgingly paid a small pew-rent out of their superfluity became alarmed, horribly alarmed. The Christianity which had sat so lightly upon them that at first opportunity they had rushed into the Unitarian meeting-houses became suddenly a very desirable thing.
In the fall of Christianity they saw their own fortunes falling. And these self-deceivers would be swept back upon the tide of this reaction into the arms of the Anglican mother they had despised.
The vicar saw all this. He was a keen expert in, and student of, human affairs, and withal a psychologist. He saw his opportunity.
His words lashed and stung these renegades. They were made to see themselves as they were; the preacher cut away all the ground from under them. They were left face to face with naked shame.
What puzzled and yet uplifted the congregation at St. Thomas's was their vicar's extraordinary certainty that the spiritual darkness over the land was shortly to be removed.
It was commented on, keenly observed, greatly wondered at.
"Mr. Byars speaks," said Mr. Pryde, a wealthy solicitor, "as if he had some private information about this Palestine discovery. He is so confident that he magnetises one into his own state of mind, and Byars is not a very emotional man either. His conviction is real. It's not hysteria."
And, being a shrewd, silent man, the solicitor formed his own conclusions, but said nothing of them.
The church continued full of worshippers.