The letter came too late. Mr. Trimblerigg no longer cared what the far-removed Davidina thought of him. Her long-distance pin-pricks had lost their medicinal virtue. ‘Puff!’ he remarked airily; and as he flipped the letter into the waste-paper basket, his fate resumed the jiggety tenor of its way, and the bursting process went on. For in the last few hours Mr. Trimblerigg had greatly fortified himself by prayer, so that his good opinion of himself was now undeflectable; and the old helpless feeling, which his attacks of prayer so often gave me, had come upon me once more. But this time I was rather enjoying it, and was very much interested, wondering how far—left to himself—Mr. Trimblerigg would go.
If ever the human race comes to read its own history, without prejudice, or blindness, or superstition, it will discover as never before what a tremendous part answer to prayer has played in man’s making. As never before: for the strangest part of that discovery will be from which end the answer to prayer has come. Man claims many virtues which he does not possess; but he has also a few which he does not know; and if my materials have sometimes disappointed me, and inclined me to think that, on the whole, the making of man was a mistake, I have only had to turn and watch him in his marvellous manufacture of answers to his own prayers, to feel afresh the encouragement and diversion with which the work of creation has provided me.
Under the auspices of a thousand religions, which cannot possibly all of them be true, operated in the interests of gods who are, or who were some of them, no better than they should be, prayer has always been answered. And the more firmly man has held to that faith bowing before the dark altars of his strange and shifting creeds, the more surely and swiftly has he evolved and made for himself a life worth living, and for me a spectacle worth contemplating.
Had all those Heavens to which he addressed his prayer really sent back the answer, bobbing it like a cherry to the open mouth of the supplicant, what a poor effete parasitic thing he would have become! But because the Heavens were more aloof and the gods much harder of hearing than he knew, or because a wise silence was the true air from which his spirit drew breath of life, therefore has man, left to answer himself from that Kingdom of Heaven which is within him, become the overruling factor of his still changing and troubled world; possessing himself of the lies wherewith priestcraft has so generously provided him, he takes and turns them into truth.
And so, by prayer, he has made history. But, though he has told many tales to the contrary for the bettering of his faith, has anything ever really happened in his contact with wind or weather, seed-time or harvest, storm, earthquake, eclipse, course of sun and moon, that he has not brought about himself? He still talks of the evidence of his senses: but there the evidence of his senses stands immemorially before him, and he still does not believe them! In spite of all the Bank-holidays and National Fêtes that wet weather has spoiled for him, inflicting disappointment and misery upon millions of his fellows out for a snack of holiday whose date cannot possibly be changed—in spite of that evidence staring him in the face, he still thinks that I am the clerk of the weather, and prays to me about it, and still likes me; and does not think me cross-grained, or spiteful, or revengeful, because I have spoiled so many of his holidays! Truly, with all his faults, man is the most marvellously forgiving creature that was ever made—or else the most inconsequent in all those matters which are called matters of faith.
Often and often have I had cause to wonder at the things which man found possible to believe: his queer creeds, his superstitions, his transference of justice from this world to the next, his appetite for making his gods like himself in their bad as well as in their good qualities; and then for making them unlike himself, with miraculous powers, attended by signs and wonders, and visitations, and unexpected happenings, which even in his insurance policies he calls ‘acts of God.’ All these things fill me with amazement that any man should believe in them as having any spiritual significance whatsoever. But when I consider how many believe that I provide the weather for Bank-holiday and harvest, and can change it at will, then I have to admit that man can make himself believe anything if once he starts praying about it. And so it was quite natural that having prayed about himself so long and earnestly, Mr. Trimblerigg should also believe in himself as much as he did.
And so upon its second advent, Mr. Trimblerigg’s halo was a great success. It did not have to appear unexplained; a public meeting was arranged for it. And there with due solemnity for the strengthening of faith the box of Susannah Walcot was brought forth like a new ark of the covenant; and a crowned head, having first prayed to be guided aright, broke the seals, drew out the contents, and read extracts, and coming upon an illustrated page was for putting it modestly aside, when his hand was stayed by the vigilance of Isabel Sparling. After that the success of Susannah’s prophecies was assured. Judiciously edited they caused a tremendous sensation, arousing also, in the episcopal churches, derision and furious opposition.
It was the finishing touch requisite for full success. With that final push Second Adventism, under the ban of the older theology, moved on from strength to strength. In the Free Churches it swept the board, and not many months later candidates for holy orders, in all congregations where the incumbents were democratically chosen, had little chance of selection unless they came as certified converts to Spiritualism, Second Adventism, and the prophetic writings of Susannah Walcot. The organ of the movement, The Last Trump, displaying on its cover an ace of hearts with rays emanating, ran into a circulation of millions. And though its opponents might call it ‘The Artful Card,’ and its radiant editor ‘The Artful Dodger,’ and publish parodies of the prophecies as they appeared in weekly instalments, its scope and influence became more and more irresistible. In the price and extent of its advertisement columns alone it was only beaten by that most popular of all ladies’ journals The Toilet Table. And even The Toilet Table in its editorials was kind to the movement, and gave prominent reports of its preachers and the smartness of its congregations.
Indeed before long there were scarcely any other congregations worth talking about outside the high and dry pale of Episcopacy. And then, against that also, Mr. Trimblerigg struck his blow. A brief announcement without boast or comment, in The Last Trump, told that exclusive arrangements had been made by Second Adventism for the broadcasting of Mr. Trimblerigg’s orations, every Sunday, morning and evening, at the competitive hours of divine service.
At that scrapping of its preachers, Episcopacy became active, appealed to public opinion for its protection, and found that it was too late. Within a month informal disestablishment had become its lot; and though with its endowments and its powers of preferment left, it remained rich, and in its own narrow circle influential; it ceased to count as an organization of national importance. And meanwhile, in surreptitious driblets, adherents of the Free Church rump—Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, Free Evangelicals were passing over to the ranks of Second Adventism.