A Second Coming

by Richard Marsh

'That is the sort of talk which has been responsible for the superstition which has been the world's greatest bane. The votaries of the multifarious varieties of hanky-panky have always shown a distaste for the cold, dry light of truth, which is all that science is.'

Jebb smiled.

'I am not so exigent as the Professor. I recognise the presence in our midst of a worker of wonders--a god among men. And although in that latter phrase some may only see a poetic license, I am disposed to be content. For I represent a too obvious fact--the fact that one portion of the world is the victim of the other part's injustice. As I came here to-night I passed through men and women, ragged, tattered, and torn, smirched with all manner of uncleanliness, who were hastening towards this house as if towards the millennium. Remembering how often that quest had been a dream, I asked myself if it were possible that at last it gleamed on the horizon. As I put to myself the question, my heart leaped up into my mouth. For it was borne in upon me, as a thing not to be denied, that it might be that, in the best of all possible senses, the Day of the Lord has arrived-- the Great Day of the Lord.'

'It has arrived, Jebb, be sure of it!'

'I think--I say it with all due deference--that it will not be our fault if it has not, in the sense in which I use the phrase. I am told that we have Christ again among us. On that pronouncement I pass no opinion. I stand simply for those that suffer. I do know that we are in actual touch with one who has given proofs of his capacity to alleviate pain and make glad the sorrowful. Experience has shown that by nothing less than a miracle can the submerged millions be raised out of the depths. Here is a doer of miracles. Already he has shown that a cry of anguish gains access to the heart, and impels him to a removal of the cause. Here is a great healer, the physician the world is so much in want of. Would it not be well for us, sinking all controversial differences, to join hands in approaching him, and in showing him, with all humility, the wounds which gape widest, and the souls which are enduring most, doing this in the trust that the sight of so much affliction will quicken his sympathies, and move him to right the wrong, and to make the rough ways smooth? How he will do it I cannot say. But he who can raise a cancerous corpse from an operating table, and endue it with life and health upon the instant, can do that and more. To such an one all things are possible. I ask you to consider whether it will not be well that we should discuss the best and most effective manner in which, in the morning, this matter can be laid before him who has come among us.'

Scarcely had Mr. Jebb ceased to speak than there rose a huge man, with matted beard, untidy hair, eager eyes, and a voice which seemed to shake the room. This was the socialist, Henry Walters. He spoke with tumultuous haste, as if it was all he could do to keep up with the words which came rushing along his tongue.

'I say, Yes! if that's the Christ you're talking about, I'm for him. If this disturber of the peace is a creature with red blood in his veins, count me on his side. For he'll be a disturber of the peace with a vengeance. If at last Heaven has given us someone who is prepared to deal, not with abstractions, but with facts, then I cry: "Hallelujah for the King of Kings!" For it's more important that our rookeries should be made decent dwelling-places than that all the Churches should plump for the Thirty-nine Articles. The prospect of a practical Christ almost turns my brain. Religion is a synonym for contradiction in theory and practice, but a Christ who is a live man, and not a decoration for an altarpiece, will be likely to have clear notions on the problems which are beyond our finding out, and to care little for singing bad verses about the golden sea. We want a Saviour more than the handful of Jews did, who at least had breathing space in the 11,000 miles of open country, with a respectable climate, which you call Palestine. But he must be a Saviour that is a Saviour; not an utterer of dark sayings which are made darker by being interpreted, but a doer of deeds. Let him purify the moral and physical atmosphere of a single London alley, and he'll not want for followers. Let him assure the London dockers of a decent return for honest labour, and he'll write his name for all time on their hearts. Let him put an end to sweating, and explain to the wicked mighty that by right their seats should be a little lower down, and he'll have all that's worth having in the world upon his side. You talk about a Saviour of the poor. If such an one has come at last, the face of this country will be transformed in a fashion which will surprise some of you who live on the poor. There'll be no need of a second crucifixion, or for more tittle-tattle about dying for sinners. Let him live for them. He has but to choose to conquer, to will to extend his empire, eternally, from pole to pole. And since these are my sentiments I need not enlarge on the zest with which I shall join in the discussion suggested by Mr. Jebb as to the most irresistible method of laying before him who has come among us the plain fact that this chaos called a city is but a huge charnel-house of human misery.'

When Mr. Walters sat down the Rev. Martin Philipps rose:

'I have listened in silence to the remarks which we have just heard because I felt that this was pre-eminently an occasion on which every man, conscious of his own responsibility, was entitled to an uninterrupted exposition of his views, however abhorrent those views might be to some of us. I need not tell you how both the tone and spirit of those to which we have just been listening are contrary to every sense and fibre of my being. Mr. Jebb and the last speaker seem only to see the secular side of the subject which is before us. This is the more surprising as it has no secular side. If Christ has come, it is as a Divinity, not as an adherent of this or that political or social school, but as an intermediary between heaven and earth. I cannot express to you the horror with which I regard the notion that the purport of His presence here can be to administer to the material wants of men. To suppose so is indeed to mock God. We as Christians know better. It is our blessed privilege to be aware that it is not our bodies which He seeks, but our souls. Our body is but the envelope which contains the soul, and from which one day it emerges, like the chrysalis from the cocoon. The one endures but for a few years, the other through all eternity.

'I would not inflict on you these platitudes were it not necessary, after the remarks which we have heard, for us, as Christians to make our position plain. If Christ has come again, it is in infinite love, to make a further effort to save us from the consequences of our own sin, to complete the work of His atonement, and to seek once more to gather us within the safety of His fold.