'You ask me to tell you what I think. I think that we are about to stand before the judgment-seat of God as doomed men. We have been like the Scribes and Pharisees, saying, We know Christ, and are therefore not as others, when all the time our knowledge has been hurrying us not to but from Him. I know that my Redeemer liveth, and have used that knowledge for my own ends. Because it seemed to me that His methods were ineffective, I have said, Not His will, but mine be done. I have taught Him, not as He would be taught, but as it has suited me to teach Him. I have lied of Him and to Him, and have taught a great multitude to lie also. I have made of Him a mockery in the eyes of men, dragged Him through the gutter, flaunted Him from the hoardings, used Him as a street show, and as a mountebank in the houses which I have called not His, but mine. I have blasphemed His Name by using it as a meaningless catch-phrase in the foolish mouths of men and women seeking for a new sensation, or for self-display. I have done all these things and many more. I am an old man. What time have I for atonement? For I know now that what Christ wants is a man's life, not merely a part of it--the beginning, the middle, or the end. You cannot win him with a phrase in a moment of emotion. You have gradually, persistently, quietly, to mould yourself in His image. Nothing else will serve. For that, for me, the time is past. I cannot undo what I have done, nor can I begin again. It is too late.

'You ask me what I think. I think if Christ has come again--I fear He has, for strange things have happened to me since I entered the Presence that is in this room--that we had better flee, though where, I do not know; for wherever we go we shall take Him with us. I, for one, dare not meet Him face to face. I envy him his courage that dare, though he will have to be made of different stuff from any of us if it is to avail him anything. Be assured of this, that for us the Second Coming will not be a joyful advent. It will mean, at best, the pricking of the bubbles we have so long and so laboriously been blowing. We shall be made to know ourselves as He knows us. There will be the beginning of the end. What form that end will take I dare not endeavour to foresee. God help us all!'

There was a curious quality in the silence that ensued when the 'General' ceased, until Mr. Treadman sprang to his feet.

'I protest, with all the strength that is in me, against the doctrine which we have just heard! It is abominable--a thing of horror-- contrary to all that we know of God's love and His infinite mercy! I know that it is false!'

'Oh, man! man! it's few things we haven't known, you and I--except ourselves. And that knowledge is coming to us too soon. Woeful will be the day!'

'I cannot but think that the sudden rush of exciting events has turned our honoured friend's brain.'

'It has, towards the light; so that I can see the outer darkness which lies beyond.'

'General, I cannot find language with which to express the pain I feel at the tendency which I perceive in your attitude to turn your back on all the teachings of your life.'

'Your sentence is involved--your sentences sometimes are; but your meaning's tolerably clear. I'm sorry too.'

'Do you mean to deny that he who repents finds God--you who have been vehement in the cause of instant conversion.'