'That is a good man,' said the curate, 'and a strange one. He has filled my mind with curious thoughts.'
'It is the Lord! said Mr. Treadman.
'The Lord?' The curate regarded the speaker with a peculiar smile. 'Are you mad, sir? Or do you think I am?'
'It is the Lord!' Mr. Treadman held out his clenched fists in front of him, as if to add weight to his assertion. 'I know it of a surety!'
'Does it not occur to you what an awful thing it would be if what you say were true?' Awful? How awful?'
'When He came before He found them unprepared--so unprepared that they could not believe it was He. What would it not mean if, at His Second Coming, He found us still unready? He might be moving among us, and we not know it; we might meet Him in the street, and pass Him by. The human mind is not at its best when it is wholly unprepared: it cannot twist itself hither and thither without even a moment's notice. And our civilisation is so complex that the first result of an unexpected Advent would be to plunge it into chaos. Saints and sinners alike would be thrown off their balance. There would be a carnival of confusion. The tragedy which rings down the ages might be re-enacted. Christ might be crucified again by Christian hands.'
'We must avoid it! We must avoid it! We must prepare the people's minds; we must let them know that His reign is about to begin. They need but the knowledge to fill the world with songs of gladness.'
'You really believe your friend is a supernatural being?'
'It is the Lord! I know it of a surety! You call yourself His minister. Is it possible you do not know Him, too?'
'No; I do not. For one thing, I do not think that, really and truly, I have ever contemplated the possibility of such an occurrence. To me the Second Coming has been an abstraction--a nebulous something that would not happen in my time. Yet he troubles me, the more so since I remember that good men must have stood in His presence aforetime, and yet not have known Him for what He was, although He troubled them. However, it may be written to the good of my account that for your friend I have done what I could.'