The driver stopped his horse.
'You must get out here. I must go back. I'll be late as it is.'
'Go back! My man, you must press forward. It is for the Lord that I am looking.'
'The Lord!'
'The Lord Christ. He has come to us again, this time to win the world as a whole, and for ever; and by some frightful accident I have allowed Him to pass out of my sight.'
'I've heard tell of something of the kind. But I don't take no count of such things. There's some as does; but I'm not one. I tell you you must get out. I'm more than late enough already.'
Left stranded in the middle of the road, Mr. Treadman stared after the retreating carter.
'The man has no spiritual side; he's a mere brute! In this age of Christianity and its attendant civilisation, it's wonderful that such creatures should continue to exist. If there are many such, it is a hard task which He has set before Him. He will need all the help which we can give. Why, then, does he seem to slight the efforts of His faithful servant? I don't know what will happen if those people find that they have come from town for nothing. His cause may receive an almost irreparable injury at the very start.'
Those people came. The messages with which he troubled the wires were of a nature to induce them to come. There was Mrs. Miriam Powell, whose domestic unhappiness has not prevented her from doing such good work among fallen women, that it is surprising how their numbers still continue to increase. And there was Harvey Gifford, the founder of that Christian Assistance Society which has done such incalculable service in providing cheap entertainments for the people, and which ceaselessly sends to the chief Continental pleasure resorts hordes of persons, in the form of popular excursions, whose manners and customs are hardly such as are even popularly associated with Christianity. When these two Christian workers received Mr. Treadman's telegram, phrased in the quaint Post-Office fashion--'Christ is coming to London the Christ I have seen him and am with him and I know he is here walking on the highroad come to him and let your eyes be gladdened meet him if possible between Guildford and Ripley I will endeavour to induce him to come that way about eleven spread the glad tidings so that he enters London as one that comes into his own this is the Lord's doing this is the day of the Lord we triumph all along the line the stories told of his miracles are altogether inadequate state that positively to all inquirers as from me no more can be said within the limits of a telegram for your soul's sake fail not to be on the Ripley road in time the faithful servant of the Lord-- Treadman'--their minds were made up on the instant. London was ringing with inchoate rumours. Scarcely within living memory had the public mind been in a state of more curious agitation. The truth or falsehood of the various statements which were made was the subject of general controversy. Where two or three were gathered together, there was discussed the topic of the hour. It seemed, from Treadman's telegram, that he of whom the tales were told was coming back in town, which he had quitted in such mysterious fashion. It seemed that Treadman himself actually believed he was the Christ.
Could two such single-minded souls, in the face of such a message, delay from making all haste in the direction of the Ripley road?