CHAPTER XXII.
FROM THE PROPHET’S CHAMBER.
Tom Hammond was alone in his editorial office. He had come to the day, the moment at last, when he felt constrained to write out of his full heart, to the readers of his paper, all that he yearned that the world should know of the imminence of the Return of the Lord.
Before he put pen to paper to write on this supreme theme in his “Prophet’s Chamber” column, he bowed his head on his desk and prayed for guidance and help. Then he began to write out his heart fully, telling first of his conversion, and of the wondrous meetings conducted by Major H——.
His whole being was fired with holy purpose. “Had ever a preacher such a pulpit as has the editor of “The Courier?” he wrote. “Had any preacher ever so mighty a privilege, so great a responsibility as is mine to-day? This paper circulates through more than a million people’s hands, even allowing that only the one person purchasing the paper, reads it—though one might almost safely double that million, since there are very few of the papers which will not be read by two, or more persons.
“This ‘Prophet’s Column’ will likely overflow all its ordinary banks, as does the Great Nile in its season, but if my overflowing but carry life on its tide, as does the tide of the overflowing Nile, then, all will be well.
“As a converted Editor of a great daily, I have put my hand, my pen, my mind into the mighty, unerring hand of God, praying that I may write only that which will reach the hearts of my readers. And the question comes to me, ‘what word does London, does England most need to-day?’
“This—that all the world should know, and realize, that any day, aye, any hour, Christ may return—not to the earth but into the air—”
Here followed the teaching of the Gospel and Epistles, as he had learned it from Major H——, and from his own subsequent personal study of the Word of God.
“I appeal to the most thoughtful of my readers, I appeal to the unthinking, as I say, ‘do you not see how a real belief, in this near coming of Christ would revolutionize all our national, commercial, domestic, and church life. How, too, it would immediately settle every social problem.’