Here, writing with swift, eager pen, he went over the ground covered by Major H——, as regarded the signs of the coming of the Lord—the movement among the Jews; their excitement, as a race, over the date discovery 5,666; the preparations for the rebuilding of the Temple. Then the increased effort in the Foreign Mission fields. The growth of the spirit of lawlessness in the world, and in the church. The multiplicity of spiritualistic devices—doctrine of Devils. The awakening of all real, true, spiritually-minded Bible students to the fact of Christ’s near Return. And the great, but often disregarded sign, “the scoffers who shall say where is the promise of His coming? for, since the Fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.”
“But He will come! He is near at hand! Every sign of the times proclaims this! It is night, now, and He will come as a thief in the night. At any moment now we may look for Him. Before this news-sheet, damp from the press, is in the hands of my readers, Christ may have come and taken away every one of His own Believing people—I shall be missing, another here, and another there will be missing.
“And when a puzzled, troubled London shall be gathering in business, that saying shall have come to pass, ‘The one shall be taken, the other left!’ (For though this word is primarily Jewish in its application, it will yet have a measure of meaning for the world, when the Church is taken away).
“May every Christian be ready to meet His Lord, when He shall come, and every unready, unsaved soul who reads these ‘Prophet’s Chamber’ columns, seek the face of God through faith in the Atoning work of Jesus Christ. For, believe me, His Return is very near, to some of us the sound of His footfalls is even now in our ears.”
He bent his head over the written sheets, praying God to bless the message. Then an interruption came. A knock at the door, and his sub, Ralph Bastin entered.
CHAPTER XXIII.
PASSOVER!
Cohen, the Jew, blew out the candle, and set the stand aside. The knees of his trousers were pressed and dusty. He had just been over the whole house, lighted candle in hand, and had searched every nook and crannie, every cupboard, every shelf, under the edge of every carpet, looking for the faintest sign of leaven in the form of bread, cake, or biscuit crumb. He had found nothing, and went to his room to bathe and change his clothing.
“What of you, Zillah?” he had asked the lovely girl, earlier in the day. “With your newly-espoused faith in the Nazarene, shall you partake of the lamb with us?”