“The Monk of ——!”
The face of the Monk was familiar to all Londoners by his photograph, which beside being on sale in the shops, had appeared again and again in magazines. He had a striking figure, and there was a curious picturesqueness about his appearance, with his smooth, clean-shaven face, eagle eyes, tonsured crown, and curious purple-brown cowled habit, girdled with a stout yellow cord about the waist. His bare feet were sandaled. His hands, long, thin, with white tapering fingers, were outstretched a moment, then dropped slowly as he went on:—
“These are times when no one of us may shrink from speaking the truth boldly, if the Truth has been committed to us.
“With all due respect to our friend, Bishop ——, I would say, that all the surmises abroad in London, to-day, and those that have been voiced in our hearing here, during this hour, are wrong!
“The true meaning of the mysterious disappearance of so many ultra-protestants, is this: The great end is near! God’s work was being frustrated by those unholy zealots, who have been therefore graciously snatched away to hell, before they could do further mischief.”
Murmurs of dissent and protest ran through the mass of people, like the low sullen roar, at sea, of a coming storm.
The Bishop thought of his Translated wife. He knew, too, that God not only indwelt himself, now, but that He had guided him in speaking to the people. He rose in the pulpit to protest against the words of the Romanist.
But a voice cried out from the congregation:—
“Let the Monk have his say. These are strange times, and we would hear all sides before we can judge.”
And the Monk went on:—