"Lucien Apleon is a Jew!"
Bastin started sharply. Some idea of what his friend meant flashed upon him.
"Lucien Apleon!" he cried hoarsely. "But what——"
Baring broke in with: "I believe that Lucien Apleon will presently be revealed as the Anti-christ, and——"
The conversation had been going on in Ralph's Editorial office. It was now interrupted by a startling call over the tape-wire, and Baring suddenly realizing the hour, took a hurried temporary farewell of his friend.
An hour later Ralph was seated at his table penning the "Prophet's chair" column for the next morning's issue of his paper. It was only natural, under the new order of life and thought that prevailed, that a daily paper, conducted on the lines of the "Courier," should drop heavily in circulation. The "Courier" had so dropped, though it still paid to issue it.
"My enemies, the enemies of God and of righteousness," he murmured, as he took up his "Fountain," (he preferred a pen to a type-writer) "are, I am inclined to believe, the chief purchasers of the paper new, and they only buy it to see what I say from the 'Prophet's Chair.'"
For a moment, as was now his invariable custom, before beginning his daily message, he bowed his head and prayed for wisdom to write God's mind.
When next he lifted his head, and put pen to paper, he wrote with great rapidity, and without an instant's hesitation:
"Resuming the subject of which we wrote yesterday, we tried to show from Revelation XII, that the teaching was this, that, full of rage because of his casting out from the heavens, Satan, the great Dragon, the old Serpent, determined to destroy all lovers of God, that were yet found among mortals. But even Satan himself is a spirit, and 'cannot operate in the affairs of the world except through the minds, passions and activities of men.' He needs to embody himself in earthly agents, and to put himself forth in earthly organisms, in order to accomplish his murderous will.