The Angel

"I know that you will believe what I am going to tell you," he said quietly. "First, I must say a few words about myself. All my thinking life – since I was a very young man – I have been a convinced Christian. Even in the darkest hours my faith has not wavered, whatever my sins and errors may have been. Joseph, on the contrary, has been as convinced an atheist as you say that you yourself are. A hundred times in my hearing he has derided Jesus Christ and mocked at God. He threw up a great career at Cambridge because he felt it his duty to express his convictions in public. Only a few weeks ago he was exactly of the same way of thinking. To-night you heard him sway and move hundreds of sinful men and women directly inspired by God. Like a prophet of old – even as Jesus Himself – he preached the truth in the places of the ungodly. You, yourself, were profoundly stirred. Now, I ask you, what does this mean?"

Sir Thomas had been gazing at his guest with deep interest and wonder.

"You startle me, sir," he said. "You overwhelm me with what you tell me. I must believe you. I do indeed! But what had changed him? Tell me that!"

"The power of the Holy Ghost," said the journalist.

There was a silence.

Sir Thomas leant back in his chair with an abstracted gaze. He had eaten nothing, though his guest, wiser than he, had made a sufficient and recuperative meal.

The little Japanese spaniel rose from his sleep before the glowing fire, and put his nose into his master's hand. Sir Thomas stroked the tiny creature absently.

"The Holy Ghost?" he said, fixing his eyes upon Hampson. "What is that? Who can say?"

"The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God."

"I would," the young man said, with great sadness – "would that the Holy Ghost would come to me also."

He had hardly finished the sentence – probably the first prayer he had ever made since he lisped "Our Father" at his mother's knee – when the door opened, and the butler entered the room.

"A note, Sir Thomas," the man said. "A note from Miss Lys. The bearer awaits an answer."

The young man took the note with trembling fingers and tore it open. This was what he read: —

"I saw you in the theatre to-night, and I knew that you were disturbed about me. Have no fear. I am writing this from my aunt's house, where I went immediately when we left the theatre. But I want you to come and see me here to-morrow, quite early. Would ten o'clock be too soon? I have something of the highest importance to say to you. Send back an answer to say that you can come. I have been here for an hour, and I have been thinking of you the whole time. I have a premonition about you – a happy one!

    "Mary."

CHAPTER IX

A LINK CHAPTER

Joseph, his followers, and Mary Lys, had passed out of the theatre without hindrance in the dark. They encountered no one in their passage, and found themselves in Shaftesbury Avenue as people pass from one dream into another. The faces of all of them were pale and set, but no one spoke.

It is a well-known fact that hardly any one attracts attention in the streets of London unless because of noise or eccentric behavior. This is quite true of the daytime, and especially true at night. So cosmopolitan is the modern Babylon, so intent upon their own business or pleasure are the inhabitants, that a Chinaman in full native costume or an admiral in full-dress would do no more than excite the merest passing regard.

When, therefore, Joseph and his companions walked up the busy pleasure-street, they were almost unnoticed. A man with a soft felt hat pressed down upon his forehead, a bearded man wearing a black cloak of a somewhat peculiar cut – what was there in that? A hospital nurse and a few grave-faced men in country-clothes and obviously from the country – who was to give them any notice?

It happened, therefore, that the little party were well on their way towards Oxford Street before the first member of the audience had left the Frivolity. As far as any knowledge of their whereabouts was concerned, they might have vanished into thin air.

They walked on in silence, Joseph leading the way with Mary, the half-dozen men following behind.

When Oxford Street was reached, Joseph hailed a cab.

"You have been with us long enough for to-night, sister," he said; "your aunt and uncle must be anxious about you, and you owe them a duty after you have fulfilled your duty to the Lord. Truly, the Holy Spirit has been with us on this night, during the first few hours we have been here. May He always be with us and bless and prosper our great undertaking! Good-night, and God bless you, my dear sister. If it be God's will we shall all meet again on the morrow. It may be that even before then some one of us will receive a sign or a revelation."

His eyes shone with mystical fire as he said this, and watched the cab drive away into the roar of lighted traffic.

Then he turned to his companions.

"Brethren," he said, "I feel, I know not why or how, that my work to-night is not yet ended. But go you to your lodgings. I will be with you for prayer and to break the fast not long after dawn. You trust me still? You believe in our great work? You are not terrified by the noise and the glitter of this wicked, mighty city? If there is one among you who would even now draw back, and once more seek the quiet hills of Wales, then he may yet do so on this very night."

"We have no home, Master," one of the men said, Owen Rees by name, and obviously speaking in the name of his companions. "We have no home but the Kingdom of God. We have set our hand to the plough, and will not turn back. The Lord is with us," he concluded simply – "whatever and why should we fear?"

"Then, brethren," Joseph answered, "God be with you. That omnibus there will take you to the door of the place by the station where we have taken our lodging. David Foulkes knows the number, and has the money. Pray for us all."

With these words he turned and strode away westward. They gazed after him until the tall, black figure was swallowed up by the crowd.

On and on went Joseph, regardless of all around him. His mind was full of doubt and fear, despite the calm words he had spoken to his disciples. All the saints of God have known dark and empty moments, wherein all seems hopeless and sad, and the great world seems closing round, shutting them off from the Almighty. It is always thus. We are tried and tempted to the last. We also must know faintly some of those hours of agony which the Man of Sorrows Himself knew and suffered.

It was thus with Joseph now. During the tremendous effort in the theatre he had been conscious that God was with him, and speaking through the mouth of His servant. He was the vessel of the Unseen and Awful Power. In a flash of Divine inspiration he had known of the lives of the men who sat below him.

But when it was all over, a reaction set in. He was filled with gloomy and troubled thoughts. Had his words been right words after all? Was the impulse which had drawn him to the theatre with irresistible strength an impulse from on high? And who was he, after all, that he should lead others in a new crusade against the sin and wickedness of this great city?

He felt exactly as if some actual personality which had been animating him was now withdrawn.

To his left, Park Lane stretched away towards Piccadilly, the palaces there all blazing with light. It was typical of what he had come to denounce, to warn, and to save.

And how was it possible that he, a weak man, could do this thing?

He walked on. Half-way down Park Lane he saw that a coffee-stall stood in the shadow of the Park railings, drawn up close to the curb. The sight reminded him that he had not eaten for many hours, and he crossed the road towards it.

There were no customers but himself, and in a moment or two a steaming cup of coffee and two great wedges of bread-and-butter stood before him.

He had never enjoyed a meal so much, he thought idly – no, not even in the recent days of starvation in Whitechapel, when an unexpected windfall had provided him and Hampson with food.

Whitechapel! What a lifetime of experience had been his since those days! Wales, the mystical life with Lluellyn Lys —

A flush of shame and sorrow came over him. Why had he doubted even for a single moment the power and guidance of God! Had not the Holy Ghost been always with him – always, from the very first?

"O Lord," he cried, in his heart, "forgive Thine unworthy servant his weak doubts and fears! I know that Thou art with me, now, and forever more!"

He had concluded the short and unspoken prayer when he was startled by a voice.

He had not noticed that when the coffee-stall proprietor – an old man with snow-white hair, and large, horn-rimmed spectacles – had given him the coffee, he had returned to a large book he was reading.

Now Joseph looked round suddenly, and realized that the old fellow was saying the sentences aloud to himself.

"He shall call upon Me, and I will hear him; yea, I was with him in trouble. I will deliver him, and bring him to honour."

Joseph put down his pennies upon the counter. The answer to his prayer had come, once more God had spoken.

"Thank ye!" said the old man, in a strong Scotch accent. "I doot but I startled ye with me reading. I read aloud to my wife, who can nae mair see to read for hersel', and sae I've got in the way o't. But they're gran' words, lad."

"Thank you for them, and God bless you!" Joseph answered; and with the old fellow's kindly "Good nicht!" ringing in his ears, resumed his walk.

He was immeasurably comforted and helped, and his whole soul went up in a burst of praise and adoration.