The Angel Part 36

"The clouds are very dark, David," Joseph answered. "But they will break. The dawn of the Lord is at hand, and deliverance is sure. But I, too, at this moment, am full of gloom and sorrow. You know my bad hours, old friend. One of them is with me now. I fear some calamity, though I pray against it. But it is coming. Something tells me it is coming. It is as if I heard slow footsteps drawing nearer and nearer----"

David looked anxiously at his chief.

"I doubt but you've been doing something that's taken power from you, Master," he said. "It has ever been thus with you. Have you not told us of the night when we went to the theatre-house, the home of the unG.o.dly, when you walked the streets of Babylon, and were full of doubt, though you had struck a blow for G.o.d that rang through England? And what happened then? Did you not meet the young man who is great in the eyes of the world--the young man who has given a fortune for our work--the young man who has come to Jesus at last?"

Joseph bowed his head.

"Yes, David," he replied; "it was even so, blessed be G.o.d. But to-night I feel differently. Then I was trembling upon the verge of doubt. My old disbelief had appeared again within me. It was as if a serpent slept in my brain and suddenly raised its head in coiled hate and enmity to the Light. But now it is not the same. I love and believe. The tortures of a martyrdom, of which I am not worthy, could not alter that. But I have a terrible apprehension--a fear of what to-morrow may bring forth. I cannot explain it; I do not understand it. But nevertheless it is there, and very real."

There was a silence in the big room.

The gas-jets shone upon the walls covered in faded crimson paper, the long table of deal where the brethren ate their simple meals, the single picture which hung over the fireplace--a reproduction of Christ knocking at the door of the human heart, by Holman Hunt.

There was no sound but that of a falling coal in the glowing fire.

Then old David spoke.

"Master," he said, "I think you've no call to be afraid or to fear the future. It's in G.o.d's hands, and there it is. But as far as a poor man can look into the matter, I think 'tis this way with you. We all know how blessed you have been. We all know--every one in Britain knows--that you are a special channel for the operations of the Holy Ghost in our land. Out of all men you have been mysteriously chosen to hear the heavenly voices and carry out their warnings. But all men are soul and body, too. You can't divide one from t'other while men live. Therefore it's bound to be that if your soul has been working hard on G.o.d's business, it has drained your body of its strength, and so you have these fearful thoughts. Eat and drink, and get back courage!"

Joseph smiled.

"You are right, David, I believe. I will have a bowl of milk-and-bread also. I must be strong for to-morrow. With G.o.d's blessing, it will be a great day for London. There has never been such a chance of doing good before. Yes, I must save myself for that!"

"Is it all arranged, Master?" the old man asked. "Are all the great people really coming?"

"Yes, David. And, please G.o.d, on the day after to-morrow the kingdom shall be thrilled. Sir Thomas Ducaine is coming to inspect his own property in the East End for the first time. Sir Augustus Kirwan is coming--a powerful and influential man. And the Duke of Dover is coming also. Then the Bishop of East London, though he knows very well--saint that he is--will be with us also. Our dear brother Hampson will be of the party, and also that very valiant soldier of Christ, that new recruit, Eric Black. Black and Hampson--G.o.d bless them!--will give the result of our pilgrimage to the world. It should wake all London to a storm of anger and indignation.

"These things have been discovered and published before, but only in isolated instances and at fugitive times, and the voice has always been stifled and obscured. The vested interests have been too strong. But now there is a real spiritual fervor in London. The Holy Spirit has descended on the city. There is a quickening on all sides, the air is full of the Redeemer's name. Therefore, I trust and pray that the results of our visit to-morrow will be far-reaching. Several other friends and well-wishers will accompany us in addition to the names of those I have mentioned."

"It is a fine thing to get these great people to go," said the old man simply. "Then how can you be downcast, Joseph? Surely here is yet another evidence of the favor and protection of G.o.d?"

"I do not know why this a.s.sails me," the Teacher answered; "but it does, and it is there. I cannot help it."

David Owen shut the Bible on the table in front of him, and rose to his feet.

"Dear Master," he said, "the Son of G.o.d was also troubled, in the Desert and in the Garden. But it is well--all is well. All is part of the beneficent ordering of the Father. There is but one medicine for your black thoughts, dear Master, and after you've taken it you'll let come what may."

"And that is, old friend?"

"The Lord's Prayer," answered the old gentleman, taking off his horn spectacles and placing them upon the table.

And, kneeling down, they said it together.

It was the middle of the morning and a dull, leaden day. There was no fog down in the breathing areas of town, but high above a leaden pall hung over the City of Dreadful Night, shutting out the clear light of the sun, livid, sinister and hopeless.

In the big room of the house in Bloomsbury a dozen people were gathered together. Sir Augustus Kirwan was talking to The Duke, a thick-set, clean-shaven man with a strong watchful face. Sir Thomas Ducaine and Eric Black the journalist stood together.

Several other notabilities stood in the big, bare room, and there were also three un.o.btrusive men with pointed beards, who stood together a little apart from the others. Detective-inspectors Alpha, Beta and Gamma, the real satraps and rulers of the lawless districts of Whitechapel and its environs.

All the men wore hard felt hats and dark overcoats, peer and policeman alike. It does not do to venture where these were going in anything but a very simple and un.o.btrusive dress.

Joseph and Hampson were talking earnestly together in one corner of the room. They were mapping out the terrible itinerary that should be taken, readjusting and remembering their own sad knowledge of the East, when they had walked starving down the Commercial Road.

"And now, my friends," Joseph said at length, in his deep, organ voice, "I think that all is prepared, and that we may start. Sir Thomas has some carriages waiting for us below."

Sir Augustus Kirwan answered the evangelist.

"My dear fellow," he said--"my dear Joseph, we shall all be delighted to come as soon as may be. But has it occurred to you that while we have all, doubtless, breakfasted, none of us have as yet lunched? It is lunch time now, you know; and though a piece of bread and cheese would do excellently for me, and no doubt for the rest of us, you can hardly expect the present company to penetrate into Whitechapel fasting!"

The Teacher looked at Sir Augustus with a startled face. Then he flushed slightly. It had never occurred to him that his guests must necessarily need refreshment. On his own part he had put away material needs as things of no moment for himself. He was sustained, even in body, by spiritual food. But he realized now how remiss he had been, and that all men were not as he was.

"Sir Augustus," he said, in a voice full of pain and contrition, "I have been absolutely stupid. It is quite abominable of me not to have thought of it, but there is, I am dreadfully afraid, no lunch at all!"

Sir Thomas Ducaine joined in the conversation.

"My dear Joseph," he said, "don't make yourself unhappy. There is plenty. Some of my people have brought lunch. Mary and I foresaw this little _contretemps_, and we made arrangements accordingly. In your burning eagerness to get us all down to see what you have to show us you forgot that we are but mortal, and that the body must be nourished if the eye is to see and the brain observe."

Joseph's face had cleared, but it wore a somewhat rueful expression.

"I can't thank you enough," he said, "for thinking of this. It is a fault in me that I did not do so myself. One is too apt to forget that we are all body and spirit also. Forgive me!"

They all fell to at the sandwiches and so forth which two of Sir Thomas Ducaine's servants brought into the room.

Only Joseph took nothing at all. He stood by himself, tall, beautiful, lost in a reverie that no one disturbed.

He was musing and dreaming still as the carriages took the party to the East End of London.

But when Bishopsgate was pa.s.sed at last, he threw his thoughts from him with a great effort, and became once more the keen and eager leader of those people whom he had brought to see the ultimate horror of the Modern Babylon.

They sent the carriages away at a certain turning in the Whitechapel Road. Then they plunged into the dark.

And how dark that darkness is! Fiction can hardly tell--fiction must not tell, fearing to infringe upon the bitterness and the agony of the truth. For we who write of things as they are must always consider our audience. Ask General Booth, G. R. Sims, or Mr. Holmes, the police-court missionary, what is the measure of this darkness. Ask the modern martyrs of our day, of all sects and creeds, who labor in these h.e.l.l-ridden places.

Ask, and you shall hear nothing but the tolling of a great bell, the deep and awful sound of immedicable misery, the iron paean of the blackness of sin, the deep and ringing wail of the mighty bell--the iron bell--which tolls of hopelessness, and voices the cry of the downtrodden, the oppressed, the lost!

The slaves of the Modern Babylon! But with one difference. In the walled city of wickedness between the two great rivers, hope had not come. They could not know that our Lord was to be born of a pure Virgin to save them----

Thoughts akin to these were in the minds of all of them as they went in and out of the foul slums of the East.

Sir Thomas Ducaine was covered with shame as he saw the horrors all around--horrors existing upon his own property, long unregarded and unknown. But the young man was not the only one among them who registered a mental vow to do all that he could for the wretched beings they had come amongst.

Sir Augustus Kirwan, though he had taken the chair at many philanthropic meetings, and though his name often headed important subscription lists, had never really been brought in contact, in actual personal contact, with the great open wound of London.

The party had come to the mouth of a particularly evil-looking alley.

There is character in brick and stone, and this place--"Wilson's Rents"

by name--had a sinister cut-throat aspect in every line of it.