Richard Marsh

“ The figure of the Stranger appeared at the door which led into the loft; and He spoke to Mr. Treadman, saying:
'You know not what are the things of which you speak, as is the manner of men. Are you, then, so ignorant as not to be aware that God's ways are not as men's? Let your soul cease from troubling. God asks not to learn of you. He made you; He holds you in the hollow of His hand; you are the dust of the balance. Come, and sleep.'
Mr. Treadman went up into the loft, crying like a child. ”

“ What would it not mean if, at His Second Coming, He found us still unready? He might be moving among us, and we not know it; we might meet Him in the street, and pass Him by. The human mind is not at its best when it is wholly unprepared: it cannot twist itself hither and thither without even a moment's notice. And our civilisation is so complex that the first result of an unexpected Advent would be to plunge it into chaos. Saints and sinners alike would be thrown off their balance. ”

“ The constable thrust him aside.
'Move on, there! move on! That's enough of that nonsense!'
'Oh yes,' said Walters, as they forced him back into the seething throng; 'oh yes, one soon has enough of nonsense of that kind. Christ has come! God help us all!'
On the steps that led up to the door a woman fought with the police. She was as a mad thing, screaming in her agony:
'Let me see Christ! Let me see Him! My daughter's dead! I brought her to be healed; she's been killed in the crowd; I want Him to bring her back to life. Let me see Christ! ”

“ When I first heard that someone was in London who, it was rumoured, was the Lord Jesus, my feeling was one of shock, horror, amazement, to think that anyone could be guilty of so blasphemous a travesty. If you consider, probably the same sensation was felt by Jews who were told that the Messiah, to whose advent their whole history pointed, was in their midst. When they were shown an ordinary man, who to their eyes looked exactly like his fellows--a person of absolutely no account whatever--their feeling was one of deep disgust, derision, scorn, which presently became fanatical rage. ”

“ If ever there was a place in which a miracle was required, it is the city of London. Cleanse the streets, purify the dwellings, clothe the poor, put food into their bellies, make it possible for them to live like decent men and women, and you will raise an enduring monument to the honour and glory of God. The human family has shown itself incapable of providing adequately for its various members. Make good that incapacity, and you will at once establish the kingdom of heaven here on earth. ”

“ The crowd had given way before the Stranger, making a lane through which He had passed to its midst; and it was silent. The vehicles rumbled along the road; from the other side of the street the voices of newsboys assailed the air; pedestrians went ceaselessly to and fro; but there, where the noise had just been greatest, all was still--a strange calm had come on the excited throng.
There were there all sorts and conditions of men and women that had fallen away from virtue. ”

“ But if it is true, if but the half of it is true--if this morning he healed that crowd of people with a word, why should he not do the same to us? Why? Why? Did they deserve more than we? Are our needs not greater? We are the victims of others' sins. We are the slaves who sow, and reap, and garner, and yet are only suffered to eat the husks of the great stores of grain for which we give our lives. Surely this healer of the sick will give us a chance to live as men should live, and to die, when our time comes, as men should die! ”

“ I ask you for an answer.
'None? Still dumb? I'll show you something of the other side. If you are resolute to shut your ears to our cries, and your eyes to our misery, we'll crucify you again. Don't think that those police outside will help you, or anything of that sort, because you'll be nursing a delusion. You'll be crucified by a world in arms. When it is known that with a word you can dry the tears that are in men's eyes, and yet refuse to utter it--when that is generally known, it will be sufficient. ”

“ The Stranger, with the people, seemed to listen. As the sound grew fainter He cried to them with a loud voice:
'Save this woman and that man, is there none that knows Me? No, not one!'
The traffic had been brought almost to a standstill. The dimensions of the crowd had increased. There was a block of vehicles before it in the street. From the roof of an omnibus, which was crowded within and without with passengers, there came a shout as of a strong man:
'Lord, I know You! ”

“ The attempts of the police at pacification were useless. They were not in sufficient force. And there is a point in the temper of a crowd at which its rage is not to be appeased until it has vented itself on the object of its fury. All that the officers succeeded in doing was to lose their own tempers. Under certain circumstances there is irresistible contagion in a madman's frenzy. ”

“ I stand simply for those that suffer. I do know that we are in actual touch with one who has given proofs of his capacity to alleviate pain and make glad the sorrowful. Experience has shown that by nothing less than a miracle can the submerged millions be raised out of the depths. Here is a doer of miracles. Already he has shown that a cry of anguish gains access to the heart, and impels him to a removal of the cause. Here is a great healer, the physician the world is so much in want of. ”

“ Walters I say, Let us all go and see--all, all that great London which when it works starves slowly, and when it does not work starves fast. We need not speak. We need but show Him our faces, how the skin but covers our bones. If he is not a devil, he will do to us what he has done to others: he will heal us and make us free. ”

“ And, knowing that, we know that we have His promise that He will come again, and rejoice!
'Of the time and manner of His Second Coming there is none mortal that may certainly speak. To pretend to speak on the subject with special insight or knowledge would be intolerable presumption--worse, akin to blasphemy! Thy will, not ours, be done. We only stand and wait. In Thy hand, Lord God, is the issue. ”

“ The world is very sick. Women labour; men sigh because of their pains. But, physicians, heal first yourselves. Be sure that you go forth in the spirit of healing. Where there is suffering, there go; ask not why it comes, nor whence, nor what shall be the fee. Heal only. The labourer is worthy of his hire; yet it is not for his hire he should labour. Heal for the healing's sake, and because of the pain which is in the world. God shall measure out to the physician his appointed fee. Trouble not yourselves with that. The less your gain, the greater your gain. There is One that keeps count. ”

“ Philip Evans had been preaching on the Second Coming, when, in the middle of the discourse, a Stranger had appeared upon the platform, actually claiming, so far as could be gathered, to be the Christ. In the operating theatre at St. Philip's Hospital, just as a subject--a woman--had succumbed under the surgeon's knife, a Stranger had come upon the scene, and, before all eyes, had restored the dead to life. It was this story of the miracle, as it was called, at St. Philip's Hospital, which had been exciting London all that day. ”

“ Could two such single-minded souls, in the face of such a message, delay from making all haste in the direction of the Ripley road?
Yet before they went, and as they went, they did their best to spread the tidings. Mr. Treadman had done his best to spread them too. He had sent messages to heads of the Salvation and Church Armies, and of the various great religious societies, to ministers of all degrees and denominations, and, indeed, to everyone of whom, in his haste, he could think as being, in a religious or philanthropic, or, in short, in any sense, in that curious place--the public eye. ”

“ I promise You that I shall not be a voice crying in the wilderness, but that at the proclamation of the tidings, trumpeted by all the presses of the land, and from ten thousand pulpits, from all the cities and the villages will issue happy, hot-footed crowds, eager to look upon the face they have had pictured in their hearts their whole lives long, and on the form they have yearned to see, filled with but one desire--to lay themselves at the feet of their Christ and King! ”

“ At Hyde Park Corner the Stranger stopped, and it could then be seen to what huge proportions the throng had grown. The whole open space was filled with people, and when, with the Stranger's, their advance was stayed, pedestrians and vehicles seemed mixed in inextricable confusion. Probably the large majority of those present had but the faintest notion of what had brought them there. In obedience to a sudden impulse of the gregarious instinct they had joined the crowd because the crowd was there to join. ”

“ You look as if you was tired, and you look as if you'd known trouble. There's a comfortable look upon your face which never comes upon a man or woman's face unless they have known trouble. I always says that no one's any good until it shines out of their eyes.'
'Sorrow and joy walk hand in hand.'
'That's it: they walk hand in hand, and you never know one till you've known the other, just as you never know what health is till you've had to go without it. Do you see what I'm doing here? I'm a charcoal-burner by trade, but by rights I ought to have been a wood-carver. ”

“ If people will not talk, to offer them to eat is vain. Criticism takes the place of appetite. Amplett looked, for him, bad-tempered. He was leaning back in his chair, smiling wryly at the wineglass which he was twiddling between his fingers. His wife, on the contrary, sat very upright-- with her an ominous sign. She looked straight in front of her, with a tender softness in her glance which only to those who did not know her suggested paradise. Over the whole table there was an air of vague depression, an irresistible tendency to be bored.
Chisholm's unceremonious entry created a diversion. ”

“ The Stranger looked upon the throng of applicants with glances in which were both pity and pain.
'What I would give to you you will not have. What, then, is it that I shall give to you?'
There was a chorus in return. For every material want He was entreated to provide. He shook His head.
'Those things which you ask I cannot give; they are not Mine. I have not money, nor money's worth. There is none amongst you that is so poor as I am.'
'Then what can you give?'
'Those who would know what I can give must follow Me. The way is hard, and the journey long. ”

“ His companion's irresponsive mood did not appear to trouble Mr. Treadman. He never ceased to talk and write, except when he broke into the words of a hymn, which he sung in a loud, clear voice, as if he wished that all the country-side should hear.
'There,' he cried, after they had gone some distance, 'is the place I told you of. The village is just round the bend in the road. If I remember rightly, the post-office is on the left as you enter. Soon the telegraph shall be on the side of the Lord, and the glad tidings be flashing up to town. We're not twenty miles from London. ”

“ Treadman, who, with three other persons, had just entered the hall. 'What is it, constable? Is there anything you want?'
'I don't know who you are, sir, but if you're the cause of the confusion outside you're incurring a very serious responsibility.'
'I am not the cause; it is not me they have come to see. They have come to see the Lord. Officer, Christ has come again.'
Mr. Treadman laid his hand upon the official's arm; who instantly shook it off again.
'I know nothing about that; I want to know nothing. I only know that no one has a right to cause a nuisance.'
'Cause a nuisance? Christ! ”

“ Men that strive with their fellows in the midst of the tumult for the seats of the mighty call much upon My Name, but have Me little in their hearts; there is not room. Those that make but little noise, but are content with the lower seats, waiting upon My Father's will, they have Me much in their hearts, for there is room. Wherefore I beseech you to continue a little priest in a seminary, great in the knowledge of My Father, rather than a pillar of the Church, holding up heaven on your hands: for he that seeks to bear up heaven is of a surety cast down into hell. ”