The Mark of the Beast Part 21

But with the perfection of hideousness--one might safely write _h.e.l.lishness_--of war's latest devices the work of destruction, and almost annihilation became short and sharp.

Aerial warfare helped to bring about this consummation more speedily.

The firing of a bomb or of a torpedo from an aerial war engine often accomplished in an hour what could not have been accomplished, a few years before, under months, often years of old-fas.h.i.+oned war.

These fearful conflicts were not confined to those of kingdom and nation against kingdom and nation, but citizens of one city fought with themselves, civil war was "on the rampage." The l.u.s.t of war, the l.u.s.t of blood, born of vile pa.s.sions, burned in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of men and women--for with the growth of the "woman's rights" question, and the establishment of the "equality of the s.e.xes," bands of women fought bands of women.

These Amazons, indeed, wrought even fouler cruelties and butcheries than the men, for as there is no fouler odour under the sun than that of rotted lilies, so the depths to which "the lilies of the human kind"--women--will descend is fouler and deeper than the abysses of fall of men.

The hideous wars--international, civil, and _personal_ conflicts--resulted, as wars ever do, in famine and pestilence. Only in this case, these later horrors had been fearfully aggravated, terribly prolonged.

The picture of the famine is most striking. The rider of the black horse is shown bearing a pair of scales, typifying the exact.i.tude of weight--for single grains counted in these days. A man's full day's wage would purchase only a pint and a half of wheat (a choenix) and that would form but a _scant_ feeding for the day for himself. But there will then not be wheat enough to go round, and people will hail barley with the rapture of starving souls.

The tendency of the days in which we write these lines, is an ever-increasing luxury in eating and drinking, and this, too, among all cla.s.ses.

That tendency will increase more and more, so that the inhabitants of the famine stricken earth will feel scarcity more than they would otherwise have done.

The pestilence followed the famine, until from war, famine, and pestilence a fourth of the entire population of the earth was swept away.

During the last twelve months quite a crop of false Christs had arisen.

Each of these, in his turn, had had a certain following for a brief period, and each had had an untimely end.

The only really notable impostor was a man who had suddenly appeared in London, and who had immediately attracted immense attention. His knowledge of scripture, of the prophecies especially, was marvellous to those whom he addressed. No one ever attempted to verify his quotations, much less his connections of scriptures. For as Jannes and Jambres, Pharaoh's two chief Magicians, withstood Moses by demonology and jugglery, so, by a h.e.l.lish jugglery, did "Conrad the Conqueror" (as this false Christ styled himself) juggle with the scriptures.

Apleon, the Anti-christ, had, apparently, taken no notice of any of the petty tribe of mushroom-like false Christs. That he was well acquainted with the sayings and doings of each of them goes without saying, as it was equally so as regarded this more presumptious of the crew "Conrad the Conqueror." There were many, in London especially, who wondered that Apleon did not appear and refute this man's claims, if they had no foundation.

The evident success of the imposter wrought his own downfall. Inflated with his success he publicly declared that Apleon would perish beneath a blast of his (Conrad's) nostrils, and announced that on a certain evening at ten o'clock on St. Paul's steps he would publicly re-state his claims, and also defy Apleon.

In the first year after the Rapture, the whole of the shops and warehouses on both sides of Ludgate hill, with all the purlieus at the back of each range of buildings, had been demolished, so that a huge open s.p.a.ce, spreading fan shape, (the handle at St. Paul's) swept out, ever-widening, on the left as far as the approach of Blackfriar's Bridge, on the right through Farringdon Street to the Viaduct Bridge.

Within this s.p.a.ce a million people could not only have congregated, but have heard distinctly, without any effort, the merest whisper spoken into the latest phone discovery the "Hearit." As, too, every bit of that open s.p.a.ce was many yards below the level of St. Paul's steps, every one had a perfect view of all that transpired there.

The night in question, when the latest and greatest of the false Christs, "Conrad the Conqueror," had arranged to defy Apleon, proved to be exceptionally dark.

Three quarters of a million people were gathered in "The Fan"--that open s.p.a.ce had been christened "The Fan" on account of its shape. It was admirably lit by the new light "Radiance," while a perfect blaze of radiance illumined the huge scarlet-covered, scarlet-draped platform that had been erected immediately in front of the steps of the Cathedral. (It was all very stagey, very theatrical, but then that was characteristic of the new age and regime.)

The false Christ appeared, and was greeted with a curious mixture of groans and hisses, and of cheers. (A keen judge might have been pardoned if he had said that the bulk of the cheers were ironical.)

Speaking in his ordinary voice, the suction plates of the "Hearit"

transmitted his words to the farthest remove of that "Fan" so that all could easily hear.

With a kind of gentle gravity, at first, he began by saying:

"Nearly nineteen hundred years ago when I walked this earth, at my first advent, I warned my disciples--and through them the world--that many false Christs would come, but when it was said 'Lo, here!' or 'Lo, there!' that they were not to go hither and thither, many of these false Christs have appeared, and have tried to lead the people astray.

Oh foolish people! How easily were they bewitched! And how worse than foolish the imposters were. They might have known that I should not have suffered them to take My Name in vain."

For ten minutes he talked thus, then suddenly changed his tone, and raising his right arm--it was long, thin, gaunt, and the wide-flowing sleeve of his white seamless robe, fell back showing the lean limb almost to the shoulder--he poured out a defiant speech against Apleon, adding "I have challenged! I wait for my challenge to be accepted."

A sudden, awesome silence fell upon all the gathered, listening thousands. They had not long to wait, for in that same instant a fierce crimson light shone in the dark heavens above them, and looking up they saw a fiery ruby scroll like flame rus.h.i.+ng downwards through the sky.

An instant later the fiery scroll resolved itself into the characters of the "Covenant Sign" ("The Mark of the Beast.") With a swoop, like that of some crimson Albatross, the thing descended until it seemed almost to touch the platform where the challenger "Conrad" stood.

Then, to the amaze and delight of the vast audience in "The Fan," out from convolutions of the central sign of the "Mark," Apleon stepped on to the platform.

His aerial chair (on this occasion made in the form of his own "number and sign") rose swiftly again and hovered mid-air.

The false Christ was as white of face as his robe. He visibly cowered and shrank before the coming of the giant figure of the World's Dictator, as the latter strode in three long strides across the platform.

For one brief second, amid the hush and silence of the absolute awe that rested on the mighty audience, challenger and challenged stood facing each other. Then Apleon's voice was heard, as with a sweep of his hand he uttered the one word:

"PERISH, thou Fool!"

As his hand swept the air in the direction of the false Prophet, a wide sheet of flame leaped out of s.p.a.ce, enveloped the white-robed figure, and it was instantly consumed. As at the burning of the sacrificial lamb at the dedication of the temple at Jerusalem, so now, the flame that had consumed the challenging imposter floated a yard or two over the spot where he had stood, and slowly resolved itself into "The Sign of the Covenant" ("Mark of the Beast,") in pure ruby flame.

"_He doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do._"

Apleon turned towards the mighty gathering, and said triumphantly: "So perish all impostors!"

A thunder of cheers rose from three quarters of a million throats!

Instantly followed by the chorus of the Apleon ode!

"Hail! Hail! Hail Man of Men!

World's Deliverer!

APLEON!"

Like a living thing of writhing flames, the brilliant car swept downwards from the sky, where it had waited. Almost, it seemed to skim the scarlet floor of the platform and to scoop up its owner, for none saw Apleon lift a foot to step into it, yet the next moment he was soaring away seated within the upper convolution of the serpent sign.

For hours, thousands of the people remained within the sweep of the great "Fan," talking of all that had occurred, and more absolutely convinced than ever that Apleon was G.o.d--_their_ G.o.d.

Thrice during the next hour after Apleon's departure, three separate faithful souls--one of the three a woman--raised a testimony against the Man of Sin. But each one met with death within thirty seconds of their first utterance.

"_And white robes were given unto everyone of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled._"

There were, scattered over all the earth, many thousands of believers in G.o.d, praying "Thy kingdom come." Many of these had turned to G.o.d during the first days of the shock of realization of "things as they truly were," when the "Church" had been translated to the heavenlies.

The number of these believers had been added to considerably, during the awful times of war, pestilence and famine, for these horrors (so plainly predicted in the word of G.o.d) had taught them to read their Bibles with new eyes, and to receive its truths and obey them. Of these believers, many had been, and many, many more were yet to be "_slain on account of the Word of G.o.d, and on account of the testimony which they held fast_.

The whole of the three-and-a-half years had been rife with growing horrors, with licentiousness, and every evil possible to the unregenerate mind, and heart, and life, when full license is given to them.

The license and indulgence permitted--even arranged for, in the first instance--by the apostate church with a view to the more perfect enslavement of the world's wors.h.i.+ppers, had brought forth a full harvest of evil. The effect of license is disorder, and presently anarchy. For three-years-and-a-half the apostate church had grown in a.s.sumption and in all abominations, and the effects of the license permitted, and _fearfully abused_, had produced a condition of things which became such an intolerable burden, that the time had become ripe for the authority in all this, to be destroyed.

The apostate church was the cause and the authority for all the excess of evil of the times, hence the ten-kingdomed confederacy which had at first b.u.t.tressed the impious system, now, by united action, destroyed it. "_And the ten horns which thou sawest, and the Beast, these shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall BURN HER UTTERLY WITH FIRE. For G.o.d did put in their hearts to do His mind, AND TO COME TO ONE MIND, and to give their Kingdom unto the Beast, until the words of G.o.d shall be accomplished._"

(Rev. 17:16-17)

"Man is a religious animal!" And Lucien Apleon, endowed with special wisdom of his father and Master--the Devil--recognized this necessity for a religion from the outset of his career.

The Devil has always recognized religion, encouraged it, and has even instigated it in a hundred forms, during the last 6,000 years. Only every effort of his Satanic power and force has been directed towards the luring of the religious soul _away from G.o.d_. The Devil is a Ritualist! He loves to entangle souls in a ritual, and the more sensuous the ritual, the better he is pleased, because such sensuousness and ritualism ministers to the "flesh," and while men and women's religion is fleshly, it cannot be spiritual. And the FATHER seeketh spiritual wors.h.i.+ppers, "for they that wors.h.i.+p Him, must wors.h.i.+p Him in Spirit and in Truth." Then, too, Satan knows that all religiousness that is of the "flesh," tends to make its devotees anxious for the development of a good-self within them, while true, spiritual life _in Christ_, leads to the continual consciousness that "_in me, that is IN MY FLESH, dwelleth no good thing_."

Lucien Apleon encouraged religion, but not the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ--for he, Apleon was The _Anti_-Christ. It was he, with his emissaries, taught and guided by Satan, the Arch-enemy of G.o.d, and of His Christ, that had subtlety, secretly energized the world-religion, that followed the taking away of the church. That world-wide system had been an amalgamation of all the then existing false systems of religion. With the taking away of the church every type of license had been gradually permitted to the wors.h.i.+ppers in the churches of this infernal system, until, at last, as we have seen, the governments had been compelled to abolish what at first they had helped to establish--for license had bred such a character and temper in the peoples that it became a menace to all order.