The Mark of the Beast Part 7

"To the World, the Flesh, and the Devil!"

She drained the sparkling draught, and tossed the goblet down into the upraised hand of a handsome, but dissolute-looking man, who, attired in the theatrical idea of Mephistopheles, appeared to be a kind of Master of Ceremonies.

A mighty roar of applause, mingled with cries of "Dolly Durden! Dear little Dolly Durden!" accompanied the drinking of the toast.

Again the bugle rang out for silence, and amid a hush as before, Mephistopheles shouted:

"The Sunday of the Puritans is dead and _d.a.m.ned_! Their Bible is burned and a dead letter!"

He pointed, as he uttered the last sentence, to the Satyrs who were piling the last of their stock of Bibles into the fiery furnace of the cauldron-altar.

His blasphemies were greeted with a roar of applause. Then, as he obtained a comparative silence by the raising of his hand, he yelled:

"To Hyde Park."

The band struck up "Good St. Anthony," and the monster procession, swept down Ludgate Hill, hundreds of throats belching out the words of the song, to the music of the band:

"St. Anthony sat on a lowly stool, A large black book he held in his hand, Never his eyes from the page he took, With steadfast soul the page he scanned.

The Devil was in his best humour that day, That ever his Highness was known to be in,-- That's why he sent out his imps to play With sulphur, and tar, and pitch, and resin: They came to the saint in a motley crew, Twisted and twirl'd themselves about,-- Imps of every shape and hue, A devilish, strange, and rum-looking rout.

Yet the good St. Anthony kept his eyes So firmly fixed upon his book, Shouts nor laughter, sighs nor cries, Never could win away his look."

Verse after verse belched forth from the now more or less raucous throats of the blasphemous mob, until, with unholy unctiousness, reaching the last verse but one, they screamed laughingly, vilely:

"A thing with h.o.r.n.y eyes was there-- With h.o.r.n.y eyes just like the dead, While fish-bones grew instead of hair Upon his bald and skinless head.

Last came an imp--how unlike the rest,-- A lovely-looking female form, And while with a whisper his cheek she press'd, Her lips felt downy, soft, and warm; As over his shoulder she bent, the light Of her brilliant eyes upon his page Soon filled his soul with mild delight, And the good old chap forgot his age.

And the good St. Anthony boggled his eyes So quickly o'er his old black book,-- Ho! Ho! at the corners they 'gan to rise, And he couldn't choose but have a look.

"There are many devils that walk this world, Devils so meagre and devils so stout, Devils that go with their tails uncurl'd, Devils with horns and devils without.

Serious devils, laughing devils, Devils black and devils white, Devils uncouth, and devils polite.

Devils for churches, devils for revels, Devils with feathers, devils with scales, Devils with blue and warty skins, Devils with claws like iron nails, Devils with fishes' gills and fins; Devils foolish, devils wise, Devils great, and devils small,-- But a laughing woman with two bright eyes Proves to be the worst devil of them all."

It was all of h.e.l.l, h.e.l.lish, and should have proved conclusively, it proof had been desired, that with the translation of the Church, and the flight of the Holy Spirit, the last restraint upon man's natural love of lawlessness had been taken away.

Sweeping westwards, the hideous, blasphemous procession was continually augmented by crowds that swarmed up from side-streets, and fell-in in the rear of the marching throng.

Somewhere on the route, owing to a kind of backwash of the surging people, Ralph Bastin and the Secretary of the Church had become separated. At Picadilly circus they came suddenly face to face again.

"What is this foul, blasphemous movement? What does it mean?" asked the Secretary. "Is this a beginning of _organized_ lawlessness on the part of the Anti-christ?"

"I think not," replied Ralph. "I should rather say that it was a bit of wanton outrage of all the decencies of ordinary life, and arranged by some of the rude fellows--male and female--of the baser sort. You noticed, of course, that most of those immediately connected with the two cars, looked like the drinking, smoking, sporting fellows who are the _habitues_ of the music-halls and the promenades of the theatres."

An uproarious cheering of the mighty throng interrupted Ralph for a moment. Only those well to the front of the procession could know the cause of the cheering, but the whole ma.s.s of people joined in it. As the roar died away, Ralph Bastin took up the broken thread of his reply:

"Yet, for all I have just said, I feel it in my bones as Mrs. Beecher Stowe's old negress 'mammy' used to say, that this foul demonstration on this golden Sunday morning, is the unauthorized unofficial beginning of the Anti-christ movement."

There was a couple of hundred yards between the tail of the actual procession, and Ralph and his companion. Hundreds of people thronged the sidewalks, but the road was fairly clear, and along the gutter-way there swept a gang of boys with coa.r.s.e, raucous laughter, kicking--football fas.h.i.+on--two or three of the half-burned Bibles that had fallen from the cauldron-altar on the car.

The church Secretary visibly shuddered at the sacrilege. A pained look shot into Ralph Bastin's face, as he said:

"Such wanton, open sacrilege as that could only have become possible by the gradual decay of reverence for the word of G.o.d, brought about largely by the so-called 'Higher critics' of the last thirty years, the men who broke Spurgeon's heart, the Issachars of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, those 'knowing ones' who, like Issachar, thought that they knew better than G.o.d."

The two men walked on together in deep talk. Ralph learned that his companion was Robert J. Baring, princ.i.p.al of the great s.h.i.+pping firm, and of merchants and importers.

Baring was an educated man, and of considerable culture, and Ralph and he found that they had very much in common. But that which perhaps const.i.tuted the closest tie between them was the fact that both had lost their nearest and dearest, and were _left_ to face the coming horrors of the Anti-christ reign, and the hideousness of the great Tribulation.

"G.o.d grant," Ralph said once, as they talked, "that when the moment comes, as come it will, that we are called upon to stand for G.o.d, or die for Him, that we may witness a good confession."

CHAPTER IV.

FORESHADOWINGS.

A month had elapsed since the translation of the church. A new order in everything had arisen--Religious, Governmental, Social. The spirit of lawlessness grew fiercer and fouler each day, it is true, yet there was a supreme authority, a governmental restriction, that prevented the fouler, the more destructive pa.s.sions of the baser kind of men and women, having full scope.

A curious kind of religion had been set up in many of the churches.

The services were sensuous to a degree, and were a strange mixture of Romanism, Spiritism (demonology,) Theosophy, Materialism, and other kindred cults. Almost every week some new ode or hymn was produced, every sentiment of which was an applauding of man, for G.o.d was utterly ignored, and the key-note of the Harvard college "cla.s.s Poem," for the year 1908, became the key-note of the Sunday Song of the "wors.h.i.+ppers"

in the churches:

"_No_ G.o.d for a gift G.o.d gave us-- MANKIND ALONE must save us."

It was a curious situation, since it was "man" wors.h.i.+pping himself.

Presently, the centre of wors.h.i.+p would s.h.i.+ft from man, to _The_ Man of Sin--the Anti-christ.

These religious services were held, as a rule, from twelve-thirty to one-fifteen on the Sunday once a day only, (without any week-night meetings.) They were held at an hour when, in the old-days, the congregations would have been home, or going home, from their services.

But this arranged lateness was due to the fact, that there had grown up in all sections of society an ever-increasing lateness of retiring at night, coupled with a growth of indolence caused by every kind of sensual indulgence, not the least of which was gluttony. Music of a sensuous, voluptuous character formed a chief part of the brief Sunday services, and every item was loudly applauded as though the whole affair had been a performance rather than a professedly religious service.

Most of the interior arrangements in many of the old places of wors.h.i.+p had been altered. The theatre style of thing--plush-covered tip seats, etc.--had taken the place of the old pews and the wooden seats. In many of these Sunday services, too, people of both s.e.xes smoked at will--for smoking among women had become almost universal.

There were no Bibles, or Hymn books, the odes, etc., were printed on double sheets, after the fas.h.i.+on of theatre programmes, and, like them, contained numerous advertis.e.m.e.nts of the Sunday matinees and evening performances at the theatres, music-halls, etc.

All this had been brought about much more easily than would at first appear, until we remember one or two factors that had long been working silently, subtly among the attendants--mere church professors--of the various places of wors.h.i.+p, such as, the insistance on shorter services, and fewer--for long, before the Rapture, the unspiritual had clamoured for a _single_ service of the week, that of a late Sunday morning one.

Then for years, religious services (those of the Sunday) had grown more and more sensuous, unspiritual. Every real _spiritual_ doctrine had first been denied, then expunged from the _essay_ that had largely taken the place of the old-time sermon. Again, all spiritual restraints had now been taken away--the true believers, the Holy Spirit, every spiritually-minded, born-again pastor and clergyman.

The new Religion (it could not be called a Faith) was a universal one.

The powers of the Priest-craft had invented a religion of the Flesh, fleshy to a degree. Every type of indulgence was permissible, so that men everywhere gloried in their religion, "having a form--but denying G.o.d."

The performances at all theatres, music-halls, etc., had grown rapidly worse and worse, in character,--licentiousness, animalism, voluptuousness, debauchery, these were the main features of the newer type of performances. Salome dances, and even the wildest, obscenest type of the "_can-can_" of the French, in its most promiscuous lascivious forms, were common fare on the varied English stages.

But if the stage was filthy and indecent, what could be said of the books! There was not a foulness or obscenity and indecency that was not openly, shamelessly treated in the bluntest of phraseology.

Thousands of penny, two-penny, and three-penny editions of utter obscenity were issued daily. And the vitiated taste of the great ma.s.s of the people grew voraciously by feeding upon them.

Marriage was a thing of the dead past. There had been a growth of foul, subtle, hideous teaching _before_ the translation of the church.

Marriage had been taught (in many circles) to be "an unnecessary restraint upon human liberty." "Women"--it had been written, _absolved from shame_, shall be _owners_ of themselves." "We believe" (the same writer had written) "in the sacredness of the family and the home, the legitimacy of _every_ child, and the inalienable right of every woman to the absolute possession of herself."