Chapter 11: The Second Disciple

They lay that night at the house of a certain curate, who stopped the Stranger, saying:

‘You are he of whom I have heard?’

Mr. Treadman said:

‘It is the Lord--the Lord Christ! He has come again!’

The Stranger rebuked Mr. Treadman.

‘Peace! Why do you trouble Me with your babbling tongue?’ To the curate He said: ‘What do you want of Me?’

‘Nothing but to offer you shelter for the night. I cannot give you much, for I am poor, and have a small house and a large family, but such as I have is at your service. Not that I wish you to understand that my action marks my approval of your proceedings, of which, as I say, I have heard. For I am an ordained priest of the Church of England, and have sufficient trouble with dissent and such-like fads already. But I am a Christian, and, I trust, a gentleman, and in that dual capacity would not wish one of whom I have heard such remarkable things to remain in need of shelter when near my house.’

So they went with the curate. But the family was found to be so large, and the house so small, that there was not room within its walls for three unexpected guests. So it was arranged that they would sleep in the loft over the stable where hay was kept. Thither, after supper, the Stranger and the lame man repaired. But Mr. Treadman remained talking to the host.

They stood outside the house in the moonlight, looking towards the loft in which the Stranger sought slumber.

‘That is a good man,’ said the curate, ‘and a strange one. He has filled my mind with curious thoughts.’

‘It is the Lord! said Mr. Treadman.

‘The Lord?’ The curate regarded the speaker with a peculiar smile. ‘Are you mad, sir? Or do you think I am?’

‘It is the Lord!’ Mr. Treadman held out his clenched fists in front of him, as if to add weight to his assertion. ‘I know it of a surety!’

‘Does it not occur to you what an awful thing it would be if what you say were true?’ Awful? How awful?’

‘When He came before He found them unprepared--so unprepared that they could not believe it was He. 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. There would be a carnival of confusion. The tragedy which rings down the ages might be re-enacted. Christ might be crucified again by Christian hands.’

‘We must avoid it! We must avoid it! We must prepare the people’s minds; we must let them know that His reign is about to begin. They need but the knowledge to fill the world with songs of gladness.’