Chapter 20: They That Would Ask With a Threat

There was a meeting of Universalists. This was a society whose meeting-place was in Soho. It called itself a club, using the word in a sense of its own, for anyone was admitted to its membership who chose to join; and, as a rule, all comers, whether members or not, were free to attend its meetings. It was a focus for discontent. To it came from all parts of the world the discontented, examples of that huge concourse which has a grudge against what is called Society--not of the silent part, which is in the majority, but of that militant section whose constant endeavour it is to goad the dumb into speech, in the hope and trust that the distance between speech and action will not be great.

The place was packed. There were women there as well as men--young and old--representatives of most of the nations which describe themselves as civilised; their common bond a common misery. The talk was old. But in the atmosphere that night was something new. Bellows had given vitality to the embers which smouldered in their hearts.

Henry Walters was speaking. They listened to him with a passionate eagerness which suggested how alluring was the dream which he proposed to wrest out of the arena of visions.

‘I said to a policeman as I was coming in that I believed we were going to have our turn. He laughed. The police have had all the laughing. We’ll laugh soon. We’ve been looking for a miracle, recognising that a miracle was the only thing that could help us. The arrival of a worker of miracles is a new factor in the situation with which the police, and all they represent, will have to reckon. It’s just possible that they mayn’t find him an easy reckoning. He who can raise a woman from the dead with a word can just as easily turn London upside down, and the police with it.

‘We’ve heard of taking the kingdom of heaven by violence. I believe that it has been recommended by high authorities as a desirable method of procedure. I propose to try it. I propose we go to-morrow morning to this worker of miracles, saying: “You see how our wrongs ascend as a dense smoke unto Heaven. Put an end to them, so that they may cease to be an offence unto God.” He has shown that he has bowels of compassion. I believe, if we put this plainly to him, with all the force that is in us, that the greatest of his miracles will be worked for us. If he will heal the sick, he will heal us; for we are sick unto more than death, since our pains have dragged us unto the gates of hell.

‘The fashion of the healing we had better leave to him. Let us but point out that we come into the court of his justice asking for our rights; if he will give us what is ours we need not trouble about the manner of the giving. Let us but remind him that in the sight of God all men are equal; if he restores to us our equality, what does it matter how he does it? For the substance let the shadow go. But on so much we must insist; we must have the substance. We must be healed of our diseases, cured of our sores, relieved of our infirmities. If our just prayer is quickly heard, good. If not, the kingdom of heaven must be taken by violence, and shall be, if we are men and women. How are we profited, though miracles are worked for others, if none are worked for us? We stand most in need of the miraculous--none could come into this room, and see us, and deny it!--and we’ll have it, or we’ll know the reason why. He can scarcely smite us more heavily than we are already smitten. I wish to use no threats. I trust no one else will use them. I’m hopeful, since he has shown that he has sympathy for suffering, that he’ll show sympathy for our sufferings. But--I say it not as a threat, but as a plain statement of a plain fact--if he won’t do his best for us, we’ll do our worst to him. God grant, however, that at last a Saviour has come to us in very deed!’

When Walters stopped a score of persons sprang to their feet. The chairman called upon a German, one Hans Küntz, wild, lean, unkempt, with something of frenzy in his air. He spoke English with a volubility which was only mastered by an occasional idiom; in a thin falsetto voice which was like a continuous shriek.

‘I am hungry; that is not new. In the two small rooms where I live I have a wife and children who are also hungry; that also is not new. I run the risk of becoming more hungry by coming out to-night, and leaving work that must be finished by the morning. But when I hear that there is come to London one who can raise people from the dead, I say to my wife: “Then He can raise us too.” My wife says: “Go and see.” So to see I am come. With Mr. 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. What I fear is that it is exaggerated what he has done--I have got beyond the region of hope. 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! Oh, my brothers, if God has come among us He’ll know! He’ll know! And if He is a God of mercy, a God of love, and not a Siva, a destroyer, who delights in the groans and cries of bruised and broken hearts and lives, we have but to make to Him our petition, and He’ll wipe the tears out of our eyes. To-night it is late, but in the morning, early, let us all go to Him--all! all!--all go!’