November 1926
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
638
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» - « C O N C E R N I N G T H E T I M E O F T H E G R E A T T R I B U L A T I O N By SYDNEY WAT SON
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The boy stood hesitatingly a moment, then said: "Beg yer pardin’ , Mr. Bastin, sir, but wot’s yer fink as people’s rayin’ ’bout the ‘Translation o’ the Saints,’ as It’s called? “ I can’t say, I am sure. Charley. The careless and god less have already said some very foolish things relative to the stupendous event that hap just taken place, and I think, tor a few days, they are likely to say even more foolish tilings. What is the special one that you have heard? “ Why they sez, sir— its in one o’ the hevning peepers, they sez— that the people wot’s missin’ hev been carted oft in aeroplanes by some o’ ihe other religionists wot wanted to git rid o’ them, an’ that the crank religiouses is all gone to-------” . » “ Where?” smiled Bastin. "I don’t think anybody knows where, sir!” “ I do, Charley, and many others today, who have been left behind from that great Translation know— they have been ‘caught up’ into the air where Jesus Christ had come from Heaven to summon them to Himself. "Mr. Hammond is there, Charley, and that sweet little adopted daughter of mine, whom you once asked me whether ‘angels could be more beautiful than she was!’ ” "Ah, yus, sir, I recollecks, sir; she wur too bootiful fur words, she wur.” There was one moment's pause, then the boy, with a hur ried, “ it’s all dreadful confuzellin,” slipped from the room. Ralph Bastin opened paper after paper, glanced with the swift, comprehensive eye of the practised Journalist at here and there a column or paragraph, and was on the point of tossing the last news-sheet aown with the others, on the floor, when his eye caught the words, "Joyce, Journalist.” The paragraph recorded the finding of the body of the drunken scoundrel. “ From the position of the body,” the account read, “ hnd from the nature of the wounds, it would almost seem as though some infernal power had hurled him, head on, against the wall of the room. Whether we believe or disbelieve the statements concerning the taking away, by some mysterious Translation process, of a number of per sons from our midst, yet the fact remains that each hour Is marked by the finding of some poor dead creature, under circumstances quite as tragically mysterious as this case of Joyce the reporter." For a time Ralph Bastin sat deep in thought. He had not yet written the article for tomorrow’s issue, “ From the Prophet’s chair.” He felt his insufficiency; he realized the need of being God’s true witness in this hour that was ushering in the awful reign of The Antichrist. He did the best thing; he knelt in prayer, crying: , “ 0 God, I am so ignorant; teach me; give me Thy wis dom in this momentous hour. If those who cleave to Thee amid this awful time must seal their witness with death, must face martyrdom, then let me lie counted worthy to die for Thee. In the old days, before yesterday’s great event, all prayer had to be offered to Thee through Jesus Christ. I know no other way, please then hear my prayer, and accept it, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.” (Continued on page 670)
. Ä 1; ¿ a pi S f e S Ä Ä V Ä I Ä 2 ! S i S ‘ “ • Ä i ä s K i Antichrist’s appearing------ Many year» later.theBaintshavlng been led to anticipate the near return of the Lord, a :notea preacher outlines his Views as to the manner of the Antichrist s manifestation. CHAPTER II. A “ SUPER-MAN” ONDON was still in its first throes of wonder, speculation, and In some cases fearsome dread, at the ever increasing discovery that a number of its citizens had mysteriously disappeared. “ And the most curious part of the whole affair,” a prom inent London philanthropist had remarked to an informal gathering of the Committee of one of the Great Societies, “ is this, that whether we look at the gaps in our own com mittee, or of any other committee, or of any church— as far as I have been able to gather, the story is the same, the missing people are in almost every case those whom, when they were with us, were least understood by us.” Some such thought had been filling the mind of Ralph Bastin, as he sat In his Editor’s chair in the office of the “ Courier.” Allied to this thought there came another an almost necessary corollary of the first— namely the new atmosphere of evil, of lawlessness, of wantonness that per vaded the city. With a jerk, his mind darted backward over the years to that remarkable sermon on Judas and the Antichrist. “ It is true, too true,” he murmured; “ ‘the mystery of iniquity’ that has long been working, undermining the foun dations of all. true social and religious safety and solidity, is now to be openly manifested and perfected. The real Chris tians, the Church of God, which is the Bride of Christ, has been silently, secretly caught up to her Lord in the air. She was ‘the salt of the earth,’ she kept it from the open putre faction that has already, now, begun to work. Then, too, that wondrous, silent, but mighty influence of restraint upon evil, the Holy Spirit Himself, has left the earth; and now, what? All restraint gone, the world everywhere open to believe the Antichrist lie, the delusion. The whole ten dency of the teaching, from myriad pulpits, during the last few years, has been to prepare the world to receive the Devil’s lie.” For a moment or two he sat in deep thought. Suddenly glancing at the clock, he murmured: “ I wonder what the other papers are saying this evening." He rang up his messenger boy on his office phone. The lad came promptly. Bastin handed him half-a-crown, say ing: "Get me a copy of the last edition of all the chief even ing papers, Charley, and be smart about it; and perhaps you will keep the change for your smartness.” In six minutes the lad was back with a sheaf of papers. Bastin Just glanced at them separately, noting the several times of their issue, theiv^ritb a “ God boy, Charley! Keep the change,” he unfolded''one of the papers.
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