and but for the many instances in which the life of the rich,
the great, and the powerful was redeemed by the highest virtue, this
pitiful farce of a national existence would have been played out already;
but for the good men still found in Sodom, the city of abominations must
long since have been destroyed. People there were to laugh at these
predictions, but they were only throwing cold water on lime; the more
they did so the more it smoked.

Little by little a supernatural atmosphere gathered about the Father as a
man sent from God. One day he visited a child who was sick with a bad
mouth, and touching the child's mouth he said, "It will be well soon."
The child recovered immediately, and the idea started that he was a
healer. People waited for him that they might touch his hand. Sometimes
after service he had to stand half an hour while the congregation filed
past him. Hard-headed persons, sane and acute in other relations of life,
were heard to protest that on shaking hands with him an electric current
passed through them. Sick people declared themselves cured by the sight
of him, and charlatans sold handkerchiefs on pretence that he had blessed
them. He repeatedly protested that it was not necessary to touch or even
to see him. "Your faith alone can make you whole." But the frenzy
increased, the people crowded upon him and he was followed through the
streets for his blessing.

Somebody discovered that he was born on the 25th of December, and was
just thirty-three years of age. Then the madness reached its height. A
certain resemblance was observed in his face and head to the traditional
head and face of Christ, and it was the humour of the populace to
discover some mystical relations between him and the divine figure.
Hysterical women kissed his hand and even hailed him as their Saviour. He
protested and remonstrated, but all to no purpose. The delusion grew, and
his protestations helped it.

As the day approached that was to be big with the fate of London, his
church, which had been crowded before, was now besieged. He was
understood to preach the hope that in the calamity to befall the city a
remnant would be saved, as Israel was saved from the plagues of Egypt.
Thousands who were too poor to leave London had determined to spend the
night of the fateful day in the open air, and already they were going out
into the fields and the parks, to Hampstead, Highgate, and Blackheath.
The panic was becoming terrible an