was Sunday. It was also the first Sunday of the month.
As he bathed and dressed, Ralph found himself wondering whether the
churches and chapels would be filled, whether the awe and fear that had
fallen upon so many Christian professors during the first hours after
the "Rapture," would drive them to the churches.

"The first of the month," he mused. "The Lord's Supper has been the
order of the day in most places. I wonder if it will be celebrated
to-day?"

"_Until He come_!" he mused on. "He _has_ come, so that the Lord's
Supper, as part of the worship of the churches is concerned, can have
no further meaning. Will any attempt be made to celebrate it, to-day,
I wonder?"

Every available moment of the fateful week that had just passed he had
occupied in deep reading the prophetic scriptures referring to The
Coming of the Lord, and the events which follow. He had also studied
deeply every book on the subject which he could secure, that was likely
to help him to understand the position of affairs. Again and again, he
had said to himself: "How could I have been such a fool? a journalist,
a bookman, a lover of research, professing to have the open mind which
should be the condition of every man of my trade, and yet never to have
studied my Bible, never to have sought to know what all the startling
events of the past decade, pointed to. Surely, surely, Tom Carlyle was
right about we British--'mostly fools.'"

At breakfast he ate and drank only sufficient to satisfy the sense of
need. Previous to "The Rapture" he had been a bit of an Epicure, now
he scarcely noted what he ate or drank.

Almost directly his meal was finished, he left the house. The
journalistic instinct was strong enough within him to make him desire
to see what changes, if any, would be apparent in London on this first
Sunday after the momentous event that had so recently come upon the
world.

Turning out of the quiet square where his lodgings were, he was
instantly struck by a new tone in the streets. There was an utter
absence of the old-time "Sabbath" sense.

The gutterways were already lined with fruit and other hawkers, their
coarse voices, crying their wares, making hideous what should have been
a Sunday quiet.

It was barely ten, yet already many of the Tea Rooms were open, and
most of them seemed thronged, whole families, and pleasure-parties
taking breakfast, evidently.

He passed a large and popular theatre, across the whole fro