yrics
of British Christianity had found a place in the programme of the great
day.) Guided by the orchestra, the youth of Bursley and the maturity
thereof chanted with gusto--

There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Emmanuel's veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.
...
Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood--

Edwin, like everybody, knew every line of the poem. With the purple
banner waving there a bloody motto, he foresaw each sanguinary detail of
the verse ere it came to him from the shrill childish throats. And a
phrase from another hymn jumped from somewhere in his mind just as
William Cowper's ended and a speech commenced. The phrase was `India's
coral strand.' In thinking upon it he forgot to listen to the speech.
He saw the flags, banners, and pennons floating in the sunshine and in
the heavy breeze; he felt the reverberation of the tropic sun on his
head; he saw the crowded humanity of the Square attired in its crude,
primary colours; he saw the great brass serpentine instruments gleaming;
he saw the red dais; he saw, bursting with infancy, the immense cams to
which were attached the fantastically plaited horses; he saw the
venerable zealots on the dais raving lest after all the institutions
whose centenary they had met to honour should not save these children
from hopeless and excruciating torture for ever and ever; he saw those
majestic purple folds in the centre embroidered with the legend of the
blood of the mystic Paschal Lamb; he saw the meek, stupid, and
superstitious faces, all turned one way, all for the moment under the
empire of one horrible idea, all convinced that the consequences of sins
could be prevented by an act of belief, all gloating over inexhaustible
tides of blood. And it seemed to him that he was not in England any
longer. It seemed to him that in the dim cellars under the shambles
behind the Town Hall, where he had once been, there dwelt, squatting, a
strange and savage god who would blast all those who did not enter his
presence dripping with gore, be they child or grandfather. It seemed to
him that the drums were tom-toms, and Baines's a bazaar. He could fit
every detail of the scene to harmonise with a vision of India's coral
strand.

There was no mist before his eyes now. His sight was so clear that he
could distinguish his father at a window of the Bank, at the other top
corner of the Square. Part of his mind