w your backs to the lash, kiss the rod that scars your
flesh. Be ye humble, oh, my people. Be ye poor in spirit. Let Wrong
rule triumphant through the world. Raise no hand against it, lest ye
suffer my eternal punishments. Learn from me to be meek and lowly. Learn
to be good slaves and give no trouble to your taskmasters. Let them turn
the world into a hell for you. The grave--the grave shall be your gate
to happiness.

"Helpful to the poor? Helpful to their rulers, to their owners. They
take good care that Christ shall be well taught. Their fat priests shall
bear his message to the poor. The rod may be broken, the prison door be
forced. It is Christ that shall bind the people in eternal fetters.
Christ, the lackey, the jackal of the rich."

Mr. Simson was visibly shocked. Evidently he was less familiar with the
opinions of _The Rationalist_ than he had thought.

"I really must protest," exclaimed Mr. Simson. "To whatever wrong uses
His words may have been twisted, Christ Himself I regard as divine, and
entitled to be spoken of with reverence. His whole life, His
sufferings--"

But the old fanatic's vigour had not yet exhausted itself.

"His sufferings!" he interrupted. "Does suffering entitle a man to be
regarded as divine? If so, so also am I a God. Look at me!" He
stretched out his long, thin arms with their claw-like hands, thrusting
forward his great savage head that the bony, wizened throat seemed hardly
strong enough to bear. "Wealth, honour, happiness: I had them once. I
had wife, children and a home. Now I creep an outcast, keeping to the
shadows, and the children in the street throw stones at me. Thirty years
I have starved that I might preach. They shut me in their prisons, they
hound me into garrets. They jibe at me and mock me, but they cannot
silence me. What of my life? Am I divine?"

Miss Ensor, having finished her supper, sat smoking.

"Why must you preach?" she asked. "It doesn't seem to pay you." There
was a curious smile about the girl's lips as she caught Joan's eye.

He turned to her with his last flicker of passion.

"Because to this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the
world, that I should bear witness unto the truth," he answered.

He sank back a huddled heap upon the chair. There was foam about his
mouth, great beads of sweat upon his forehead. Mary wiped them away with
a corner of her apron, and felt again his trembling hands. "Oh, pleas