of his mouth, and shall destroy with the
brightness of his coming.' Now, he declares that the Antichrist is not
yet, so the coming which he prophesies is not that already realized by
the birth of the Saviour at Bethlehem. In the Gospel according to Saint
Matthew, Jesus responds to Caiaphas, who asks Him if He is the Christ,
Son of God, 'Thou hast said, and nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter
shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power and
coming in the clouds of heaven.' And in another verse He says to His
apostles, 'Watch, therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth
come.'

"And there are other texts I could put my finger on. No, there is no use
in talking, the partisans of the glorious kingdom are supported with
certitude by inspired passages, and can, under certain conditions and
without fear of heresy, uphold this doctrine, which, Saint Jerome
attests, was in the fourth century a dogma of faith recognized by all.
But what say we taste a bit of this creme de celeri which Monsieur
Durtal praises so highly?"

It was a thick liqueur, sirupy like anisette, but even sweeter and more
feminine, only, when one had swallowed this inert semi-liquid, there
lingered in the roots of the papillae a faint taste of celery.

"It isn't bad," said the astrologer, "but there's no life to it," and he
poured into his glass a stiff tot of rum.

"Come to think of it," said Durtal, "the third kingdom is also announced
in the words of the Paternoster, 'Thy kingdom come.'"

"Certainly," said the bell-ringer.

"But you see," interjected Gevingey, "heresy would gain the upper hand
and the whole belief would be turned into nonsense and absurdity if we
admitted, as certain Paracletists do, an authentic fleshly incarnation.
For instance, remember Fareinism, which has been rife, since the
eighteenth century, in Fareins, a village of the Doubs, where Jansenism
took refuge when driven out of Paris after the closing of the cemetery
of Saint Medard. There a priest, Francois Bonjour, reproduced the
'convulsionist' orgies which, under the Regency, desecrated the tomb of
Deacon Paris. Then Bonjour had an affair with a woman and she claimed to
be big with the prophet Elijah, who, according to the Apocalypse, is to
precede the last arrival of Christ. This child came into the world, then
there was a second who was none other than the Paraclete. The latter did
business as a woolen merchant in Paris, was a colonel in the Nat