rishioners of Helleston wished to reflect on the
New Century they would have to wait until January 1901, or something
more than a hundred years.

The Vicar of Helleston replied, tacitly admitting his misuse of
language, but demanding to know if in the Vicar of Troy's opinion the
new century would begin on January 1st, 1801: for his own part he had
supposed, and was prepared to maintain, that it had begun on January
1st, 1800.

To this the Vicar of Troy retorted that undoubtedly the new century
would begin on the first day of January 1801, and that anyone who
held another opinion must suffer from confusion of mind.

The Vicar of Helleston stuck to his contention, and a terrific
correspondence ensued. With the arguments exchanged--which tended
more and more to appeal from common sense to metaphysics--we need
not concern ourselves. The most of them reappeared the other day
(1900-1901) in the public press, and will doubtless reappear at the
alleged beginning of every century to come. But in his sixth letter
the Vicar of Helleston opened what I may call a masked battery.

He said--and I believe the fellow had been leading up to this from
the start--that he desired to thresh the question out not only on
general grounds, but officially as Vicar of Helleston; since he had
reason to believe that a certain day in the opening year of the new
century would bring a term to the Millennium; that the Millennium had
begun in Helleston close on a thousand years ago; and that (as he
calculated, on the 8th of May next approaching) Satan might
reasonably be expected to regain his liberty (see Revelation xx.).
For evidence he adduced a local tradition that in his parish the
Archangel Michael (whose Mount stands at no great distance) had met
and defeated the Prince of Darkness, had cast him into a pit, and had
sealed the pit with a great stone; which stone might be seen by any
visitor on application to the landlord of the "Angel" Inn and payment
of a trifling fee. Moreover, the stone was black as your hat (unless
you were a free-thinking Radical and wore a white one; in which case
it was blacker). He pointed out that the name of Helleston--_i.q._,
Hell's Stone--corroborated this tradition. He went on to say that
annually, on the 8th of May, from time immemorial his parishioners
had met in the streets and engaged in a public dance which either
commemorated mankind's deliverance from the Spirit of Evil, or had no
meaning at all.

T