God was almost
now upon the threshold of their house. He was at the very gates of
their city, and with Him was coming a doom as sure and awful as the
sentence of the earthly judge on his earthly victim.
"Punishment! Punishment! . . . We have grown in this careless age to
laugh at punishment. A future life? There is no future life. God?
There is no God! Even were He to come upon us we could escape from
Him. We could make a very good case for ourselves. This world is
safe, secure, founded upon our markets, our treasuries, our laws and
commandments, our conventions of decent behaviour, our police and
our ministers. God cannot touch us. We are secure . . . I tell you
that at this very moment this earth in which you trust is trembling
under you, at this instant everything in which you believed is
undermined and is betraying you. You have been given your
opportunity--you are refusing it--and God is upon you."
His voice changed suddenly to tones of a marvellous sweetness. He
appealed, pleaded, implored. The ugliness of his face and body was
forgotten, he was simply a voice issuing from space, sent to save a
world.
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