Lord of the World

(4), sat in his study, looking out of t

than a quarter of a mile in width, and sunk twenty feet below the surface of the ground, swept up to a meeting a mile ahead at the huge junction. Of those, that on his left was the First Trunk road to Brighton, inscribed in capital letters in the Railroad Guide, that to the right the Second Trunk to the Tunbridge and Hastings district. Each was divided length-ways by a cement wall, on one side of which, on steel rails, ran the electric trams, an

g public buildings, from the Caterham district on the left to Croydon in front, all clear and bright i

rails as a train fled north or south, and the occasional sweet chord of the great motors as they neared or left the junction, th

now, smiling faintly to himself as he stared out into the clear air. Then he set

*

at least a hundred miles from the throbbing heart of England; and yet it was as quiet as he could wish. He was within ten minutes of Westminster on the one side, and twenty minutes of the sea on the other, and his constituency lay before him like a raised map. Further, since the gre

yed and white-skinned; and he appeared this day extremely content with himself and the world. His lips moved slightly as he wo

of papers, laid them down on the table without a word, and turned to g

Phillips?

m the East, sir,"

sideways, and laid hi

te message?

ted again. Mr. Felsenbur

d the flimsy printed sheets with a su

e top, Mr. Brand,"

patiently, and the other

's attention altogether, for he read it through two or three times, leaning bac

door opened, and

dear?" she

is head, with

he said. "Even less

gan to read aloud as the girl sat

of head and shoulders. She had walked slowly across the room as Oliver took up the paper, and now sat back in her brown dress in a

Felsenburgh-addressed-Buddhist-crowd-Attempt-on-Llama-last- Friday-work-of-Anarchists-Felsenburgh-leaving-for-M

egan to sw

e least," she said. "Who

the American deputation at the last moment. The Herald published his life last week; but it has been c

obscure now," o

whole thing. One never hears a word of the

t do you

cant eyes again

has been preparing for a descent on Europe for these last five years. They have only been checked by America; and this is one last attempt to stop them. But why Felsenburgh should come to th

any othe

lieve. One me

this come

shook h

y telegraph station is guarded night and day. There are lines of volors strun

it goe

eaks loose--" he threw ou

s the Gover

est of Europe. It'll be Armageddon

ance do

s from sheer fear; the other that they may be induced to hold their hands from charity; if only they can b

t again on to the wide plain o

ord those who had laid aside for the most part all religious beliefs except that in Humanity. To Oliver it was simply maddening. As he looked from his window and saw that vast limit of London laid peaceably before him, as his imagination ran out over Europe and saw everywhere that steady triumph of common sense and fact over the wild fairy-stories of Christianity, it seemed intolerable that there should be even a possibility that all this should be swept back again into the barbarous turmoil of sects and dogmas; for no less than this would be the result if the East laid hands on Europe. Even Catholicism would revive, he told himself, that strange faith that had blazed so often as persecution had been dashed to quench it; and, of all forms of faith, to Oliver's mind Catholicism was the most grotesque and enslaving. And the prospect of all this honestly troubled him, far more than the thought of the physical catastrophe and bloodshed that would fall on Europe with the advent of the East. There was but one hope on the religious side, as he had told Mabel a dozen times, and that was that

nfolded new glories with every discovery that man could make; even inanimate objects, the fossil, the electric current, the far-off stars, these were dust thrown off by the Spirit of the World-fragrant with His Presence and eloquent of His Nature. For example, the announcement made by Klein, the astronomer, twenty years before, that the inhabitation of certain planets had become a certified fact-how vastly this had altered men's views of themselves. But the one condition of progress and the building of Jerusalem, on the planet that happened to be men's dwelling place, was peace, not the

*

ntly and came acro

it passed before. It is a great thing that they are listening to Ame

her hand a