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 WASHINGTON
—IN—

THE LAP OF ROME

Justin D. Fulton
 Bibliographic Information
Washington In the Lap of Rome was originally published in 1888 in Boston
by W. KELLAWAY (Office of the Free Press) Tremont Temple.

(Spelling, grammar, and punctuation from the originally published edition

has been retained.)

an Ichthus Publications edition

Copyright © 2014 Ichthus Publications
ISBN 10: 1502350629
ISBN 13: 978-1502350626

www.ichthuspublications.com
 “WHEREFORE TAKE UNTO YOU THE WHOLE ARMOR OF GOD
THAT YE MAY BE ABLE TO WITHSTAND IN THE EVIL DAY, AND
HAVING DONE ALL TO STAND.”—PAUL.
 TO

A M E R IC AN S
WHO WILL AID

IN

THROTTLING JESUITISM,
IN

UNCOILING THE SERPENT ENCIRCLING

THE CAPITOL
OF

THE UNITED STATES,

AND IN TAKING

WASHINGTON OUT OF THE LAP OF ROME;

THAT

A FREE CHURCH AND A FREE SCHOOL

IN

A FREE STATE,
MAY MAKE THE GREAT REPUBLIC
THE GLORY OF THE WORLD:

This Book is Dedicated,

IN

PRAYER AND HOPE.

 C O N TE N TS
Preface

1 The Jesuit University in the New Light

2 Romanism a Deception and a Fraud

3 Jesutism that Runs the Church of Rome

4 How Washington Came to be Washington

5 Jesuits Climb to Power in Washington

6 Rome in the Lap of Washington

7 The Hospitals under Romish Control

8 The Jesuits in Washington and Elsewhere

9 Romanism the Assassin of Abraham Lincoln

10 Fifteen Thousand Slaves to Rome in Washington; or, Americans

Under the Surveillance of Rome

11 The Lap of Rome

12 Connubial Felicity Enjoyed by Priests and Nuns

13 Jesuits in the Parlor; or, Fashionable Life in Washington

14 A Warning and an Appeal; or, The Huguenots, Their Folly and Their
 Fall

15 Romish Schools Our Peril

16 Parochial Schools and Indulgences

17 Can Washington be Taken Out of the Lap of Rome?

 P R E F AC E
“WASHINGTON in the Lap of Rome” has been written to call the attention of
the American people to the great trust which has been betrayed, and to the
great work which devolves upon them. It uncovers facts which will bring
the blush of shame to the cheek of the real Republican and fill his soul with
indignation. Fifteen thousand department clerks are under the surveillance of
Rome. If it be not true, as is charged, that a private wire runs from the White
House, in Washington, to the Cardinal’s Palace, in Baltimore, and that every
important question touching the interests of Romanism in America is placed
before his eye, before it becomes a public act, it is true that the Cardinal is a
factor in politics. Romanism is the dominant power in the Capitol of the
United States. Lincoln, Grant, and Arthur withstood it, and suffered the
consequences. The power is unseen. It is shadowy. It inhabits the air and
infects it. Romanism is the malaria of the spiritual world. It stupefies the
brain, deadens the heart, and sears the conscience as with a hot iron. It
comes, as did the tempter, with gifts in its hands, of rule, of power, and of
wealth, to all who will fall down and worship it. They who yield have
peace and praise. They who refuse must fight a terrible foe. The cry has
been for peace. The lips of some of the ministers and members of the
Church of Christ have been padlocked. Politicians, in the grasp of this
power, are unable or unwilling to move. They clank their chains with
delight, and glory in being allied with an organism so potential and so
astute. Others see the peril, and withstand its open and determined advance.
No longer now is the clash of arms heard. The city is not, to human sight, a
camp of armed men, as in the days of civil war; but if eyes could be opened
as were those of the prophet’s servant, when horses and chariots were
circling in the air, proofs of a conflict might now be discerned, more
desperate than was ever fought by flesh and blood on the earth. To-day the
“City of Magnificent Distances “resembles the child in the presence of the
snake. It is being charmed by the viper. Duty demands that the truth be told
which shall break the back of the monster. “Why Priests Should Wed”
uncovered the pollutions of Romanism in the hope of saving the women and
girls of the Roman Catholic Church, now held in the grasp of superstition.
“Washington in the Lap of Rome” appeals to mankind. The surrender to
Rome of the Capital of the Great Republic means death to liberty. The
people of all lands and climes are interested in the conflict. The facts given
will ripen the indignation of pure-minded men and women against the
Jesuitical foe, who no longer creeps under cover or hides in the shadow of
some wall, but stalks boldly forth on his errand of wickedness. It is
believed that it will cause lovers of liberty to shake themselves from their
lethargy, and not only take Washington out of the lap of Rome, but throttle
the monster threatening the future of the Republic, and lift the nation to its
rightful place as the educator of mankind, the leader of the best thought, and
the personification of God’s great purpose, in placing within the area of an
ocean-washed Republic a free Church in a free State.
May God help the truth, is the prayer of

JUSTIN D. FULTON.
 1
The Jesuit University In the New
Light
ROMANISM IS BEGINNING TO UNCOVER its hand in America. It begins to be
fearless, now that it is becoming natural. It is attempting to do here what it
has achieved in Europe, to awe the state, control the people, and banish
liberty.
Slowly, stealthily, with the look of a saint for the outward seeming,
with the heart of a Jesuit for the inward reality, Romanism has accomplished
in fact, if not in name, what in name as well as in fact she achieved in so
many of the kingdoms of Europe, a union of Church and State. This few will
admit, but all may know that fact was to have been revealed on the 24th of
May, 1888; that it was not, was not Rome’s fault, but God’s decree.
Preparations had been going on for months to lay on that day, in the presence
of the distinguished representatives of the nation, the corner-stone of “the
Catholic University of America, that the light of virtue and science might be
preserved in the State,” in accordance with (he decrees and behests of
Rome. The Cardinal, the Prince of the Roman Catholic church who was to
officiate as President of the Board of Trustees, is, by virtue of his high
office, the most conspicuous figure in the Catholic church in this country.
Born of Irish parents, July 23rd, 1834, in Baltimore, and accompanying his
father to Ireland as a child, where he received his early education, he
returned to the United States and graduated from St. Charles College,
Howard Co., Md., in 1857. He then studied theology in St. Mary’s
Seminary, Baltimore, and was ordained a priest June 30th, 1861. Seven
years later he was consecrated bishop of North Carolina. Afterwards he
took up his abode in Richmond, Va., and in 1877 became co-adjutor of
Archbishop Bayley, of Baltimore, and upon his death became his successor.
After the death of Cardinal McCloskey he was appointed to his present
exalted position, and carried to it great versatility of talent, an
unconquerable energy, and much learning
Gen. W. S. Rosecrans, Grand Marshal, was born in Ohio in 1819,
graduated from West Point in 1842, and in the Civil War rose from the
position of colonel to corps commander. In 1867 he resigned from the army,
went to California, was elected to Congress, and at the expiration of his
term was appointed Register of the Treasury. His brother was a bishop of
the Roman Catholic church, and he has been noted for his devotion to his
church, whether as soldier, congressman, or citizen. The orator of the day,
Rev. J. L. Spalding, was born in Lebanon, Ky., in 1840. Educated in
Emmetsburg, Ind., St. Mary’s, Cincinnati, and in Louvain, Belgium, on May
1st, 1877, he was consecrated bishop of Peoria. He is a scholarly man, and
it has been his dream for years to have a great Catholic University built in
the United States. It was through him that Miss Mary Gwendolen Caldwell
made known her gift of $300,000 to the prelates of the Baltimore Council.
The mother of Miss Caldwell was a member of the Breckenridge family.
The father amassed a large fortune in New Orleans, and in 1863 was
compelled to come North. Residing in New York, the daughter was
educated at the Academy of the Sacred Heart, Manhattanville, New York,
after which she travelled extensively in Europe. The father, at his death, left
an estate of four million dollars, to be divided between his two daughters.
The Rev. John J. Keane, the Rector of the University, was born in
Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal, Ireland, Sept. 12th, 1839. He studied classics at
St. Charles College, Baltimore, and subsequently pursued a full course in
St. Mary’s Seminary, and was ordained in 1866. For many years he served
as assistant of St. Patrick’s church, Washington, and in 1878 he was
appointed to the See of Richmond. Bishop Keane’s zeal, scholarship,
eloquence and organizing ability led to his election as a rector of the
University. He has raised $800,000 to endow it.
In 1882 Bishop Spalding visited Rome, and obtained the Papal
approval. The proposition was discussed by the Archbishops, called to
Rome in 1883, and in 1884 the sanction and benediction of the Pope was
promulgated to the Plenary Council in Baltimore. It was expected that the
Cardinal, dressed in the red robes of his office, arm-in-arm with the
President of the United States, was to strike the blow which would
inaugurate the commencement of an enterprise that would exert a felt
influence upon the institutions of this fast-growing Republic. Soldiers,
belonging to an army seven hundred thousand strong, now enlisted and
drilled, and being led by the scarred veterans of the Confederate and Union
armies, were to be there, under the command of Mayor General Rosecrans,
Grand Marshal, who, with prancing steed and nodding plume, was to place
before the eyes of gathered thousands the proof that Church and State were
united, and that a willing soldiery were getting ready to enforce the decrees
of Rome. Bands of music accompanied the delegations, and filled the air
with martial strains, as on Wednesday evening they marched along the
streets of Washington.
Archbishops, bishops and priests, monks and nuns and Christian
brothers, crowded the homes of expectant Romanists. Everything was
apparently for Rome. The President of the United States left the Presbyterian
Assembly in Philadelphia to grace with his presence this occasion. Every
member of the cabinet and distinguished statesmen were expected to keep
him company. Seats were prepared on the platform for two thousand guests.
That night, in a great hall in Washington, gathered a company of praying
people. They saw the peril; they declared it, and pleaded with God to bring
confusion upon the enemies of the faith; though ministers in Washington as a
rule, and the churches almost without exception, recognize the Roman
Catholic church as a part of the Christian world, and are opposed to saying
anything, or having anything said, that shall provoke discussion, or awaken
enmity. Many there are who believe that Romanism is the foe of Christianity,
and is yet to be cast down.
Thursday morning came. The day darkened as it climbed towards noon;
the rain came first as a protest. It increased in quantity, and finally fell in
sheets. The streets looked like rivers. The procession was abandoned; the
town was held in the grip of the storm. The crowd that gathered about the
great stand was roofed with umbrellas. The cardinal and clergy, who
expected to pass around the building to bless the foundations, were
unwilling to face the storm. At three P.M., a

CHANGE OF PROGRAMME

was announced, in these words: “3 P.M. The procession has been

abandoned; but the rest of the ceremony will go on.” It did not go on! The
foundations remained unblest! As Burns said:

“Full mony a plan of mice and men

Gang oft a-glee.”

It is not the first time that Jehovah, by storm and rain, has disconcerted
and broken up the plans of Rome. Twice this was done in the days of
Napoleon; when, but for them, he would have been master of the world. But
it came and piled his ships on the lee shore, and buried sailor and soldier in
a watery grave.
Once this same terrible result was reached when Philip II. of Spain
sent his Armada of ships to crush out the power of Elizabeth, England’s
noble queen. In our own land, a storm helped us, when hope had almost died
out of the heart. In the Old South church, Boston, there stood up the man of
God to pray. Liberty was imperilled. A fleet was on its way from the Old
World to the New, bearing soldiers, determined to make an end of the
attempt to kindle on the shores of this Western World the light of a new-born
hope. The wind, that gently lifted a lock of his white hair from his brow,
was but the touch of that tempest that engulphed the fleet in ruin and saved
the country from peril. That Being who permitted the persecution of the
children of Israel until Pharaoh was beside himself with wrath and egotism,
and, as if to defy God, followed the people in their march to Canaan, until
the floods environed him, when God withdrew the unseen walls which held
back the sea and permitted the waters to break forth, smiting horse, men, and
riders with the wrath of God, until chariot-wheel crushed into chariot-
wheel, and Pharaoh’s host, with all their pride and pomp, sank into the
bottom of the sea “as a stone,” still lives, and Rome, that in spite of
warnings and remonstrances had attempted to dominate our intellectual
forces, was compelled to halt, and learned again that the “Lady of the Tiber”
was to suffer mortification and chagrin, as her beautiful garments were
dispoiled by the rain—the good rain, that made the meadows glorious, and
opened flowers for the coming sun, and that did for Romanism in the United
States what the storm did for the Armada in the Channel. The Cardinal that
could make the son of a Presbyterian minister bow to Rome — that could
touch a spring and send seven millions of people in America to obey the
behests of Leo XIII., could not control God. “Sing unto the Lord a new song,
for he hath triumphed gloriously; “and, in answer to prayer, thwarted the
scheme to make an impression by a pageant we do not need, and will not
always brook.
It was understood that the corner-stone of the building would be laid,
no matter what sort of weather prevailed, so members of the Catholic
societies and others went bravely on in the rain, attending to the duties
assigned them. The bishops assembled at Father Chapelle’s residence at
two o’clock, where they took carriages with the cardinal and his attendants,
and they were driven to the Middleton estate, next to the Soldiers’ Home,
which they had purchased for $27,000. It has a picturesque and commanding
location. An old-fashioned driveway, between rows of trees, leading to the
old house, starts from the intersection of Lincoln avenue with the Bunker
Hill road. The grounds extend to the Metropolitan Branch of the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad, and the railroad station of Brooks is located there. The
distance from the city is two and a-half miles. So out they went, hoping
against hope, that the rain would cease.
The ecclesiastical ceremony at the site of the University was planned
as follows: The procession was to form at three o’clock along the Bunker
Hill road. The various divisions were to gather in fields on both sides of the
railroad, in such manner that the first division, when it files out, will pass
before all the divisions, and each division in turn will march out upon the
road, so that the whole long procession will pass in review before the last
division, composed of the bishops and clergy. Following an ecclesiastical
custom, each division is arranged with the junior organization first. Thus the
youngest parish is placed at the head of the division, composed of
representatives of parishes, and the oldest last. In the division composed of
the clergy, the different bodies are arranged according to their ecclesiastical
rank, the Christian Brothers coming first, followed in order by the priests,
the bishops, the archbishops, and last by the Cardinal, the highest dignitary.
In the programme it was arranged to sing Haydn’s anthem, “The Heavens
are Telling,” the choir to be accompanied by the full Marine Band. The
heavens told, without the song, that America has no need of a Papal
university, built to perpetuate the dominion of Romanism and to unify the
many elements of which the Roman Catholic church in America is
composed. One feature of the institution is the establishment of “University
Burses.” The “Burse” is a fund out of which the poor students are cared for.
Every person is at liberty to contribute to it whatever sum he or she may
desire. The object is to aid any bright-minded man whose appetite for
scholarly attainment in the scientific, or the historical, or the mathematical
fields of knowledge are known, but not brought out because of the lack of
means to develop them. The reason for locating the university at Washington
was ostensibly, as urged by Father Chapelle, because the Capital is growing
rapidly as a social, as well as a political centre; that its literary circle is a
growing and a liberal one; that a great general library, a superb law library,
scientific works and collections, the National Museum, the Observatory, and
other public institutions, offered facilities for study that could not be
secured elsewhere. In fact, it is the dream of Romanists to make Washington
the Rome of America. The Capitol is to be the Vatican; the great Department
buildings, the homes of her oligarchy, when the Tiber there, as in the Seven-
hilled City of Italy, shall give name to the mistress of the Republic which
hopes to be mistress of the world; and when this result is achieved, it would
be in keeping to have the Catholic University of America located at that
centre of Mary’s Land.
It was Thursday evening, May 24th, 1888. A company of lovers of
American institutions were gathered in one of the corridors of a great hotel.
In came the man who had led the meeting for prayer, and whose face looked
as though victory was in the air. He had been all day with the Jesuits. He
had seen their discomfiture, and witnessed their mortification, wrath and
desperation.
“What is the outlook?”
“All right.”
‘‘How goes the fight?”
“Never better. Rome has met her Waterloo, and has received a blow
she will not soon forget. Cardinal Gibbons finds that he cannot manage God.
He is beaten. The archbishop, bishop, and priests realize it. The president,
cabinet, and congressmen who have bent the supple hinges of the knee, that
thrift might follow fawning, now see it. Whiskey flows as free to-night as
water fell to-day. It is appalling to hear the profanity. Between yesterday
and to-day what a change! Then all was hope; now all is gloom! A leading
priest, who invited the speaker to come and witness the ceremony, is
despondent enough. The minister reminded him of the prophecy, read to him
from Revelation 18: 16, and, changing it, said: ‘Alas, alas, that great
company, clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet and decked with gold
and precious stones and pearls, in one hour have been brought to see their
helplessness when contending with the Almighty. May it not be a type of the
disasters to attend the enterprise? A bad start is a prophecy of what, at least,
is possible. The charter—the organism,—all will be opposed. ‘The Lord
also shall roar out of Zion, and the heavens and the earth shall shake; but the
Lord shall be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of
Israel. So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion, my
holy mountain.’ All recognized how the mighty angel may cast Rome down
as a stone is thrown into the sea when the truth gets before the people, and
the machinations of this foe of liberty are understood.”
Tongues were loosened. Rome, though mighty, was not almighty. The
truculency of politicians had been of no avail. The president and cabinet
went home chagrined; better, if not wiser, men.
 The Great University looked well on paper; but looked very diminutive
to those standing in the mud and rain. So will it be when God shall take
Rome in hand. “How much she hath glorified herself and lived deliciously;
for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no
sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, mourning, and
famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God
who judgeth her.”
Thus spoke the minister to his friend, the priest. The words shook him
up. They loosened the foundation on which superstition had been building.
The New was coming. The battle was on. Never did a fiercer conflict rage
in Washington. The forts were dismantled after the war. Soldiers in blue and
gray had gone far away; yet the city was full of combatants. Months before
in a Roman Catholic institution, concerning which a war of words seems to
go on from year to year, the minister met the priest. They sat at a table with
distinguished Romanists, priests and laymen. Eleven nuns waited on them.
After dinner, this priest, distinguished for his courage, cultured, talented,
eloquent, made a speech, which presents the doings of the church as seen by
Romanists. He praised Rome for what she is, and for what she has
achieved. He spoke of the proofs of her greatness, seen in her magnificent
cathedrals and churches in all the large cities,—the great monasteries,
convents, and asylums, crowning the hilltops that look down upon many of
our large cities, of the Golden Cross that greets the eye as the traveller
passes through the Golden Gate on the California Coast; while in New York,
the gateway of the Western World, Rome, in churches, in schools, in
convents, in monasteries, in protectories, and what not, leads all other
churches in enterprises and in far-reaching plans.
He claimed that there was more money and more brain under the
control of the church in New York than in Rome itself, and that now, while
the school system was being shattered and the parochial school had become
a fact, Rome was to get control of the youth of America, and could hold her
own against all comers. He then spoke with pride of the gift of the
descendant of the great opponent of Romanism, the gifted Dr. Breckenridge,
whose $300,000 was but the seedling—the germ—out of which was to
come an University that would surprise and astound the world.” He sat
down, roundly applauded. The chairman then asked the minister if he would
like to speak. Consenting, he arose, and said: “The speech of the
distinguished priest gladdens you. Make the most of it, while you have it; it
is but for a short time.” “What do you mean? Simply this: There is nothing
God Almighty hates as he does Romanism. In 1870 you proclaimed your
Pope an infallible God. That act proved him to be ‘the man of sin, the son of
perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God,
or that is worshipped ; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God,
showing himself that he is God.’” Thus was the “wicked revealed, whom
the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with
the brightness of His coming.”
“Is that your idea?” shouted the priest.
“That is the word of God. By it men and nations are to be judged. You
remember that your Pope had hardly been made the church, when the beast
Louis Napoleon, on which he rode into power, was destroyed. Then
Babylon fell, because of a power which came down from heaven, and
which lightened the earth with its glory. Because of this, the cry is going
forth as never before: ‘Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers
of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues’! Clouds, dark with the
wrath of God, are gathering in the sky of Rome; ‘for her sins have reached
unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.’
“Gentlemen, you may not know it, but it is true, that God keeps in his
ear the cry and shriek of every Waldensian thrown over the Alpine cliff and
torn by the jagged rocks; every body wrenched in twain by the rack of the
Inquisition; every woman whose feet were burned over the brasier of coals;
every martyr who ascended to heaven in his chariot of fire; all are
remembered; and God says: ‘Reward her even as she rewarded you, and
double unto her double according to her work’ in the cup which she hath
filled, fill to her double.’
“Then, again, gentlemen, there is a prophecy linked to a fact, to which I
have never seen attention called. You have a perfect passion to place all
your institutions on elevations. You seek to ‘exalt’ yourselves in the eye of
the people. The Pope ‘exalteth himself above all that is called God, or is
worshipped’; and you manifest the same spirit in the location of your public
buildings. Our Lord said: ‘Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased.’
Every hilltop crowned with your great structures, proclaims the abasement
of the Roman Catholic Church, and even now Christ may have said,
‘Because you have tried to exalt yourselves at the expense of humanity and
of brotherly kindness, thou shall be brought down to hell.’ ‘He that
humbleth himself shall be exalted.’ This is the outlook for Rome. The
present condition is not what you paint it. They tell me, if the mortgages
were foreclosed on the property Rome claims to own in New York City, she
would not have one foot of land, a convent, or a church. What you own
would not pay what you owe. Rome is to be uncovered, and then she will be
hated. In the battle to be fought, our hope is in God, and you must look out
for great defeats.”
With that conversation in mind, there was meaning in the results of the
day. The priest felt it. He spoke of his disappointment.
“It is hard to contend against an Almighty must,” replied the minister;
“the hour approaches when Rome shall be fought by Romanists. What means
this unrest of the Pope,—this feeling that he must get out of Italy and find a
refuge somewhere else? Does he not know,—does not the world recognize
the fact,—that Romanism is nothing without Rome? Let the Pope come to the
United States and he would be compelled to walk down Broadway with a
stovepipe hat, as Romanists are compelled to wear citizens’ clothes in
Mexico. The current of free thought in America will take care of Romanism.
The time is coming when men will be ashamed of the name in which they
pandered to Rome.” A minister of distinction declines to attack the Roman
Catholic Church in Washington, lest offence be given to the representatives
of foreign governments, who crowd St. Matthew’s on the Sabbath, and the
places of pleasure during the week, for Washington is in the lap of Rome. A
Cunarder put out from New England for New York. It was well equipped;
but in putting up a stove in the pilot box, a nail was driven too near the
compass. You know how that nail would affect the compass. The ship’s
officer, deceived by that distracted compass, put the ship two hundred miles
off her right course, and suddenly the man on the lookout cried: “Land ho!”
and the ship was halted within a few yards of her demolition on Nantucket
shoals. A sixpenny nail did that; because it was not known that it was
misplaced. It shall be the fault of those who will not heed a warning if this
Jesuit University shall derange the American compass and send the Ship of
State upon the rocks which threaten her.
Shall it be encouraged? It is but a part of a movement to take control of
educational interests in the United States. There are 6,800 Roman Catholic
churches in the United States, and there are more than 4,000 parochial
schools. A movement has begun, to take possession of our public school
buildings. Rome withdraws her children from the public school, leaving the
seats unoccupied. Then she rents the empty building, and fills it with her
children, through the assistance of men elected to do her bidding; as is done
in Pittsburg, Pa., and Maiden, Mass. As has been said, Rome sees clearly
the peril which confronts her from secular teaching, and from this day she
will spare no effort to keep her children within sound of her own bell and
within the limits of her own instruction. There will be no compromise; there
is no evasion; open, determined and persistent antagonism to our common-
school system is henceforth the attitude and policy of the Roman hierarchy.
He who hopes to escape this struggle, or out-manoeuvre this foe is already
beaten; he does not know the antagonist with whom he is fighting.
The universal diffusion of Catholic education means something more
than the opening of schools in every parish; it means a steady and
unrelenting attack on our common schools; not on that abstract thing called
the common-school system, but on every school in every locality where the
Catholic voting population has any strength. This result was inevitable;
Catholics have the same indisposition to pay taxes which characterizes the
great majority of men of all faiths. They are compelled to support their own
church schools; they are not disposed to support the common schools in
addition; wherever the way is open they will, as a matter of course, use
their power to control or cripple the common schools. The great struggle
between our schools and this vigilant and uncompromising foe will not be
fought out in Congress or in Legislatures, in newspapers or pulpits; it will
be fought in every school district in the country. There will be no great and
decisive battle; there will be a long series of skirmishes.
Every school meeting will be contested, and on the result of these
minor contests the struggle itself will turn. Henceforth eternal vigilance will
be the price we shall pay for our common schools; henceforth, no man who
cares for his community or his country can afford to shirk a duty which has
been more honored in the breach than in the observance.
In many communities these foes of the common school will not lack for
allies, who will, consciously or unconsciously, work with and for them; men
who will fail to see that they are being used as tools by a power which has
never yet failed of the highest sagacity in using those who are too
shortsighted or too selfish to comprehend the real issues involved. The only
reply which must be made to the establishment of the parochial school must
be the increased efficiency of the common schools.
The actual Ruler of this nation lives not in the White House at
Washington, but in the palace of Baltimore. No important editorial affecting
the Romish Church is printed until it has been submitted to the Cardinal for
his criticism. We wonder at the power exercised. No member of Congress
enters Washington but he is weighed in the Romish balances. If he comes
down with the shekels for the church and with votes for her policy, all is
Discovering Diverse Content Through
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 CHAPTER V
THE MAN OF THE MOMENT

It was quite true that Faber had been summoned to Downing

Street; equally true to declare that not even the wit of that engaging
Paul Pry, Master Bertie Morris, would have divined the nature of the
interview.

Perhaps good common sense might have helped him had he

trusted to such a cicerone rather than to his ears.

Here was the head of one of the most famous engineering firms
in the world held prisoner in London during these days of national
tribulation. The house of John Faber and Son had achieved colossal
undertakings in all quarters of the globe. Its transport mechanism
was beyond question the finest in existence. The genius of it was
known to be the man who had recently sold some millions of rifles to
Germany—a man accredited by rumour with such sagacity that he
had cornered the wheat-market during the earliest days of this
memorable winter. The latter proceeding did not help his popularity
in England, though it was ignored by the politicians who invited him
to Downing Street. In a word, they desired to know how he was
going to bring his wheat into England.

Faber was some hours at the conference, and directly it was over
he left London with Rupert Trevelle, and set off for Liverpool.
Unusually quiet and obviously troubled by a "brain fit," he delved
into a mass of newspapers while the train rolled on over the frozen
fields, and it was not until they had passed Crewe that he laid the
paper aside and addressed a remark to his ready friend.
 "I guess London is pretty well like a rat pit just now; at least
these newspaper men make it so. Hunger's a useful sort of dog
when his dander is risen. I suppose Miss Silvester has found that out
already?"

Trevelle, who smoked an immense cigar, and wore a fur coat with
a wonderful collar of astrachan, rose to the occasion immediately.

"We are living on a volcano," he said. "The government knows it,

and others must guess it. I am waiting every day to see the shell
burst and the lava come out. We want imagination to understand
just what is going on in England at the present time. That is where
we are short. All the way down here, I have been looking at these
cottages and asking myself in how many of them the children have
no bread this night. My God! think of the women who are bearing
the burden—but, of course, you are the man who has thought of it.
I wonder sometimes how much you would have made but for certain
things. You didn't buy corn to give it away in Stepney, Mr. Faber; that
wasn't in your mind a month ago. I'll swear you had very different
intentions."

"No need to swear at all. I'm not a philanthropist; I never was. I

bought that wheat because the cleverest weather man in New York
promised a winter which, anyway, would make the market sure. I
went in as any other speculator. How I am coming out is a different
proposition. They don't seem to think much of me in England—not
by what these writers say. I guess if I were a prize fighter, I'd be
doing better business in the popularity line."

Trevelle was a little upset about it.

"It can all be put right in a day if you wish it."

"But I don't wish it."

"I know you don't; you are wanting the girl to have the credit of
it."
 "Why not? It's a bagatelle to me. And the game will soon be up. I
can feed a few thousands in London, but I can't feed a nation. Either
I send a cable to Charleston surrendering to my men or I do not. If I
do, it will cost me half my fortune; if I don't and this frost holds,
you'll see red hell in England before twenty days have run."

"Then the rumours about the strike breaking at Liverpool are

true? There is something in them?"

"There is everything in them. The government can deal with this

side if I deal with the other. It's up to me in the end and I must say
'Yes,' or 'No.' If I say 'Yes,' all America will laugh at me—if I don't,
well who's to charge me? That's the situation, that and your own
people, who are going to give the politicians their day. I tell you, it's
a considerable proposition and is going to make me older before I
have done with it."

He was unusually earnest, and his manner forbade any inquiry as

to what had happened in Downing Street, a matter Trevelle's
curiosity would have probed if it could. To be candid, this polished
gentleman, who indirectly had brought the fact of Faber's presence
in England to the notice of the government, was immensely pleased
by the part he had played in the stirring events of recent days. Not a
lover of money, but a persistent seeker after social credit, when it
could be gained by worthy ends, Trevelle had won distinction in
twenty ways: as a founder of boys' camps, an officer of Territorials,
and a promoter of some schemes which had become national. And
here he was in these critical days by the side of the man whose
genius might well be the salvation of his fellow-countrymen.

Then entered Liverpool a little late in the afternoon, and went at

once to the scene of the strike. It was bitterly cold weather, but
nothing to justify the fearsome stories which had delighted London
for some days past. The strike itself appeared to be the result as
much of lack of work as of any fundamental discontent; starvation
had been busy here, and the fruits of starvation were now to be
reaped. As in London, haggard gangs paraded the streets and
clamoured for bread; there were turbulent scenes in the darker
quarters of the city, and not a little of that unmeasured mischief
which ever treads upon the heels of want. An interview with the
men's leaders convinced Faber that America alone could unlock the
doors of this compulsory idleness, and it set his own responsibility
once more in a lurid light. Let him cable that message of surrender
and the end would be at hand; but in that case his own people
would call him a genius no more and Wall Street would deride him.
He saw himself as the enemy of the British people, dominant in
victory and yet upon the eve of a defeat which never could be
retrieved. And if this befell him a woman must answer for it—an
ancient story truly.

From Liverpool he journeyed to Fishguard, thence to the south

coast. A greater rigour of the frost was here, and it was possible for
the dreamer to understand some of those fears which had haunted
the timorous during the eventful days. Perhaps a man of large
imagination might have been justified in looking across the still seas
and asking himself what would befall the island kingdom if the
prophets were justified.

At Dover, even John Faber dreamed a dream and did not hesitate
to speak of it to Trevelle. Sleeping lightly because of the bitter cold,
he imagined that the Channel had become but a lake of black ice in
which great ships were embedded, and that far and wide over the
unbroken surface went the sledges of the adventurous. Driven to
imitate the leaders in this fair emprise, he himself embarked also
upon an ice-ship presently, and went out into the night over that
very silver streak which had been the salvation of England during the
centuries. The white cliffs behind him disappeared anon in the mist;
a great silence fell all about; he passed an ice-yacht moving before
the lightest breeze, and she was but a shadow picture. Ultima Thule
and the frozen wastes were here.
 It was a dream of the darkness, and it carried him many miles
from the English shore; he perceived that the coastwise lights blazed
out as usual, and he could discern in the far distance the
magnificent beams from Cape Grisnez and nearer to them the
splendid message of the Forelands. A phantom light upon his own
ship was powerful enough to cut a golden path over the frozen sea
and show him its wonders and its solitudes. Here where great
steamers went westward to the Americas, eastward to the city's
ports; here where many thousands crossed daily at the bidding of
many interests; here a man might stand alone and hear no other
sounds than that of the freshening winds of eventide or the groaning
of the ice when the sea refuses its harbourage. A weird, wild scene,
stupendous in its suggestion, an hour of Nature's transcendent
victory. And yet but a dream of his sleep, after all.

II

Such was the vision which reality supported but ill.

There was ice in the southern harbours, but there had been ice
there before, and nothing but the imagination of discerning
journalists had bridged the peaceful seas and put upon the frozen
way the armies of the invader. Faber perceived immediately that a
few of his ice-dredges from Charleston could undo any mischief that
Nature had done, and he sent a cable to America there and then, as
a sop to the fears of the timorous rather than a measure of real
necessity.

It was odd how, through it all, this man whose name was known
to so few Englishmen had become the arbiter of the nation's destiny.
He held the bulk of the wheat which could be shipped from the West
if the men who loaded the ships were willing; with him lay that "Yes"
or "No" which should unlock the gates and bid a starving population
enter the granaries. Once in his younger days he had heard a
preacher who took for his text the words, "Sell that thou hast," and
he remembered how that this man had declared the need of an all-
embracing sacrifice once in the course of every life. The words
haunted him, and could not be stilled. He had become as a King or
Emperor of old time who could make war or end it by a word. Irony
reminded him that he was an apostle of war, and that a sentiment
which would deride it had no place in his creed. Why, and for whom,
should he beggar himself to serve this people? His financial empire
would come down with a crash if he surrendered now—he believed
that he would never surrender, and yet he sent a compromising
cable to America that day.

This was just before Trevelle and he returned to London through

a country which seemed to have no other thoughts than the
pleasures of the frost. Everywhere the villages kept carnival upon
the ice with merriment and music and the pageantry of snows.

To Faber this seemed a wonderful trait in the national character,

and not to be met by Trevelle's cheery reminiscence of the
gladiatorial salute. These people had not saluted the frost because
they believed that they were about to die, but because they thought
that the national intellect would enable them to live. It had been the
same during the Boer War and far back during the Crimea. Beneath
the veil of tribulation lay the enduring faith that the nation would
emerge, purified by the ordeal and greater for the knowledge of its
own strength.

"You see yourselves worrying through, and that's all you care
about," he said, as the morning train carried them to London, and
the daily papers were strewn about him like the monstrous leaves of
an unhealthy plant: "the skin of this nation is the thickest on the
globe, and perhaps its most wonderful asset. When you do get into
a panic, you show it chiefly in the smoking-room or over the dinner-
table. This time you've the biggest chunk to chew I can remember,
and yet you are only beginning to see how big it is. The mob is
teaching you something, and you'll learn more."
 He took up a journal from the seat, and passing it over to
Trevelle, indicated some immense headlines.

"See, here! the crowd has burned down your Temple, and is
asking for another to keep 'em warm. That's British right through, I
guess, and something to go on with. It's just what a man should
expect when he turns philanthropist on his own account. You give
them what they want, and they are mad because they want it. It's a
pretty story, and you should read it. It will certainly interest you."

Trevelle took up the paper and read the report to the last line.
Yesterday at five o'clock, an enormous rabble had surrounded the
factory by Leman Street, and there being no one in charge who
could deal with them, the hooligans had set the place on fire and
burned it to the ground. From that they had gone on to other
pleasantries, chiefly connected with the philanthropic agencies in the
East End. A mission had been burned at Stepney; a boys' institute at
Bethnal Green. There was hardly a baker's shop in the locality which
had not been looted, while some of the larger stores were but
shattered ruins. The report added that a vast horde of ruffians,
numbering at least two hundred thousand men, was then marching
upon Pall Mall, and that troops were being hurried to London. It was
altogether the most sensational affair since the beginning of the
frost.

"Poor little Gabrielle!" said Trevelle, thinking first of the woman.

"I'm glad she wasn't there. This will be an awful blow to her!"

"Not if she's got the common sense I credit her with. Women's
ideals are not readily shaken, and Miss Silvester has some big ones,
which are permanent. I'll see her to-day, and we'll know what's to be
done. Tell her as much when we get to London."

"If there is any London left to get to——"

"Oh! there'll be a nook and corner somewhere. Your fellows have

a genius for dealing with mobs. I would back the police in London
against all the riff-raff east of St. Paul's. But they'll do some mischief,
none the less—and even this may not help us for the moment. Do
you guess what's in that cable, Mr. Trevelle—why, how should you?
And yet it might mean more to your people to-day than ten million
sovereigns, counted out on the floor of Westminster Hall!"

He held up the familiar dirty paper upon which the Post Office
writes the most momentous of messages, and then showed his
companion that it had come from Queenstown.

"The men on my side have given in," he said, adding nothing of

his own act in that great matter, "the steamers will be sailing inside
twenty-four hours. It's a race, sir, between me and the worst side of
your nation. And I guess I'll win."

"If you do," said Trevelle earnestly, "there is nothing our

government can do to repay the debt."

"Unless they teach the people the lesson of it; do you think it is
nothing to an American to see this great country at the mercy of the
first food panic which overtakes her? I tell you, it is as much to my
countrymen as to yours. Teach them that they have a precious
possession in this island kingdom, and you are doing a great work. I
shall be a proud man to have a hand in it——"

"You certainly will have that. It's a lesson we all need. I don't
think I could have repeated it myself, but for these weeks. Now, I
know—and the man who knows can never forget."

He fell to silence upon it, and regarding the drear country from
the blurred window, perceived a barren field and a drift of snow
falling from a sullen sky. Yet sore afflicted as she was, he
remembered that this was Mother England, and that he and
countless others had been but ungrateful sons in the days of her
glory.

Would it be otherwise when the shadows had passed?

Ah! who could tell?

BOOK IV

MERELY MEN AND WOMEN

 CHAPTER I
AFTER THE DEBACLE

Gabrielle was at her club in Burlington Gardens when the news of

the riot in Stepney was brought by her father. She determined to go
back at once that she might know the worst.

"How can they say such things?" she protested while a footman
helped her on with her furs, and her father watched her humbly, as
latterly it was his wont to do. "Why! everything is going so well,
father. I had a perfect ovation this morning; it was nearly half an
hour before I could get away from the people. Why should they have
done this?"

Silvester said that he could not tell her. All that he knew he had
learned by the mouth of a messenger, who had been dispatched
headlong from Stepney and came panting with the news.

"You should not have listened to Mr. Faber, my dear. He is an

American, and he does not understand our people. The ticket idea
was quite wrong. It led to many jealousies, and now to this. The
people think there is a great store of bread in Leman Street, and
that it is being given only to our friends. I am sorry the story got
abroad, very sorry! Charity cannot discriminate in such times as
these."

He would have gone on to preach quite a little sermon to the hall

porter and the footmen, who told each other afterward that the
young lady gave it to him "'ot"—but Gabrielle, amazed and
chagrined beyond all experience, immediately ordered them to get a
taxi and drive without any delay to Stepney. It was then about seven
o'clock of the evening; a bitter cold night with a wraith of snow in
the air. The West End seemed entirely deserted at such an hour—
even the music-halls had no queues at their doors, while the
theatrical managers complained dolefully of their financial sorrows.
London had awakened to the truth of the situation at last, and
London was frightened. Even the unobservant Silvester could realise
the omens of menace, and say that the city was in peril.

"I don't know what it means," he told Gabrielle, as they drove,

"but I passed a regiment of cavalry as I came here, and it was going
toward Oxford Circus. Do you notice how many police there are
about, and mounted police? There is hardly a shop in the West End
which is not boarded up. Perhaps they are wise—this has taught
them what lies on the other side of Aldgate, and it is a lesson they
should have learned a long time ago. My own opinion is that we are
upon the brink of a revolution; though, of course, I would not say as
much to any of these newspaper people!"

"If you think it, father, why not say it? Surely the day has gone by
for the old foolish ideas. The government has left the people to
starve, and must take the consequences. We have done our best,
but we are not policemen. I feel tempted to go back to Hampstead
and having nothing more to do with it. Think of the ingratitude, the
shame of it all—and we have worked so hard!"

"You should not have listened to Mr. Faber, my dear; I said as

much at the beginning. He is very ignorant of English people; it was
a mistake to listen to him."

"You didn't think that on the steamer, father, when we came over
from America. You were his bravest advocate; you called him one of
the world's geniuses, I remember it."

Silvester admitted it.

"I hoped much from him. If we could have won him, it would
have been the greatest victory in the cause of peace we have ever
achieved. I fear now he must be called our evil genius. He has
undoubtedly sold all those rifles to Germany, and that is to say that
we shall have the old foolish scares again and very soon. A man like
that is a terrible instrument of mischief. I think we shall have to
dissociate ourselves from him altogether when the little girl is well
enough to leave us."

Gabrielle sighed as though all these things had become a burden

on her mind. An innate sympathy for John Faber prevented her
saying what otherwise it would have been a truth to say. How much
he could have done for them had he chosen to do it! His money
would have helped them so—an inconsequent thought, for her
charities had never wanted money.

"He was certainly wrong about the tickets," she admitted. "I know
Mr. Trevelle thought so, but he gave way. If it is really true that he is
keeping bread from the people to serve his own ends, nothing bad
enough can be said about it, but I want to know that it is true. It
has been very unkind of him to do nothing for us when he might
have done so much. My opinion of him is greatly changed; I do not
think he is really our friend."

Silvester was quite of that opinion also.

"He made us such extravagant promises. A house in the West

End, motors—every luxury. I really thought he was quite serious
when I left Ragusa. Sir Jules Achon did not wish us to go. He knows
these people; he thought I was ill-advised to give up Yonkers for
such vague promises. I wish I had listened to him now; he is still on
those delightful waters, far away from all this. We should have been
with him but for our foolish generosity."

Gabrielle avoided the difficult subject. She must have been a little
ashamed of it when she remembered the gifts John Faber had
lavished upon them already and the concern he displayed for
Maryska. The conversation, indeed, carried her back to a somewhat
commonplace reality from which she had emerged to win this
temporary triumph as a ministering angel in the East End. And now
they had burned her Temple and the idol was cast down. Her father
would send Maryska away, and they must return to the old
humdrum life. John Faber and his riches would pass as a ship of the
night. Harry Lassett and the dead leaves of a withered passion
remained.

"Oh," she said at last, "how vain is all we do! How vain, how
hopeless! We are just like ants crawling about the earth and trying
to set ourselves up for gods. We talk of peace and war, of good and
evil, of what we shall accomplish and what we have done, and then
down comes the great flat foot of circumstance and out we go. I
lose the power even to hope sometimes. Why should we not let
things drift? Who is the better for our work?"

Her father would not agree to that.

"Every stone cast into the lake of the world's ills is an asset in
humanity's balance sheet," he said. "You have cast many, Gabrielle,
and will add to the number. Look out there at those poor people. Is
it all vain when you remember how many of their kind you have
succoured? This American hardness is no good influence; I wish we
could shake it off forever. Indeed, it were better so."

"We shall do that," she said quietly. "Mr. Faber will not be many
days in England when the frost will let him get away."

He remained silent. They had passed Charing Cross, and now

their way was blocked by a vast torchlight procession of women,
debouching upon the Strand from the neighbourhood of the Old
Kent Road. It was a sorry spectacle, for here were young and old,
white-haired women with their backs bent toward the earth which
soon would receive them; drabs in rags who flaunted their tattered
beauty in the face of every male; quiet workers whose children were
starving in garrets; women from mean streets who had never
begged in all their lives; children who wondered if the end of the
world had come. Headed by a lank harridan who wore a crimson
shawl and carried an immense torch, these miserables tramped
stolidly toward the West End, seeking God knows what relief from
the shuttered houses. And after them went a dozen mounted
policemen, good-humoured, chubby-cheeked fellows, who had never
wanted bread and were never out of patience with others less
fortunate.

A thousand expressions were to be read upon the faces of this

haggard crew, and not a little fine determination. Here would be a
woman reeling in drink; yonder a young mother hardly strong
enough to walk the streets. There were sluts and shapely girls,
creatures of a shabby finery, and hopeless woebegone figures of an
unchanging poverty. From time to time wistful glances would be cast
up at the lighted windows of the houses as though succour might be
cast down thence. All moved with rapid, shuffling steps, an orderly
concourse which concealed the forces of disorder. By here and there,
some of the younger members broke into a mournful song, which
was checked at intervals to permit of the exchange of coarse wit
with the passers-by on the pavements. The whole throng seemed
driven relentlessly on toward a nameless goal which must break
their hope when at last they reached it.

"Isn't it dreadful to see them?" said Gabrielle when the last of the
procession had passed by and traffic in the Strand was resumed
once more. "This sort of thing affects me terribly; it makes me feel
sorry that there are women in the world at all. Think of the children
of such creatures! What can we hope for them?"

"It is the children for whom we must work," rejoined the father. "I
should think of England with despair if it were not for the children."

Worthy man! Despair had always been among the wares in his
basket; and yet, how often had this unhappy British people gone
laughing by with never a thought for him or his melancholy gospel?

II
 The menace of the streets was not less when the women had
passed by and the traffic flowed again.

London was full of wild mobs that night; of savage men and men
made savage by hunger, and they were drifted to and fro upon the
shifting seas of authority and stranded on many a relentless shore.
There was riot, too, and upon riot, pillage and the incendiary. Now
for the first time since the winter set in, hunger drove even the
orderly to the West in the wild search for the food the East could not
give them. Long through the dark hours, in Bond Street, in Piccadilly,
by Hyde Park, away in the remotest suburbs, sleepers were
awakened to listen fearfully to the tramp of feet and the hoarse
voices of the multitudes. Those who had the curiosity to look from
their windows beheld a sky quivering with light, a glorious
iridescence above many a flaming building the rioters had fired. It
was the beginning of the end, men said; a visitation of Almighty God
against which all were impotent. Who shall wonder that those whose
faith was sure prayed for the salvation of their country in that hour
of her need?

There were enormous crowds about Aldgate, and the taxi

containing Gabrielle and her father made but slow headway. When
at last it entered Leman Street, they perceived in an instant the
whole extent of the disaster; and so irreparable it seemed that the
girl's pride broke down utterly, and she shed bitter tears of shame
and grief. How she had worked for these people! What a heroine
they had made of her! This very morning there had been a kind of
triumphal procession from the old Temple to the new. She had been
followed by a vast concourse of thankful people, who cheered her as
she went; while the bishop had addressed the throngs from the
doors of the mission, and spoken of the "noble lady," whose services
to them had been priceless. This was just eight hours ago, and now
there were but reddening ashes where the workers had stood to
give the children bread.
 The cab made its way to the doors of the wrecked building and
an inspector of police received them. The few who had been
admitted within the barriers were evidently ashamed of what had
been done, but quite unable to apologise for it. The inspector put it
down to the hooligans.

"We breed too many of them in these days, sir," he said, "the
country finds it out when there's hard times, and God knows they're
hard enough now. It must have been set afire after Mr. Gedding had
locked it up for the day. There were flames as tall as chimneys
coming out of the roof when I was called."

This was a man who took tragedy as a matter of course, and

would have used the same words if St. Paul's had been burned.
When asked if the incendiary were taken, he replied that he was not,
but that acting upon "information received," he hoped to make an
arrest before morning. His anxiety for the "young lady" was real, and
he advised that she should return immediately to her home.

"Now that there's this spirit abroad, I'll answer for nothing at all,"
he said; "you'd be better the other side of Aldgate, and that's
certain. There's nothing but a pack of foreign cut-throats in the
streets to-night, and no man is safe. Just you take my advice, sir,
and come back in the morning, when they've had time to cool
awhile. This is no place for the young lady, whatever it may be for
us."

Silvester agreed with him, but he found it impossible to influence

Gabrielle. She seemed strangely moved by the melancholy glamour
of the scene; by the savage figures shadowed in the after-glow; by
the reddening skeleton of the Temple which stood up so proudly a
few hours ago. To-morrow there would be but a pit of ashes, where
to-day a sacrifice had been offered to the nation. She suffered
profoundly when she surveyed this wreck of her handiwork, and it
seemed to her that her work among the people was done.
 "Let us go on to the old Temple," she said with what resignation
she could command, "if they have burned that also, then I will
return with you, father, for I can do nothing more."

Silvester disliked the idea of it. He would have been pleased

enough to have been back in his little study at Hampstead, where he
might have composed a sermon upon "ingratitude," as an obstacle;
but he had long been schooled to obedience when his daughter
commanded, and so they re-entered the cab and drove to the old
Temple. A silent multitude watched them as they went, but none
cheered. The bitter cold night either sent people to their houses,
where they might shiver upon heaps of rags, or it drove them to the
open street where many a huge fire had been kindled that the
outcasts might warm themselves. Hereabouts you would often see a
whole family lying upon a filthy pallet of straw, and so huddled
together for warmth that it had the appearance of some fearsome
animal which had crawled from the darkness to the light. The
shadows gave pictures more terrible, husbanding the dying and the
dead. Starvation abetted the rigour of the winter. Nature waged war
here in these silent alleys, and no sound attended her stealthy
victories, which were multitudinous.

In London beyond "the gate" there were other anxieties, but

these poor people knew nothing of them. War and its menace: the
chimera of fabled foes crossing the black ice in endless columns;
cannon rumbling where ships had sailed; England no longer an
island, her ramparts of blue waters gathered up; her gates thrown
open to any who would affront her—if the West End discussed all
this covertly and as though afraid, the East knew nothing of it. Here
the danger was not of to-morrow, but of to-night! The peril, ever
present, fell upon them now at the bidding of the natural law. For
the first time since the outcasts of the world had found sanctuary
beyond Aldgate, their city of refuge had been unable to feed them.
And now hunger bade them go forth to the land of promise, so near,
so rich in all they needed. Shall we wonder that starving mobs
gathered in every square; that the courts were full of desperadoes
with murder in their eyes; that even the honest would listen and
admit that this or that might be done?

Upon the other side were the police and the soldiers, many
thousands hidden prudently from the eyes of the mobs. If the
Government could do little to feed these people, it could, at least,
protect the people who were fed for the time being, at any rate.
Commanded by the "man of iron," the cavalry were marched hither
and thither, but always to form a cordon about the dangerous areas.
Special drafts of constables came from the distant suburbs to
overawe poor devils whose greatest crime was their hunger. Stepney
was besieged by authority, fearful that men would go out to get the
children bread, and ashamed that bread should be withheld. Here
had Nature's war become one of a civil people, paying a debt they
long had owed to their exacting creditors, "Want of Forethought and
Economy." The sword of a foreign enemy would have been the
lesser peril—it was evident enough now to everyone!

Through such scenes, by the dark and dangerous streets, went

Gabrielle to the ancient Temple. She found it occupied by busy
missionaries, who knew neither night nor day while the work of
mercy must go on. In and out they went as they returned from
some mean house, or set off for another. Dawn found them still at
work, the terrible dawn when the country waited for the verdict in
Nature's court, and even the dullest had come to know that this was
an island kingdom.

III

Faber and Trevelle reached Stepney early on the morning of the

following day. Gabrielle was still at the Temple and while she had
expected the visit of the resistless "inspiration," as she had come to
call Trevelle, John Faber's advent was unlooked for.

"We heard you were burned out, and came along at once," he
said, in the best of humours. "I guess you'll want all the masons
you've got, Miss Silvester, and want 'em on time. That old factory
should take five days to put up if you go the right way about it. If it
were me, I'd leave it where it is, and make 'em toe the line among
the ashes. That would teach them to behave themselves next time.
You can't burn the house that's been burned already, and if they
want to warm themselves, coal is cheaper. Say, write that upon
what's left of the door, and you'll have the laugh on them, sure!"

She was chagrined at the tone of it, but none the less, she
seemed to understand that he wished her well.

"If we rebuild, where is the money to come from?" she asked

him, helplessly. "And what is the good of it if there is no bread to
give the people? My father says the end is coming. What have we to
hope for if that is the case?"

"You have to hope for many things, my dear young lady—the

weather for one of them. Your good father is a little premature,
maybe, and is prone to believe what the newspapers tell him. The
end is coming sure enough. It's not the end he looks for by a long
way."

He glanced at Trevelle, and they smiled together. There had been

great news from Queenstown that morning. Why should they
withhold it from her?

"The fact is," said Trevelle, "the strike in America is over and the
wheat ships are sailing. You read your evening paper to-night and
see what it says. We have brains amongst us and they are busy.
That's what we've been asking for all along, in peace or war, not the
dreamers but the brains. And we've got 'em, Miss Silvester, we've
got 'em!"

He snapped his fingers, an habitual gesture, and seemed thereby

to imply that he, Rupert Trevelle, had laid down a doctrine which
henceforth must be the salvation of the British people. Gabrielle,
however, heard him a little coldly though she was full of wonder.
 "I did not think you were so interested in this matter," she said.
And then, "Will you, please, tell me why the men in Liverpool are
striking still?" When the scientific exposition had left her more in
doubt than ever, she asked of her work once more. "Then it is no
good going on here if the wheat will come in," she said; "our task
will be finished then, will it not, Mr. Faber?" He shook his head at
that and told her of his fears.

"It will be a slow business. I advise you to stand by yet awhile. If

we get the cargoes slowly, as we shall have to do, the price of wheat
will still stand high, and that's no good to these people at all. Take
my advice and go on with what you are doing. The country owes
you something, sure, and it is just beginning to find that out. Did
you see your pictures in the halfpenny illustrateds, this morning? I
like those fine; I've got 'em here somewhere, and I mean to keep
'em."

Trevelle thought it wise to move away at this point, and they were
left together in the great bare hall of the Temple, whither the people
would soon be flocking for bread. A winter sun shone cold and clear
through the wide window above them; then voices echoed strangely
beneath the vault as though they were tricked by a mutual self-
restraint to an artificiality of tone foreign to them. This man had
come to love this woman passionately, and he was about to go to his
own country, never to return.

"Oh!" she cried, surprised and delighted when she beheld the
pictures, "what a dreadful guy they have made me! Now, don't you
think this sort of thing ought to be stopped?" He shook his head as
though she had disappointed him.

"I never knew a woman yet whose picture was in a newspaper

who didn't say they had guyed her. The thing seems well enough to
me, and I must keep it for a better. Say, now, you know, I'm going
away the first mail that sails. Will you give me a better portrait or
must I take this one?"
 Her spirit fell though she did not dare to tell him why. He was
going, and the building her hope had raised must come crashing
down. With this was her feeling that in some way he had failed her
in the critical hours. There were men who cried out upon his
astuteness, made manifest in the hour of crisis, but she had never
heeded them.

"If you really think that you will remember my name when you
are in New York again——" Her hesitation was the complement of
the obvious, and he smiled again.

"It will be a new name. Let's hear how it sounds. Mrs. Harry
Lassett! Well, I don't like the sound of it overmuch, but I suppose it's
not my say. The wedding, I think, is for next month, is it not?"

"For the week before Lent. You will not build me a Temple now; it
would be a mockery!"

"Why, as to that, if it's a Temple for brains, I don't know that we

mightn't build it after all. That's what your country needs, Miss
Gabrielle. All the brains at work to educate the people. Sentiment
will carry you a very little way upon the road. Let your Temple go up
to the men with brains."

"Ah!" she said, "I think we are all beginning to understand that.
Even my father says that universal peace will be won by the intellect
not by the heart of the nation. You will see him before you go, of
course?"

"I shall try to; it will be a misfortune for me if I do not."

"And Maryska?"

"Ah, there you get me into harbour at once. I've been thinking
over what Mr. Trevelle has told me about your difficulties, and I
guess I'd better see you out of them by taking Maryska to New York.
Does that seem to you a wise thing to do?"
 Her face became very pale, her thoughts seemed distant when
she said:

"Quite wise; she will never be well in England."

"Or happy?"

"Ah, who can say just what happiness is?"

"True enough," he replied. "We look up and down the street for it,
and sometimes it is on our own doorsteps all the time. We say that
we were happy yesterday, and talk of happy days to come when to-
day may be the happiest of our lives. Some of us are not born for
that ticket, and it's human nature which shuts us out from it. Who
knows, you and I may be among the number."

"An auspicious thing to say, remembering that I am to be married

next month."

"Pardon me, I should not have said it. It's like one of your Lord
Salisbury's 'blazing indiscretions.' You are taking the line which your
welfare dictates that you shall take. You have thought this out for
some years, I don't doubt, and you say, there is just one man in the
whole world for you. Well, that's a bid for happiness any way. I'll put
a motto to it when I cable you on your wedding day."

He held out his hand, and she took it. Their eyes met, and he
knew that he read her story.

"The Temple," he said; "I guess you'll want me to help you open
that. If you do, I'll come."

"Shall I write to Charleston?"

"Yes, to Maryska de Paleologue, who is going to keep house for

me."
 Her hand fell from his and she said no more. The doors of the
Temple were already open that the hungry might enter in.
 CHAPTER II
THE SHADOW IS LIFTED

When a woman has drifted into an engagement imposed upon

her by years of friendship, it is rare that she has the courage to
break the bonds, however irksome she may find them.

Gabrielle knew that she was drifting into this marriage with Harry
Lassett, and yet her will was paralysed. The baser appeal had
passed as a menacing wave upon a strange sea, and all that was left
was the troubled waters of the seemingly inevitable. Her love-
making had been so many hours of a dead passion, which no
pretence could reanimate. She had posed as the fond mistress of a
man whom her coldness gradually repelled until his pride revolted.
Held in his arms, treated still as the child, kissed upon her lips, all
her sentiment appealed to by his ardour, she tried to say that this
was her destiny, beyond which she might not look. Hundreds had
drifted as she into that desert of the waters where no tide of life
emerges nor harbours of a man's love are to be found. She had
been tricked by circumstance, and delusion must be paid for by the
years.

Be it said that this was chiefly an aftermath of the busy weeks.

While the shadow lay upon England, the fame of her work had
blinded her to the true meaning of the promise Harry Lassett had
won from her in an irresponsible hour. Swiftly, upon the tide of the
national misfortune, she had risen to notoriety; been applauded in
the public press and named as a heroine for her work at Stepney.
When that work was ended; when England awoke one day to the
thunders of a thanksgiving more real than any in her story, then she
learned for the first time by what means her triumph had been won,
and whose hand had guided her through the darkness.

The letter came from Paris, one of the very first the mails brought
in. Well she remembered afterwards how that there had been a bruit
of the passing of the frost many days before the deliverance came.
Crowds who had learned to say that the American engineer, John
Faber, had been the master mind during the terrible weeks; that his
were the wheat ships now coming into the ports; that his genius and
his money had accomplished miracles—these crowds heard with new
hope of his promise that the weather was breaking, and the end at
hand. Waiting patiently during the momentous hours, London slept
one night through a bitter frost to awake next day to a warm south
wind and a burning sunshine. Never shone sun so kindly upon a
people which mourned its heritage. The oldest became as children in
that hour of deliverance. The church bells rang for a peace, not with
men, but with God.

The island home! God, what it had meant to them all in the past!
And they had dwelt in ignorance; blind to their possession;
regardless of the good sea which sheltered them; of the ramparts
which were their salvation. Now, as in a flash, they perceived the
truth: the gifts were returned to them; the meanest knew that he
was free. In a frenzy which the circumstances may have justified,
men took train for the seaports and watched the passing of the ice.
They stood upon the high cliffs and beheld the sun shining upon the
open waters; lakes of golden light at the heart of the ocean—a
widening girdle of security their country had put on. The loftiest
imagination could not soar to the true heights of this revelation, or
embrace it wholly in the earlier hours. The dullest were dumb for
very fear that the Almighty would but trick them after all.

In London, it was as though the whole people took one great

breath together. Just as upon the conclusion of a peace, the church
bells were rung and the City illuminated. Vast crowds poured from
the houses, and gave themselves up to the most childish
manifestations of joy. There were scenes to disgrace the story;
scenes to lift it to great nobility. But yesterday, it had seemed to
some of these revellers that they were no longer the inhabitants of
an island which the strongest power would hesitate to assail. All the
tradition and glory of the kingdom had gone out of it—to return in a
twinkling at the passing of the frost.

Gabrielle could hear the church bells ringing in Hampstead, but

the theme of their chime was less to her than the letter which Eva
Achon had written to her from Paris—a girlish, gossiping letter, full of
inconsequential chatter about absurd people, and ending ever upon
the tonic chord of the masculine scale. Eva's Odyssey had been full
of event, but she had returned to Paris as a maiden Helen, torn by
imagination only from the phantom bridegroom of her dreams.
Incidentally, and as though it had to do with a fair in a remote
country, she spoke of the great strike and of the man whose name
was upon every tongue.

"My father thinks very highly of Mr. John Faber," she wrote. "He
would very much like to work with him. I wrote to Rupert Trevelle
about it, but he seems too busy to remember me now. It was so like
an American to spend all that money on charity and leave the people
to think he was a scoundrel. The truth came out from Mr. Morris,
who made what he called a 'great story' and sent it to America. I am
sending you the cutting from the New York Herald—it has also been
in the English Times, I think. All the English people here are gone
mad to know Mr. Faber now—they say he is one of the cleverest
men in the world, and one of the kindest. All the same, my father
says his brains are better than his money, and when you come to
think of it, I suppose that must always be the case. Even he, rich as
he is, could do little for that poor artist, Louis de Paleologue, and
now there comes the news from Montey that Claudine's fiancé has
been terribly hurt at the aviation meeting there, and is hardly
expected to live. So you see, dearest Gabrielle, his money seems to
bring ill-luck to everyone; but when he works, there is no one like
him. If only he would help father, how much he could do for the
world! But, I suppose, he is going back to America, and we shall see
him no more.

"And that reminds me. Isn't it provoking how many people we

never see any more! I have had a delicious flirtation here with a fair
man whose name I don't know. We passed each other on the stairs
of the hotel nearly every morning, and one day I dropped my bag,
and he picked it up and spoke to me. I was frightened to ask anyone
who he was, and I never saw him in the salle à manger, but he used
to pass me on the stairs—oh, quite six or seven times a day after
that; and we had such a jolly time. Then, suddenly, he went away,
never said a word to me or wrote any letter. I shall never see him
any more—mais tout bien ou rien, if it were always to be on the
stairs, I am glad that he is gone."

II

A tinkling gong called Gabrielle to lunch, and she found her father
alone in the dining-room. A mutual question as to Maryska's
whereabouts revealed the fact that she had not been seen since
breakfast and that none of the servants had news of her. Once or
twice before, when Harry Lassett had been cajoled into some wild
excursion, Maryska had spent most of the day out of doors; but both
Silvester and his daughter seemed to think that this was not such an
occasion, and they were troubled accordingly.

"I really fear that it is time that Mr. Faber took charge of her,"
Silvester said, as he sat down wearily. "She is very self-willed, and
we have no hold over her. Would Harry be responsible for this, do
you think?"

"How can he be? Is he not at Brighton? I hardly think that even

he would keep the child out without a word to us."

Silvester looked at her shrewdly. That "even he" suggested a train

of thought which had been forced upon him more than once latterly.
 "Do you think it is wise for Harry to take her out at all, Gabrielle?"
he asked. "We treat her as a child, but is she one really? I hope our
confidence is not misplaced. We should incur a very grave
responsibility if it were."

Gabrielle did not like Maryska, and was hardly one to conceal her
prejudices.

"We should never have consented to receive her, father. It was all
done in such a hurry; I think we were the victims of our own good
nature. Who is she? Where does she come from? A gipsy girl,
perhaps, and one who dislikes our country, and us. It was sentiment
upon Mr. Faber's part—altruism at our expense. Of course, he talks
of taking her ultimately to New York. But is he likely to do that? Do
you believe that?"

"I must believe it or say that he has not written the truth. There
was a letter from him this morning—you will find it on my study
table. He wishes us to keep her at least for a time and until he can
make some provision for her in America. It will be possible for him to
sail to-day, he thinks, if Sir Jules Achon arrives from Cherbourg. He
appears to want to see Sir Jules very much before he goes."

"Then Maryska remains, father?"

"For the present, yes."

"And that is the last we are to see of our friend? Well, our castles
come tumbling down, at any rate. We have been his builders, but he
leaves us a wretched house. I think you would be wiser to go to
Yonkers."

"I think so, too—when you and Harry are married."

"Need Harry and I enter into the matter? I am thinking all the
time of the way these clever men make less clever people their
dupes. Sometimes I say that what I need to make a success of my
life is the help of a man of genius. I felt it every day when Mr. Faber
was here. It was to stand upon a rock and laugh when the sea
flowed all around. And you need it too, father. Think of all that good
men might do in the world if they had brains such as his behind
them. He preaches all his sermons from that text. Brains will save
the people, the country, even religion. I am sick of sentiment; it
accomplishes nothing. We have meetings and speakers, and
conferences and discussions, and the world just goes laughing by,
like a boy who passes the open door of a schoolroom. What have we
done since we left America? How have we helped our great cause?
You know what the answer must be. We have done less than
nothing, while a stranger has made our people think and learn."

He was much taken aback by her outburst, and a little at a loss. A

man of high ideals, he knew how hopeless was the task of uplifting
the people, and yet hope and endeavour were the breath of life to
him.

"Oh," he said, "I won't say that we have done nothing. This
dreadful winter is just what has been needed to make the people
think. A reaction will follow, and we shall go to them with a message
of peace they cannot resist. I am sure the truth will come home to
all now. It will be easy to say that God Almighty did not create
mankind for the shambles. What astonishes me, Gabrielle, is that in
this twentieth century it should be necessary to preach such a
doctrine at all. When you consider what universal peace would mean
in every home in the country, what it would do for the poorest, how
it would help the children, I am altogether at a loss. The thing is an
incredible anachronism giving the lie direct to Christ and His gospel.
And we are powerless to cope with it; we seem to address those
whose hearts are of stone."

"Then why do you address them? That is just what Mr. Faber
asks. Why not turn to those who can lead the people? If the great
names of Europe and America were behind you, the millennium
would come. I myself would hope more from two such men as Sir
Jules Achon and John Faber than from all the sermons in the world.
But I have become a very practical person, father. I think sometimes
I am growing terribly masculine."

"You always used to be, Gabrielle. I remember when you were

the greatest tomboy in Hampstead. That, by the way, was before
your engagement to Harry. Do you know, my dear girl, I wonder
sometimes if marriage is your destiny at all."

"If not marriage, what then, father?"

"Public work. The practice of the ideas you have just been
pleading to me."

Gabrielle shook her head. She spoke with little restraint, and in a
way that astonished him altogether.

"I don't agree with you. I believe in my heart that I am destined

to love and marriage. If it is not so, I may do something mad some
day. Sometimes I long to get away from all this; but it must be with
a man who can lead me. I shall never marry Harry—I wonder that I
have not told him so before. Perhaps I should have done so had it
not been for these awful weeks. Do you know, father, that I find life
in opposition to every convention you have taught me since I was a
child? There are no fairy godmothers in the world. Our guardian
angels might be gamblers who throw us headlong into the stream
and make wagers about our condition when we come out. We have
to decide the most momentous questions when we are still babies
and understand nothing about them. In the end it comes just to
what Mr. Faber says, our brains make or mar us; and neither you nor
I have any brains to speak of. Let us leave it there, father. I am
growing really anxious about the child, and must know the truth. If
she is not with the Bensons, I don't know where she is."

He assented, moved to some real anxiety by her obvious alarm.

They wrote a note and dispatched it to the house of their friends the
Bensons, who had shown much kindness to Maryska, but the
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