Test Bank for Organizational Behaviour

Understanding and Managing Life at Work Canadian

10th Edition Johns M Saks 0134302796
9780134302799

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Organizational Behaviour, 10e (Johns/Saks)

Chapter 5 Theories of Work Motivation

5.1

1) Effort, persistence, and direction are basic components of

A) equity.
B) expectancy.
C) motivation.
D) performance.
E) attitude.
Answer: C
Diff: 1 Type: MC Page Ref: 160
Skill: Recall
Objective: 5.1 Define motivation, discuss its basic properties, and distinguish it from
performance.

2) According to the text, which of the following is NOT a basic characteristic or component of
motivation?
A) Effort
B) Performance

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Copyright © 2017 Pearson Canada Inc.
C) Persistence
D) Direction
E) Goals
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Type: MC Page Ref: 160
Skill: Recall
Objective: 5.1 Define motivation, discuss its basic properties, and distinguish it from
performance.

3) Which of the following statements about motivation and performance is FALSE?

A) A person could be highly motivated and, yet, perform poorly.
B) A person could perform fairly well despite low motivation.
C) Motivation is defined as the extent to which workers contribute to achieving organizational
objectives.
D) Task understanding is important for motivation to be converted into performance.
E) General cognitive ability and emotional intelligence are important for motivation to be
converted into performance.
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Type: MC Page Ref: 162
Skill: Recall
Objective: 5.1 Define motivation, discuss its basic properties, and distinguish it from
performance.

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Copyright © 2017 Pearson Canada Inc.
4) When we speak of a person being motivated, we usually mean that the person
A) works hard and keeps at it.
B) directs his/her behaviour.
C) keeps at it and directs his/her behaviour.
D) works hard and directs his/her behaviour.
E) works hard, keeps at it, directs his/her behaviour.
Answer: E
Diff: 1 Type: MC Page Ref: 160
Skill: Recall
Objective: 5.1 Define motivation, discuss its basic properties, and distinguish it from
performance.

5) People's motivation is often affected by how they see others being treated.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1 Type: TF Page Ref: 160
Skill: Recall
Objective: 5.1 Define motivation, discuss its basic properties, and distinguish it from
performance.

6) Motivation is the extent to which an organizational member contributes to achieving the

objectives of the organization.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1 Type: TF Page Ref: 161
Skill: Recall
Objective: 5.1 Define motivation, discuss its basic properties, and distinguish it from
performance.

7) People's motivation is often affected by how they see others being ________.
Answer: treated
Diff: 2 Type: SA Page Ref: 160
Skill: Recall
Objective: 5.1 Define motivation, discuss its basic properties, and distinguish it from
performance.

8) The text defines ________ as the extent to which persistent effort is directed towards a goal.
Answer: motivation
Diff: 1 Type: SA Page Ref: 160
Skill: Recall
Objective: 5.1 Define motivation, discuss its basic properties, and distinguish it from
performance.

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9) What is motivation and what are its basic characteristics?
Answer: Motivation refers to the extent to which persistent effort is directed towards a goal. The
basic characteristics of motivation are effort, persistence, direction, and goals.
Diff: 1 Type: ES Page Ref: 160
Skill: Recall
Objective: 5.1 Define motivation, discuss its basic properties, and distinguish it from
performance.

5.2

1) Which of the following is most likely to stimulate intrinsic motivation?

A) High pay
B) Challenging job
C) Close supervision
D) Generous fringe benefits
E) Company policies
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Type: MC Page Ref: 161
Skill: Recall
Objective: 5.2 Compare and contrast intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

2) Al told his friends that "the job makes me feel good about myself. I feel a real sense of
accomplishment at the end of the day." Al is probably
A) intrinsically motivated.
B) extrinsically motivated.
C) fulfilling his relatedness needs on the job.
D) experiencing inequity.
E) self-actualized.
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Type: MC Page Ref: 161
Skill: Applied
Objective: 5.2 Compare and contrast intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

3) "An interesting job that pays well" suggests that the job
A) meets the motivational requirements of equity theory.
B) is high in intrinsic motivation.
C) is high in extrinsic motivation.
D) is high in intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
E) is high in extrinsic but low in intrinsic motivation.
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Type: MC Page Ref: 161
Skill: Applied
Objective: 5.2 Compare and contrast intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

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Copyright © 2017 Pearson Canada Inc.
4) Some researchers have argued that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are incompatible. By
this, they mean that
A) intrinsic rewards may decrease extrinsic motivation.
B) extrinsic rewards may decrease intrinsic motivation.
C) extrinsic rewards usually lead to better performance than intrinsic rewards.
D) intrinsic rewards usually lead to better performance than extrinsic rewards.
E) when used in combination, they result in lower levels of performance.
Answer: B
Diff: 3 Type: MC Page Ref: 161
Skill: Applied
Objective: 5.2 Compare and contrast intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

5) You have two co-workers who you like to work with because they are hard workers. Sal says
he works hard because of the pay and benefits. Trisha says she works hard because the job gives
her feelings of achievement and accomplishment. What can you say about your two co-workers?
A) Sal has intrinsic motivation and Trisha has intrinsic motivation.
B) Sal has extrinsic motivation and Trisha has extrinsic motivation.
C) Sal has autonomous motivation and Trisha has controlled motivation.
D) Sal has intrinsic motivation and Trisha has extrinsic motivation.
E) Sal has extrinsic motivation and Trisha has intrinsic motivation.
Answer: E
Diff: 2 Type: MC Page Ref: 161
Skill: Applied
Objective: 5.2 Compare and contrast intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

6) Some potential motivators might have both extrinsic and intrinsic qualities.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2 Type: TF Page Ref: 161
Skill: Recall
Objective: 5.2 Compare and contrast intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

7) Researchers have argued that making intrinsic rewards contingent upon performance can
reduce extrinsic motivation.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 3 Type: TF Page Ref: 161
Skill: Recall
Objective: 5.2 Compare and contrast intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

8) A controversy exists as to whether the provision of ________ rewards for task performance
might damage intrinsic motivation.
Answer: extrinsic
Diff: 2 Type: SA Page Ref: 161
Skill: Recall
Objective: 5.2 Compare and contrast intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

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Copyright © 2017 Pearson Canada Inc.
Another document from Scribd.com that is
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that when next He comes, it will not be as our race supposes, as the
Messiah to the Jews, but He will come in the air, and——”
She glanced sharply round. Some instinct told her her friends were
coming.
“No more now,” she whispered. “I will tell you more another time. I
shall myself know more, to-night. I go twice a week to a mission-room at
Spitalfields——”
“What time?” he asked eagerly.
“Seven,” she replied, not realizing the eagerness of his tone.
“Where is this place?” he went on.
She had just time to tell him. When Cohen and his wife came up,
husband and wife began talking together. Zillah appeared to listen, but in
reality she heard nothing of what they were saying. For a strange thing
had happened.
She had dropped her hand by her side as the Cohens had rejoined
them, and had suddenly found her fingers clasped in Hammond’s hand.
What did it mean? she wondered. They had met often of late. She had
read an unmistakable ardency in his eyes very often, when her glance
met his. And, deep in her own heart, she knew that all the woman-love
she would ever have to give a man she had unconsciously given to him.
Was this sudden secret handclasp of his a silent expression of love on his
part, or was it meant merely as an assurance of sympathy in the matter of
her new faith?
She could not be sure which it was, but she let her plump fingers give
a little pressure of response. How did he translate this response? she
wondered. She had no means of deciding, save that her heart leaped
wildly in a tumultuous delight as she felt how he literally gripped her
fingers in a closer, warmer clasp.
They had reached the house by this time. Hammond would not go in.
He shook hands, in parting, with each, but his hold upon Zillah’s hand
was longer than on the others. He pressed the fingers meaningly, and his
eyes held an ardency that gave a new tumult to her heart.
As she passed into the house she whispered to herself, “Will he be at
Spitalfields to-night?”
 CHAPTER XVIII.
TOLD IN A CAB.

A of an hour before the time Zillah had given him, Tom

Hammond was waiting near the “Mission Hall for Jews,” where the
meeting was to be held. He was anxious that she should not know of his
proximity, so kept out of sight,—there were many possibilities of this
among the various stalls in the gutter-way.
Presently he saw her coming, and the light of a glad admiration leaped
into his eyes. “What a superb face and figure she has!” he mused. “What
a perfect queen of a woman she is!”
From behind a whelk-stall he watched her cross over to the door of the
Hall. Here she paused a moment, and glanced around.
“I believe she half expected to see me somewhere near!” he murmured
to himself.
She entered the Hall. By the time her head was bowed in prayer, he
had entered, and had taken a seat on the last form, the fourth behind hers.
When she first raised her head from her silent prayer, she looked around
and backward. In her heart she was hoping he would be there. If he had
not been bending in prayer, she must have seen him. After that she
turned no more, the service soon occupied all her thoughts.
He too became utterly absorbed by the service, of which the address
was the chief feature. It was largely expository, and from the first
utterance of the speaker, it riveted Tom Hammond’s attention.
The speaker, himself a converted Jew, took as his text Deut. xxi. 22,
23.
“If a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and is sentenced to
death, and thou hang him on a tree, his corpse shall not remain all night
upon the tree, but, burying, thou shalt bury him on that day (because he
who is hanged is accursed of God).”
“Now, brethren,” the speaker went on, “as far as I have been able to
discover, in all the Hebrew records I have been able to consult, and in all
the histories of our race, I have not found a single reference to a Hebrew
official hanging of a criminal on a tree. To what, then, does this verse
refer, and why is it placed on Jehovah’s statute-book?”
For a few moments he appealed to his Jewish hearers on points
peculiarly Hebraic. Then presently he said,
“Now let us see if the New Testament will shed any light upon this.”
Turning rapidly the leaves of his Bible, he went on: “There is a book
in the Christian Scriptures known as the Epistle to the Galatians which,
in the tenth verse of the third chapter, repeats our own word from
Deuteronomy:
“‘Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are
written in the Book of the Law to do them,’ and in the thirteenth verse
says, ‘Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a
curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.’
“We all, brethren, as the sons of Abraham, believe that our father
David’s Psalm beginning, ‘My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken
me?’ was never written out of his own experience, but was prophetic of
some other Person. Now, let me quote you some of the words of that
Psalm.”
In clear, succinct language, the speaker, quoting verse after verse of
the Psalm, showed how literally the descriptions fitted into a death by
crucifixion. Referring to the Gospel narratives of the death on the cross,
he showed how they also fitted in with the description of Christ’s death,
and how Christ actually took upon His dying lips the cry of the Psalm,
“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
Then with wondrous clearness he referred to parts of Isaiah liii., and,
continuing his theme, showed that it was evident that only one particular
type of death could have atoned for the sin of the human race, a death
that would render the dying one accursed of the Almighty. The only
death that would fully carry out that condition was crucifixion.
“Our race waited for the Messiah,” he cried, “and He came. Our
prophet Micah said, ‘Yet thou, O Bethlehem-Ephratah, little as thou art
amidst the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall proceed from Me,
One who is to be ruler in Israel!”
“The Christ was born at the only time in the world’s history when He
could have been executed on a tree—crucified. At a time when the
Roman—crucifixion was a Roman punishment—swayed our beloved
land of Jewry. So that Paul, the great Jew, chosen of God to be apostle to
the Gentiles, wrote after the crucifixion of Jesus, the Nazarene,
‘According to the time, Christ died.’”
For some minutes the speaker appealed to his Jewish hearers with a
wonderful power. Then finally addressing not only the Jews, but any
Gentiles who might be present, he cried:
“We must know the meaning of sin, brethren, before we can
understand the mystery of a crucified Christ. A beheaded, a stoned
Christ, could not have atoned for a guilty world, but only a God-cursed
death, a tree-cursed death could have done this.
“And Christ was cursed for us—He who knew no curse of His own.
Ah! beloved, the guilt of the human race is the key to the cross.
“Times change, customs change, but sin remains, sin is ever the same,
and only a living, personal trust in the crucified Christ can ever deliver
the unsaved sinner from the wrath of God which abideth on him.”
The address closed. Tom Hammond awoke from his intense
absorption of soul. He had long since utterly forgotten Zillah. He had
seen only himself, at first, his own sin, and that his sin had nailed Christ
to the cross. Then, better still, he saw the Christ.
Only a few nights before he had paused to watch a Salvation Army
open-air meeting. The girl-officer in charge of the corps had announced
thirty-eight as the number of the hymn they would sing, and prefaced the
reading of the first verse by saying:
“This hymn was written by an ex-drunkard—an ex-blasphemer. His
name was Newton—drunken Jack Newton, he was often called by his
mates, and by others who knew him. He was a sailor, on a ship trading to
the African coast, at the time when his soul was aroused to its danger. He
was in agony, not knowing what to do to get rest and peace.
“One night he was keeping anchor-watch. He was alone on the deck,
the night was dark and eerie. His sins troubled him. All that he had heard
of the crucified Christ—whom he had so often blasphemed—swept into
his soul, and he groaned in the misery of his sin-convicted state.
“Suddenly he paused in his deck-pacing, and looked up. To his
fevered imagination, the yard which crossed the mast high up above his
head appeared like a mighty cross, and it was remembering this, with all
the soul-experience of that night, that in after years, when he became a
preacher of the gospel, and a noted divine, Dr. John Newton wrote:

“I saw One hanging on a tree

In agonies and blood,
Who fixed His dying eyes on me,
As near the cross I stood.
‘A second look He gave, which said,
“I freely all forgive
My blood was for thy ransom paid,
I die that thou may’st live.’””

Recalling these words now, Tom Hammond’s soul received the great
Revelation. He heard no word of the closing hymn and prayer, but
passed out into the open air a new man in Christ.
The mission-leader had given an invitation to any who would like to
be helped in soul matters to remain behind. Tom Hammond noticed that
Zillah lingered.
It was half-an-hour before she came out. Tom Hammond had lived a
life-time of wonder in the thirty minutes.
Like one in a delicious dream Zillah walked on a few yards. Suddenly
she became aware of Tom Hammond’s presence at her side.
“Zillah!”
He gave her no other word of greeting. It was the first time he had
ever called the young girl by her first name. He took her hand, and drew
it through his arm. She barely noticed the tender action, for her soul was
rioting in a new-found joy, and she poured out, in a few sentences, all the
story of her supreme trust in Christ the Nazarene.
His voice was hoarse with many emotions, as he said,
“I, too, Zillah, have to-night seen Jesus Christ dying for my sin, and
have taken Him for my own personal Saviour!”
Suddenly she realized how closely he was holding her to his side, how
tight was the clasp of his hand upon hers. She looked up into his face to
express her joy at his new-found faith. Their eyes met. A new meaning
flashed in their exchanged glances.
 A four-wheeled cab moved slowly along in the gutter-way, the driver
uttered a low “Keb, keb!”
Tom Hammond seized the opportune offer, and whispered,
“Let us take a cab, Zillah. I have something to say to you which I must
say to-night.”
Before scarcely she realized it, she was seated by his side in the cab.
There is a moment in every woman’s life when her heart warns her of
the coming of the great event in that life, when love is to be offered to
her by the only man who has ever loomed large enough in her
consciousness to be able to affect her existence.
This moment had suddenly unexpectedly come to Zillah Robart.
Her heart warned her that the crisis was upon her. She had done
nothing to precipitate it. It had met her, drawn her aside, and had shut her
up in the semi-darkness of this vehicle with the only man she could ever
love.
The cab rattled over the cobbles of that wide East-end thoroughfare,
past the throngs of moving pedestrians, though, to her consciousness, the
whole wide world consisted of but one man—the man at her side.
He had secured her hand, he held it in his strong, hot clasp. She held
her breath in a strange, expectant ecstasy. Then the inevitable came. She
felt its coming.
Tom Hammond was drawing her closer to himself. She was yielding
to that drawing. She caught her breath again, and as she did so a rush of
strange tears filled her eyes.
“Zillah!” his voice was hoarse and deep.
She realized the meaning of the hoarseness. She knew by her own
feeling that the depth and intensity of his voice was due to the emotion
that filled him. She knew she would have found herself voiceless at that
moment had she tried to speak.
“I love you, my darling!” he went on. “I have loved you from the first
instant I met you. You have felt it, known it, dear. Have you not?”
She tried to speak, her lips moved, but no sound came from them. But
she looked into his eyes, and he read his answer.
 With a sweeping gesture of passionate love he gathered her into his
arms and showered kisses upon her lips, her cheeks, her forehead, her
hair.
She lay like a stunned thing in his arms. Her joy was almost greater
than she could bear. Then as his hot lips sought hers again, she awoke
from her semi-trance of ecstasy, and with a little sob she flung her arms
upwards and clasped them about his neck, crying,
“Love you, my darling? Love seems too poor a word to express my
feeling, for God knows that, save my Lord Jesus, to whom to-night I
have fully yielded, you are all my life.”
Her voice was stifled with a little rush of tears. Where she lay on his
breast, he felt how all her frame quivered.
“And you will be mine, dear Zillah—and soon?” His eyes burned into
hers, asking for an answer as loudly as his lips.
She did not answer him for a moment. Her heart beat with a
tumultuous gladness, and her brain throbbed with the wonder of what she
conceived to be the honour that had come to her. Wondering incredulity
mingled with the rapturous ecstasy that filled her.
“But you are so great—so——” She paused, she could find no words
to express all that prospective wifedom to him appeared to her.
He smiled down into her eyes. Her loveliness seemed to him greater
than ever before.
“You seem like a king to me!” she gasped at last.
“You, Zillah,” he smiled, “do not seem, you are, a queen to me. Say,
darling, the one word that shall fill all my soul with delight—say that
you will be mine—and soon, very soon!”
“I will.”
There was the intensity of a mighty love in her utterance of the two
words.
He gathered her to himself in an even closer embrace, and spent his
kisses on her lips.
The flush of pride, of love, burned deeper in her face.
“Oh, why is it given to me to have such bliss?” she murmured.
 The words were low-breathed; they sounded like a gasping sigh of
delight more than a voiced utterance.
For a moment, clasped tightly in his arms, she was silent, and he
uttered no word. Presently he whispered,
“Will it give you joy, I wonder, my darling, to know that I have been a
man free of all woman’s love before? I have seen many women, in many
lands, the loveliest of the earth—though none so lovely as you, my
sweetheart. It is no egotism on my part, either, to say that many women
have sought my love by their smiles and favour. But none ever won a
word of love or response from me.”
The cab was passing a great central light in the heart of a junction of
four roads. Her eyes, full of a great rapture, sought his. His were fixed
upon her face, and filled with a love so great that again she caught her
breath in wonder.
“But you, my Zillah!” He caught her close to himself again, and
bending his head, let his lips cling to hers, “But you, darling!” he
continued, “have been to me all that the heart of man could ever wish
for, from the first moment I met you. May God give us a long life
together, dearest, and make us (with our new-born faith in Him) to be the
best, the holiest help-meets, the one to the other, that this world has ever
known.”
Where she lay in his arms, he felt her tremble with the intensity of her
joy. As he looked down into the deep, dreamy lustrousness of her eyes,
he saw how they were full of a far-off look, as though she was picturing
that united future of which he had spoken.
Perhaps he read that look in her eyes aright. Then, as he watched her,
he saw how the colour deepened in her face. She slowly, proudly, yet
with a glad frankness, lifted herself in his arms until, in a tender,
passionate caress, her lips rested upon his in the first spontaneous kiss
she had given him.
“If the Christ, to whom we have given ourselves to-night, should
tarry,” she whispered, “and we are spared to dwell together on earth as
husband and wife, dear Tom, may God answer all that prayer of yours
abundantly.”
The cab turned a corner sharply at that moment. He looked through
the window. They were within a few hundred yards of where he had
given the driver orders to stop. Zillah would have, on alighting, only the
length of a short street to traverse before reaching home, and he would
take a hansom and drive back to the office. But the intervening moments
before they would part were very precious, and love took unlimited toll
in those swift, fleeting moments.
 CHAPTER XIX.
TOM HAMMOND REVIEWING.

I was the morning after Tom Hammond had found Christ, and had
closed with the great offer of redemption. He had scarcely slept for the
joy of the two loves that had so suddenly come into his life.
During the sleepless hours, he had learned, for the first time in his life,
the true secret of prayer, and that even greater secret, that of communion.
With real prayer there is always a certain degree of communion, but
real, deep, soul-filling communion is more often found in seasons when
the communing one asks for nothing, but, silent before his or her God,
the sense of the Divine fills all the being, and if the lips utter any sound it
is the cry, “My Lord and my God!”
Tom Hammond, reviewing all that God had revealed to him, learned
in those first hours of his new birth the secret of adoring communion
with God.
In the book of extracts he had been reading in the tube train at the
moment when he had first heard of Major H——’s coming address on
the Second Advent, he had come across one headed, “Frederick William
Faber: The Precious Blood—chap. iv.” He had at the time been
considerably impressed with the extract, though there was a certain note
about it which he had failed to understand. In the flush of the great
revelation that had come to his soul (in that little meeting at Spitalfields),
he now found the book, and re-read the extract:
“I was upon the sea-shore; and my heart filled with love it knew not
why. Its happiness went out over the wide waters, and upon the
unfettered wind, and swelled up into the free dome of blue sky until it
filled it. The dawn lighted up the faces of the ivory cliffs, which the sun
and sea had been blanching for centuries of God’s unchanging love. The
miles of noiseless sands seemed vast, as if they were the floors of
eternity. Somehow, the daybreak was like eternity. The idea came over
me of that feeling of acceptance which so entrances the soul just judged
and just admitted into heaven.
“‘To be saved!’ I said to myself, ‘to be saved!’
 “Then the thoughts of all the things implied in salvation came in one
thought upon me; and I said:
“‘This is the one grand joy of life;’ and I clapped my hands like a
child, and spoke to God aloud. But then there came many thoughts, all in
one thought, about the nature and manner of our salvation. To be saved
with such a salvation!
“This was a grander joy, the second grand joy of life; and I tried to say
some lines of a hymn but the words were choked in my throat. The ebb
was sucking the sea down over the sand quite silently; and the cliffs were
whiter, and more day-like. Then there came many more thoughts all in
one thought, and I stood still without intending it.
“To be saved by such a Saviour! This was the grandest joy of all, the
third grand joy of life; and it swallowed up the other joys; and after it
there could be on earth no higher joy.
“I said nothing; but I looked at the sinking sea as it reddened in the
morning. Its great heart was throbbing in the calm; and methought I saw
the precious blood of Jesus in heaven, throbbing that hour with real
human love of me.”
“Yes,” murmured Tom Hammond, “after all, to be saved by such a
Saviour is a greater, higher, holier thought than the mere knowledge that
one is saved, or of the realization of what that salvation comprises.”
In every way that night was one never to be forgotten by Tom
Hammond. He needed, too, all the strength born of his new communion
with God to meet what awaited him with the coming of the new day’s
daily papers.
The paper whom whose staff he had been practically dismissed in our
first chapter (the editor of which was his bitterest enemy) had found how
to use “the glass stiletto.”
Some of the most scurrilous paragraphs ever penned appeared in his
enemy’s columns that morning. It is true that the identity of the man
slandered (Tom Hammond) was veiled, but so thinly—so devilishly—
that every journalist, and a myriad other readers, would know against
whom the scurrilous utterances were hurled.
Tom Hammond would not have been human if the reading of the
paragraphs had not hurt him. And he would not have been “partaker of
the Divine nature,” as he now was, if he had not found a balm in the
committal of his soreness to God.
“That is the work of that fellow Joyce,” he told himself.
Twenty-four hours before, if this utterance had had to have been made
by him, he would have said,
“That beast Joyce!” But already, as a young soldier of Christ, the
promised watch was set upon his lips. In the strength of the two great
loves that had come into his life—the love of Christ and the love of
Zillah Robart—the scurrilous paragraphs affected him comparatively
little.
When he had skimmed the papers, attended to his correspondence, and
to one or two other special items, he took pen and paper and began to
write to his betrothed.
His pen flew over the smooth surface of the paper, but his thoughts
were even quicker than his pen. His whole being palpitated with love. It
was the love of his highest ideal. The love which he had sometimes
dared to hope might some day be his, but which he had scarcely dared to
expect.
The memory of his passing fancy for Madge Finisterre crossed his
mind, once, as he wrote. He paused with the pen poised in his fingers,
and smiled that he should ever have thought it possible that he was
beginning to love her. “I liked her, admired her,” he mused. “I enjoyed
her frank, open friendship, but love her—no, no. The word cannot be
named in the same breath as my feeling for Zillah.”
He put his pen to the paper again, and poured out all the wealth of the
love of his heart to his beautiful betrothed. When he had finally finished
the letter, he sent it by special messenger to Zillah.
He had not forgotten that Major H——’s second meeting was that day.
Three o’clock found him again in the hall. This time it was quite full.
There was a new sense of interest, of understanding, present within him
as he entered the place. This time he bowed his head in real prayer.
The preliminary proceedings were almost identically like those of the
previous occasion, except that the hymn sung—though equally new to
Hammond—was different to either of those sung at the first meeting.
But, if anything, he was more struck by the words than he had been with
those of the other hymns.
 And how rapturously the people sang:

“‘Till He come!’ Oh, let the words

Linger on the trembling chords;
Let the ‘little while’ between
In their golden light be seen;
Let us think how heaven and home
Lie beyond that ‘Till He come!’”

This time a lady, a returned Chinese missionary, led prayer, and then
the major resumed his subject.
“We saw, dear friends, at our last meeting,” the grand old soldier-
preacher began, “what were some of the prophesied signs of our Lord’s
second coming and how literally these signs were being fulfilled in our
midst to-day. This afternoon, God willing, and time permitting, I want us
to see how He will come; what will happen to the believer; and also what
effect the expectancy of His coming should have upon us, as believers.
“First of all, how will He come? While Jesus, who had led His
disciples out of the city, was in the act of blessing them, He suddenly
rose before their eyes, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. Have
you ever thought of this fact, beloved, that the cloud itself was a miracle?
Whoever heard of a cloud at that special period of the year, in Palestine?
And I very much doubt if anyone, save the apostles, in all the country
round about, saw that cloud. If you ask me what I think the cloud was, I
should be inclined to refer you to the 24th Psalm, and say that the cloud
was composed of the angel-convoy, who, like a guard of honour,
escorted the Lord back to glory, crying, as they neared the gates of the
celestial city, ‘Lift up your heads, oh, ye gates, and let the King of Glory
come in!”
“He went away in a cloud. The angels, addressing the amazed
disciples declared to them that ‘He would so come in like manner as ye
have seen Him go.’
“It may be that to the letter that will be fulfilled, and that our Lord’s
return for His Church will be in an actual cloud. I think it is probable it
will. Anyway, we know that He will come ‘in the air,’ for Paul, to whom
was given, by God, the privilege of revealing to His Church the great
mystery of the second coming of our Lord, and who said, in this
connection:
 “‘Behold, I show you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all
be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,’ when writing more
explicitly to the church at Thessalonica, said:
“‘For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are
alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them
which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a
shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and
the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain
shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in
the air; and so shall ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one
another with these words.’
“Now, beloved, can any words be plainer, simpler, than these of
Paul’s, forming, as they do, the climax to all that has gone before in the
New Testament. Jesus had Himself said,
“‘I will come again and receive you unto Myself.’
“The angels said,
“‘In like manner as ye have seen Him go, He shall come again,’ and
now Paul amplifies this manner of His coming, while, at the same time,
he emphasizes the fact of that return.
“Now let us look, dear friends, at the separate items of that detailed
coming. We have already, more than once, alluded to the secrecy of the
return of our Lord for His people, and people are puzzled over the
language used by Paul’s description of the return. ‘The Lord shall come
with a shout.’ Then the world at large will hear Him coming? No; we
think not. Or, if they hear a sound, they will not understand it.
“The Lord’s voice in His spiritual revelations is never heard save by
the Lord’s people. But there is the voice of the archangel—how about
that? The same rule applies to that, we think.
“There were godly shepherds watching their flocks at night, near
Bethlehem, and there was a whole host of angels singing, but the
Bethlehemites did not hear. No one appears to have heard or seen
anything save the godly shepherds. The same, we believe, applies to the
‘trump,’ the call of God.
“In this connection it is interesting to note a fact that probably was in
the mind of Paul when he wrote thus to the Thessalonians. The Roman
army used three special trumpet-calls in connection with departure—
with marching.
“The first meant, ‘Pull down tents.’
“The second, ‘Get in array.’
“The third, ‘Start.’
“Did Paul, moved by the Holy Ghost, translate these three clarion
notes in the topic of 1 Thess. iv. 16, after this fashion:
“1. ‘The Lord Himself.’
“2. ‘Voice of the archangel.’
“3. ‘The trump of God.’
“But leaving that, again I would emphasize this truth, that it is only the
trained ear of the spiritually-awakened soul which ever hears the call of
God. We believe that all Scripture teaches the secrecy as well as the
suddenness of the rapture of the church.
“In all the many appearances of the risen, resurrected Lord Jesus,
during the many weeks between the resurrection and the ascension, even
though, on one occasion, at least, He was seen by 500 disciples at once,
yet there is no hint, either in the Word of God or in the records of history
of that time, that Jesus was ever seen by the eye of an unbeliever. And
depend upon it, no eye will see, no ear will hear Him, when He comes
again, save those who are in Christ.
“‘The world seeth Me no more’ our Lord said, ‘but ye see Me.’ ‘Him
God raised up the third day, and gave Him to be made manifest, not to all
the people, but unto witnesses that were chosen before God, even to us
who did eat and drink with Him after He rose from the dead.’
“When the voice of the Father came from heaven, witnessing to Jesus’
truth, the people that stood by failed to hear it as a voice, but exclaimed,
—‘It thunders.’ In the case of Paul on the way to Damascus, those with
him heard nothing understandable.
“Enoch was taken secretly. Noah was shut into the ark before the flood
came. Only Israel, at Sinai, and not the surrounding nations, understood
those awful physical manifestations of God’s power. Elijah was taken
secretly. The nation neither saw nor heard anything of it.
 “When will He come? I do not know; no one knows exactly; but this
we do know, from the Word of God—that nothing remains to be fulfilled
before He comes. He may come before this meeting closes. Again we
know by every sign of the times that His coming can not now be delayed
much longer.
“Now to a very important feature as to the truth of the second coming
of the Lord. There are many who argue that such teaching will tend to
make the Christian worker careless of his work, his life, etc. There was
never a more foolish argument advanced.
“First take a concrete illustration that gives the flat denial to it—
namely, that the most spiritual-minded workers, at home and abroad, are
those whose hearts (not heads only) are saturated with, not the doctrine
merely, but the expectancy of their Lord’s near return. Then, too, every
such worker finds an incentive to redoubled service in the remembrance
that every soul saved through their instrumentality brings the Lord’s
return nearer—‘hasting His coming’—since, when the last unit
composing His Church has been gathered in, He will come.
“Scripture, dear friends, is most plain, most emphatic, in its statements
that the effect of living in momentary expectancy of our Lord’s return
touches the spiritual life and service at every point. ‘We know,’ wrote
John, ‘that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see
Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth
himself, even as He is pure.’ That, beloved, is the general statement.
Now let us look at some of the separate particular statements.
“Writing to the Philippians, Paul connects heavenly mindedness with
the return of the Lord for His Church saying, ‘For our conversation’—
our manner of living, our citizenship—‘is in heaven; from whence also
we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.’ To the Colossians the
great apostle showed how the coming of the Lord was to be the incentive
to mortification of self. ‘When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then
shall ye also appear with Him in glory. Mortify, therefore, your members
which are upon the earth,’ etc. James taught that the real cure for
impatience was this dwelling in the hope and expectancy of our Lord’s
coming again. ‘Be ye also patient,’ he wrote; ‘stablish your hearts; for
the coming of the Lord draweth nigh!’ We live in an age which is cursed
with impatience—children, young men and women, parents, business
people, domestic people, pastors, Christian workers, Sunday-school
teachers, all alike have their spiritual lives and their work marred by
impatience. A real, moment-by-moment heart-apprehension of the
possible coming of Jesus in the next moment of time, is the only real
cure for this universal impatience in the Christian Church.
“Then take another great sin in the Church, beloved—censoriousness.
Oh, the damage it does to the one who indulges in it, and the suffering it
causes to the one who is the victim of it. But here, again, a full, a
constant realization of the near coming of our Lord will check
censoriousness. Writing to the Corinthians, in his first epistle, Paul says,
‘Therefore, judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both
will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the
counsels of the hearts.’
“The great quickener, too, of Christian diligence is to be found in the
coming of the Lord. Peter writes to us saying, ‘But the day of the Lord
will come as a thief in the night, ... seeing then that these things shall be,
... what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy living and
godliness; looking for and hasting the coming.... Wherefore, beloved,
seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of
Him in peace, without spot, and blameless.’
“May I say, too, in all gentleness and love, that it has seemed to me,
for years, that the missing link in nearly all ‘holiness’ preaching (so
called) is this much-neglected expectancy of our Lord’s return. Paul
connects holiness and the second coming of Christ, in his first epistle to
the Thessalonians, saying, ‘The God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I
pray God your spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless unto the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.’
“The scoff of the world, dear friends, against us, as Christians, is that
the professed bond of love is absent from our life. And here again God’s
Word shows us that a real living in expectancy of our Lord’s return
would teach us to love one another. In that same epistle I have just
quoted, Paul says, ‘The Lord make you to increase and abound in love
one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: to
the end He may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God,
even our Father, at the coming of our Lord with all His saints.’
“I have only time, this afternoon, for but one more of these references,
and that is a very elementary though a very essential one. Paul, in that
same epistle, teaches that to be saved means that we are saved to serve.
‘Ye turned to God,’ he says, ‘to serve ... and to wait for His Son from
heaven.’
 “I must close, friends. But before I do, do let me beseech every
Christian here this afternoon to go aside with God, and with His plain,
unadulterated Word. Assure yourself that Jesus is coming again, that He
is coming soon, and that you are so living that you shall ‘not be ashamed
at His coming.’ Should He tarry till Thursday next, and He is willing to
suffer me to meet you here again, we will continue this great subject on
the line of the three judgments. Let us close our meeting by singing
hymn number 308.”
Like one in a strange, delicious dream, Tom Hammond rose with the
others and sang:

“Jesus is coming! Sing the glad word!

Coming for those He redeemed by His blood,
Coming to reign as the glorified Lord!
Jesus is coming again!”

As he left the hall, and thought, “How Zillah would have enjoyed,
how she would have been helped, by this meeting!” he muttered.
“How senseless of me not to have told her of it when I wrote this
morning.”
He smiled a little to himself as he murmured:
“May I take this bit of remissness as a sign that the Divine love was
predominant within me, rather than the human? Or was it that I am not
yet sufficiently taught in the school of human love?”
 CHAPTER XIX .
“MY MENTOR.”

I was about the hour that Tom Hammond entered the Hall to listen to
the Major’s second address. Cohen, the Jew, was in his workshop, his
brain busy with many problems, while his hands wrought out that
wondrous Temple work.
The door opened, quietly, and Zillah entered. She often came for a talk
with him at this hour, as she was mostly sure of an uninterrupted
conversation. Her sister, to a large extent, lived to eat, and always slept
for a couple hours or more after her hearty two o’clock dinner.
The young Jew gave the beautiful girl a pleasant greeting. Then, after
the exchange of a few very general words, the pair were silent. Zillah
broke the silence at last.
“Abraham,” she began, “I want to talk to you on—on—well—I’ve
something important to say.”
He eyed her curiously, a tender little smile moving about among the
lines of his mouth. There was a new note in her voice, a new light in her
eyes. He had caught glimpses of both when they had met at breakfast,
and again at dinner, but both were more marked than ever now.
He had laid down his tool at her first word of address. Now she laid
one of her pretty plump hands on his, as she went on:——
“You could not have been kinder, truer, dear Abraham, if you had been
my own brother, after the flesh. I have looked upon you as a brother, as a
friend, as a protector, and I have always felt that I could, and would
make a confidant of you, should the needs-be ever arise.”
The gentle smile in his eyes as well as his mouth encouraged her, and
she went on:—
“A gentleman has asked me to marry him, Abraham——”
Cohen gave a quick little start, but in her eagerness she did not notice
it.
 “I have promised,” she continued, “for I love him, and he loves me as
only——”
“Who is he, Zillah?”
“Mr. Hammond, dear!”
His eyes flashed with the mildest surprise. But, to her astonishment,
she noticed that he showed no anger.
In spite of all his usual gentleness she had half expected a little
outburst, for to marry out of the Jewish faith, was equal in shame almost
to turning Meshumed, and usually brought down the curse of one’s
nearest and dearest.
“He is of the Gentile race, Zillah!” Cohen said quietly.
She noticed that he said race, and not faith, and she unconsciously
took courage from the fact.
She was silent for a moment. Her lips moved slightly, but no sound
came from her. Watching her, he wondered. She was praying!
Suddenly she lifted her head, proudly almost. She suffered her great
lustrous eyes,—liquid in their love-light—to meet his, as she said, with a
ringing frankness:——
“Abraham! I have found the Messiah! He whom the Gentiles call the
Christ; The man-God, Jesus, is the Messiah!”
His eyes dwelt fixedly upon her face. She wondered that there was
neither anger nor indignation in them.
“May I tell you why I think, why I know He is the Messiah,
Abraham?” she asked.
“Do, Zillah!”
He spoke very gently, and she wondered more and more. She made no
remark, however, on his toleration, but began to pour out her soul in the
words of the Old Testament scriptures, connecting them with their
fulfillment in the New Testament.
Cohen, watching her, thought of Deborah, for all her beautiful form
seemed suddenly ennobled under the power of the theme that fired her.
“Now I know, dear Abraham,” she presently cried, “How it is that
Jehovah is allowing our Rabbis—you told me, you know, the other day,
of the one at Safed—to be led to dates that prove that Messiah is coming
soon? Now I know why God has allowed our nation to be stirred up,—
the Zionist movement, the colonization of Jerusalem and its
neighbourhood, and all else of this like—yes, it is because the Christ is
coming.
“Only, dear brother, it is not as the Messiah of the Jews that He comes
soon—He came thus more than 1,900 years ago—this time, when He
comes, He will come for His church, His redeemed ones—Jew and
Gentile alike who are washed in His blood that was shed on Calvary for
all the human race. For He was surely God’s Lamb, and was slain at the
Great, the last real Passover, dear Abraham, if only we all—our race—
could see this. What the blood of that first Passover lamb, in Egypt, was
in type, to our people in their bondage and Blood-deliverance, so Jesus
was in reality.”
Moses, of old, wist not how his face shone. And this lovely Jewish
maiden, as she talked of her Lord, wist not how all her lovely face was
transformed as she talked—glorified would not be too strong a
description of the change her theme had wrought in her countenance.
“And now, dear Abraham,” she went on, “that same Jesus has not only
blotted out all my sin, for His name’s sake, but he bids me look for Him
to come again. When next He comes—it may be before even this day
closes—”
Cohen shot a quick, puzzled glance at her. She did not notice it but
went on:—
“I have learned many things from the scriptures since I have been
going to the little Room at Spitalfields, and from the Word of Jehovah,
Himself, I have learned that Jesus may now come at any moment.
“He will come in the air, and will catch away all His believing
children. Then, as the teachers show from the Word of God, when the
church is gone, there shall arise a terrible power, a man who will be
Satan’s great agent to lead the whole world astray—Antichrist, the Word
of God calls him—then, during a period, probably about seven years
altogether, there shall be an ever growing persecution of those who shall
witness boldly for Jesus, and—”
“Who will they be, Zillah,” he interrupted, “if all the ‘Church,’ as you
say, will be taken out of the world at the coming of Christ?”
 “One of the teachers, the other night, Abraham,” she replied, said,
“that the natural consequence of the sudden taking away of the Believers
from this earth would probably be, at first, a mighty revival, a turning to
God. If this be so, then these converts will be the witnesses to Jesus
during the awful seven years, which the Word of God calls The Great
Tribulation.”
“Then too, one of the teachers at the Room said, ‘it is possible that not
all Christians will be caught up in the air at the coming again of Jesus,
but only those faithful ones who are found watching, expecting His
coming. If that be so—and no one dare dogmatise about so sacred and
solemn a thing—then there will be thousands of Christians left behind
who will have to pass through the awful time of Antichrist’s
Tribulation.’”
Her face glowed with holy light, as inspired by the thought in her soul,
she went on:—
“At first, dear Abraham, our own race will return to Jerusalem, and to
all the land of our Father, still believing in the coming of the Messiah.
The temple—that wondrous Temple for which you are working—will be
reared to Jehovah. The morning and evening sacrifices will be resumed.
Then presently the Antichrist will make our people believe that he is the
Messiah. Pretending to be Israel’s friend and protector he will deceive
them at first, but, by and by, he will try to force idolatry upon them, he
will want to set up in our glorious Temple, (which will have been reared
to Jehovah,) an idol, an abomination.
“The teacher whom I have heard, Abraham,—and many of them are of
our own race—see from scripture that the great mass of our people, in
the land of our fathers, will blindly accept this hideous idol worship.
“But Jehovah will not let Antichrist have all his own way. Jesus, with
all those who were caught up with Him into the air, will come to the
deliverance of our people. He will come, this time, to the earth. He will
fight against Antichrist, will overcome him, His feet shall stand on the
Mount of Olives.
“Our poor deluded, suffering people will see Him, as our own
prophets have said:—“I will pour out upon the House of David and upon
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication,
M ,
 H , as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in
bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born.”
She paused abruptly, struck by Cohen’s quietude of manner, where she
had expected a storm. Gazing up wonderingly into his face she cried:—
“Abraham, why are you thus quiet? Why have you not cursed me for a
Meshumed, dear? Can it be that you, too, know aught of these glorious
truths?”
There was sadness and kindness in his eyes as he returned her
pleading glance. But there was no trace of anger.
“I wonder why, little sister,” he began, “I am not angry, as the men of
Israel’s faith usually are with a Meshumed, even though the defaulter
should be as beautiful as Zillah Robart?”
His glance grew kinder, as he went on:—“I began to wonder where
my little sister went, twice a week, in the evenings, and, anxious about
her, lest she, in her innocence of heart and ignorance of life, should get
into trouble, I followed her one night, and saw that she entered a hall,
which I knew to be a preaching-place for Jews.”
Zillah’s eyes were very wide with wonder. But she did not interrupt
him.
“I did not enter the place myself,” he went on, “but that very first
night, while waiting about for a few minutes, I met an old friend, a Jew
like myself, by race, but a Christian by faith. He talked with me, pointed
to our scriptures, quoted from the Gentile New Testament, showed, from
them, how, in every detail, the birth, the life, the death of Jesus, the
Nazarene, fulfilled the prophecies of our father, and——”
“And you, Abraham—” Zillah laid her hand on the Jew’s wrist, in a
swift gesture of excitement, “you, dear,” she cried, “see that Jesus was
the Messiah?”
Slowly, almost sorrowfully it seemed to the eager girl, he shook his
head.
“I cannot say all that, Zillah,” he went on, “I sat in a seat, last night, in
that Hall, where I could see you and Hammond, where I could hear all
that was said upon the platform, but where I knew that neither you nor
Hammond would be able to see me. All that I heard, last night, dear, has
more than half convinced me, but—well, I cannot rush through this
matter, I have to remember that it has to do with the life beyond, as well
as this life.”
He sighed a little wearily.
“I saw the meeting between Hammond and you, Zillah,” he went on.
“I had before begun to scent something of Hammond’s probable feeling
for you, and I had seen you look at him in a way that, though you did not
yourself probably realize it, meant, I knew, a growing feeling for him
warmer than our maidens usually bestow on a Gentile. I saw you enter
the cab together, and drive off, and——”
He sighed again. Then without finishing his sentence, he said:
“Perhaps I shall see with you, Zillah, soon. Meanwhile, dear——”
He lifted his hands, let them rest upon her head, and softly, reverently,
cried:—
“The Lord bless thee and keep thee; the Lord make his face shine
upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up His countenance
upon thee, and give thee peace.”
The sweet old Nazarite blessing never fell more tenderly upon human
ears than it did upon Zillah Robart. Jehovah had been very gracious to
her. She had feared anger, indignation from her brother-in-law, she
received blessing instead.
As he slowly lifted his hands from her head, she caught them in hers,
lifted them to her lips, and kissed them gratefully.
“May that blessing fall back upon your own head, upon your heart,
your life, dear Abraham?” she cried.
Still holding his hands, she lifted her head. An eager light filled all her
face, as she added:—
“It wants but a few days to Passover, dear, I shall pray God that He
will reveal Jesus fully to you before that!”
She dropped his hands, and made for the door. “I hear the children
from school,” she cried. Then she was gone.
Cohen did not turn to his work. But taking a New Testament from his
pocket, began to study anew the Passion of Jesus, as recorded in the
Gospels.
 CHAPTER XX.
THE PLACARD.

R back to his office from that meeting Tom Hammond asked

himself:—“Ought I to begin to make this near Return of our Lord for His
church, the subject of my ‘Prophet’s Chamber Column’ for to-morrow’s
issue?”
“I must seek special guidance about this,” he presently decided.
The cab was nearing the office when he suddenly murmured:—“H
might come to-day!”
Even as he murmured the words his eyes seemed to see a striking way
of exhibiting his new-found faith in the Return of his Lord, and he came
to a rapid decision.
Lifting the flap in the roof of the cab, he told the driver to go on to a
certain Sign and Ticket writer’s. Arrived at the place, he explained to the
writer that he wanted a card three feet six inches long, proportionate in
width, very boldly, handsomely written with just the two words upon it,
in the order of his sketch.
He had taken an odd piece of card from the man’s scrap heap, and
with his pencil he drew out his idea, thus:—

TO-DAY?
PERHAPS!

“How soon can I have it?” he asked.

“In a couple of hours, sir!”
“Pack it carefully and I will send a messenger for it!”
Hammond was turning from the counter, when the man said:—
“I beg your pardon, sir, but if it is not too bold a question, may I ask
what the two words mean?”
 “They mean,” smiled Tom Hammond, “that Jesus Christ, God’s son,
may come suddenly to-day, before even you have time to finish the work
upon my order!”
The man’s face wore a puzzled look. Then suddenly it brightened a
little, as he said:—
“Ah! I sees, its somethink religious. That aint in my line, not a bit, sir.
I aint built that way. Now, my misses is! She’s the best wife a man ever
had, I can’t find a speck o’ fault wi’ her, but, there it is, yer know, she’s
gone, fair gone, sir, on religious things!”
“Do you love her? Would you like to lose her?” asked Hammond.
“Like to lose her, sir? why, no, sir! I believes I should—I should—
well I don’t know what I should do, if she wur took!”
There was a note of deep gravity in Tom Hammond’s voice, as he
said:—
“Then let that motto warn you, as you prepare to write it, that even
before you can finish it, the Christ who is to come again, who will surely
come now very soon, may come. Then, when you go to look for your
wife, when you are perhaps expecting her to call you to your tea, she will
be missing. You will call her, search for her, yet never find her. Because,
if she is a true child of God, she, with all true Christians, will have been
snatched away unseen from the world, caught up to meet their Lord in
the air.”
“Good gracious, sir! yer give me the creeps!” gasped the man.
“‘Seek ye the Lord’—your good wife’s Lord,—‘while He may be
found,’ my friend.” With this parting word Tom Hammond left the shop.
Two hours and a half later the splendid bit of sign writing hung upon
the wall of Hammond’s room.
It was a most striking placard. The first letter of each word nearly
eight inches in length, and in brilliant crimson, the other letters six inches
long in deep, purple black.
As he sat back and regarded it where it hung, Tom Hammond mused
on all that he had heard that afternoon, of the effects upon the lives of
those who possessed a real heart apprehension of the truth of the near
Return of the Lord.
 “One can scarcely conceive,” he murmured, “what London, what all
the civilized, and so-called Christian world, would be like, if every man
and woman, who professes to be a christian, lived in the light of the truth
that the Lord’s return was near, was imminent. ‘Every man’ (he was
recalling the truth quoted that afternoon), ‘Who hath this Hope in him,
purifieth himself even as He (Jesus) is pure.’”
The rest of the day was a busy one. Many callers came in. Everyone
noticed the strange placard. Some asked what it meant. Modestly, but
with strong purpose, and with perfect frankness, Hammond told each and
all who enquired, of his change of heart, and how possessed with the fact
that Christ’s return was imminent, he had had the placard done for his
own, and for others quickening and reminder.
People smiled indulgently, but entered into no argument with him. He
was too important a man for that, and, equally, they dare not pooh-pooh
his testimony, wild as it appeared to most, if not all of them.
 CHAPTER XXI.
WAS HE MAD?

M , a wife of barely eighteen hours, found her husband’s church

packed in every nook and corner when she entered it on the Sunday
morning.
The news of her sudden return, and equally sudden marriage, had
helped to fill the church, though the knowledge that the Rev. Doig was to
preach would, in itself, have been sufficient to have gathered an
unusually large congregation.
During the pastor’s sickness the pulpit had been supplied by various
good men, secured by the deacons from all over the county. Doig had
preached twice before, and was already a great favourite with the people.
The pastor had not been well enough to be present at any service for
many weeks, and as he entered the church this morning, leaning heavily
upon his wife’s arm, he received quite an ovation from the people.
In spite of the curiosity and excitement over Madge’s appearance, the
congregation speedily settled down to quiet worship. There was
something subducing, quieting in the preacher’s manner. Just before the
address, the people sang:—

“Lo! God is here! let us adore,

And own how dreadful is this place!
Let all within us feel His power,
And silent bow before His face;
Who know His power, His grace who prove,
Serve Him with awe, with reverence, love.”

With the singing of this hymn a deep, deep solemnity came down
upon the assembly. It deepened as the preacher unfolded the wonders of
the Bible revelation relating to the Lord’s second coming.
Madge forgot her husband, as, absorbed by the wonder of the
revelation, she drank in the glorious truth. Had she been more alert in
watching the pastor, she would have seen how restless he grew! How
angrily his eyes flashed! How scowling his beetling brows became.
 Some of the people noticed their pastor’s evident displeasure, and so
did one or two of the deacons. But no one dreamed that he would dare to
utter any dissent to the service.
Was he mad? Perhaps he was, for the time, as many men and women
become, who nurse a groundless, senseless anger and jealousy! He was
jealous of this man’s hold upon the people. He had not dreamed that any
man could hold his congregation, as this man was holding them. He was
angry, too, at the doctrine preached.
With a startling suddenness he leaped to his feet, forgetting his
weakness, as he cried:—
“I will not have that lying, senseless nonsense—worse than nonsense
—preached in my church, Mr. Doig. You will either announce another
text, and take a different subject, sir, or you must cease to preach!”
A slight flush rose into the cheeks of the preacher, as he half turned to
the pastor, and in low, but firm voice, heard everywhere amid the sudden
strained silence, he said:—
“Dear Pastor, if you insist, (you have the legal right to do so, as pastor
of this church, I suppose) I will desist. But I cannot, if I preach on, do
other than declare all that God would have me do. Why, even as we are
here, our Loving Lord may come, and if I faltered in my testimony I
should have to meet Him ashamedly—and—”
“Rot!” muttered the pastor. The word was heard by everyone, and a
murmur of strong dissent ran through the place.
With a white angry face, and flashing savage eyes, the Pastor walked
to the table, and leant upon it heavily in his weakness, as he cried
hoarsely, “This service is now concluded. While I hold the pastorate, no
such sentimental rubbish, as Mr. Doig seems bent upon giving us, shall
be voiced from this platform.”
One of the deacons protested. The pastor was firm. Passion had
rendered him temporarily irresponsible. Another of the deacons, who had
been conferring with Doig—who had whispered the facts of the pastor’s
evident temporary irresponsibility—now urged the people to disperse
quietly.
Doig walked down to his host, and whispered, “if I go at once, it will
help matters.” The pair then left the church. The congregation followed
quickly. The deacons remained behind to confer together over the
situation, which was of a hitherto unheard of character.

The pastor had left by the side door, and leaning more heavily than
ever upon Madge, they made their way to the house of Thaddeus
Finisterre, Madge’s father. They were staying there. They took a private
way, by which they were spared the unpleasantness of meeting any of the
congregation.
Four minutes took them to the house. Neither of them spoke during
the brief journey. For the first time in her life Madge knew what it was to
feel the touch of fear. She had married the man by her side knowing
comparatively little of his real character and temperament.
“There may be insanity in his family,” she mused, as she walked by
his side. She had already told herself that nothing but a temporary touch
of madness could have led to his outburst in the church.
Arrived at the house, the pastor went straight to his room, this gave
Madge an opportunity to confer with her father and mother a moment.
“His long anxious illness has unsettled his brain a little!” the mother
said. “The best thing will be to take no notice, let us all be as cheerful, as
much like our ordinary selves, as we can. Then, if we can persuade him
to go away to-morrow, I guess the best thing for you to do, Madge, will
be to get a good doctor to examine him, and to prescribe for him.”
The dinner-meal which followed, presently, was fairly free of
constraint. After dinner Mr. and Mrs. Finisterre slipped away and left the
husband and wife to themselves.
Almost immediately the pair were left, the pastor began to abuse the
preacher of the morning, and to denounce the teaching of the Lord’s
second coming.
“But, my dear,” cried Madge, “it is evidently almost the most
prominent doctrine in the New Testament. There are more direct
references to it in the New Testament, Mr. Doig said, than to any other
revealed doctrine.”
“But its not my doctrine,” snapped the pastor, “not the doctrine of our
church. It was scoffed at at our college, when I was a student, and—and
—”