EVE wtftfie EVANGELIST HARRYE.RICE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS BERTRAND SMITH'S "ACRES OF SOOKS'j 633 MALM ST.. CINCINNATI "A white beard that reached almost to his waist half ringed his intellectual face." Eve and the Evangelist A Romance of A.D. 2 1 08 By HARRY E. RICE Illustrated by D. ORRIN STEINBERGER BOSTON THE ROXBURGH PUBLISHING COMPANY INCORPORATED. LIBRARY J/fiKYERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS Copyrighted 1908 By HARRY E. RICE All Rights Reserved CONTENTS Chapter I Alice's "No" II The Curse of Greed III Through the Air IV The Great Metropolis V A Slight Accident VI A Great Out-pouring VII An Old Letter VIII Race Over a Continent IX Social Earthquake X A Correspondent's Enterprise XI Welcomed to Peking XII Battle of Wits XIII Under Mt. Everest XIV Light From Water XV Back Six Generations XVI Lost City Found XVII An Experiment XVIII From Another World XIX Homeward Bound XX Despair and Hope XXI News of a Day XXII Economical Measure XXIII At the Ball XXIV A Retrospect XXV When in Doubt, Don't XXVI The Supremacy of the Law XXVII The New Bridge XXVIII An Age Ago XXIX Sunday at Church XXX Back to the Capital CHAPTER I. Now from the world, sacred to sweet retirement, lovers steal, and pour their souls in transport Thomson's Seasons. ALICE'S "No." A weapon in the hands of an enemy could not have hurt me more. Alice Meredith's answer, "No, I cannot marry you," given as gently as it was, cut into my heart like a scalpel. In imagina tion I felt an arthrotome's cold edge for days after wards. I, Robert Young, 27, ambitious and a leader of the Brotherhood of Man, had waited for months to propose. I had known Alice from babyhood. We had romped together, shared childish joys and sorrows and later walked together regularly, side by side, to the Church Universale. Once, some times twice a week, we had sat side by side in the Theatre Electrique and enjoyed scenes arid heard the voices of great cantatrices or the soul stirring music of virtuosos brought from cities sometimes half-way around the globe, while the performers' figures cast by strong voltage on a huge reflector, helped give us entertainment as perfect as if the great musicians had been before us in person. It is a cardinal principle of the Brotherhood of EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. Man that one must be optimistic. The organization teaches that health, happiness and success all de pend on always seeing a rainbow ahead. "Laugh and the world laughs with you ; weep and you weep alone," brought down from the centuries past, is our guiding motto. Further, we aim to remove cause for weeping. When this girl I adored added, I fancied plain tively and therefore paradoxically, "I shall never marry," I was amazed. If there ever was a time for lovers, that was one. I had waited for what appeared to be the most opportune moment to press my suit. Night trailed her lace-like gown of moonlight over the Earth. Above was a tiara of stars, be low flickering lights in the valley. With head and feet illumined by flashing golden gems, the sable goddess moved slowly from the red gates of sun down to the gray portals of morning. Her path lay through glistening diamonds of dew and her stately march was to a sympkony, in which the treble of the katy-did and the diapason of the frog, blended in Wagnerian harmony. The stac cato of the night bird, the soft call of the whip- poor-will and the vibrant hoot! hoot! of an owl punctuated Nature's soothing opus. Under the shimmering robe of moonlight lay a chain of houses on the white road. They stretched away down the river until they were lost in the shadows of the hills. Off to the south there was the gleam of the city, the hum of which reached EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. us now and then as the breeze varied. Alice and I sat on the long, low veranda of her father, Broth er Abraham Meredith's home. The scene before us was inspiring. I had feared her answer. Again and again I had postponed the fateful interrogation. An oc cult influence had oppressed me. With all of my adeptness in telepathy, I could not learn the secret of my rejection. Her answer had been flashed to me mentally as quickly as she had given it orally. "Why will you never marry me?" I ventured. "That's my secret," was Alice's sad and senten tious answer. "But is there no hope ?" I persisted. "You know I love you as I can love no one else. Am I doomed to celibacy? Can you not say the time will come when you can answer yes?" Alice never looked prettier than she did that night. Her graceful, clinging gown of white, Gre cian in cut and style, clung to her athletic figure with such attention to curves, that but for the de pression I felt it would have been difficult to re frain from catching her in my arms and almost crushing her. Her hair was of the yellow of the gold of the mint. Rolled in simple classic coils, it gave her the dignity and the grace of the Kentucky fillies the past tells us about. Her eyes were blue and usually merry and her mouth until now, had, it seemed to me, always worn a smile. When she laughed in that low, musical voice of hers, and ex- EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. posed twin rows of perfect teeth, I fancied (it was an easy thing to do) that she was the natural evolu tion of the houri of the misty past the past with its horrors, cruelties and perfidies of so-called civilization. It, however, is like everything else, only comparative. Alice's gown came to within about four inches of the floor, forming the top of a frame for slipper- shod feet, so small and dainty they seemed fairy- like. The black silken covering of the swelling ankles and the spotless white of her gown, met in contrast so striking to the trailing and prudishly concealing gowns of two centuries ago, as pic tured in yellow prints now in the Anthropological museum, that I often wonder if it can be true that once women by the millions, unthinkingly carried, in long skirts, deadly germs into their homes, fre quently to attack, sometimes fatally, weak and helpless children. Today, severest punishment would be meted out to her, who knowingly dragged disease into her family. We, the people of this year, A. D. 2108, learn from our books that it was a custom also, two cen turies ago, to compress the torso as if in a vise. The Caucasian sought by torture to get a small waist, the Chinese small feet, the Alaska Indian a flat head and the Ethiopian a pierced nose or punctured ears. It is a satisfaction in these days of comparative perfection and unselfishness, to re call that woman's emancipation from the barbarous mandates of fashion took place a century ago. 1 1 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. Bless Dr. Henry Baldwin, of London, England, who brought about the reform. "Fashion's Fol lies," written five years later, tells how Dr. Bald win brought humanity to a realization of the cruel ty of Parisian dictation. In all of the principal cities of the so-called civilized world, he had dogs bound up in corsets and paraded through the streets. The example was effective. The press took up the subject, later the women's clubs and finally the law makers. The race has grown stronger each generation. Look over the Brother hood people and see their perfection, physically. No more sickly women, no more puny children. Alice might have answered for an artist's model, so perfect she appeared in face and figure. She was looking dreamily down the valley. There were tears in her eyes. She turned her head and gazed straight into my face. "Wait! Some day, perhaps, the cloud will be gone," she said slowly and measuredly. My heart gave a great bound. The moon seemed to shine brighter. The houses in the val ley were plainer and the night birds' calls seemed enthusing. Wait, yes, I would wait years, if necessary. Who would not for such a girl? I would learn the secret that barred me from bliss. The deep boom of a bell from the city startled me. Clutching Alice's hand in a burst of passion, I pressed it, whispered good bye and turned to leave. "Come again," Alice sighed. EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. "Yes, I will," I answered feverishly as I hurried away. The bell was the call to the Great Council hall. I must be there. Ten, accused of Greed, were to be tried for alleged violation of the Broth erhood's most stringent regulation. CHAPTER II. THE CURSE OF GREED. The lust of greed succeeds the lust of conquest. The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless! The last corruption of degenerate man. Dr. Johnson's Irene. Chief Patriarch William Gladstone was address ing the assembled patriarchs, preceptors and stu dents when I entered the hall. He had just begun. He was tall, white-haired and rather spare in build, and a white beard that reached almost to his waist half ringed his intellectual face. He spoke in a penetrating bass voice. His manner and his tone rightfully symbolized power. Occupying a dais at one end of the large cham ber, the Patriarchs and the preceptors were ranged to the right, left and rear of him. In front of and below him were the students. Of the preceptors there were probably five hundred, and of the stu dents about five thousand. These are indirectly the rulers (the term is some what of a misnomer) of the Brotherhood of Man land, embracing all of the country, originally known as North America. It is their sworn duty to wage relentless war on greed and to supervise the education of the youth, principally to the end that selfishness may ultimately be eradicated. EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. National legislation is entrusted to a Congress, modelled after that of the United States, save that Senators are elected by direct vote of the people, and that all law making is of the initiative and ref erendum character. The executive power is vested not in a President, but in the Council of Patriarchs, made up of men, who after years of tutelage, test and experience, are found best fitted for the most exacting duties. There are fifty of these patriarchs, over whose deliberations Father Gladstone always presides. In addition to executive powers they have certain strongly-defined judicial powers. Love is the basis of government, and the theory, originally advanced that the fewer the laws the bet ter, was proved by time to be correct. Off to one side of this great hall, in something akin to a prisoners' dock, were ten culprits. They had been gathered from different parts of the land by the guardian committees. "Stand up," commanded the Chief Patriarch, ad dressing the accused, as he himself arose. A clerk read their names, John Johnson of New York, Abner Hardy of Chicago, Wm. Smith of Louisville, etc. "You are charged," the Chief began in slow, measured tones, "with greed. You know how seri ous the offense is considered here in Fratersurb. the capital of Brotherhood land. (This city, for merly known as Indianapolis, was on account of its proximity to the center of population, made the capital about fifty years ago, and the name changed 8 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. to an indicative one.) I trust all of you will be able to prove your innocence. You know the pen alty, banishment to the country of savages. We consider greed like kleptomania, a mental affliction, due to centuries of unrestrained liberty in im proper channels. From the earliest time the creed, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself,' has been taught but not heeded. Instinct comes from practice, Man first battled with Nature for sustenance, and later, when the earth's population had grown to a billion, fought with his fellow men for food and shelter. The strong had much, the weak little. For centuries mankind failed to guard against excesses that sapped various nations' vitality. History re peated itself in revolutions, many bloodless, each a little more violent than its precursor. It was plain there was something wrong with the order of things. All were so busy, finally, in the pursuit of riches that they were blind to aught else. That was in the era of commercialism. Men in those days fought like tigers for wealth. The greed for gain dominated everything and everybody. A few piled up great fortunes, three or four as much as four hundred million dollars each. They obtained through perversion of natural laws money and property they could have no possible direct use for, all to the disadvantage of those about them. The most interesting volumes in our libraries are those that tell us of the shameful misuse of wealth two centuries ago, and the waves of reform, one after the other, each a little larger than its brother, that EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. swept over the country and ended finally in the es tablishment of The Brotherhood of Man. "You, preceptors and students, and you, too, ac cused, remember that your earliest schooling taught you to guard against those national pitfalls that come from allowing wealth to rule. Now that we have reached a period and have a people of com parative perfection, it seems almost incredible that two centuries ago in the metropolises of the country there were single homes costing as much as $2,000,- ooo, often for a family of but three, and scores of times for but two, while less than a dozen blocks away were as many as two dozen starving, illy clad fellow creatures crowded for the night into one little, foul smelling room. Where one man had mil lions, thousands had but pennies. Where the few hired ingenious people for liberal compensation to originate unique entertainments for themselves and blase friends, thousands led a from hand-to-mouth existence that often ended in a despondent sui cide's grave. Where $50,000 was spent for a single house party, with fewer than 200 people present, an army of unemployed, some with wan, thin faces, paraded the streets and begged for bread. "The thoughtless and careless rich, sated with food and drink and song and dance, reached the climax of asinine effort by giving costly dinners for beribboned dogs or fashionably dressed mon keys. " 'No bread for the people ; let them eat cake/ uttered by Marie Antoinette, was re-echoed at this 10 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. time in the sardonic ejaculation, The public be damned,' and crystallized in open defiance of law and ridicule of the courts. There was graft on ev ery hand. Every avenue of life was choked with it. Sordid men sold their defenseless brothers for gain. Misery, no difference how severe, received scant attention. Figuratively, most men seemed to go about armed with clubs, striking down this man or that man for pelf. May be the club was wielded in the stock exchange, in the grain pit or the trust magnate's office. Everywhere hundreds of wretched men fell before the financially strong. There was no remorse. What was done one day was repeated on the morrow. All that men lacked to make them beasts were hides of hair. "The germ of reformation had been planted, however. The sprout came up slowly. Perhaps it was at first sickly, but it grew and finally budded into the superb national structure of today. "The germ first showed itself in the erection of colleges, hospitals and universities. This fact re stores the conviction that there was much latent good in mankind. See what two centuries have done. Dr. C. W. Russell gave utterance to the world's greatest truth, when he declared that greed was at the bottom of national failure. He used an apt illustration to point out the way to correction and ultimate perfection. I will not attempt to re peat his exact language. Summarizing he made the pointed declaration that the people seemed to give more attention to raising blooded horses, fine ii EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. cattle and heavy porkers than to raising GOOD CHILDREN. Look at the perfection of the Kentucky thoroughbred. All are so much alike in appearance, style and speed that it is hard to tell one from another. Suppose we give the same care to the raising of our boys and girls. "We taught first above everything else, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' The people were ripe for such a promising doctrine. Law makers had be come so corrupt there was little hope at the time in legislation. 'Abolish greed' was the new tocsin of war that stirred the millions as nothing had done before since the ringing of the liberty bell. Prac tically everybody took up the new national motto. It was easier to push the new dogma than might have been supposed. People are emotional, period ically awaken from an apparent trance and turn things upside down. They are always quick to fol low a new leader who promises better things. The Stentorian cry grew to calliope volume. Press, pulpit and labor unions took it up. The movement to abolish greed swept over the country like a sec ond flood. Nothing could resist its mighty force. As hundreds in great revivals have stripped off their gold and gems and cast them before the evan gelists to aid in the promotion of Christianity, so thousands now, laboring under the conviction of wrong doing, turned millions into the public treas ury for the public good. Legislation that followed did not permit a single individual to own more than 12 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. $50,000 in any form. Men were getting closer to gether. Quick inter-communication leveled barriers and tended to make a billion as one family. Broth erhood, real brotherhood, had begun. The same ness that results from association developed. There were id be no more hopeless husbands, wretched wives or starving children. God, how was it pos sible, thousands said in unanimity, that want and woe had so long been allowed to exist! Of course it took time for a readjustment of society to the new conditions. The changes, industrially, morally and politically, were revolutionary. They were bound to come. As the people changed from a purely agricultural nation to a manufacturing and commercial country, so they changed from a selfish mob to hosts dominated by love. "You will recall that it took fifty years to make the change and in that time many experiments, some failures, were made. "We have passed through the crudities of this new existence, and it is gratifying to know that with a population today on this continent of nearly a billion people, cases of the kind brought before us today are rare. I have set forth all of these facts to keep them fresh in your minds. We must ever keep the doctrine of unselfishness first in our thoughts. Prisoners, you are accused of doing otherwise. One is charged with having double the amount of property allowed by law. That provision limiting wealth is, I think, most wise. It is a valve as necessary to national safety as the old pop valve 13 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. was to the life of the steam boiler. Brothers, your pleas." The venerable Gladstone sat down. One by one the accused answered the charges. The crimes ranged all the way from cheating a neighbor to try ing to resurrect the trust. Of the ten, seven were found guilty and were ordered deported. The re maining three were acquitted and returned to their homes. I listened with rapt attention to the Chief Patriarch's disquisition, resolving all the while ever to keep greed from my heart. It was with mingled sorrow and elation that a little later I accepted an invitation from Father Gladstone and his closest advisers to leave with them on the morrow for Asia to help in spreading the doctrine of Brother hood. China, which despite the strides made in the last two centuries in shaking off the lethargy of an age, was still years behind the Brother hood land, and clung tenaciously to primitive steam railroads, steamboats, the old-fashioned printing press and the telephone. Tired out, I soon fell asleep that night, to have mingled dreams of my sweetheart and a journey of but one day's length all told to Asia. I had never made the trip. I knew it would be worth while. In my sleep I picked out my seat in the huge projectile that would bear us on our way. A drop from Fratersurb to New York, another to London, a third to Moscow, a fourth to Hunan and a last to Peking. That was the itinerary hastily given me just before I left the Council hall. 14 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. What a contrast there would be between the civ ilization of today and that of yesterday ! CHAPTER III. THROUGH THE AIR. " 'Tis a very grood world that we live in, To lend or to spend or to give In, But to borrow or beg, or get a man's own, 'Tis the very worst world, sir, that ever was known." Old Song. When Robert Stevenson, three centuries ago, invented the steam locomotive, it was justly con sidered a wonderful achievement. People who had been accustomed to riding in the slow stage coaches of the period declared it would be unsafe to ride in the new steam carriages on account of their swiftness, although it was not planned to run fas ter than about twenty-five miles per hour. The wiseacres of England insisted that such speed would be intolerable, because they insisted it would cause nausea. When it was originally proposed to light London with gas, a person of the learning, dis tinction and experience of Sir Walter Raleigh rid iculed the project in a letter he sent to a friend in The Highlands, asserting that some fool was trying to light the city with smoke. The printing press, the telescope, the steamboat, the cotton gin and oth er inventions and improvements that have char acterized the past, all had a rocky road in riding over ignorance and superstitution. 16 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. When Fabrielli, an eminent Italian engineer, fifty >ears ago, proposed to shoot people with meteoric speed through the air, the whole world popped out its eyes and said such a thing was preposterous. "Nothing of the kind," said Fabrielli, who for ten years had in secret conducted his experiments and made his investigations. He forthwith proceeded to show the world how it could be done. A cour ageous newspaper man was the only person that could be persuaded to make that initial trip with him. That scribe, Charles S. Kay, gained undying fame by the account he wrote of that journey from Rome to Vienna. Think of making the trip in ten minutes! How easy a thing is after it has once been done ! Fabrielli's task after all was easy, as easy as that of James Watt, who gained the idea of the steam engine from studying his mother's tea kettle. Fabrielli was one day watching a group at the old sport of archery, which at that time was undergoing a revival. A feathered shaft shot with unerring aim through the air. "That's it," he ex claimed, and forthwith hurried to his workshop. A projectile, ample initial force, something like the shaft's feathers to buoy it up, reserve and emer gency power, huge minite wings to break the fall, and the problem of speed through the air was solved. Minite, as is well known, is the wonder ful new metal that has the lightness of cork and a tensile strength 100 times that of Bookwalter steel. Fabrielli utilized the discovery of Finnsen, a Swedish chemist, who, after experiments covering 17 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. twenty-five years, evolved pulva, the Titanic ex plosive by the side of which the force of once great gun cotton seems Lilliputian in comparison. A tube of minite, a charge of pulva and a projectile, and it was easy to fly hundreds of miles in a few min utes. Fabrielli's projectile was of minite, even to the great folding wings. Suppose we wanted to go from Fratersurb to Salt Lake City. The cylin drical end of the projectile, gracefully swinging from supports, was allowed to slide into the tube of minite, after a charge of pulva, liquid in form had been placed in the breech. Pulva possesses several queer characteristics. It will not explode unless heated to a temperature of 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Under that temperature it is abso lutely harmless and as impotent as so much putty Charge and projectile in place, a powerful electri cal current is turned in the breech. There is a roai and the projectile shoots through the air at a speed heretofore undreamed of. A rudder built to meet new conditions and new demands answers the slightest touch of the steersman. Rows of minite planes on each side of the projectile, which is cigat shaped, serve to steady it. Desiring to descend, the great wings are slowly extended and the car sinks as gently to earth as the master desires. The problems of friction and air supply were simple in comparison to the main idea. At the rear of the machine is the brake, a huge expanding fan, circular in shape, used only to slow down, preparatory to alighting. The reader 18 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. asks : "How was the amount of power needed for & certain journey gauged?" Easily enough. Your old histories, in elaborate foot notes on navies, told you how the range for big guns was quickly and accurately found, and how it was figured how much smokeless powder was needed to send a pro jectile of say ninety pounds weight two miles. Same old principle. The carrying qualities of pulva had been figured with such accuracy that it was known just what any quantity of it would do in carrying a standard projectile. It was rarely an error of more than ten miles was made. Next morning Alice was first in my thoughts. If the journey had been for a long period, say for bix months or a year, as would have been the case in the days of slow steamboats, making at the best but 22 knots per hour, I believe I should have abandoned it, notwithstanding the honor imposed in my selection. Going to our communicator, I raised the ear 'phone, asked for 27, and a moment later Alice's perfect reflection was on the board be fore me. "I'm going to Asia," I said. ''Will be back in five or six days." "How nice!" Alice remarked. "I was over last month. Bring me back some of those new shades of China silk." "Yes," I eagerly promised. I believe I would have stripped the country of silks at the risk of banishment forever from my native land had she required it. It was then I realized that I needed to study my anti-greed lessons harder. EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. "You want to watch for the first glimpse of England," she said solicitously. "A blotch of sap phire, a gray mist, a patch of green and a mosaic mat and you are over London. We dropped gent ly alongside Henley on the Thames, took a pneu matic tube car for the city and two minutes later emerged on the Strand. Exciting? Yes, if it is your first trip. Now let me hear from you by aero graph." "Yes," I promised, as I said good bye and plunged into preparations for departure. One does not need much for such a trip. What progress mankind has made in transportation ! What would our ancestors who crossed the plains in slow prairie schooners or came down the rivers in slow flat boats say to the modern means of travel? At the projectile station, ten miles from the Council Hall, I found my traveling companions awaiting me. The date was June 12, A. D. 2108 The day was clear and bright, and the sky of that faint, pale blue that induces dreams. I was dreaming, dreaming of Alice. I could not drive her from my mind. Why had she rejected me? I must know. The suspense was maddening. Would the mystics of the Himalayas tell me? Perhaps. I resolved to find out. Much to my surprise and pleasure Alice was at the station to see me off. Certainly she did not dis like me. "Down to see you start," she explained. "It is 20 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. always interesting to watch the projectiles. Papa says I am scientific, and will some of these days be improving on the present means of travel." "Nice day," I stammered, the color mounting to my cheeks. "I am all expectation. You know I have never been to Asia." "Beware of the wiles of the Chinese belles," she warned me. "They will all be old and ugly to me," I insisted with emphasis. Then courageously I added, "My belle is here," whereupon she blushed. Father Gladstone, bidding the hundreds present good bye, stepped into the waiting car, and after him the third in command, Patriarch John M. Good. David F. Snyder, Alexander C. McCabe, Alonzo Troupe, James V. Wright and James M. Todd, one by one, filed in and took seats. "Ready," said Master Hiram Sykes, and, taking Alice gently by the hand, I bade her good bye. I followed the master into the car. There was a grinding of min- ite doors, the clutch of locks and we were fast within. Outside there was a renewed inspection of the projectile. Quickly, because I wanted to keep my eyes on the ground, I glanced about the interior. "Yes, that is the air feeder," Master Sykes was explaining. "See that tiny hole in the bow? The air all comes in there, going through the check valves. These valves work automati cally, closing the minute dangerous pressure is reached. Steady now !" he commanded. 21 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. Looking out through the thick windows of mal leable glass, I saw the crowd that had gathered for our departure some distance to the right. Alice was waving her handkerchief. Sykes had pulled the switch, controlling the electric current. The temperature under that pulva had already reached probably 300 degrees. It seemed but a minute later that there was a loud report, muffled by an inge nious device filled with water. There was a jar, a hiss of air and we were speeding toward New York. I had my watch in my hand. Patches of green, light and dark, and dots of brown and gold darted under us as if we were riding over a huge belt, moving all the machinery of the solar sys tem. Six minutes and Pittsburg, looking like a dirty toy town, slipped past. Philadelphia, a square of green and black and red, with a silver hair running down to the sea, ran to us, stopped a second and was gone. In just 1 8 minutes and 34 seconds we were in sight of New York, with its uneven sky line, that at first looked as if some child had been scissoring a piece of paste board, and left the serrated edges as va ried as possible. Sykes and his assistant were hur rying here and there along the whole length of the great rushing, animate bolt, pulling levers and turning wheels, operating great screws, which ex tended the wings and planes as desired. The brake, at first little larger than an umbrella, was now wid ened to its greatest circle. The car was hot and somewhat stuffy. The friction had been terrible, 22 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. but thanks to the system of ventilation and safety devices, our discomfort was scarcely worth men tioning. I did not notice how much our speed had been checked until I again looked out. We were going not more than 30 miles per hour. Slowly we settled to the ground and came to rest in Central Park, with such exactness and nicety that I felt like hugging Master Sykes in sheer ad miration. Crowds gathered about us. Father Gladstone was instantly recognized, and hundreds rushed forward to grasp his hand. Hurrying to the aerograph station I sent this message to Alice : "Why not have me? Don't conceal your reason for rejection. May be the mystics of Asia can help us." Soon the answer came back. "Look for reply at Peking. I love you." Why did we not hurry? Why this delay in New York? So absorbed was I in ruminations about the girl left behind that the operator spoke to me three times before I awoke. CHAPTER IV. THE GREAT METROPOLIS. Weep not that the world changes di<} it keep A stable, changeless course, 'twere cause to weep. Bryant. New York today and New York two hundred years ago! What a difference. The city socially,, morally, commercially, industrially and even topo graphically was as different as if it had been visited by a giant cataclysm. The frigidity that charac terized the residents at the beginning of the Twen tieth century had disappeared. Snobbishness was an unknown misdemeanor. The last man who would not give up his seat in a crowded "L" train to a feeble old woman had long years ago been buried. The insensate rush of years ago, prompted by the "free for all" for gain, being a thing of the past, men no longer lived side by side for years without knowing something of one another. No man could have the grief of bereavement and not receive the condolences of his neighbor. The trust baron and the multi-millionaire land owner, the latter receiving rentals of thousands of dollars per day, because his great grandfather invested in real estate, and then saw his neighbors, by their build ings and subsidiary improvements, enhance its original value, finally a million times, without an 24 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. effort on the part of the series of holders, no longer existed to ride rough shod over the less fortunate or to snap their fingers in the face of a court for infraction of laws made by their mean inferiors, the common people. Did not God make the land, the sea and the air for all of his children to share in equal partnership, the first fathers of the Brotherhood of Man had argued, not with the specious logic and befuddling cant of the corpora tion attorney, but with the simple directness that characterized the sermon on the Mount? Had the divine plan been followed when it was possible for Henry Morgan, the head of the giant trust within trusts, to have useless millions in the banks, while the little children of his brother, so poor he had not even a home of his own, must at tender years go into the dark and dingy workshops or the perpetual night of the coal mines to toil incessantly that they might have the merest necessaries of life? Were men to be no better than the beasts ? Were the big, strong bulldogs of mankind to be permitted to tear away from the weak gentle spaniels the meat and bones found on the common wayside? Yet that is what happened, century after century, until the Brotherhood began the inculcation of the old doctrine of equality, heretofore but a beautiful theory no one but ^he weak wanted to practice. Re sistance at first? Yes, but from the few from those surfeited with power, pelf, position and prominence. Who would go back to the old order of things, 25 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. back to the days of poverty, prison, poison and presumption ? New York ! What a city today, a city of colos sal structures, containing the best of everything in art, science and literature, and in practice the quin tessence of Brotherhood tenets ! No longer any necessity for man to work twelve or fourteen hours a day to support his family. Little by little the hours of labor were reduced until an ex pert commission, named by the Great Council, found that with the extent and magnitude of mod ern inventions, ramifying in every direction, five hours labor per day was ample for every possible need of mankind. There was no more pushing and jostling in the thoroughfares. No one tried to gain an advantage at the expense of his neighbor. Where once brusque- ness prevailed and even dominated, now polite ness and courtesy ruled. No longer could the vis itor say that he felt a lower temperature the min ute he sighted New York. The Arctic frostiness that once formed a chilly ring around this metrop olis had been melted away by a sun of warmth, geniality and comraderie. Some men were still greater than others in chosen fields, but all were in touch with a line of general average. Both the high and the low of the past had been buried with dead centuries. History tells that in the so called Brooklyn bridge rush each evening, centuries ago, women with babes in arms, were knocked down by selfish EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. men, seized with the morbid spirit of rush, charac teristic of the times. A helpless child, caught in this crush, was one night knocked down and bru tally stepped on by a man who hurried on with not a thought for anyone but self. Commoner still were occurrences in which parties of gay automo- bilists ran over people in the highway, leaving some maimed for life, and answering their cries of agony and distress with shouts of ridicule. Busi ness men of the period, with undisguised pleasure, exchanged badinage about "skinning" this fellow or that poor devil, indifferent to the sorrow or the woe caused the victim's family. Genuine honesty, except sporadically, existed in name only. This is a fearful indictment of the past, but who that has studied the exact facts can gainsay it? The veneer of beauty hid shocking ugliness. New York, with its busy marts, perfection of architecture and ad vancement and superiority in every direction had always appealed to me. I liked to study this great aggregation of human beings, working like a col ony of bees in a huge hive. Its churches, its the atres, its newspapers, its transportation facilities, museums, hospitals, libraries and monuments al ways had fresh attractions for me. Having for a short time taken up newspaper work in my native city, and having never outgrown its fascinations in varying experience, ranging from one day sharing the confidence of the Chief Pa triarch to making an inspection trip the next day of a new pneumatic tube service, capable of carrying 27 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. thousands of people every minute scores of miles, what was more natural, while we were waiting for Patriarch Gladstone to confer with some of the municipal patriarchs than for me to gravitate to the municipal newspaper office, issuing The Herald, published as often as one hundred times per day. It was not queer that the city had but one news paper office. Leading from the publication plant to the office or the home or both of every citizen were wires, capable of carrying a heavy electrical cur rent. At the newspaper office was the form for printing, at the other end of the wire the press. The principle was an adaptation and a perfection of the teleautograph system of sending pictures. In a minute or even less after an item of news had been received, it was locked in the form, which was quickly applied to a metallic plate, given animation by great batteries. A push on a lever and subscrib ers in their homes and offices had a printed paper. The tracings made on that plate by muriatic acid were first communicated in perforations to thick paper. This paper, pressing on a board of delicate needles operated a board of corresponding needles at the other end of the line. The characters in the form were thus reproduced with exactness. There was no longer waiting hours for the news. The activity last week of Mt. Vesuvius, which has been quiescent, comparatively, since 1906, was for in stance known by New Yorkers as quickly as by the Neapolitans. An electric spark from aerograph station to aerograph station, another and another, 28 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. hurried composition in the Herald office, the lock ing of the form, the moving of a lever and simul taneously every citizen had a freshly printed pa per, giving him the news. The whole operation, performed with the greatest skill and expedition, took but a few minutes. The improvements made in the art preservative of all arts had been duplicated in all fields of hu man endeavor. The secret of life had been discov ered, communication with other worlds established, most of human diseases conquered, the interior of the earth reached in thousands of places through thin crust for perpetual surface heat in solution of the fuel problem, the transmutation of metals brought about by their reduction to basic elements, thus putting the world on a paper money status, based on National wealth, electricity completely mastered, mysteries of the past probed, the civiliza tion of ancient Egypt studied as never before,, the secrets of Cheops and Gizeh laid bare, the Temple of Isis made to give up its treasures of history, and the glory and splendor of ancient Thebes definitely and incontrovertibly revealed; and yet, notwithstanding these advances, there were great problems ahead, one the prospective over population of the earth, taking first place, to say nothing of the delicately measured discovery that the earth was cooling faster than had been computed a couple of centuries before. Great New York! While I busied myself in a sociological and scientific study of this mammoth 29 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. community. I longed for the moment when we could proceed and reach Peking, where a message would be awaiting me. Hunan had not yet reached the civilization of an aerograph station. It is so seldom people these days walk a great distance that I found keen pleasure in the stroll I leisurely took from 22nd Street up to Central Park. We were to leave at 5 p. m. for London. So eager was I to be away that I was on the ground fully an hour before the time fixed for departure. Master Sykes was carefully examining the projectile as I approached. I watched him as he went slowly over the huge machine. It was in fine condition, he said, and we were sure of a quick trip to London. Too bad Alice was not with us. Why had I not per suaded Father Gladstone to let her go along? How slowly the minutes dragged ! At five o'clock every passenger was locked in the projectile, and every thing in readiness for our 3,000 mile dart over the Atlantic. "Our itinerary will be slightly changed," Father Gladstone announced. "We will make a short stop en route home at a settlement of mystics, living un der the protecting care of Mt. Everest. I have just learned here in New York of a wonderful new light and fuel, discovered by them. If my information is correct, one of the world's greatest problems has been solved." Sweet music to my ears. It was just where I wanted to go. There was the usual loud pop and slight tremble and we shot out over the Atlantic. 30 CHAPTER V. A SLIGHT ACCIDENT. Invention is activity of mind, as fire is air in motion; A sharpening of the spiritual sight, to discern hidden apti tudes. Typpers' Proverbial Philosophy. Barney Diehl, Master Hiram Sykes' taciturn as sistant, was three seconds slow as we approached London in working the system of levers that open the fan brake on the projectile. Before we real ized it we were half way across the tempestuous British channel with Calais in sight. I never before had seen a man so watchful as Hiram Sykes. It took, it seemed, but a second, for him to reach the side of his helper and take hold of the levers, which he handled with marvelous dexterity. We settled slowly to the ground near the main quay of the French port. Inasmuch as Father Gladstone was due for a conference with London leaders of the Brotherhood movement, comparatively new to Eng land, we at once resolved to leave our projectile at Calais and hurry back to England by submarine tube. It had taken us 61 minutes and 36 seconds to reach Calais. The journey was exciting, but not nearly so stirring as was our flight from Frater- surb to New York. The difference was due to the 31 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. sameness of color that lay under us our whole way. Once I caught a glimpse of a bright speck, flashing like a diamond, its white on the blue of the water. I knew^ instantly it was an iceberg. How small it appeared! At the time we were at an altitude of 7,897 feet. The aerometer was about three feet in front of me where I could easily watch the hand on its dial. The hand vibrated incessantly as did that on a steam guage at a test of an exhumed steam boiler, made in the Fratersurb School of Technology last week. Sykes said it would be much more convenient to go to London by tube and electric flash than to make the journey by projectile. The Calais-Dover tube was completed 158 years ago. The project had been agitated for fifty years before. As early as 1899, the plan had been pronounced feasible by eminent engineers and the organization of a company started. Unfortunately, the project was of such magnitude that doubting Thomases arose and asserted with a great show of scientific knowledge that such a tube could never be made safe. It was the same old story over again. Every great reformer and every great inventor has, at some period or other in his life, been called a crank. In the past any man with a great idea had to ped dle it around for years before capital would come to his support. Christopher Columbus before suc cessful; ran around all over Europe for years, try ing to find someone with enough enterprise, fore- 32 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. sight and capital to help him discover America. He was offering the world for a song a continent worth now billions of dollars. Unhappy has been the fate too often of those who have tried to do something for the good of mankind. Taking the gravity lift at the entrance to the tube, we dropped down 2,293 feet, climbed with 1,200 other passengers into the long, cylindrical car, heard the guards' final injunction, "All aboard," given in musical French, felt a jar as compressed air, to the pressure of 3,000 pounds to the square inch, struck us and a moment later were gliding or rather sliding through that long black pipe to Dover. The air was as fresh as if we had been in a hay field in Lancashire on a bright June morning. The problem of air supply under such conditions had been solved a couple of centuries before. Elec tric lights made our car as bright as day. The passengers represented all nationalities. On board was a Chinese mandarin, clad in a Parisian suit, and minus pig tail. Four hours before he had been at his home in Peking. A patriarch from New Zealand, where the Brotherhood germ was born, sat next to me, and in the few minutes we had together, descanted instructively on the first days of The New Life in that far off land. His name was Lawrence M. Harris. He was of generous proportions, having a rolly-polly figure, a round fat face and a merry twinkle in his eyes. In ap pearance he was the embodiment of the Brother hood idea. I would have staked my all on that 33 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. man's goodness and unselfishness. When he spoke all of those around him paused and listened. "You will recall," he said, "that the idea of gov ernment ownership had its first really successful test in New Zealand. In extending the idea, it was our plan to eliminate, as far as possible, human suffering. We endeavored to place men as nearly as possible on an equality. It had been said with much fidelity to truth all man needed was opportunity. Our laws had, through selfish ness, been so administered that opportunity was for the few. While not trying to limit human ambition, we did try and sucess fully, too, to lift up the poor and the unfortunate; in other words to bring men in a material sense closer to gether. It was natural for the purse proud of our own and other lands to sneer at us. Whenever some new plan was proposed, having for its sole object the ameloriation of mankind, the selfish, augmented by a plutocratic press, found it easy to sneer at us and refer to us as visionaries. Who does so now? Why when the American colonies wanted to break away from aristocrat-ruled Eng land and establish a Republic, when Thomas Jeffer son drafted that immortal document, beginning 'When in the course of human events/ and when that cracked old bell, bearing the inscrip tion 'Proclaim liberty unto all the inhabi tants thereof/ sent in hoarse, sonorous tones its message that eventually went clear around the globe, there were the same old sneers. The Rev- 34 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. olutionary army was referred to as a band of rag- muffins and the prediction made that that mob of rebels would soon be driven into the sea by the King's own red coats. King, indeed! To think that our forefathers were ruled by a king, a man often of the meanest qualities, profligate, licentious and arrogant and usually the personification of self ishness a king who made war, brought sorrow and woe to thousands of homes, often at some childish whim and now and then at the caprice of some pampered favorite. The divine right of kings. That pernicious doctrine that could prevail only through general ignorance was finally shattered by the bomb of general enlightment. Then came the rule of class or aristocracy in different forms, with all of its specious claims to prerogatives. All of the time, the doctrine of equality, that really found its first expression in the pronunciamento of the golden rule, was hidden or badly obscured by the dust kicked up legislatively by the hunters for special privileges. "I was never and am not now an advocate of so cialism but instead am for the practice of those commandments laid down in the Old Testament and reiterated in the simple rules, given out by that greatest of teachers, Jesus Christ. We have aimed to make all men happy and we have done so. We call it individualism limited. "We opened our larder not alone to the big, strong fellow, clothed with presumption and hav ing a heart, every throb of which was to the dis- 35 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. cordant music of selfishness, but to all alike. We saw that the little, weak fellow got as much as the big fellow. Isn't the world a great deal better as a result? Who would again have the rule of the classes? The success of our experiment is appar ent on all sides. Even the slow, sleepy Chinese are preparing to adopt Brotherhood ideas. The day of one big fellow and thousands of little ones, meas ured in money and opportunity for happiness, is past. I believe the future " Just then the philosopher caught a glimpse of Father Gladstone and hurried to his side. While they were engaged in animated conversation, there was a perceptible slowing down. A few moments later, the doors were opened and the guards shouted "All out for Dover." The subterranean trip had taken just 12 minutes. Prof. Nichelson, whom I joined on the lift, explained that the journey could be made in five minutes, but for the time necessi tated in slowing down. "A commission of engin eers,'*' he continued, "is now working on a project to reduce the crossing time by at least two minutes. It has already been computed this can be done by a general overhauling and the installation of cars of a new and improved type. The cost will be close to 7,000,000 pounds sterling/' Father Gladstone and the stranger from the An tipodes went out together and walked away, arm in arm. All of the time they were engaged in earnest conversation. I followed closely at their heels, with Master Sykes at my side, and the others 36 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. of our party trailing in the rear. It was but a few steps to the moving sidewalk that led to the escal ator. The outer sidewalk was turning at the rate of three miles an hour, the inner, the fifth from the outside, at thirty miles an hour. Crossing to the inner one, it took us but five minutes to reach the escalator, which quickly landed us at the Elec tric Flash Ry. Co. station. A train for London was waiting. Five minutes from Dover to London would have been pro nounced silly two centuries ago. 'Now the whole road's engineering force is trying to reduce the time to four and one half minutes. In London a pneumatic tube car carried us from the railroad station to Trafalgar Square. All London, now a city of five millions of souls, was as busy as usu al. It has not grown much in the last couple of centuries, owing to the desire of so many of its in habitants to live in the country. Quick transpor tation has given the suburban population practic ally as many advantages as the city itself enjoys. Result, many small farmers, each an intensive ag riculturist. On an acre, one easily makes a hand some living. Electrical propogation of plants and cereals has solved one of the problems that for a while, owing to the rapid increase in population, staggered mankind. Large farms are seldom found these days. It seems that no problem arises that is not finally mastered by man. Motor cars, built on the principle of the duck, carried us to the International Hotel. These cars 37 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. run over the land, float on the water or fly through the air. It was Dr. Salathiel Olinger, who in 1962, solved the problem that had vexed mankind from the days of the Montgoflier Bros/ first balloon. He had watched the wild duck and, from his continued observations and studies, gave the world the first practical flying machine, that is a machine of com mercial value. There had been numerous flying machines in the market years before, including those designed by Santos Dumont, a Frenchman, the Wright Bros., Americans, and scores of others. All of these had points of excellence, but still lacked the one requisite, practicality. At the International, covering two acres of ground and extending 500 feet in the air, there were accommodations for 10,000 guests. It was owned by a great co-operative company and for five years had been paying annual dividends of 7 per cent. The new caravansary, the Astor, now building in New York, will outrival it two to one, as the contract calls for rooms for 20,000 people. Still, today, as yesterday, Johnny Bull tries in vain to get ahead of Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam as he lives in the new idea, a greater, stouter, warmer hearted Uncle Sam than his prototype of two centuries ago. I had never before been in the International, al though most of our party had. Hiram Sykes had been stopping at the place once a week for five years. I was assigned to a room in the 2ist story. I breathed filtered and purified air, wholly free from dust and disease germs. The floor was of 38 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. tile, with rugs spread about. Each room contained not only a communicator of an improved type, but an aerograph, the latter an evolution of wireless telegraphy. By moving a hand on a dial and fast ening it with a set screw, any desired temperature could be automatically maintained in the room for an indefinite time. There was not a single conven ience lacking. If one desired it, a motor car would come to his window. A pressure on the indicator, at the point marked motor car, did it. A journey over London at one's leisure, a trip under the sur face of the Thames or an ascension of two miles to the frigid inter-planetary station, were all within easy reach. All about there were happy people. No more White Chapels, and no more conditions, productive of such quarters. The Brotherhood idea had al though, in its infancy, truly made great progress in England. A sudden whim seized me. Why not call up Alice by communicator? The aerograph was not necessary and besides was comparatively cold and unsatisfactory. The old telephone that first would carry but 300 feet, had, year by year, been improved until finally, in 1904, it was called a great triumph when it was possible to talk be tween Boston and Omaha. A few years later the metal sounding board (the idea was gained from studying an old Stradivarius violin) was introduced with the result that one could with ease talk from San Francisco to New York City. Little by little more improvements were made until talking under 39 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. the ocean's surface became an actuality. Another dream of the past had been realized. The business over the fifty communicator lines that stretch from London to 'N;ew York is of such volume that one has to take his turn waiting. I grew impatient after a delay of an hour and was ready to excoriate the directors of the International Communicator Co. for not providing better facilities, when there was a melodious ringing at my right and I pulled down the ear phone, made perfect years before. I had gotten Alice's home in Fratersurb. Instead of Alice there was the reflection of her portly mother before me. "You want Alice?" she asked. "Alice is down at the library. She is much interested in the occult and is studying an old work by a Brahmin priest something about reincarnation." "Tell her," I said, trying hard to conceal my dis appointment, "not to forget to let me hear from her at Peking." "Yes," was the answer and the figure in the re flector vanished. A moment later Father Gladstone notified me he wanted to see me about the great mass meeting to be held that night in Victoria hall, an auditorium capable of accommodating 200,000 people. 40 CHAPTER VI. A GREAT OUTPOURING. Nature in, her productions, slow aspires, By just degrees to reach perfection's height. Somerville's Chase. Naturally Father Gladstone was the cynosure of all eyes at the Victoria Hall meeting. The audi torium was filled to the outer rim. Interest was keen, and as was expected the auditors hung on every word uttered by the eminent men present. Wm. B. Rodgers, head of the London city council, presided. That duty would have fallen to the Lord Mayor but for the fact that his office, which for centuries had allowed some one to parade annually in great state, had years before been abolished. The last Lord Mayor was deposed, co-incident with the fall of royalty and the disavowal of preroga tives for so called nobles. The republic, modeled exactly after that which had given the United States a foremost place in the world, had thrived like the proverbial green bay tree. It gave way to Brotherhood sway, which after all, is a republic perfected. Rule by royalty was at this time a thing of the past in all Europe. Russia was the first to declare for individual freedom, the declaration com- 41 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. ing twelve years after the conclusion of the Russo- Japanese war. The aristocracy, which was synony mous with bureauacracy, had vainly tried by the old methods of iron rule to keep the people in subjec tion. Little by little the Grand Dukes and their army of sycophants were shorn of power. Final political emasculation came when Czar Nicholas made a third unsuccessful attempt to reassert his so-called "divine rights." Orders issued to the army and navy fell on deaf ears. The soldiery and sailors were honey combed with sedition, fanned by great stacks of literature, circulated despite the activity of the Grand Duke's agents, edicts issued from St. Petersburg and loud claims made by blus tering, bewhiskered martinets in the uniforms of generals. The crisis came on that memorable night in May, 1916, May 16, to be exact, when the Grand Dukes issued orders through the weak Czar for the prohibition of Revolutionary meetings, called for that night in every city of note in the Empire. Reg iment after regiment of soldiers, many from Cron- stadt, was sent into the streets of St. Petersburg, with orders to prevent the meeting arranged for that city, no difference what the cost might be. The troops were ordered to charge the crowds and clear the thoroughfares. Not an order was obeyed. Even the long relied upon Cossacks were seized with the spirit of mutiny. Company after com pany of soldiers joined the Revolutionists. Fear ing their lives were in danger, the few officers that 42 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. remained loyal to Nicholas hurried back to the pal ace to find Nicholas, long weak minded, a mum bling paretic. That night the republic was pro claimed. Thousands swore to uphold the new form of government. M. Witte, elected the first presi dent, proved worthy of the confidence reposed in him, and like George Washington, wisely refused a third term. The lamp of liberty thus lighted, to use a choice expression from the speech of an early American orator, Patrick Henry, he of House of Burgesses fame, kindled the conflagration that spread all over Europe, and resulted in the incin eration of monarchical rule. Germany was one of the last to fall in line, the conservatism of her worthy people being a bar to hasty, ill advised or abortive action. Kaiser Wilhelm, being a ruler of keen perceptive faculties, gracefully abdicated. While inwardly raging he appeared so indifferent that it was somewhat paradoxical that the people chose him for their first president. He ruled wise ly and justly in this capacity, making a record somewhat akin to that left by President Roosevelt of the United States. Thus was the question of lese majeste, together with others of equal import ance, peremptorily settled. The change in Eng land from monarchical rule to republican sway came while King Edward was still on the throne. He had been near death several times. When the crisis came he had "no fight left in him," selecting a term from the parlance of the old prize ring. Ire land was at last free. 43 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. A large chorus choir occupied the rear of the immense stage, decorated with the banners of Brotherhood, showing clasped hands on a field of blue. The song, "One for All and All for One," was sung with a fervor that enthused clear back to the rear tier of seats in the great gallery. ' 'Equal Op portunity for All," and other songs of as much strength received salvos of applause. Father Glad stone was greeted with cheers that made the welkin ring. There was fugue after fugue of applause. The greeting was of such tremendous proportions as to be disconcerting. When order had been re stored Father Gladstone began his discourse in plain, terse language. The acoustic properties of the building were so perfect that those farthest away from the stage had no difficulty in following him. It is impossible in the limited confines of this work to give a verbatim report of his address. He was listened to with rapt attention from the calm exordium to the ringing peroration. Among other things he said (I aim herein to give his most sali ent sentences) : "I could never reconcile myself to the belief that God intended that a few should be very rich and the many very poor. In the past some have been born strong and many very weak. The strong have taken from the weak. .'Leg islation in many cases, legislation that was veiled, was used as an instrument for the perpetuity of the plan that for years saw the rich growing richer and the poor poorer. It was all contrary to the 44 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. teachings of the Master. Now and then some sleek, well fed parson, having a congregation of aristo crats, defended the system. He was always patted on the back for doing so, and now and then had a liberal salary increased. All of this time many good men were preaching and practicing right, and to those men we owe much. What is our object? To bring all possible happiness to the human race that and nothing more. We argued that men are and of right ought to be brothers. We contended that men should not be ruled by selfishness. Why, two centuries ago, Brothers, that ignoble quality dominated the world. It was everywhere in evi dence. Various expedients had been resorted to to curb the power and influence of organized plu tocracy. The income tax was one of these. Those of you who are fond students of history will re call how the Supreme Court of the United States within 30 years reversed its opinion on the consti tutionality of that measure. That income tax was, by the way, one of the first steps toward the es tablishment of Brotherhood. It was recognition by the people, through the constituted authorities, of a menace to the national safety. One safeguard after another was proposed, but often, for many years, the power of corporate wealth was too strong for material advancement. The proposition to limit individual wealth was first prominently proposed about the year 1900. The world was not at that time ready for the new doctrine, although 45 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. it had the example of a man of 65 years accumu lating a fortune of $400,000,000, or almost $7,000,- ooo per year, counting childhood. It takes a gen eration often to educate a people to what is best for them. The education was slow but certain. Mul- tum in parvo. The income tax was a small begin ning. It was followed by the advocacy without suc cess, by Theodore Roosevelt, one of the American presidents, of the so-called progressive tax. "The foundations had been laid, however, and finally the change, welcome change that it was, came, and along with it the idea of trying to make mankind more alike, to bring all people nearer to a general average. We still have much more to do along this line through the medium of our educa tional institutions. We have made such advances in that direction that ultimate success is assured. You Brothers of England have made a promising beginning. Watch your children. Keep to the fore the doctrine of unselfishness. Where greed once dominated mankind, now let love take its place. We are all more alike than was originally claimed. All that was needed was a new national standard, made prominent for years, to bring about volun tary submission to it, and finally veneration. A nation usually has some dominant characteristic, due to long pursuance of an ideal. For instance an cient Athens ran to art. It was the national ideal and desideratum. Ours is unselfishness. Inculca tion of any doctrine by the great mass of the people is bound in time to affect the minority. Man is 46 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. such a creature of environment that he is quick to adjust himself to new conditions. ''The minute we made selfishness a crime, that minute hundreds were brought into disrepute. There are few men that can stand up unaffected before the finger of public scorn. Years ago when a swell went from the so-called effete East to a frontier town, he quickly found that his silk tile and his 'boiled' shirt were not 'healthy.' The swell quickly changed to a whole souled frontiersman, affected the vernacular of the border, and within two years was as ready with jibe and jest to hu miliate one fresh from the East as his companions had been to ridicule him. Such are the possibili ties of change and environment. Public censure and public ridicule helped us vastly in the first stages of the establishment of Brotherhood rule. By making unselfishness our ideal, and by cease lessly promulgating that ideal, we in time displaced the old regime. Result, a better and happier people. No more paupers and a suicide almost unheard of. We expect in the next century to make still fur ther advancement. We want you to be firm in your adherence to the new doctrine. Our example and our success should ever inspire you to tireless work for the general good. Brothers, in conclu sion, let me admonish you to abjure selfishness. Consider it the greatest evil you can harbor, for from it spring all other evils. Practice the golden rule and grow great as real Brothers." Other addresses followed. Wing Tan Fing, 47 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. from Peking, China; Senor Manuel Rosa, from Seville, Spain ; Herr Johann Schmidt, from Berlin, Germany; Victor Tolstoi, from Moscow, Russia, and Monsieur Alphonse Martens, from Paris, all devoted adherents to Brotherhood ideas, spoke in turn, each bringing out some new point of value to the Brotherhood. It was almost midnight when the meeting adjourned after appointing committees to take up some new features of Brotherhood work. It did not take long that night for me to fall asleep. I was tired out. We were to hurry the next morning back to Calais to continue our flight, with Moscow our next stop. CHAPTER VII. AN OLD LETTER. How empty learning, and how vain is art, But as it mends the life and gruides the heart. Young's Last Day. It must have been about i o'clock that I awoke with a start. A curtain of moonlight, blue and un canny, hung between my bed and the wall opposite. It stretched from the window where it came in at one side of the drawn shade, which hung aslant, across the room, ending on a bronze statue of Ho mer. I was in the grip of a strange feeling that almost prompted me to pull the covers over my head and shut out the scene. It seemed as if a spectral figure were standing over me, issuing a command. The message, if there was one, was vague and unintelligible. I was half asleep. The conviction that some one was in the room, stand ing over my bed, grew in the next few seconds. My fear finally vanished. I energetically opened my eyes and sat up. Looking around in a bewildered way I half expected to see some one I knew. My eyes gradually became accustomed to the mingled light and dark. I had been mistaken. There was no one in sight. Boldly I leaped from the bed and 49 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. raised the shade. The tiny stream of moonlight instantly became a flood. At the same minute something secerned to say, "Read the letter in your pocket." Suddenly I remembered. My father, three days before, had given me a letter, written two centuries ago by my great great grandfather, who in his day, had been a conspicuous figure in national life. I knew that he had been a Governor of Ohio, and had served six years in the national Senate. A biographical sketch explained that at one time he was prominently mentioned for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. He had been a man of large means, and had spent many years in travel, studying the different races of men and the growth of civilization. In an inside pocket of my coat I found the heavy Manila envelope that contained the letter, now a message from the dead to the living. The letter was written in the old style, many years before the introduction of phonetic spelling. Inasmuch as old English literature had been a favorite study in my last university days, I deciphered it with greater ease than might have been expected, considering the incongruities of the spelling. The ten sheets of paper were yellow with age, but the ink was still dark, so dark that the characters stood out with surprising boldness. The letter was addressed to "John Young, my son," and was dated Madras, India, June n, 1901. That much I made out in the moonlight. My curiosity was aroused. In my strenuous experi- 50 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. ences of the last few days I had completely for gotten my father's injunction to read the letter and tell him what I thought of it. Turning on the light and pulling down the shade, I settled myself in a leather upholstered chair, with great, enfolding arms, lighted my briar wood pipe and leaned back comfortably to see what mystery, if any, the letter contained. It began: My Dear Son: Within the last month I have begun to realize that I may never again see you alive. I have failed most perceptibly within the last two weeks. I fear I shall never again see my native land. A fall I sustained three weeks ago ; following a dinner at the Army Club, has been most disastrous. It came from an attack of verti go. Since then I have been nervous, and for the first time in my life apprehensive of death. My physician, Dr. C. M. Eistand, says that I am the victim of a complication of diseases, which have come into prominence as a direct result of the shock. I am up far enough in materia medica and ther apeutics to know that there is no hope for my re covery. My liver is semi-torpid all of the time, and I cannot sleep. If I were strong enough to get about and get exercise I feel there would be some hope, but I am not. This is one of the worst nights I have experienced. I cannot sleep a wink. Ameluke, my Hindoo attendant, has propped me up in bed, and at my command brought me paper and ink to write something that I think should not die with me. In the last 25 years in particular I 51 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. have realized more than ever what a creature of custom man is. Too many of us are born and live in a little world of our own, without knowing much about the great outside world. One man is born a Christian, another a Mohammedan, another a Brahmin and a fourth a materialist. Each has an environment of walls he never sees over. Inside these walls he lives, toils and dies, to be succeeded by another and another, each doing exactly as his father did. Now and then, measured by centuries, a transition that works some wondrous change in man's sociological condition comes. These will continue to come until in the end, if there ever is to be an end, human perfection will be attained. In time inventions will bring the world so close to gether that all of the people will be as one race and one nation. I believe that the next century will see Asia and America as close as Ohio and Indiana now are. To elucidate: By means of cable and telegraph Europe and America are now closer to gether than were New York and Pittsburg 100 years ago. With the further development of man's ingenuity, general intelligence will grow and there will be radical changes in social, commercial and political life. The best prophesy is simply based on the greatest knowledge. Some men can see into the future and read aright the signs with the same ease that those on the inside, or in other words those having the knowledge, successfully play the stock market, while the poor lambs on the outside, not seeing the 52 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. concealed wires that are pulled, wonder how it is done, and katow in admiration to the money kings of the country. If many can see into the future and make predictions with certainty, I can see into the past. It is about my strange gift or sixth sense that I wish to write. Men in these days vary greatly in mental power. As a Senator I had some remarkable experiences in that line. Senator B. from Maryland, for instance, was the most remarkable man I ever knew. He never for got a face or a name. His reading had been omni- verous, and there was not a subject he could not discuss, even with a specialist, without amazing his hearers by his keen insight into practically every thing. If a party of railroad men mentioned a lo comotive he could always see and tell of features about that piece of mechanism that had escaped the others. So it was about everything else. Where other men saw 100 feet he saw 150 feet. His perceptive powers were marvelously devel oped. He had been born on a farm in humble cir cumstances, and had made his own way. Where others sought in vain for wealth he found it and piled it up until at the time I write he is worth between four and five million dollars. He appar ently mastered everything at sight. Even in learn ing foreign languages he was a prodigy. If he heard a sentence once in French he was always able thereafter to repeat it with the exact accent in which it had been given and with a perfect un derstanding of its meaning. Such a man was bound 53 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. to outdistance his fellows. He was a giant in size and intellect, and never seemed to tire. One of his remarkable feats was to speak for 18 consecutive hours to delay a vote on the old Wilson tariff bill. He could go for a week at a time without sleep. In contrast to him was Senator M. of Michigan. He was a little, peevish, fretful man that any problem bothered. He tired easily, and but for inherited money, with which a seat had been bought for him, would never have been in the Senate. His mem ory was scarcely a minute long, and he got be fuddled over simple problems. The mind is a mystery. Additional force is given to this statement by the discovery of my strange gift. I made it one night while sitting in my room in the Arlington Hotel in Washington. I had been out for a stroll. Lighting my second cigar, I climbed to my room, sat down in the twilight, closed my eyes and silently puffed away. I don't know how long I had been sitting in that wise, when slowly and dimly there appeared in my mind a fig ure that I at once realized must have been myself at some other time. I fixed my mind intently on that figure and began to think with all the power at my command. The figure grew in distinctness until it was as plain as if it had been a photograph before my eyes. The figure was that of a tall, heavy Hindoo, with swarthy face and big black beard. His turban, brick colored robe and baggy- trousers were distinct. Jewels on his fingers, his dignity and appearance of authority made it certain 54 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. that he had been a person of some note. After that night I again and again tried the experiment, each time with improved results. I had always longed to go to India. Now nothing could hold me back. Never shall I forget that day I reached Calcutta. It seemed as if I were getting back home. While I had never before seen the city or been in the country everything about seemed familiar. What was it after all, reincarnation? I suspect so. For years I followed my experiments. A few years later I was able to see back of the Hindoo a poor Russian mujik, lacking the commonest necessaries of life, and living from day to day on a menu of boiled cabbage and black bread. That figure ap peared and reappeared in my mind with such grow ing distinctness that I became convinced I had at one time lived as that poor Slav. Recently in glancing over a copy of the London Times I read that a French woman, who fell into a cataleptic state, claimed, on emerging from her trance-like condition, that she had been able to see backwards for seven generations. Now people may scoff and say that these claims are the products of a diseased brain. I care not. We are now year ly discovering so many new things in science that the wonder of today is A. B. C. in the primer of tomorrow. Recent developments in psychology, af fecting telepathy and thought transference, make it plain, I believe, that there are yet many wonder ful things about the mind to be learned. Certain it is that both, under certain vague conditions, can 55 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. be practiced successfully. Physicians for fifty years or more have known of the value of mental stimulation in the treatment of common ailments. Hence the use of the placebo, a tasteless pill of nothing but common dough, given to the patient to make him believe he is getting something to effect a cure, while the doctor makes him optimistic, and suddenly finds his patient much better or cured. Now I want my descendants to read this letter and see if any of them have the strange power I pos sess. Then followed several pages, relative to the dis position of his property in the event of death. The letter left me dazed. I sat in that chair thinking until a streak of gray light in the East made me realize it was daybreak. CHAPTER VIII. RACE OVER A CONTINENT. Thoughts that frown upon our mirth Will smile upon our sorrow, And many dark fears of today, May be bright hopes tomorrow. Pinckney. The world owes much to the enterprise of news papers and newspaper men. To borrow part of a well worn expression they have been "First in war, first in peace." Naturally no journey of the character of ours, taking precedence at the time in the world's events over everything else, could be complete without the presence of the ubiquitous newspaper men. While strolling through Threadneedle street early the next morning, taking my constitutional, I little expected to meet one of my old college chums. I was walking along abstractedly, thinking about a thousand and one things. My eyes were on the ground. The business world had not yet turned out, and there were comparatively few peo ple in the thoroughfares. I bolted around a corner, perhaps with unseemly haste, and bumped into an other pedestrian up early like myself. 57 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. Without looking up I started to apologize, when a blow on the shoulder, followed by a loud "Good gracious, Bob, why don't you look where you are going?" caused me to straighten up and face John Raper, John whom I had not seen for nearly ten years. He had changed but little since I bade him good bye at Yale on that memorable i7th of June, when we were graduated, he to hunt a job, I to go back to Fratersurb to consult pater familias, before definitely deciding what I should do for a living. My father's great wish had been for me to take up Brotherhood work actively. In a measure I had from childhood been trained for it. It was in no wise distasteful, and I readily acquiesced in my father's plans. I had heard indirectly once or twice from "Jack." 1 knew that at one time he was with the Chicago World. "What are you doing over here?" I asked, partly recovered from my astonishment. "It seems an age since I saw you last." "What am I doing? I am on your trail," he an swered, as he, with evident enjoyment, puffed away at a cheroot. "I am still with The World, and have been assigned to follow you and Father Glad stone to the land of Confucius. I saw you at the meeting last night and tried to reach you, but lost you in the jam, following the adjournment. Why, don't you know the whole world is on the qui vive over the result of your mission? Old 'Daddy* 58 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. Hurst, our managing editor, gave me strict injunc tion to follow every movement of your party, miss nothing and get exclusive features. He insisted on 7,000 words on the meeting last night. But for the fact that we are to start at the same time you do this morning I would still be in bed. Work? I worked like a Cape Colony slave last night. I had my electro typewriter in a little room off the stage, and was grinding away for three hours after the meeting. To accommodate me the International Aerograph Co. erected a special mast on top of the hall, so there would be as little delay as possible in getting my 'copy' off. Of course the other fellows shared in the benefits of this privilege. It was a great satisfaction when I had finished to receive this message from the Chicago office: Tine work on tonight's meeting. We beat our best competitor on the street "bv 15 seconds. The old man (that's the proprietor) gave orders to add at once 10 per week to your stipend.' ' "I always knew yon would lead," I asserted. "You were always first in college in everything ex cept studies. Do you remember how you won over Jim Stlmel in that sprinting match?" " 'Deed I do." "Tell me one thing, how do you make such speed in sending your dispatches?" "Easiest thing in the world. The electro type writer, as you know, is almost as old as the hills. It is the invention of Prof. Rowland, formerly of Johns-Hopkins University. -He tried to sell it in 59 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. the United States, but failing, disposed of it to the Belgian government. "That was away back in 1902 or 1903, I have read. The invention consisted of two special type writers, connected by wire. By a device, fitting over the fingerboard of each, what was written on one was instantly reproduced on the other. It would have saved the Associated Press thousands of dollars per annum. For some unknown reason it was not at the time adopted. Fifty years later it came into use. It is the same today as it was orig inally, except that by the utilization of wireless telegraphy, wires are no longer necessary. What I wrote last night was instantly reproduced on a twin typewriter in the World office in Chicago, The initial electrical energy at this end of the line leaped to the top of the mast and instantly jumped the gap between London and Chicago. Blue flash after blue flash followed and the work was done." "Marvelous!" I involuntarily exclaimed. "Twenty seconds after the last word had reached Chicago, a lever was pulled and papers were print ed, giving the report complete. A few of course still go on the street. The Sun, our only competi tor, will feel badly over the 'beat/ and Arthur Clarke, their representative, will not be happy un til he has gotten even. May be he will not get the chance, as the rumor is pretty well authenticated that the World and the Sun are to be consolidated and taken over by the municipality, as has been 60 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. done elsewhere. But I must watch Clarke," Jack added thoughtfully. It was wise that he did. "We are to leave at 8 a. m.," I explained. "Let's get some breakfast." "No use to worry about your matutinal meal," Jack offered. "Always carry a package of Mun- son's breakfast tabloids with me. We fellows so often have to jump and run to cover an assignment that rations are as necessary as typewriters." "They will save a lot of time," I added, referring to the tabloids. "Come then," Jack commanded, "down to the projectile station." "No use for me ; our ship is over at Calais. We made a slight miscalculation and landed in the wrong place." "Come along anyhow. Join me. We will ar rive at practically the same time." "Good idea. Why not?" "We shall be glad to have you." "Come with me back to the International then. I must tell Father Gladstone and get my belong ings." "Good." Hailing a motor car, which speeded to our side, we climbed* in. First there was a dash down the narrow street, a turn and the International, five squares away, was in sight. "Room 19, twenty- first floor," I shouted to the driver. "Yes, sir," he answered. "There was a whirring motion at the rear, the machine arose and we be- 61 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. gan to fly through the air. It took but a minute for us to reach the right floor and dismount at the landing. "Good day, sir. Wish you a pleasant journey," exclaimed the driver, as he smiled and vanished. ''Years ago/' said Raper, "a driver would have worn a scowl for a month if you had not tipped him." "Tipped him ?" I repeated. "Why that was one of the worst practices of the past because it accen tuated the difference between master and man. None of it these days of Brotherhood." Inasmuch as pur projectile was somewhat crowded, Father Gladstone gladly consented to my accompanying Raper. The venerable patriarch, old in years, but young in heart, and as vigorous in body and mind as many a man of half his years, said good bye, as he and his party left for the Electric Flash station to recross to Calais. They had planned to get away from the French port at 8.30 a. m. In order to keep as near them as possible we decided to leave at 8:29:30. There were four projectiles in the newspaper party, one representing the Associated Press, one the New York Herald, one the Chicago World and one the Chicago Sun. The Fratersurb Journal relied upon the Associated Press for its report. The newspaper men watched one another like hawks. When Reid, Wallace and Clarke, repre senting the Press Association and the dailies 62 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. named above, saw me climb into Raper's car, there was consternation among them. I did not realize until later what a favor I was doing "Jack." There were four reports in quick succession, and we sped away on our journey to Moscow. While Raper's crew was making ready for the start, and even after we were under way, "Jack" kept me busy answering his volley of questions. Among other things I told him of our change in program, involving a visit to the base of Mt. Everest to ex amine the wonderful new light Father Gladstone had heard of, and in doing so I unconsciously gave him one of the greatest "scoops" ever printed. Calais, Paris, Vienna, smaller cities, rivers and mountain ranges passed under us like a flash. In just fourteen minutes Moscow, with the gilded dome of the Kremlin shining like a brass headed tack in a carpet, was before us. The slowing up and dropping were accomplished without a hitch. We came down at 8:43:30, Heid four seconds later, and then Wallace and Clarke in turn. Father Gladstone and company had not yet ar rived. Three minutes later there was a hiss, fol lowed by a whir in the air, and Hiram Sykes' ship was on terra firma once more. Reid, Wallace and Clarke instantly formed a bar to Father Gladstone's advance. "What is the program when Peking is reached ?" they inquired in unison. "Boys," the patriarch answered in his kindest tone, "I cannot definitely state. We are to meet 63 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. the foremost men of the empire and explain to them some features of Brotherhood work that are not clear to them. The probabilities are it will be some months before any decisive action is taken on the recommendations we shall make. You know the Chinese move slowly and cautiously. There is no doubt that in the end they will become a part of the great union." Raper had edged over to the semi-circle, and had caught every word. The interview was, how ever, of secondary importance, he felt, to the abso lutely new information he had gained from me. There was a rush to trie aerograph station, and for some time the correspondents were busy. Reid, Wallace and Clarke wondered why Raper lingered so long. They found out when ten minutes after he had finished his despatch, each received a mes sage wanting to know how he had gotten "scooped." "Wake up and send something not a week old," was the aerogram Clarke sullenly read. He gnashed his teeth in rage, and would not speak to Raper for two days. Our stop in Moscow was to be short. There was time though for me to communicate with Alice. I would do so. The aerograph was at my right and to the station I hurried. 64 CHAPTER IX. A SOCIAL EARTHQUAKE. Man was marked A friend in his creation to himself, And may with fit ambition conceive The greatest blessings, and the brightest honors Appointed for him, if he can achieve them The right and noble way. Massinger's Guardian. Moscow, rich in scenes of historical and socio logical interest, was a gold mine of information to me in particular in the short time that we were in the ancient Russian capital. The Tsar-Kolokol, or the Czar of Bells, hung just as it had for years past. The aerograph station is located on the northwest corner of Senate Square, the four cor ners of which are occupied by monuments to Ku- tuzoff, Barclay de Tolly, Alexander I and Nicho las I. There was a disposition when the republic was founded to tear down these statues, as that of George III in New York was razed at the out break of the American war of the Revolution, but as they were not of lead, and in consequence would not yield bullets, they were forgotten in the fever of overturning the monarchy. Usually fluent in expressing myself I could not 6s EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. that morning find words of the right shade of meaning for my message to Alice. I must have written and torn up at least a dozen different aero grams, all of them unsatisfactory, and was still cudgeling my brain for appropriate words, when someone touched me gently on the arm and said in good English : "May I speak with you, please ?" The man who was bowing deferentially was a Russian, evidently a college professor or an ad vanced student. He offered me his card. It read: "Prof. Andrew Morosky, University of Moscow." He was just the man I wanted to meet. He had for several years been active in the promulgation of the Brotherhood doctrine in Russia. "I should like," he said, "to have a talk with you and Father Gladstone." <- Easily arranged," I answered. "Come with me." Going to the new library building in the Kitay- Gorod, we found a room where we could talk with out interruption. Our host was a man of unusual intelligence. He was of stalwart proportions, in reality a giant, physically and mentally. He spoke with the ease and softness of those who have great reserve power. Father Gladstone, who had the highest opinion of his ability, greeted him with the utmost cordiality. Prof. Morosky began: "You know that the Brotherhood movement, being compara tively new in Russia, is not yet firmly established here. More than ordinary difficulties were, I 66 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. think, to be anticipated. We for centuries had the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor. The gap between the widely separated classes could not be spanned in a day, a month or even a year. The Russian autocrat remained obstinate to the last. Arrogant, supercilious and unyielding, he could never admit that other men over whom he and his ancestors had ruled with an iron hand could be his equals. I believe that here in the old Russian em pire the rule of greed was worse than anywhere else in the world. Awful general poverty on one side, and pitiless wealth on the other, illustrated to the whole world the dire possibilities of a sys tem that was and is, theoretically and practically, inhuman. The Russian peasant, the small middle class, and even the best of the most successful business men were continuously squeezed for the benefit of the selfish few, cormorants, if you please, who, I now believe, were born without hearts or souls. I realize that such a declaration on my part a couple of centuries ago would have started me on the dismal road to Siberia. What I want to get at is this : The feeling of superior ity had so long been innate on the part of our so- called Russian nobles that there are today still strong traces of it that operate to our disadvantage in firmly and irrevocably establishing Brotherhood rule. Descendants of these knout users now and then sneer at us and predict the new regime will prove but ephemeral." Father Gladstone had followed his ardent con- EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. vert closely. He was so calm and judicial in what he said as a rule that I was somewhat surprised at the feeling he showed when he began: "Of all the tyrants of the world the Russian noble has been a striking object lesson in pointing out to the world the graduations that have resulted in the es tablishment of Brotherhood rule, and in emphasiz ing the necessity of changing old conditions, con ditions that were unnatural and brutal. Draw the veil that hides the Russian past, contrast those dark days and the present, and then thank God for the reformers, men, who, despite sneers, ridicule and opprobrium, dared to 'do right and lead the people higher up the hill of progress." In his fervor Father Gladstone had arisen and begun pacing the floor. "First brute strength ruled," he went on. "Why even the strongest carried away the women. In the past how many crude homes were despoiled of the wives and mothers by some one who was stronger than the husband and father? Men like wild animals fought for every possession over which there could be any contest. In time the stronger gathered unto themselves retainers and followers, hired Hessians, if you please, and estab lished laws for the protection of their property. These laws were, of course, effective only as the strong were able to fight with the strong for their observance. The idea of rule by force grew, and the system gave us kings, whose authority, little by little, was curtailed. Limited monarchy bred 68 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. republic and republic Brotherhood. The latter was just as sure to be the evolution of the republic as the republic was to be the evolution of the king dom, and the kingdom of tribal reign. When Brotherhood rule was in incubation, and the period was more than a century, the reformers that the period produced were all agents, that little by little led the people to the unchangeable destiny of man. Brotherhood domination was sneered at just as the Royalists and their sycophantic followers first turned up their noses at the republic. "Now when something better than Brotherhood rule is proposed, and proposed it will be sometime, perhaps not for two centuries from now, the same old arguments against change will be made. Some of them will be specious, and some people will be misled, just as they have been in the past. This is a world of progress, progress in every .direction. The man that tries to stop this vehicle is getting under a Juggernaut car/' "What are we to do with our malcontents?" Prof. Morosky inquired. "Do with them?" Father Gladstone repeated. "Why let them alone unless they break our laws. In the event that they do, then give them the se verest punishment. Give up your time to pushing Brotherhood teachings. Nothing can long stand in their way. After all it is nothing new, simply practical theology. It is real, not false living. Un der Brotherhood conditions there is just as much of a stimulus to work, to create new instruments 69 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. of progress, and to beautify the world as under the old system, when man's sole aim was to make money. Now we have a new criterion. We have advanced. We no longer place a million dollars on a pedestal, bow to it and make everything else subordinate to its purchasing power. Shame it is that we did it once." "I feel much benefitted and stimulated by our conference/' exlaimed Prof. Morosky, when Father Gladstone indicated that we must hurry on to Peking to keep our engagement there. There were warm adieux, and Father Gladstone and f hurried back to the Senate Square, where our trav eling companions would be waiting for us. "Your name Robert Young?" inquired a uni formed attache of the aerograph station, as I was about to climb into Raper's ship with Hunan as our destination. "Yes," I answered, as I took the message he held from his extended hand. The message was from Alice. It read : "Do you remember the les son on India we studied together ten years ago?" What did she mean? I searched my mind for the answer. Sykes' ship was already out of sight. "Climb in," Raper demanded, as he gave me a gentle shove, followed me and closed the door. Strange as were all the sights of that trip they failed to interest me. CHAPTER X. A CORRESPONDENTS ENTERPRISE. The fawning citizen, whose love's bought dearest, Deceives his brother when the sun shines clearest, Gets, borrows, breaks, lets in and stops out light, And lives a knave, to leave .his son a knight. Brown's Pastorals. Ever since he had been scooped, Clarke of the Sun, had thirsted for revenge. Raper was so alert that every attempt so far to score a "beat" on him had failed. The World man, whose traveling com panion I had become, knew his rival's tactics so well that he was constantly on the watch. The nerve strain must have been racking. Raper watched Clarke constantly, and the latter slept with one eye open, so to speak. Some miscalcula tion had been made as to the size of the charge of pulva and all of our projectiles, finding the propelling force almost spent, dropped down in Samarcand, Central Asia, instead of at Hunan as planned. Clarke was about five minutes ahead of us. When we landed in the park in front of the tomb of Tamerlane, crowds of turbaned citizens, surrounded us, eager to learn of the strange ship that had brought us to this city, rich in the simple 71 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. and beautiful architecture of the Orient. Some distance away was another crowd, around, as I afterwards learned, Clarke and his car. He had alighted at the Mosque near the Reghistan. It was the first time the people of this city, many of whom were Russians, had seen one of the projec tiles, of which they had vaguely heard, as if they were creations of a fairyland. Father Gladstone and companions were the last to reach the ground. They hit the earth gently near the Tilla-Kari mosque. The crowds grew in size until it seemed as if all of the inhabitants except the veiled wives were in the thoroughfares, and I am confident, from the many movements in windows on the street we occupied as a lodestone, many of them were peering out from behind blinds and shades with curiosity as great as that of their lords. We looked about us in amazement. The scene was one of exceptional beauty. Few cities in the world can compare with Samarcand for attractiveness. Sylvan scenes stretch out in every direction. The city presents the appearance of having been liter ally carved out of a forest of poplars and acacias, many square miles in extent. The tall trees, whose branches almost interlace overhead, form green arcades that in summer's heat are bowers so cool and inviting that there is always a temptation to linger. Here was a city that had undergone but few changes in centuries. Rich in historical inter est, it is ever a treasure trove for the student. There are about great ruins, reminders of an active past. 72 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. I learned afterwards that this city was used as a base of operations for that prince of brigands, Alexander the Great, whose murderous career in pursuit of added power, leaving behind a blood- red trail, illustrates the vast difference between the past and the present, for the Brotherhood ab hors and opposes wars, wars that in the past were waged in the same spirit that prompted the high wayman to rob and plunder. A gesticulating band that formed a circle many feet thick around our ship and tried by means of signs to talk with us, courteously opened a way when we indicated that we wanted to move about. Presently a great strapping Russian came up and greeted us with characteristic Eastern warmth. He spoke English with ease, and said he had been delegated by the Russian resident Governor to welcome us to the city. He said that dignitary in sisted that we become his guests at the palace. "We shall be delighted to do so," Raper an swered for both of us. Climbing into one of the large two-wheeled carts, peculiar to the country, we moved away in a lumbering manner to the city's show place. Clarke was not in sight, and Father Gladstone, we were told, was already at the palace, where he had been received with hon ors befitting a king. There certainly was no news in this out of the way place, Raper reasoned, out side of that of the unexpected stop. Reaching the telegraph office he sent a brief message by way of St. Petersburg to his paper, telling of the exhaus- 73 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. tion of our power and our presence at SamarcancL He added that we would hurry on to Peking. On arrival at the palace we were effusively greeted by Prince Ritsky, the Governor, who still, by common consent, retained an inherited title, notwithstanding Russia's denial of nobles. Prince Ritsky was a man of intelligence and learning, and showed familiarity with the Brotherhood move ment. We were offered tea and vodka. For the novelty of it, Raper and I both took a sip of the latter, strong enough to move a load of stone. A dizzy feeling seized me immediately. Thank good ness it did not last long. Prince Ritsky asked us one question after an other, the interrogations coming with the rapidity of an army enfilading an enemy with a rapid fire gun. We finally accepted his invitation to attend a banquet he hastily planned in our honor. He invited the foremost business men of the town. Native dishes exclusively were served. One of these was kiabab, made of minced meat, previous ly cooked and wrapped in thin sheets of dough. Another choice dish was cayourna, a kind of a meat stew, made of mutton and half a dozen veg etables. The chief dish was pilaf, made by mixing tidbits of fried mutton with boiled rice, to which was added something like curry. There were Ori ental music and dances, together with entertain ment by acrobats and jugglers. It was with regret that we departed, hoping that some time in the fu- 74 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. ture we might have time to make an extended vis it to this city. Clarke had been strangely missing part of the time, but to this fact Raper attached no import ance. It was only after we reached Peking that we learned of his coup. Clarke learned from a Russian shortly after his arrival in Samarcand, that Viceroy Wang Ting Fu of the city of Canton, was in this Central Asian city on a political mis sion. The Viceroy had been educated at the Uni versity of Chicago, and knew English so well that Clarke said afterwards he was ashamed of the fact that he knew no Chinese. Now the Viceroy was one of the Emperor's closest advisers, and had but two weeks before talked with His Majesty how awful that title sounds to us Brotherhood people about pushing the Brotherhood movement in China. They had spent three hours together, dis cussing the subject. In consequence the Viceroy was full to the chin of "spot" news, and Raper didn't even know of his presence in the place* Clarke had a long talk with the Chinese official, and then, to "kill" time, and keep him away from Raper and the other newspaper correspondents, piloted him down to his projectile, explained its mechanism and finally took him inside, where, with Burgundy and Havanas, the time passed swiftly for the Viceroy. And that is the way Clarke got his memorable scoop, and revenge. His interview, sent by old fashioned telegraph to Mos cow, was in that city, put on the aerograph and 75 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. hurried to Chicago. The Sun had its day of a big exclusive, and Clarke for a week afterwards walked past us with the air of an emperor. It was necessary to use emergency tubes to get away from Samarcand. Over the Thian Shan Mountains and the brown and gray desert of Gobi we flashed without incident. Reaching Peking we came to a stop within the sacred walls of the old Forbidden City. In these latter years, every time I think of Peking, it is with an ache that goes to the very bottom of my heart, for it was in that city I had an unfortunate experience that caused me many days and nights of anguish. CHAPTER XL WELCOMED TO PEKING. Trifles, light as air, Are, to the jealous, confirmations as strong As proof of Holy Writ. Shakespeare's Othello. Our arrival in the Purple Forbidden City natur ally caused a commotion. Guards, topped with hats that looked like upturned bowls, came running from every direction. Had the Emperor not taken the precaution to notify them of our coming, we might have been shot on the spot for invading sa cred territory. As it was an army official, garbed in yards of silk, approached and did a katowing act that would have been impossible for old age. With the utmost civility we were escorted to the Imperial Palace, where, after a short delay, we were received by the Son of Heaven in person. In manner he was democratic. The Emperor was robed in a combination of red and yellow silks, and had an air of ineffable dignity. Instead of taking his chair in the throne room, he advanced to meet us, and took each of our party by the hand. The Emperor spoke English with ease, so that there was nothing stilted about our initial 77 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. reception. Father Gladstone, of course, did all of the talking for the Brotherhood party. The first meeting was devoted to those little amenities, typ ical of the broad minded. "Where did I learn my English?" Emperor King Swa replied to Father Gladstone. "As the heir apparent, I was not allowed to leave my coun try. After the usual Chinese course in ethics, geo graphy, astronomy and some other sciences, it was my good fortune to have as tutor a former Yale graduate, Sam Lung by nam.e Mr. Lung took second honors in his class. Being an observant man he saw the wonderful hold the Brotherhood idea had on America. He studied it and became .a convert. He taught me English, and collected for me a library of standard English works. In addition he showed me that it was only a question of time until the Brotherhood idea would domi nate in China. It several years ago gained a foothold, and its converts now number millions. I have become convinced that it is the right gov ernmental system, and will welcome its establish ment here. Several of the Viceroys, and thous ands of the office holders, many of whom I know are confirmed grafters, have been vigorous in urg ing me to cling to traditional government. I have at heart the best interests of. my people, and so thoroughly believe in Brotherhood ideals that the loss of my throne is nothing. Threats have re cently been made against my life by members of the Gen Wing faction, several adherents of which 78 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. have inborn the old, almost forgotten, 'foreign devil' cry, but I am not afraid of them," concluded this real Emperor, as he straightened up and seemed great enough to vanquish his enemies with his logic. I instantly became a warm admirer of this ruler, who was shrewd enough to see the trend of events and take time by the forelock. "I shall want to see you all tomorrow evening at 8," he added, "for a thorough discussion of Brotherhood laws, and for some light on features now obscure to me." "We shall be glad to come," said Father Glad stone. "We want to give all the impetus possible to the movement on this side of the globe." Inasmuch as Raper and I had come into the city together, we were paired for a lodging place. He and I became the guests of the Titu, or Governor of the city, who lives in an imposing brick man sion directly northwards from King Shan, or Prospect Hill. En route from the Imperial Palace to that residence, our wish to view the city from the great wall, fifty feet high and forty feet wide at the top, the base being sixty, was readily granted. "Magnificent!" exclaimed Raper, "I had no idea the city was so beautiful." The square miles of city before us looked like a huge park, dotted here and there with buildings, the upturned roofs of which, bright in tiles of blue, green and yellow, glittered in the sunlight. The Titu's home was a dream of Oriental lux- 79 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. ury. Chinese artists of fame had been given carte blanche to decorate the house, which, with its great screens, costly bric-a-brac and truly magnificent furniture, was, to us, a source of unending delight. The Titu was a man of great personal wealth, who, we learned later, did not take kindly to the demand of the millions of his fellow men, to abandon the old regime, and take up something new from across the broad Pacific. Not by word or sign, however, did he give any indication of his hostility. He had been asked to entertain us, and he did so with a grace that was charming. That night, when we were ushered out to the dining room, great was my surprise to find the Titu's daughter next to me at the table, and greater still was my amazement when I learned that she was a graduate of Vassar, and as well acquainted in New York as she was in Peking. Many a man has gone into the Orient, expecting to encounter ignorance, bigotry, stupidity and superstition, only to find the structure of imagination he has built up false from foundation to roof. The daughter's name was Onwa Ling Lu. She was, in truth, a Chinese belle, who would have graced a drawing room in any center of civiliza tion, and just the kind, I suppose, Alice had in mind at the Fratersurb Station, when she gave me her warning. Miss Onwa was dressed in a style that Gibson girls, Stanislaw stunners and Fisher fairies of the ultra- fashionable days of years ago could have found no fault with. She was dark, 80 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. petite and vivacious. With an olive complexion, eyes of starry brightness, and teeth so white the surfeit of ivory in the house, by comparison, looked brown, she made a picture for a painter. The menu was typically Chinese, and included the inevitable bird's nest soup, bamboo shoots, shark's fins, aged eggs, which are considered a treat, and other delicacies. From a Chinese gas tronomic point of view it was a great feast. The Titu had received an English education, and the degree of A. B. from Oxford. He had always leaned toward the sciences, and things abstruse never failed to interest him. He plied ns \ ill: question after question about new inventions in Brotherhood land, and was interested in partic ular in the new steamships, now run wholly for health purposes. These ships are a mile in length and accommodate on board a whole city of moder ate proportions. Every up to date convenience is supplied. Among them is a trolley line that runs clear around the ship, taking passengers from one roint to another without delay. At the conclusion of our dinner the host took me to his "den," as he chose to call it, a long, well lighted room, fitted with all manner of scientific instruments. Great was my surprise to find he had a communicator. I did not think it would carry a message to America, but he assured me it would, there being sounding boards of strong vi bratory qualities at Guam and Honolulu. Raper was at the Aerograph station. 81 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. Later the Titu showed me over his extensive grounds, where landscape gardening had been em ployed on a large scale. It was some time later that, alone, I strolled back to the house, esconced myself in the library and settled down for perusal of the Peking Daily Gazette, half of which was- at this time printed in English. I had not read long, when the door softly opened and Miss Onwa burst into the room. "I did not expect to find you here, Mr. Young," she exclaimed. "Are you going to the dance at the British Embassy tonight?" "Knew nothing about it," I answered promptly. "I understand that you Chinese belles, now that you have given up foot bandaging, are among the most graceful dancers in the world." "Flatterer ! I'll wager a pair of Paris gloves you have paid compliments to many an American belle." "To tell the truth is not flattery/' I insisted. The little almond eyed beauty burst into a merry laugh and declared that Raper and I must go to the ball. As she flitted from the room a picture of Alice, as I last saw her, came into my mind. Why not -call her up? There was a communicator almost within reach. Pressing an electric button I sum moned Sam Loy, the library boy (it seems there is a different servant for each room in the house of Chinese dignitaries.) "Miss Onwa, Miss Onwa," I said in the best 82 The ivire was so heavily charged that its touch at the exposed point meant death." EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. Chinese I was able to muster. Sam slunk away r to be followed a few moments later by a swish of skirts that told, unmistakably, of the approach of the daughter of the house. "Your communicator, I would like to use it," I started. "This way," she commanded, I a willing private to her role of captain. "The switch works hard," she explained. "Now as soon as you have finished I want to talk with you about the ball. I will wait right here." After some delay I got Alice's home by the way of San Francisco and Chicago. The minute the Fratersurb Exchange cut in on the Meredith home, Alice, in reflection, appeared on the large disc in front of me. Onwa clapped her hands in joy. "American girl !" she exclaimed, as she came running toward me, not realizing that I had anything of a confi dential nature to say. Onwa came closer until she was almost against the switch. At the same time there was a sputtering as part of the wire sudden ly exposed, through faulty insulation, came in con tact with the iron bracket of the switch. The wire was so heavily charged that its touch at the ex posed point meant death. Onwa did not realize her peril. Scarcely an inch intervened between her bare wrist and the dangerous wire. There was but one thing to do. The time was too short for a vocal warning. Throwing out my free arm, I caught her about the waist and pulled her 83 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. against me. She had not been in the range of the reflector. Alice gave a look of amazement and vanished. I did not know whether the sudden dis connection was due to the electric leak, or to pos sible misinterpretation by Alice, of the presence in my arms of the Chinese maiden. Here was a pretty plight for a man who was virtually engaged. "Miss Onwa," I stammered, "excuse me, but didn't you see how close you were to death?" I hurriedly explained. She grew pale, fainted and fell back limp in my arms. At the same mo ment the door opened and the Titu strode into the room. CHAPTER XII. BATTLE OF WITS. Extol not riches, then, the toll of fools, The wise man's cumbrance, if not snare, more apt, To slacken virtue and abate her edge, Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise. Milton's Paradise Regained. When the Titu learned that I had saved his daughter's life he was gratitude personified. He was my escort that night to the palace for a dis cussion of the Brotherhood system. That day I had made five trips to the aerograph station for the expected message from Alice. There was none, which was a mystery. Alice always kept her word. There was something wrong somewhere. The foremost men of the Chinese Empire were in the Assembly Hall at the Palace for the mem orable meeting, which, the next day, was given first place in the world's events by the newspapers. The Emperor and Father Gladstone occupied chairs side by side on the dais. To each side were members of our party, Viceroys, Mandarins, other officials, teachers, authors, scientists and sociolo gists. The yellow peacock feather and loose silk coats and baggy trousers of hues as varied as those 85 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. of the rainbow were in evidence. In the audi torium, which was filled to the back walls, there was the same variety of bright colors. From where I sat on the dais, surveying the audience was like looking through a huge kaleidoscope. It was at exactly eight o'clock that the Emperor arose and tersely stated the object of the meeting. ''My friends," he began, "we are honored with the presence tonight of Father Gladstone, the fore most exponent of Brotherhood Government. I as sume much of the responsibility for his presence in China. As many of you know, I have, for sev eral years, given much study to the science of gov ernment. The conviction has grown on me that in Brother hod laws, most of the knotty problems of government have been solved. I am so much of an idealist that my throne is, relatively, unimport ant. I want to see our people as happy as it is pos sible for them to be. If it is the concensus of opin ion among you that Twenty-second century gov ernment, as exemplified in the Brotherhood idea, is the thing for China, then I am for the change." There was vigorous handclapping from all over the room. The Emperor, as Raper put it, made a ten strike. "Father Gladstone will now address us," the Emperor concluded. He stepped back, took the Brotherhood leader by the hand, led him forward and introduced him. "Brothers," Father Gladstone said, as he coolly measured the size and the character of his audi- 86 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. ence, "I would be recreant to duty if I failed to publicly acknowledge my indebtedness to your Emperor for his gracious welcome and hospitality. Rulers in the past have abdicated their thrones for -one reason or another. The record of kingdoms and empires is dotted with such incidents. Some times the throne was abdicated through fear, sometimes for sex love, and sometimes on account of old age. Never before in all history, however, is there any record of a sovereign, for purely un selfish reasons, voluntarily offering to relinquish his crown to give impetus to a great social move ment. Brothers, you have among you, in your ruler, one of the greatest men of all times." There was another outburst of applause. It was noticeable that one section of the auditorium was singularly silent. "See Gen Wing over there?" Raper whispered. He pointed to a corner where a Chinaman of about 60 years of age, having a fierce mustache that was trying to run back of his ears, was the centre of a sullen group. "If I am not mistaken there is going to be some trouble here tonight," Raper added. "Now, my brothers," Father Gladstone con tinued, "this is your meeting. I am here to answer questions and to give you information. Ideal gov ernments, so-called, have tried to make all men equal. For years they succeeded only theoretical ly. It appears to be settled, beyond controversy, that the great aim of reform governments, dating EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. from the time European kings were deposed, was to bring about as far as possible, equality among men. Constitutions were adopted and laws were framed with that object in view. In one way' or another well meant plans always failed until the Brotherhood idea of government was launched. The few had always secured special privileges at the expense, of necessity, of the many. Laws for years for the regulation of the greedy proved in effective, because they were not enforced. This is all a matter of comparatively recent history. It is remarkable that the municipal ownership idea had its birth in England, where two centuries ago it had spread to such proportions that hundreds of towns were affected, all to decided advantage of the people. It was in Europe that government ownership of railroads and telegraphs originated. It made its appearance in the United States in the postal system. After several years' incubation, it suddenly seemed like wildfire to sweep with irre sistible force from one end of the country to the other. Its wisdom is no longer questioned. The idea grew with the aggressions of the plutocrats. All was not easy sailing. There were hidden rocks and rough seas. As there is no pleasure without pain, so there is no success without effort. When Brotherhood government was first proposed the idea was ridiculed by those whose ancestors had been Tories when the republic was in embryo. There were many causes that contributed to the success of the Brotherhood movement. One was EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. the accumulation of great fortunes by a few men, another defiance of laws by the plutocrats, and a third ridicule by them of the courts, some of which in a Western state were bought and sold as wanted for use. The people were patient for a long time in the face of these abuses, but even tually the protests that were made resulted in a complete change in the personnel of Congress and the State Legislatures. Sweeping reforms were inaugurated, and, finally, successful Brotherhood government superseded the old system. The ac cumulation by one man of $400,000,000 in a busi ness lifetime, say 40 years, was one of the potent illustrations used by those fighting special privi leges, as manifested in monopoly, railroad rebates and widespread corruption. Some writers have since placed this one man's wealth at $1,000,000,- ooo. Using the first figures mentioned as a basis for computation, it is seen that this man made an average of a million dollars every month. His wealth producing power was equal to that of 17,- ooo men working at $2 per day. The Brotherhood plan of limiting fortunes is old. It was given some impetus back in 1906, when President Theodore Roosevelt proposed a progressive tax on incomes. The evil had been recognized long years before that. In those days there lived a great editor by the name of Henri Watterson. His paper was the Louisville Courier Journal. On April 18, 1906, he said editorially of the Roosevelt proposition : The utterance of the President is just as radical, just EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. as far reaching and just as pertinent as that of President Lincoln, when he said: *I believe the government cannot endure half free and half slave. As slavery was the menace of the union in 1858, is money its menace now? As slavery built up an oligarchy in the South, is money building up a plutocracy in the East? Just as it was true that the government could not endure half free and half slave is it true that if the government does not destroy the plutocracy, the plutocracy will de stroy the government.' "The newspapers of the day contained state ments from the money kings, in which the pro posed tax was excoriated. One U. S. Senator, rated at $70,000,000, forthwith declared that he would at once deliver a speech in the Senate in opposition to the proposed measure. "Eventually individual wealth was limited. The present limit for any one person is $50,000. The idea has worked so well, without causing the pre dicted stagnation in the affairs of men, that I now firmly believe the time will come when the limit will be reduced to $25,000. We still have our rich and our poor, but we have no great extremes as in the past. Ambition has not been stifled, enter prise is not at a standstill and colossal undertak ings have not been abandoned. The world today is moving forward at a faster pace than ever be fore in its history." Gen Wing had grown red in the face. Sputter- 90 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. ing he arose and requested permission to ask a question. "Is it right," he inquired, "to reward the indus trious and idle alike?" "We do not do so," was Father Gladstone's prompt answer. "Industry with us still has its re ward. He that will not work cannot have the good raiment or palatable food that his industrious brother enjoys. In our schools the curriculum has been vastly changed, so that children, from primer to geometry, are taught unselfishness, industry and governmental evils of the past. Inasmuch as ed ucation is compulsory, the finished young man has pretty well defined ideas about the Brotherhood movement, and is invariably its warm champion." "Don't you interfere with property rights?" Gen. Wing again interrogated. "Yes," was the unexpected answer of Father Gladstone. "We keep the selfish from taking that which never did belong to them." Gen Wing, as red as a lobster, sat down and tried to get back farther into the corner. Mandarin Ah Tung, a member of the Wing fac tion, arose and asked permission to speak. His request was graciously granted by both Father Gladstone and the Emperor. Ah Tung was the typical scholar in appearance. He had a large head, a clean shaven face and a judicial air. Large rimmed glasses partially concealed his eyes. His arguments were the same that had been made dec ades before against the Brotherhood. 91 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. Beginning, he said : "When I was in college we were taught the laissez faire system of gov ernment, the right of individual control. We looked on the postal service under government control with suspicion. Times have changed, but I still think the system a sound one. Many of the advocates of this policy are those whose struggle for a living has been severe and unsuccessful. When, however, you find among college graduates men who are swayed by their emotions, you find a class of persons with whom it is hard to be pa tient. I hope that China will not make the pro posed change." Father Gladstone was on his feet in a moment. "You must know," he said, answering the man darin, "that the Brotherhood system of govern ment is an absolute success. We do not now and never have opposed individual control of private property, but in the interests of the many we are as unalterably opposed to unlimited wealth in the hands of one individual as we are opposed to the system which resulted in the extremely rich and the extremely poor. If I tonight were by physical su per ority, to rob my neighbor, all would say I was guilty of a crime. Under the old system I could rob him, not by physical supremacy, but by leg islative enactment, and not suffer for it. For in stance, a dozen of us, engaged in the same busi ness, could combine and secure the imposition of a heavy tariff on the article we manufactured. By shutting out foreign competition and controlling 92 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. the home market we could make our profits as great as we desired. "Is there, after all, much difference between that kind of robbery and holding a man up in the high way? The securing of special privileges in the past made many men millionaires. Their fortunes were built on a system of polite brigandage." "The man who takes risks in investing large sums of capital and giving employment to hun dreds of men is entitled to special privileges," Ah Tung speciously argued. "Why?" Father Gladstone interrogated. "Because he should receive more than an or dinary reward for taking a step far in advance of his fellow men." "That is the same old argument," Father Glad stone retorted. "Pursuit of the plan resulted years ago in the virtual ownership of the United States by approximately 50 men. They either owned or controlled all of the railroads, and by controlling the trusts fixed the prices of food stuffs, clothing, building material and even the caskets in which men were laid away to rest. They had 70,000,000 people absolutely at their mercy. "How does this harmonize with the idea of 'a government of the people, by the people and for the people?' If God made the air so that all could breathe it alike, why isn't it true that he made the land, with its varied wealth, for the equal enjoy ment of all? Primarily did the earth belong to all alike or to a few individuals, who by said owner- 93 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. ship virtually controlled the destinies of their fel low creatures? After all the real object of gov ernment should be the people's happiness. Who is there that dars say that was the result under the old system, when the spirit of trying to elbow your neighbor out of the way dominated?" Ah Tung was, in the parlance of the old fron tier, still loaded for bear. He continued: "The right of property has played quite as important a part in human progress as in human liberty. The laborer must have the right to enjoy what his in dustry has produced. What one had the right to enjoy he had the right to give to another to enjoy, and so the transmission of property became fixed, and property passed from one generation to an other. The institution of private property has led to the capital of the world. Without it the world would still be groping In darkness." "Is that latter sentence correct?" Father Glad stone asked. "It is the argument of the plutocrats. If you deny that the purpose of government is to bring the greatest good to the greatest number, then possibly there is some basis for this conten tion. If the old fallacy that the world was made for the enjoyment of a favored few is to be fol lowed blindly, then the Brotherhood system is wrong. But it was not. The plutocrat has taken and still takes special privileges as he can. He con siders himself a superior being, to whom the poorer and meaner should pay adoration. Thank the Lord the plutocrat, years ago, as far as our 94 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. land is concerned, had the scales knocked from his eyes, and was shown that he was not entitled to favors. The tribute that the whole world once paid to money, making it superior to everything else, honesty, virtue, talent and genius, undoubted ly had much to do with the assumption by the plu tocrat of unusual rights. Mr. Ah Tung, your ar gument sounds suspiciously like a political speech of one of the great politicians of 200 years ago." Ah Tung was on his feet again, this time with this argument: "The only way a man can enjoy the fruit of his labor is to give to all others the right to enjoy theirs. Yet we are told that we must divide up wealth. I am confident that while there are some morbid thinkers among university graduates, we can safely believe that most of them are sane and will set their faces against the pro posed distribution of private property." "Mr. Ah Tung," Father Gladstone replied. "We want men to enjoy the fruit of their labor. In ad dition we don't want one man to enjoy the fruit of other men's work; in other words we do not want him to have that to which he is not entitled by any moral, social or, if you please, legal right, for as a rule large fortunes have been built on the wreck of some wisely framed law or just prin ciple. Men have worked co-operatively from the first. Even the trusts of the past were co-opera tive. Why has it not been a good thing to extend the idea to include all of the people? "If a man is found with that which does not be- 95 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. long to him, why should he not be compelled to turn it over to the rightful owners? Some of the worst anarchists of the past have been those mag nates who brazenly defied the laws, bought up judges, and, like the kings of old, laughed at the claims of the people that their rights had been vio lated. Life at its longest is short, and in the time that man is on earth he should truly know, by his experiences, that all men are created free and equal." The report of the meeting was read with wide spread interest all over the world. A committee was appointed, which two hours later brought in a report that China adopt Brotherhood government. Our mission had been successful, and a day later we began preparations for our trip to the base of the Himalayas. These preparations included the addition of emergency tubes to the ships of our fleet. Would our expectations be realized? Would the new light, about which little was known, prove as wonderful as anticipated? "Over green plains and brown and gray mountains we sped." CHAPTER XIII. UNDER MT. EVEREST. The whispering air Sends inspiration from the mountain heights. Wadsworth. The last thing I did before we left Peking was to visit the aerograph station, hoping there would be a message there from Fratersurb. Disappoint ment was my lot. The understrapper in charge said with an asperity, characteristic of many of his kind, that there was nothing for me. It is scarcely necessary for me to say that I was deeply grieved. With a heavy heart I went to the projectile sta tion. We were due to leave at 9 a. m. A great party of distinguished Chinese, headed by the Em peror, was down to see us off. Master Sykes, af ter carefully getting his bearings, turned the prow of our ship a little more to the southwest. There were fervent farewells and the signal for the start was given. Over green plains and brown and gray mountains we sped, all with rapidly beating hearts in anticipation of unusual experiences. Our desti nation was Kunchinjinga, the nearest large town to Mt. Everest. But for the fact that the white peak of that greatest mountain was so conspicuous, 97 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. we probably would have experienced difficulty in coming down at the right spot. Our ships came to rest on the green sward just outside the city. Na tives, with wonderment written on their faces, flocked to the scene. At first they were diffident and kept at some distance. Friendly signs made encouraged them and they came closer. Our de light was great when Roger Brown, representing a London mining company, greeted us with a cheery "Good morning." These were about the most wel come words I had heard in days. He was a large, well built man with blue eyes and a red face that told of good living. ''Where are you going and where are you from?" he asked. "From Fratersurb and now bound for home," Master Sykes and Clarke said in unison. "Just from Peking," Reid added. "I shall be glad to be your host here," the Brit isher remarked cordially. "The accommodations are poor, but, I think, I can make it worth your while to stay a day or so." For the party Father Gladstone accepted the in vitation. The natives were now fairly swarming around the different airships and were examining every part of the machines with keen interest. I turned and looked around me with varying emo tions. Off to the northwest was Mt. Everest, meas uring 29,002 feet in height. The huge pile of earth and rock, the summit almost lost in the clouds that morning, hung over us with ominous portent; at 98 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. least I felt so, being gloomy and dejected. Turn ing around I surveyed the town, largely a collec tion of huts, except for some yellow buildings on a square, and some rather pretentious residences at the southern edge. Except for the massiveness and grandeur of the mountains, there was nothing attractive about us. A party of Brahmin priests stood on the edge of the crowd, which had grown with the passing of each minute. Some of the na tives fancied we were messengers from Heaven, and were as ready to worship us as the American Indians were eager to adore Christopher Colum bus and his followers. The moment Father Glad stone saw the priests he made his way to them and presented a letter he carried. One of the number read it and beckoned to the Englishman. With the latter as interpreter we were told that the great Brahmin of the locality, Marayan Krishna, was at home. The letter was an open sesame to him. Fa ther Gladstone indicated that we wanted to see him. Guides were provided. One of them, a young man of 20, spoke English, which he had learned in a school in Madras. Our Mecca was two miles away. The path was a rough and stony one, and walking was a necessity. After two hours of tire some trudging we came in sight of the great man's abode. It was a simple hut, set against a rocky wall. About three hundred feet away a small waterfall sparkled in the sun. The hut was carpetless, and bore evidence that the occupant led the simplest life. He was nowhere in sight. We sat down 99 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. on the uneven ground to wait. Presently the priest, bearing on his back a bundle of faggots, emerged from some underbrush to the rear. He was apparently 70 years of age. When he had thrown his load to the ground and straightened up I mar velled at his bearing. It was military if not regal. He stood erect and looked at us with piercing black eyes, as if reading our inmost thoughts. He wore a brown robe or surtout, with a hood hang ing down his back. His face, which had been a study in stolidness, lighted up when he read the letter Father Gladstone presented. The two shook hands with great warmth and cordiality. Later there was an introduction all around. Through the interpreter the two leaders talked at length. "How is our devout brother, Arine Brishna, who is now in your land?" the Brahmin inquired. It was from him that Father Gladstone had ob tained the letter which unlocked the doors to the priest's heart. "He is well and sent his love by me," Father Gladstone replied. "You come for what?" the priest asked. "To see the great light," was the answer. "I am glad of it," the priest said. "You are not missionaries. We have more religion of our own than we know what to do with ; in fact, a surplus that we would like to export. If you want to Christianize us send us some men that are quali fied to teach. Until then the Vedas, our four books of philosophy, are good enough for us." 100 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. "We teach the Golden Rule, the simplest and the greatest doctrine," Father Gladstone answered. "It was in your country," the priest continued, "that great extremes m wealth and poverty ex isted"; and then he quoted not from his but our Bible. That incident at once elevated him in my mind to the skies. Here is what he quoted according to the inter preter: "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth eaten." "Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. You have heaped treasure together for the last days." "Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton ; ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just and he doth not resist you." James 5 : 1-3, 5-7. "We have reformed our part of the world," Father Gladstone answered. "We have gotten back to basic principles. We have not had anything in particular against the rich man, realizing that he was the creature of a false system. Brotherhood has corrected this system." "You do not call your system Socialism," the priest said. "You threw aside the objectionable features of that creed and adopted the good. Do you know that I have in my library a remarkable prediction, made two hundred years ago, following 101 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. the great religious congress in Chicago, by an em inent religious teacher of your country ? His name, let me see, Archbishop J. J. Glennon, of St. Louis. He said as nearly as I can remember, (what a remarkable memory this man had), some thing like this: 'The social fabric appears today to be in imminent danger, because old principles are ignored and old foundations attacked. What was held as law is now regarded as injustice ; what was held as government is now deemed tyranny. Men no longer hold the duty of obedience to power, nor admit that power should claim a divine sanc tion. Government as it is must change. Laws as now written must be modified, and the principles of old, deemed sacred, must give way to the new order, the new principles based on what they would claim must lead to the absolute social, civic, psychic and physical equality of men. In other words we must socialize the entire people. We must tear down the mighty from their seats and elevate those of low degree. Property rights, vested interests, private ownership all must go. It is humanity that alone may remain, and all of the principle and tradition of written law must yield to the new gos pel, the socialization of the people. It was folly to deny that the shadow of socialism is hanging over the land, and while learned men are busy pointing out its unreasonableness, its injustice, its lack of feasibility, the shadow deepens, the preach ers capitulate and the leaders grow more auda- 102 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. "How prophetic it all sounds," Father Gladstone exclaimed, "in the light of the developments of the last two hundred years. It is the more remarkable, in view of the fact that the Archbishop was the rep resentative of a great religious organization that had years before strongly declared against social ism." "You want to see the light? Come then," the priest said. We followed him up and down a rocky path un til we came to a large stone building, occupying a site, commanding a view of a beautiful valley. It was the home of the priests of the locality and the home of our priest, except when he chose to go off to his hut and live in the simplicity of the earliest days. A long wooden trough conveyed a small stream of mountain water into a shed-like building that stood to the right of the main structure. Straight to the door the priest led us. 103 CHAPTER XIV. LIGHT FROM WATER. True religion is always mild, propitious, humble, Plays not the tyrant, plants no faith in blood; Nor bears destruction on her chariot wheels; But stoops to polish, succor, and redress, And builds her grandeur on the public good. Miller's Mahomet. A problem once solved is easy. The arts of mak ing malleable glass and of hardening copper, to say nothing of embalming, known to the ancients, and lost three thousand years ago, were found a few years back to be exceedingly simple. In the gulf be tween the remote past and the present, thousands had tried in vain to discover the secrets. Man in vents something new. It commands an enormous sale. Everybody looks at it and says the same thing "It's a wonder some one did not think of that long ago." Once inside the building, housing the mysteri ous light and fuel, we looked around with keen in terest. The structure was about forty feet square. Near the centre was an iron cylinder, looking not unlike one of the old so-called cannon stoves, ex cept at the top there was a funnel-like hopper and 104 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. around the periphery, several curled pipes of dif ferent diameters with valves, cut-offs and gauges. "The interior of the stove, retort or generator," our priest cicerone explained through the inter preter, "is entirely free from chemicals." At his request, the interpreter removed a cat head large enough for us to peer in. We could not see much except a small hollow place, topped and bottomed with iron plates, slightly incrusted with lime. This was Clarke's opportunity to get busy. While we were all peeking around, trying to find the hidden mystery, the ubiquitous newspaper man began : "I have it. It is an old idea, but one that was never made of commercial value. The plan is to make gas from water by a proper use of its two gases, oxygen and hydrogen." Clarke, by this time, had taken the lecturing air of a college professor, and continued with some pedantry: "Hydrogen gas, you know, readily burns in oxygen or air with formation of vaoor of water. I am speaking of the so-called oxyhydro- gen flame. The quantity of heat evolved, according to Thomsen, amounts to 34,116 units for every unit of weight of hydrogen burned, which means that, supposing the two gases were originally at the tem perature of, say o degrees C, to bring the hot steam produced into the condition of liquid water of o degrees C we must withdraw from it a quantity of heat equal to that necessary to raise 34,116 units of weight of liquid water from o de grees to i degree C. The heat disturbance is 105 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. quite independent of the particular mode in which the process is conducted. It is the same for in stance, whether pure oxygen or air be used as a re agent, being neither more or less than the balance of energy between one part of hydrogen plus eight parts of oxygen on the one hand, and nine parts of liquid water on the other." "Rah for Clarke," shouted Raper and Wallace. "It's Dr. Clarke after this," Wallace added. "Go on!" Clarke did, and as follows: "The temperature of the flame, on the other hand, does depend on the circumstances under which the process takes place. It obviously obtains its maximum in the case of the firing of pure 'oxyhydrogen' gas, that is a mixture of hydrogen with exactly half its volume of oxygen, the quantity it combines within becom ing water. It becomes less when the 'oxyhydrogen' is mixed with the excess of one or the other of the two co-reagents or an inert gas, such as nitrogen, because in any such case the small amount of heat spreads over a large quantity of matter." "Done?" asked Raper. "Yes," snapped Clarke, showing considerable perturbation. The Brahmin had listened with attention, the in terpreter explaining as Clarke proceeded. "That's right," the aged priest remarked. "We make light and heat from water. The idea is an old one. Two centuries ago an American claimed to have made cheap gas from water. It was evidently 106 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. a failure, as, after that, nothing more was heard of the alleged discovery. Our process is comparative ly inexpensive. Look !" He turned a gate in the trough, carrying the tiny stream of water, diverting the liquid from the over flow to the funnel. He quickly turned half a dozen valves, and asked for a match. Lighting one, a clear white light of great brilliancy sprang from a tip, standing upright from an inch metal pipe that came from the middle of the cylinder. "Watch it!" the priest admonished. Slowly turning a wheel valve, he caused the flame to change from perfect incandescence to a blue light of great heat, the latter for fuel. We stood and looked in open mouthed wonder. Here was a Brahmin, living in a mountain fastness, who had made a marvelous discovery, and who was evidently, from what he had already said, closely acquainted with what was happening in the great world outside. From rush light and pine knot to this! What se crets the world had yielded up, and yet it was still full of them. At this time, owing to the large in crease in the world's population, the exhaustion of most of the coal mines, and the scarcity of timber, the fuel supply question had taken a commanding position in the international forum. "Father Krishna," I ventured, "you have certain ly made a wonderful discovery, and the world owes you a great debt." "Our light," he answered, "belongs to the whole world. If it is of great value, as it seems to be, 107 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. it will prove a great blessing. I hope so." The newspaper correspondents were worried. There was no aerograph station within 300 miles, and yet here was news that ought to be on the way across the ocean. Raper suddenly disappeared. Later, we learned that he had discovered there was a telegraph office in the town. He hurried back, with the other correspondents a half mile in the rear. Raper got into the office out of breath, and began to grind out copy with an improved Faber, as if future happiness depended on his speed. Fin ishing his despatch, he clipped an article a column long from a Bombay paper six months old, and had the operator continue this as a part of his message, doing it to hold the wire. That is the way Raper scored the greatest scoop in his entire career. My opportunity to talk to Father Krishna at length came when we sat down under a grape ar bor, while the others of the party either rested or strolled about, they having been given the freedom of the place. '"Father," I began, through the interpreter whom I had called, "out in our world you priests have, for centuries, had the reputation of possessing se crets in reference to the occult that are not known to ordinary mortals. I can reaHily believe this, knowing full well that specialization in any direc tion leads to surprising results. What can you tell me?" "Son," he answered, "there are some things I can tell you, and some I cannot, unless you become one 108 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. of us, which would mean a probationary period of nine years, during which time, you would be sub jected to numerous ordeals as tests for your fit ness for our work. It is true that we have learned many secrets, psychological and otherwise, that are not known to the outside world. They have been handed down from one generation of priests to another. The world is one of mysteries. Year af ter year these mysteries grow fewer. The world is already discovering some of the things known to us for lo! these many centuries. The misty past is a graveyard of valuable secrets. If the great Alexandrian Library had not been burned down, most of them would have been carried down to a curious posterity. The world is now investigating our theory of reincarnation, based on the simple truth that matter is indestructible, and that recur rence is the unalterable rule." "Reincarnation?" I gasped, "that is what I want to know about. One of my ancestors, who for merly lived in this country, was a believer in it, and left me a legacy in the shape of a written ac count of his experiences." "You want to know about? Well, then, come around tomorrow, say at 9 o'clock." The hour suited me exactly and I was feverish with expec tancy. 109 CHAPTER XV. BACK Six GENERATIONS. They that on glorious ancestors enlarge, Produce their debt instead of their discharge. Young. When I appeared at the monastery the next morning at the appointed hour, it was with a well defined idea as to how the interior of the somewhat imposing stone structure would appear. It seems that, as a rule, tiger skins and Himalayan build ings are unavoidably associated together. When I was ushered into the office or reception room, there was no tiger skin; neither were there any costly vases, fine bric-a-brac, expensive pieces of ivory, or rare works of art. Instead, extreme simplicity ruled. The chairs were plain, but comfortable. There was a rug on the floor, and in one corner a desk that shared the austerity of the other furnish ings of the room. On a shelf was a statuette of Brahma. The walls were rough plastered and bare, save for three prints. Rows of low shelves were filled with books, mostly, I judged, of a religious character. A bikshu (a priest) came in and bowed low, making gestures, indicating that I was welcome, no EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. and pointing to a chair to be seated. He had a lean, sallow face, and looked as if he never smiled. His figure was enveloped from neck to feet in a gray cassock, held at the middle with a girdle. The striking thing about the priest was his high fore head and intellectual face. He sat down, evident ly, waiting for Father Krishna. After eyeing me critically, as if analyzing the powers of my facul ties, he fell into a fit of abstraction, and did not again notice me. His thoughts were evidently far away. A few minutes later, Father Krishna, accom panied by the interpreter of the day before, came in, smiled and shook hands with me. The infor mation, given him by Father Gladstone, that I was one of the youngest of the leaders of the Brother hood movement, had undoubtedly impressed him,. (I say this without intending to appear egotistical). He inquired after my health, and then asked if I were ready to learn of the transmigration of souls. Assuring him that I was, he pointed to a door lead ing to the rear. In the adjoining room was a flight of stone steps that led to a long hall, lined on either side by a row of monks' cells. Some of them were occupied. Curiously, it appeared to me, not one of the monks looked up, or gave us the slightest notice. Father Krishna led me to a cell in the far end of the hall. Bidding me enter, he and the interpreter followed. Talking in a low, musical voice, he began: "Looking backward is for us easier than looking in EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. forward. Your people, especially those that keep in close touch with current events, can easily read at least a part of the future. Things that are mys teries to the untutored are as plain as day to the learned. I have read that centuries ago Indians of your Mississippi region looked on a certain man as possessing supernatural powers because his dec laration that on a certain day the Heavens would grow dark at noon and the sun would be hidden from view, came true to the minute. That man knew by superior knowledge of a coming eclipse. He was held in such awe that if he had desired it he could have become the absolute ruler of those red men. The human mind as well as the hu man body is capable of extraordinary development in any direction. This is illustrated by specializa tion in the world's schools. We bikshus are spe cialists. We have for centuries past trained our minds in certain directions. It is no longer difficult for us to look backward, and through the memory of former lives, read the history of the past. You are likely to fail in your first attempts. Com plete loss to the world is necessary. You must se clude yourself in this cell, close your eyes and sit and think of a former existence that only, and nothing more. If you have success, your former life will appear to you very faintly. After repeated trials it will, with each attempt, grow clearer." I thanked him and he left me alone. Just for a moment I would look around and take note of my companions, not one of whom had deigned to no us EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. > tice me. What an odd lot! What a life to lead, shut up here away from civilization, sitting for hours apparently half asleep, turning prayer wheels and living an existence almost primitive. I cer tainly was not in a religious mood. Why could I not concentrate my mind on my past existence? Who had I been before I was ushered into this world as Robert Young? I closed my eyes tightly, gritted my teeth and resolved to find out. The hall was warm and close, and great beads of sweat stood out on my forehead. I would not confess failure. If these monks, living up here in the moun tains away from the activities and progress of the world, could see into the past, so could I, too. I closed my eyes more tightly and pressed on the lids with my finger tips. Pictures ? Yes, rolls of changing colors with yellow and streaks of black dominant. Then came fantastic figures and miles of what looked like wall paper. The past? When woald it come ? What one man could do another ought to be able to do. I yawned. Good gracious ! I was growing drowsy. Was that one of the symptoms? I changed my fingers from my eyes to my ears and shut out all sound. I would be dead to my envi ronment. Ha! What was that? I opened my eyes and looked. Nothing more than one of the monks leaving his cell, where he had been for hours. What had Alice meant when she said that she would give me her answer in Peking? What bearing on our affairs had these mystics? Here I was ruminating over an outside matter. Why EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. didn't I stick to my task? It was easy for the monks. How hard my chair had become! Was ever a more uncomfortable one made? Why not lie down ? There was a bunk at my side. I did so. again closed my eyes tightly and resolved to allow no stray thought to interfere with my experiment. Then came a succession of prismatic colors, danc ing in fantastic shapes before me. Small at first, and varied in character, they gradually grew larger until they merged into the figure of a man. Faint lines gave way to sharp ones; the pale face took on life and color, and I fancied I could see the blood coursing through the veins and arteries. Yes, there was pulsation on the forehead. Eureka ! I had succeeded. It was I in the preceding genera tion. The figure was tall, clean shaven and cleri cal in appearance. The voice was that of an ora tor. The figure had a commanding air, and had evidently been a leader. Then it all became plain. I had been a missionary and had done yeoman work in bringing a part of the effete East to the Brother hood way of thinking. In Newport, the scenes of aristocratic triumphs, the dogs had been sicked on me. In Fifth Avenue I had been pointed out as a crazy man. On the East Side of New York I had been given an ovation. Later, what a triumph for me, when Brotherhood swept that section of the country, carrying everything before it. So, suc cessful, I went back farther and farther. Here is the result: Second generation. Leading crowd through 114 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. streets, crying for actual instead of theoretical equality. Hissed, stoned, called Socialist and dubbed Anarchist. Arrested and sent to prison, later to insane asylum, from where I was released and pronounced as sane as any human being. De nounced child labor, graft, sweat-shop system, mo nopoly and the purchase of the people's govern ment by the trust magnates. Arrested in the Na tional Capital in an effort to see the President, and dragged off to prison. Freed, grew ill and died, still hoping for reform of existing evils. Third Generation. Fat, sleek, prosperous look ing individual, wearing an air of evident superior ity. Pompous, arrogant and dictatorial. Indif ferent to rights of others. Had big bank account, and was constantly adding to it. Stole a poor devil's patent, made a fortune, and finally, one day when he came to my office, begging for bread, gave him $10 and ordered him not to bother me any more ; became a speculator, cornered the egg market, and jumped eggs one winter from 10 cents to 30 cents per dozen, all at the expense of my fellow citizens. People called me great, and the newspapers printed my picture. Grew ambitious as a speculator, and cornered wheat, running the price in three months from 60 cents to $i per bushel. Profits $9,000,000. Price of bread was advanced, and there were bread riots in the larger cities. Became known all over the world as Barton, the wheat king. Knocked off work and went abroad on private } r acht. After spending three years seeing the world, and marry- EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. ing my daughters to dukes and earls, returned to my native land and bought a seat in the United States Senate. Died from apoplexy, following burst of passion in endeavor to get an appropria tion for line of ships I had become interested in. Fourth Generation. Born poor, got common school education, started country store, prospered, took interest in new railroad, obtained control of it, reorganized company, watered stock, boosted it on stories of extensions and consolidation with trunk line, and sold out at a profit of $2,000,000. Stock, three months later, fell from 115 to 53. The suckers held the bag. Did the same thing over and over again, and became one of the kings of Wall Street, with an unsurpassed knowledge of frenzied finance. Built a hospital, founded a college and died a "good old man." Fifth Generation. Bunko steerer in New York, having come from the slums. Kept on good terms with the police. Made many acquaintances, and eventually became a political power. Dropped working the "guys" from the country, became one of the "Boss" lieutenants and took to collecting graft from the saloonists, and others who profited by violating the law. It was dead easy. When anyone kicked he got "pinched." Moved into a bet ter neighborhood and built a fine house. "Boss" died, and I succeeded to his shoes, worked the graft game and made all wanting offices come to me. Soon had a million dollars in my pockets, which I got mostly from the sale of franchises. Became a 116 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. bank president, and the head of a railroad. The newspapers tacked "Hon." on to my name, and I became "it." Had a large funeral and got a big tombstone. Sixth Generation. Was a good fellow. Became an office holder, starting with the place of con stable. Finally landed in the Mayor's chair. Soon found out the place was rich in "velvet." Corpor ations, wanting franchises, had a courteous way of making loans that were never to be repaid. The vulgar would have called it bribe-taking, but in my day it was statesmanship. Became the local "boss," kept the corporations in line for annual or semi-annual contributions ; had all kinds of rail road passes, and died one of "our best and most respected citizens." Number seven was beginning to appear vaguely, when I felt my arm were in a vise, and awoke with a start. Raper had hold of me and was shaking me. "Dreaming again?" he asked. Getting back into the world so suddenly was a queer experience. Had I been dreaming, or had I penetrated into the realms of the occult? CHAPTER XVI. LOST CITY FOUND. As though an earthquake smacked its mumbling lips, O'er some thick-peopled city. Bailey's Festus. Our route homeward took us over Northern In dia, Afghanistan, Persia and Arabia. Practically the entire population of Kunchinjinga turned out for our departure. Our visit had been a memorable one in the annals of the town. Father Krishna gave his personal attention to the collection of food and pure water for us. There was a careful in spection of each airship, a reckoning of our exact latitude and longitude, and a comparison of our lo cation with that of Cairo. From the calculations made, each projectile pointed in the direction of the Egyptian capital. Inasmuch as Kunchinjinga had no projectile station, we were obliged to use emerg ency tubes again for the start. Each projectile was equipped with one of these, which had to be anchored firmly in the ground and left behind. Father Krishna, in bidding us good bye, pre sented Father Gladstone a diagram of the light- making machine, with a full explanation in English of how the chemical changes, necessary to convert 118 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. water, otherwise oxygen and hydrogen, into light and heat, were brought about. Father Gladstone exacted a promise from the Brahmin leader to vis it him at Fratersurb. Our trip to Cairo was un eventful, except for the glimpses we had of strange Oriental cities, including Lahore, Cabool, Teheran, Bagdad, Damascus and Jerusalem. Pity it was we did not have time to drop down on each one of them, especially on Jerusalem and Bagdad, rich re spectively in material relating to the lowly Nazar- ene, the real founder of the Brotherhod of Man, and to Caliph Haroun el Raschid, the Just, in a mild way an exponent of the Brotherhood idea. The first view of Cairo was one of exceeding beauty. Dominating the landscape were the many mosques and minarets, most of them of great height, and built largely of alternate layers of red and white stone We descended near the celebra ted mosque, the Sultan Tayloon, and made our way to the gay International Hotel, where at the time representatives of nearly every race on the globe were to be found. To our surprise, we learned that there had been great seismic disturbances in the Northern Atlantic Ocean. There had been earth quakes on both the Eastern and Western shores of that great sheet of water. The centre of disturb ance, which seemed to radiate in elliptical lines, appeared, it was explained, to be somewhere out in the middle of the ocean, no one knew exactly where. Anxious to learn all of the particulars, we hurried our departure, deciding on Lisbon, Portu- 119 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. gal, where there was a projectile station, as our next stop. The Portuguese capital, which we reached in about nine minutes after we had left Cairo, was in a great commotion. The city had been severely shaken for five seconds, and many of the lighter and weaker buildings were in ruins. There had been a great upheaval of land some where east of the Canaries. Our newspaper con tingent was wild with excitement. They hurried here and there, eager for definite information. After a rest of two hours in Lisbon that was no rest at all, we put to sea ; that is, out over the sea, steering for Teneriffe, the largest of the Canaries. Dashing over Teneriffe, and a strait, probably twenty-five miles wide, we came to a stretch of land, reaching away farther than the eye could see, that had taken the place of the former unbroken expanse of blue. Onward we sailed for probably six hundred miles, when the ocean again came in view. The appearance on the shore of a city, covered with heavy marine vegetation, prompted Father Gladstone to speak hurriedly to Master Sykes, who without a moment's delay, turned his rudder, opened up the brake and threw out the minite wings. We were now describing a huge cir cle. Five minutes of this, during which time our speed was slowly reduced, and we began to drop to the ground. In that time we had an opportunity to study the nature-exhumed metropolis, for metropo lis it evidently had been. Towering above every thing else were two huge pyramids, which, I later 1 20 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. ascertained, were 1500 feet square at the base and 623 feet high. We discovered that the four sides were set in exact lines with the four cardinal points. The apex of one had tumbled over, and the side of the other was convex for a space 50 feet square. The buildings were in ruins, but still well enough preserved to give an index to their pristine splen dor. When we reached the ground, there was a rush, even among the elders of our party, to get out. Naturally Father Gladstone was given pre cedence. Our landing place was an ancient plaza, bounded by huge buildings, one with a peristyle of broken columns. The buildings were built of huge blocks of granite and were apparently Egyptian in design and character. "Look," exclaimed Sykes, as he retreated from an object lying on the ground near a broken col umn. We all approached timorously, I must ad mit, for his evident fear and horror had proved contagious. The object, once a human being, was lying with face upturned, and with body clothed in garments of thousands of years ago. The head dress, the sack or coat, and the trousers, were all ancient Egyptian in pattern. "Here, Raper," I exclaimed, "come quick." The newspaper men, who had noticed our change in direction in time to follow, had come down a short time after we had. Raper was an Egyptologist. He hurried to my side, looked a moment, went closer to the re cumbent figure and exclaimed, "Great Cleopatra, it 121 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. is petrified!" We looked again and his claim was evident to all. The body was as hard as if it had been chiseled out of solid rock. We started out to gether as a searching party. We had not gone far until we discovered that the dead city was filled with thousands of bodies of petrified human beings. Our investigations finally led us into the interior of the most stable looking building on the plaza. The huge arch, marking the entrance, was still in tact, and but slightly out of shape. Wide stairs of discolored marble led to a vestibule from which , there opened an immense hall, about 400 feet long The roof on one side had caved in. The columns, holding the other side, while out of plumb, had not given away. That part of the building stood about as it had an age ago. Sitting and recumbent fig ures, looking as if they had been chiseled out of stone, were all about. Some occupied chairs of ancient style. All had blocks of what appeared to be baked clay in their hands. These blocks were thin and glazed and were covered with small char acters, resembling hieroglyphics, but certainly not hieroglyphics. Raper picked up one, studied it in tently a minute, and then broke out: 'This was their library. The evidence is unmistakable. The writing what is it?" He remained in a brown study for several min utes, examining intently, one after another of the tablets, and then resumed, at first doubtfully: "It is Chaldaic, no Egyptian. By George! That is not right, although there is a similarity. Perhaps it 122 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. is Coptic. No. I have it. It is Phoenician. Yes, that's what it is, or something very much like it." We spent two days in going over these remarka ble ruins, making new discoveries at every turn. The city must have claimed close to a million in habitants. What was it, and what was its history? Who could tell about this Pompeii of prehistoric times? It was a time of unanswered interroga tions ? Spending all the time we dared in investigating, Clarke suddenly proposed that we start at once for New- York. No one had thought of our dilemma until now. We had no more emergency cylinders, could not start our projectiles, were 2800 miles from our own continent, and were marooned on a new continent, or island, in a city of the dead. The party of newspaper men was chafing at the unavoidable delay, as each had a story worth the entire first page of any newspaper and yet was un able to get it off. What a plight ! Raper, who had found the library a source of great interest, went back to that structure. At his request I accompanied him. He had resolved to take some of the tablets home with him and de cipher them at his leisure. He looked around for nearly an hour before he found what he wanted. At last he selected a "volume," consisting of tab lets strung on slender chains, which he decided were of silver. The "volume" closed, was a foot thick, but light for the bulk. A book might be written about the experiences we 123 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. had in that city, which, it was evident had been a place of culture and advancement in many of the arts. There were here and there groups of statu ary that Praxiteles himself would have been proud of. How were we to get away? That was the perplexing question. "I have it," said Sykes, and we all closed in to listen. 124 CHAPTER XVII. AN EXPERIMENT. In the vast, and the minute, we see The unambitious footsteps of the God Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds. Cowper's Task. Master Sykes' plan was to improvise an aero graph station. It would be easy, he contended, to fly a kite to the height of 400 or 500 feet and use it in lieu of a mast. "How can we make a recording instrument?" was Wallace's timely question. "We can make it," Sykes answered, "but it will take time two weeks I should say, with good luck." "What !" Raper ejaculated, "remain here for two weeks without communication with the world? There ought to be a quicker way." "There is," Clarke declared, "provided Prof. Harry Rabbitts, of Columbia, has not torn his study to pieces. You remember, Raper, when we were at Columbia commencement last year, you tripped on a wire running over the floor of the Professor's study, and he apologized, explaining that he had 125 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. not removed it, because it had been put in by his predecessor. You recall, he said, that it was a part of the deep sea apparatus for communicating under water. It is a relic of the past, the success of the aeograph having made it superfluous. Now, if I remember correctly, the receiving and sending board of that discarded system is located in Long Island Sound, about 25 miles from the University. That board and Prof. Rabbitts' study are connect ed by wire. The old Morse code was used. Now, if that apparatus is still intact, and I have every reason to believe that it is, we can make a crude telegraph instrument of sufficient size, sink it 500 feet or so, animate it with electricity, and at least try to communicate with the professor, who knows the Morse code, he having dwelt upon its part in civilization in a lecture he delivered to one of his classes while I was at the University." "But who is there here that understands the Morse code?" I asked. Silas Engle, who I assume was the oldest mem ber of the party, spoke up and said : "I believe with a little reflection and study I could send and re ceive. I knew the code when a boy." "All right," Clarke said, "let's get to work." The Morse instruments were made and remade, finally to the satisfaction of Brother Engle. He spent his time penciling dots and dashes on scraps of paper. The result of the experiment was in volved in great doubt, and, to add to the gravity of the situation, the chances were Prof. Rabbitts 126 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. might not be in his study. After 24 hours' unceas ing work, it was announced that everything was in readiness for the trial. We figured that the pro fessor would probably be in his study at 8 P. M. To get him at that hour it would be necessary for us to begin our trial at i A. M., our time. There was a cliff at the southern edge of the old city which we chose as the scene of our momentous test. By using a plummet we found there was at this point a sheer drop from surface to the bottom of the ocean of 524 feet. Our boards, made as sen sitive as the material on hand permitted, were sunk to the sea's rocky floor, the instruments fastened to a rough table on top of the cliff and i o'clock awaited for the experiment. Silas Engle sat down and thumped away minute after minute, framing, in dots and dashes, such sentences as "Hear us," "Listen, Professor Rab- bitts," and "Friends in trouble." After each short message he stopped and waited for a reply. None came, much to our disappointment. We finally de cided to give up the attempt until the next morning and were on the point of returning to our camp to get much needed sleep, when Raper suggested that we try again, just once for luck. Brother Engle consented reluctantly. "Help! help!" he tele graphed, repeating the one word about 30 times. He paused and waited for an answer which, he was frank to say, he did not expect. He thought the apparatus was not powerful enough and then might be defective. What was that? There was 127 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. an answering click. Faint as it was, it was the sweetest music our party had heard in years. The operator slowly and with difficulty wrote out the answer, which was "Who are you, where are you and what do you want ?" The following was sent back: "Father Glad stone's party is marooned on a new continent, thrown up by earthquake, just east of the Canaries. Latitude 29:30 North; longitude 31 West. Send help." There was an answer, but it was undecipherable. The click of the instrument was decidedly faint, notwithstanding the fact the voltage had been in creased. It was shortly after daybreak that morning that swarms of projectiles began arriving from all over the civilized world. The advance guard contained newspaper men and scientists, many from Europe, the visit of the Europeans being entirely inde pendent of that of the Americans. Those coming later were sightseers. There were plenty of emer gency tubes and we could now as soon as we pleased resume our journey homeward. The city was a treasure trove for the scientists, some of whom were specialists in archaeology, others in the dead languages and others in geology and seismography. All told, the scientific party numbered 105. This is according to Raper's count. Let it be explained here that the newspaper men had not been idle. With the aid of Master Sykes, the telegraph station was improved so that 128 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. each was able to get a message to the other side of the Atlantic. In that way the American news papers obtained the news of the creation of a new continent ahead of the journals of Europe. At a meeting of the scientists, held at noon, Prof. Chas. G. Heckert, of the University of Berlin, was elected chairman, and Prof. Carey Boggess, of the University of Chicago, secretary. It was decided that the party should divide into groups of three, four and five, spend the afternoon in examining the ruins and meet that night on the plaza for a comparison of notes. We resolved to remain over until after the meeting. It was easy to spend the remainder of the afternoon profitably among the ruins. The meeting that night was admittedly, from a scientific and historical standpoint, one of the greatest in the history of the world. The old est scientist present was Prof. A. F. Linn, of Le- land Stanford. He was the world's acknowledged authority on seismography. Because of his seniority he was called upon first. "Gentlemen," he said, "this thing is plain to me. The upheaved city is Atlantis, described so graphi cally by Plato and Critias. The character of the buildings, the pyramids and the dress of the people prove beyond doubt, it seems to me, this claim. The history of the Pacific Ocean in particular is full of lost and upheaved islands. Examinations of an outcropping of rock at the west end of the city lead to the conviction that it rests on a great mass of solid limestone. When something underneath 129 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. gave way and the continent disappeared, this lime stone base remained unbroken. It also withstood the shock of this week's upheaval. Because of this the city is well preserved." This opinion was concurred in by all of those present. The ancient library was the scene of the greatest interest and it was resolved at once to put to work every available man in deciphering the tablets. In the party was Prof. B. Frank Prince, who had made a specialty of Phoenician. He was especially interested in the volume picked up by Raper. After giving it more than cursory attention, he turned to my newspaper friend and remarked, "Do you know what you have here?" "No," answered Raper, "what is it?" "It is a book written by one who signs himself Arna Broana. It is entitled The Secret of Life/ From a glance at it, I take it that the writer as sumes to give an amplified account of the creation. He claims that Atlantis was the cradle of the human race and that it had, at the time the book was written, attained a high degree of civilization. As nearly as I can compute, from the examination made, the book was written an age ago. Here are some odd sentences I have been able to trans late: " 'Life is a chemical product/ " 'Life had its origin ages ago in Nature's giant laboratory/ 130 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. " The first living things' wants grew just as man's wants today are growing, and thus came evolution.' " 'Man, like the earth, is a product of millions of years.' " 'Forms of life have varied or changed according to the condition of the Earth chemically, hence the vast difference among the forms of life represent ing the different geological ages.' " 'Demand and desire, initially weak forces, gave new shapes and added activity to various forms of animal life.' " 'Environments, from the standpoint of temper ature and topography, were responsible for the character of development made.' " 'Finally out of the chaos of long periods of varying proportions of oxygen, nitrogen and car boniferous acid gas, affecting the size, character and activity of animal life, came primitive man, an evolution of other animal life, at first a shaggy, giant-limbed creature of great appetite, strong pas sions and small intellect.' " 'New sights, new sensations, new discoveries, in the avenues of love, fear, hate, ambition, joy and sorrows slowly, century by century, broadened him.' " 'First a cave dweller, with stones and clubs for weapons, he slaughtered by stealth and strength. These weapons gave way to bow and arrow, javelin, cross bow and spear.' " 'Little by little discoveries were made in dif- ierent channels, each having a broadening effect, EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. until our present high civilization was reached, as superior to that of two thousand years ago as the civilization of that time was to a similar period be fore it* " 'Man has constantly grown in intellect, under standing, power and utility. This progress natural ly suggests the query : How low did he start ?' " While Prof. Prince was reading this the entire party stood around to hear these scientific declara tions that must be nearly nine thousand years old. After a moment's silence, Dr. Philip Schneider, a theological professor from Princeton, suggested that even if these assertions were true, he did not believe they in any way conflicted with the ac count given in Genesis of Creation. He added: "It has been many years since practically the whole world accepted the doctrine that the world was not made in six days but instead in six ages, the word day in the original text being synoymous with age. So with the creation of man. It would be easy to contend, and prove, for that matter, that man's creation occurred not in a day but in an age. Granting this to be true, it is easy to go farther and assume that man was an evolution of the first ani mal life, in reality a chemical product. The more thought I give to this matter the more I think that there is no real conflict between the Bible and the theory of evolution, much of which we know to be true." This started a discussion that lasted until after midnight, revolving about the claim made two cen- 132 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. turies ago by Prof. Wm. Oswald of the University of Leipsic and Prof. Joseph Loeb, of the University of California, that it was possible for science by slow development to create a type of life as high as that of the domestic animals. Prof. Prince set Raper wild when he promised him as soon as his time would permit to give him a complete trans lation of the wonderful volume. 133 CHAPTER XVIII. FROM ANOTHER WORLD. Pass but a moment, and this busy globe, Its thrones, its empires and its bustling millions Will seem a speck in the great void of space. Murphy's Grecian Daughter. As we neared New York City, on our return home, the heavens were ablaze with changing coruscations, sometimes taking the form of dots and at other times dashes. These dots were ac tually half a mile in diameter, while the dashes, rectangular patches of light, were a mile long. "What is the cause of activity at the Inter-Plane tary station tonight?" I involuntarily asked myself. Having secured the badly needed emergency tube, we had gotten away in early dawn from resurrected Atlantis, leaving behind a large number of scientists, bent on making an exhaustive study of the ancient city from every point of view. We reached New York at a little after one the same morning, the seeming anachronism being due to the difference in time and our fast trip. Half of New York was out doors, the flashes in the sky vying with hundreds of restaurants, cafes and rathskellers for first place in public interest. Our radium headlight, aglow like some great 134 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. fire fly in the air, heralded our arrival. Sykes resolved to come down at the Battery where one of the numerous projectile stations was located. Great crowds surrounded us, eager for new in formation about our journey. Scores of newspaper men and artists, representing the Herald and vari ous other publications in and out of New York, formed the first ring around us. Briefly and tersely Father Gladstone described the most interesting features of our journey, concluding with an ac count of our experience near mid Atlantic. We had already had our night's rest, but nevertheless went to the Astor where we were assigned rooms. The Herald next morning had a big "story" on our trip and return, together with latest matter that had come by aerograph from Atlantis, a mast for the purpose having, with characteristic enterprise, been erected on the new continent within a few days. There were several advertisements of pro jectiles about to leave, carrying parties of sight seers to the world's metropolis of an age before. The article in the Herald that interested me most was an account of the inter-communication between the Earth and Mars, which had been the first thing to attract my attention on nearing the city. It was still too early to call up Alice's home at Fratersurb and so resignedly I settled down in an easy chair in the smoking room to read the article about the flashes. This inter-communication has been in progress for twenty-six years. The code, which has been slowly enlarged, now consists of 135 EVE AND THE EVANGFXIST. 1,297 words. Great difficulty was experienced at first, after adequate signals had been devised, in the interpretation of these signals. The word talk was finally selected as a basis for a code. Initially, night after night, for six weeks, the Earth flashed talk thus' in the heavens: . Just as the promoters of this stupendous enter prise were on the eve of abandoning the project, which had been proposed many times in the past, there came answering flashes, duplicating the sig nal from the Earth. This was conclusive evidence that the Martians understood. Then "Yes" was framed and flashed back and forth. From this small beginning the present inter-planetary vocab ulary has grown. The Herald article was as follows : "Last night's inter-planetary communication ranks with the most satisfactory in the last decade. Mars is now in perihelion and consequently but 33,800.000 miles distant from the Earth, whereas in the aphelion he is 61,800,000 miles. It is now easy, by aid of the latest powerful telescopes, to study with satisfaction various phases of life on Mars. Where the telescope of the great astron omer, Lord Herschel, magnified but 932 times, that of Prof. Chas. J. Bowlus, of the National Univer sity of Prater surb, magnifies 3402 times. "Last night's communication gave the Earth some absolutely new information about our brother planet. The operator at the other end said, (I do 136 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. not believe there is any misunderstanding) that the Martians live to the age of 1,000 years or more. "Summed up we have, since communication was successfully established, learned the following facts about Mars and his people : "The population of the planet is 3,000,000,00x5. "Every municipality contains, among other things, a municipal oxygen plant from where oxygen is, as desired, added to the air. This is clone to stimulate the old who, through long years of life, become sated with Mars' pleasures and gayeties. The oxygen stimulates them and makes them as lively as you please. "Marlum, a new glandular compound, enriches the blood, and when taken periodically, rebuilds the body. It makes an existence of a thousand years easy. "An unusual feature of life is the method of feeding. It seems that the Martians' gullet and windpipe are combined to such an extent that they eat by breathing the air. This air is charged at numerous government stations with nutrition in the form of steam. So delicately is the mixture made that there is no precipitation until all food value has been lost. "Mars, as has been known for years, is a land of canals. It is criss-crossed by them. Centuries ago, no one seems to know how long, primitive Mar tians, prompted by desire, essayed to cross these canals by flying. Cultivation of this desire through several generations resulted in an instinctive effort 137 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. to fly. Arms gradually flattened out and event ually became wings. Now the Martians fly every where. Walking has recently been introduced as a new fad. "One of the planet's mineral products is a stone, called mingo. It possesses the quality of absorbing light and heat. There are millions of tons of these stones on the planet. Families pile them up in their backyards in summer, let them absorb light and heat, and then use them through the dreary winter. This discovery, made a couple of years ago, put the Gas Trust out of business and settled forever that municipal bugbear, meter rental. "Buildings are erected in a novel manner. Con tractors keep in stock molds of various size and character. When a Martian wants a house built he selects the mold desired. It is placed in position on his lot and is pumped full of liquid stone. "One of the queer industries is the manufacture of diamonds. Mars, like Earth, has many vol canoes. A few years ago enterprising Martians conceived the idea of tapping these volcanoes, cork ing up the piercing pipes and having diamonds made to order. Some difficulty was at first ex perienced with the corking. Blow outs were fre quent. Finally a huge man head, secured by ample bolts and studs, was tried with success. "The pressure on these heads sometimes reaches 10,000 pounds per square inch but inasmuch as this pressure converts the carbon within into diamonds, nobody kicks. Now every well regulated volcano 138 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. has several diamond pipes. These gems have be come so common that the larger ones are now in common use as door knobs. "Another enterprise on Mars that might with profit be tried on earth is the collection of elec tricity from the aurora borealis and the aurora aus- tralis. Huge cables convey the fluid to whatsoever point desired. "The Martians claim that inasmuch as they are a people without jealousy or envy they have no crime, no police, no courts and no prisons. "As everything is owned in common there is no money or other medium of exchange. "Just now Mars and Earth are involved in a queer dispute. Mars claims that death ends all and that heaven and hell are creations of the imagina tion. "The Earth has with zeal retorted that all Nature is an argument for a future existence and hris brought forth the most eminent theologians of the time in support of the contention. "So far efforts to reach the other planets of the solar system have been failures. It is believed that by a proper enlargement of the lights used success will eventually be attained/' These lights come from marton, a fine powder, having remarkable incandescent powers. This marton is carried aloft 10,200 feet by charges ot pulva, infinitesimal in size, and exploded as fire works are. It was time for breakfast. I was not in a mood 139 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. for tabloid fare, had an appetite like a corn cutter and settled down to grape fruit, oat meal, a big porter house steak, poached eggs and coffee. There was a difference of more than an hour be tween the time of New York and Fratersurb. Eight o'clock, nine o'clock, how slowly the hours dragged along. I could not wait any longer. I would see if I could get Alice. It took about five minutes to get the Meredith home, during which time I was impatience personified. Alice's figure appeared for a moment in the reflector. In that moment she grew haughty and vanished. Truly I was in for it. What was my offense and what was my punish ment to be? Did you ever study a young lion caged up, and watch him pace backwards and forwards hour after hour? I felt like that lion even if I had all out doors for my cage. 140 CHAPTER XIX. HOMEWARD BOUND. And say, without our hopes, without our fears, Without the home that plighted love endears, Without the smile from partial beauty won O! What weire man? a world without a son. Byron. I did not expect to see Raper again soon. Hence, I was surprised when he popped into the hotel lobby where I sat off in a corner, looking, I im agine, the picture of despair. " What's the matter, old chap?" he inquired, as he dropped into the Davenport by my side. "Look as if you had been playing that almost forgotten game, draw poker, and had had but two fives to go against a big jack pot. If we were living in the past, I would insist on your taking a Scotch high ball or a Martini cocktail." "O, well, I suppose the best of us grow blue novv and then. It is encouraging to take the view that depression in spirits comes from a disordered liver."" "Look here, young man," Raper said, as he looked me squarely in the eyes, "I don't believe your bile is going wrong or that you have dyspep sia, or any other purely physical ailment. I have been studying you for four or five days. My diag nosis of your case is correct. There has been a 141 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. queer look in your eyes, and you have shown an anxiety that unmistakably indicates one thing alone. You are in love/' "What! Do I show it?" I exclaimed, with a suddenness that betrayed the truth. "Well, your guess is correct. My plight is annoying. The girl I love has grown indifferent, and I am distracted. There is some misunderstanding some place." Then I proceeded to tell him all that had happened, omit ting, I thought at the time, nothing that might have any bearing on the case. "Cheer up, old chap," Raper said, shaking me and making me feel like fighting. "The mystery in this case is the best indication in the world of suc cess. Why, have you forgotten that 'the course of true love never did run smooth ?' You are morbid this morning. Why don't you get out in the fresh air and sunshine and see things as they are, not as you imagine they are? Here, brace up, and let Richard be himself again." Again he shook me. The advice was good, I conceded. We started out together for a stroll. The morning was bright and the ozone exhilirating. We had not gone more than two squares, when I exclaimed, acknowl edging the remarkable change I had undergone mentally "Raper, you are a good doctor. You may be my physician after this." "You would better learn the size of my fee be fore you permanently engage me." "The best is always the cheapest," I answered. Finally reaching 42nd street, the location of the 142 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. Government Railways station, we looked about a few moments and started back to the hotel. "Look here, Young," Raper said, seized with a new thought, "I am tired of projectile riding for a while. Let us board a Pennsylvania road train and take our time about returning to Fratersurb. I am ordered down there to cover Father Gladstone's re port of the trip to China. Come, go along with me. The Gladstone party will beat us but a few hours anyhow." Raper's company had been so enlivening that I consented on the spot. "We can get a train every fifteen minutes," Raper explained. "Let's go back to the hotel where you can notify your party of your plans and then return to the depot." "I am willing," I answered. I was ready to go almost anywhere with my companion, so comfort ing was his presence. Twenty minutes later found us at the station. There was a Fratersurb train standing in the huge shed. Having secured our tickets, we climbed aboard, entered the smoking compartment of our car, lighted cigars, and settled back in our seats to enjoy the journey. "Three minutes, and we are due to leave," re marked Raper, glancing at his watch. I leaned back among the cushions, blew a chain of smoke rings from my lips and closed my eyes, lost in my own thoughts. "Hello, Raper," said a great, strong, commanding voice. "Glad to see you. Your chance has come. Hi Williams is at the throttle and is a good man to 143 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. ride with. You remember I promised you a ride last May?" I opened my eyes and looked up at the big fellow before me. "Mr. Carney (J. C), my old time college mate, Mr. Young. If the cab will accommodate both of us, I will go, but I can't leave my friend." "The cab is roomy enough," answered the big railroader, as he gripped my hand with rugged force. "Come, quick," he added as he fairly pulled us out of our seats. A word from the General Superintendent, for such former Yardmaster Carney now was, and we piled into the fireman's seat. There was a hasty introduction to the grimy driver, who was waiting the signal to start. "All aboard," the conductor shouted for the last time. A second later, the driver pulled the throttle out three notches on the quadrant and the drive wheels, twelve feet in height, were slipping around. At every revolution, we took a plunge forward, and saw the ground slip away from us faster than it appeared to when we were in the pro jectile. There were no grade crossings, and ahead a perfectly straight single rail track, the long, slen der train being held erect by huge revolving gyro scopes. I looked at the engineman. The throttle, now half way out, was held in his iron grip. The needle on the steam gauge was flying back and forth from 250 pounds to 800 pounds. It has al ready been explained that the old time steam boilers 144 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. had been discarded. In their places were much smaller boilers in which steam was generated by the flash system. There were several advantages ; one, the small amount of space, relatively, occupied and another the room given for larger drive wheels and stronger machinery. The locomotive was driven by four coupled rotary engines, developing at the maximum steam pressure 10,000 horse power. We had passed Philadelphia and were on a beau tiful stretch of track when the fireman managed to tell me, above the roar of the train, that we were making 300 miles an hour. The landscape was whirling about outside as if it were a part of a green and brown snowstorm. The Pennsylvania railroad, long noted for its conservatism, had not adopted the electric flash system, which, however, had been taken up by Government officials in charge of other railroads. Several roads were using electric locomotives, and others a new type of machine in which pulva was exploded in cylinders, the same as in the old reciprocating gas engines. An interesting feature, but of course, not a new one, was to watch freight trains pass each other Sidetracks, for anything else but placing cars, long ago went into disuse. Now, freight trains and the slower passenger trains ride over one another. All trains of that class that are east bound, are at each end fitted with special tracks that run over the tops of the strongly built cars. At each end of these trains is a track running up at an angle of about twenty-five degrees. A west bound train meets an 145 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. east bound train, runs up over the top of it and then down on the main track without either train for a moment slackening speed. Chief Engineer Garstang contends that he is now perfecting this device so that it will be possible to use it on fast passenger trains, making the trip from New York to Chicago in four hours, and the distance across the continent in 10 hours. These fast passenger trains are veritable palaces on wheels. The idea of economy in operation, however, dominates, and there is no waste of energy anywhere. For in stance, the enormous air pressure, due to the speed of the train, is utilized to operate a dynamo that not only supplies the train with light, but with heat as well, even for the kitchen of the dining car. I could not help but compare the boiler of our locomotive with some of those in the National Transportation Museum in Fratersurb. It was at least fifteen feet longer than the longest and very narrow in com parison. The guide wheels were double the size of the old ones, as were the wheels under the cars. The new locomotives, notwithstanding their size and the speed made, are much easier on the tracks than the old locomotives, the difference being that on the new locomotives there are no great counter balances on the drive wheels to overcome dead centers as was the case in the reciprocating engines. This new type did away with the incessant pound ing on the rails that years ago was a constant night mare to the roadmaster. All these things raced through my mind as we 146 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. tore through the country, passing cities, towns and villages that were mere patches on the right of way. All the time I was holding onto my seat for dear life. I really did not occupy that seat a second in the entire trip, but instead stood stooped, clinging to a rail at my side. I envied the engineer who sat in his seat like a born Kentuckian in the saddle. We plunged through numerous tunnels without slackening speed for a second. When the first one came, I drew back in horror, for it looked as if we were about to plunge against the mountain side and be battered to pieces. There was a moment of darkness and then a burst of sunshine again. There was a new thrill every minute. No galvanic battery could have stirred me more. I think my hair must have stood on end the entire trip. As for Raper, he was calm, and smiled in amusement at me every time he got my eye. Thank Heaven, Fratersurb was in sight and we were slowing down. No more loco motive rides for me. If I am to be scared to death, I prefer to select the method. The train came to a standstill, and Raper and I climbed down after thanking Williams for the ride. "You're welcome to try it any time/' he re marked, as he winked at his fireman. "I feel as if I had been in a dust storm." I told Raper as we jumped into a motor car for the ride to my home. 147 CHAPTER XX. DESPAIR AND HOPE. Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that And manage it against despairing thoughts. Shakespeare. Father and mother had gone down to West Baden to spend a couple of weeks. It was up to Raper and me to keep bachelors' hall. How invit ing the bath after that dash, tearing, as it seemed, strips out of the country's topography. My den, dear old den, it never looked more alluring than when we piled into it that forenoon for something like genuine rest after the past few days' stren- uousness. I had ordered lunch, so there was noth ing in the way of domestic duties to bother about. I was anxiety personified to see Alice. There had been no message at Peking, as promised, and in dignation was plainly evident when I last saw her for but a moment in the reflector of the communi cator I had used in New York. I resolved to see her just as soon as I could after lunch. What comfort there was that forenoon in the divan for Raper and in that Morris chair for me. It seemed I had never before appreciated the chair at its true worth. We both dropped into a semi-somnolent state and the 148 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. time passed quickly. I was aroused from my rev erie by the sharp ringing of the dining room bell. "Come," said I, shaking Raper, "lunch is ready/' I had Raper sit down at my right while I busied myself in taking the dust-tight lid from the tray, a modern device now in general use. There was a burst of steam, accompanied by savory odors. With the lid off, this tray was like a box eight inches deep with the top off. I unfastened the four walls, which were on hinges, and let them fall down over the outer rim of our table. In their proper places were napery, silver, condiments and the meal itself, puree of peas, roast lamb, with mint sauce, browned potatoes, lettuce salad, sliced to matoes and strawberry shortcake; truly, a feast fit for a king. We were both ravenously hungry and ate that meal with a never surpassed zest. Lunch over, I raised and locked the walls, put the cover on, pulled a lever and sent the dishes and debris down the slide to the fence station, where soon, on his regular rounds, the tray would be picked up by one of the House Food Supply Co.'s men. The reader will readily divine that one of the phases of the servant girl problem of long ago has been solved. By agreement with this company, meals are furnished at stated hours each day, delivery and collection being made by motor wagons. Delivery is automatically announced when the tray slides into the dining room on a miniature track by a trip switch ringing the annunciator. House cleaning has been reduced to a science. 149 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. Every room now has its dust tube, by which all dirt is quickly and satisfactorily removed by the vacuum method, the air sucking pumps being lo cated at a central municipal station. With lunch over, chum and I retreated to the inviting den, lighted a pipe apiece, and studied the pattern of the ceiling. "Now look here, Young," said Raper, with an emphasis that indicated he was successfully read ing my thoughts, "I know that you want to see somebody and that you want to see her awfully bad. Go ahead and leave me alone here for a good long rest in preparation for the work I have ahead tonight/' "If you really want to be left alone, of course I shall be obliged to accommodate you," I answered. "Oh, go along, you know you are almost dying to get away," and I went. There was a storage battery car line that ran to within two squares of Alice's home. I boarded an awfully slow car, at least it seemed so, and yet I knew that it was making part of the trip at 60 miles an hour. When I alighted I could not be mistaken Alice was standing at the gate, gazing down the street in my direction. How would she welcome me? I framed a dozen different saluta tions as I drew near, uncertain finally of what I should say. The figure ahead of me suddenly van ished indoors. Alice was modest and did not want tc show undue interest in my arrival. She would, of course, pretend that she had not seen me. I 150 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. pressed the bell button, expecting that Alice would hurry to the door to meet me. I was disappointed when her mother, a sweet-faced, white-haired old lady, wearing a lace cap, answered the bell. Omit ting the usual amenities, anent the weather and other topics always timely on such occasions, I ex citedly asked for Alice. "Alice! Alice!" her mother called repeatedly, but there was no response. Dismay seized me, and I clutched a table for support. "Sit down," her mother urged me, "and I will see if I can find her. She was here but a moment ago." "Alice could not be found. She had slipped away to a neighbor's, and given me painful and unmis takable evidence that she did not want to see me. What had happened? What had I done? What was the cause of her mysterious behavior? I could not answer. I reeled away like a drunken man, jumped a car and hurried back home. I was so noisy in entering the house that I awakened Raper who had just enjoyed the first installment of a needed snooze. He rubbed his eyes, sat up and exclaimed: "Heavens, Young, what is the matter with you ; you look like a wild man ? Bad luck, of course. That's plain. You went to the young lady's house and she could not be found. She does not want to see you. She is angry with you, and in consequence, she being unwilling, telepathy is of no avail. What have you been doing? The young lady is jealous. But of whom? Ah, perhaps some- EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. one has been telling her about the Titu's daughter. Perhaps you have been misrepresented !" The mystery was clear that minute. Like a flash, I remembered pulling Miss Onwa to me that day I stood before the reflector, talking to Alice. She had not understood, naturally decided I was a flirt and had thrown me over. What a pickle I was in ! How lucky I was at the time to have an almost omnipotent newspaper friend. There was a ring of the door bell and a mes senger boy from the post office brought me a special delivery letter, postmarked Peking. Who in the Chinese capital had written me? Hastily ripping open the envelope, I came to another surprise. The yellow cover contained Alice's promised message, the message that was not delivered to me. It had gone astray. The message read: "Cannot marry you. My great great grandmother was a very wicked woman. I have kept my pledge." Why is it that the clouds all become so dark at the same time? There must be a silver lining. No one would be a more eager watcher than I for it. Raper was sitting on the divan with his head buried in his hands. He was silent for a couple of minutes. Then he straightened up, smiled and re marked with determination: "You certainly are in a muddle. Wait a day or so, your troubles will be a memory, and I will have an invitation to be best man at your wedding." I had so much confidence in Raper's ability that I promptly consented. 152 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. "Now lie down here, quit your worrying and convince yourself that everything will turn out all right. I am going down town to do some work, preliminary to the meeting tonight," said Raper, as he forced me down into his place, began whistling, slammed the outer door and disappeared. I was expected to supplement the report Father Gladstone would make with one of my own. My time for preparation was short. Summoning an amanuensis by communicator, I was soon ready for a half hour's dictation. The Brotherhood of Man had gained a great victory in the peaceful con quest of China. Some facts were not clear to me, and I went to my library for light. Accidentally, in an old scrap book that had been handed down from generation to generation, I ran across the follow ing, printed in the Cincinnati Times Star of some date in May, 1906: "Labrador seems to be the 'Utopia' of which Sir Thomas Moore dreamed and wrote. According to the official report of Sir Wil liam McGregor, the governor of Newfoundland, of which Province Labrador is a dependency, the people of Labrador are so good that, though it has a population of 10,000, of whom 3500 are white men, and though it was at one time a famous pirate stronghold, yet there is today on the whole island no court, no jail, no magistrate nor any other officer of the law on the whole thousand miles of seaboard, not even a single, solitary policeman or village constable. Forty years ago there was a Circuit Court there every summer. But as year 153 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. after year they found nothing to do, it was abol ished. And so for thirty-three years no court has ever held session on the island. There is a tradi tion that about 50 years ago there was a criminal charge against an Esquimaux, who shot a man he caught walking with his wife. It appears absolute ly to be an ideal community, where all the men are brave and all the women honest." The Brotherhoood idea incubating! 154 CHAPTER XXL NEWS OF A DAY. With news the Time's in labor, And throws forth each minute some. Shakespeare. The meeting that night in the Council Hall was, of course, a great success. It attracted world wide attention. Father Gladstone gave a detailed ac count of our experiences, naturally giving predomi nance to the success scored in Peking. It was a busy night for my newspaper chum. It was late next morning when we got down to breakfast. There was a copy of the Fratersurb Journal on the rack where it had fallen from the press. I handed it to Raper who hurriedly scanned it and tossed it to me. I looked over it indifferently and was about to throw it to one side when an article I had missed at first glance arrested my attention and caused me tc give a whistle of astonishment. "Raper, you are responsible for that," I declared, thrusting the article in question in front of his very eyes. He chuckled to himself and read : HEROISM Of Brotherhood Leader is Rewarded by Decoration of the Red Button From Emperor of China. 155 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. Robert Young, of this city, one of the leaders of the Brotherhood of Man, has in his possession a treasure that is a souvenir of his recent visit to China. It is the decoration of the red button from the Emperor, given in commemoration of bravery and presence of mind, shown in a trying moment while in Peking. Mr. Young was a guest wniie there of the Titu. The latter's daughter ran into danger in getting too near a live wire. Mr. Young's prompt action saved the life of the young lady, who is a favorite with the Emperor. At the time the accident occurred Mr. Young had con nection by communicator with Fratersurb. Mr. Young tried to keep the incident a secret, but did not succeed. The gift in China of the red button is a highly coveted honor. "Now," I said, "for that you must read the news of the day. I have for more than a week been out of touch with the world." "All right," answered Raper, "here goes." Springfield, Ohio, June 23 Grading for the Cin cinnati and New York Electric Flash Railway is in rapid progress. At a point three miles west of here the cut through the limestone cliffs is be ing pushed with the aid of large quantities of car bonic acid gas which liquifies the stone and makes removal easy. It is much cheaper than the old method of blasting and better still, the element of danger is removed. Washington, June 23 An addition to the Na- 156 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. tional Memorial building is to be started next month. The original building, which was erected 150 years ago, now contains records in moving pictures and voices of more than 3,000 celebrities of the past. At a recent private exhibition Madame Sembrich, a celebrated prima donna of two centu ries ago, appeared on the stage and acted and sang just as she had in real life. So realistic was the en tertainment, if such it can with propriety be called, that it looked as if the dead had really come to life. Chicago, 111., June 23) Michael Mulvaney, the last labor union member in the country, died here last night. He had always been a warm champion of the rights of organized labor and not until the Brotherhood form of government had proved an unquestioned success did he consent to the relin- quishment of the charter of the Bricklayers' Union, in which he had been a conspicuous figure. New York City, June 23 Marvin Martin, owner of a motor car, was arrested today for knocking a part of the steeple off St. John's Universale church. His defense is that he was momentarily blinded by the sun and in that time the accident occurred. Lincoln, Neb., June 23 Fred Rapp, pioneer, who died today, was a firm follower of the Brotherhood idea as expounded by Col. Wm. J. Bryan, one of the last presidents. Mr. Rapp had a fund of interesting reminiscences of Bryan, which he had gotten from his great grandfather, who was one of Bryan's staunchest admirers. 157 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. New Orleans, June 23 Madame Patti Throm- bosi, the great Italian diva, who is now making her fifth annual farewell tour, made complaint today to the municipal authorities of the loss of her diamonds. They mysteriously disappeared last night from her private dressing room. Madame says her nerves are shattered and that she may be compelled to take a rest for a couple of weeks. Buffalo, New York, June 23 At the meeting last night of the Federated Women's clubs of Buffalo, a resolution, pledging members not to sup port for public office any man suspected of making his wife build the fires, was adopted by a unani mous vote. Quito, South America, June 23 The sport of riding the wind is growing here in popularity. As has been known for many years an air current above the equator rushes around the globe at the rate of 70 miles an hour. In electrically heated and compressed air fed motor cars the young society people of this city are riding the wind. They de clare to those too timid to try it that it is rare sport. St. Louis, Mo., June 23 Harrison College here was today turned over to the jurisdiction and con trol of the National Educational Commission. It was the last to remain on the outside. All schools, colleges and universities are now free to the youth of the country. No one is debarred on account of inability to pay tuition. South McAlester, Old Indian Territory, June 23 158 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. Sitting Horse and his family of five, the last sur viving Indians of the country, have rented their farm east of the city, and will go east for the sum mer. Most of their time will be spent at Atlantic City. Liberia, Africa, June 23 The exodus of ne groes from old North America to this city and con tiguous country continues with unceasing interest. The splendid schools, paying factories, magnificent churches and fine farms established and conducted in this country by the colored race furnish an illus tration of their capabilities under the beneficent plan of segregation and wise and energetic leader ship. Samuel Huffman, the President, has just re turned from Brotherhood land with new ideas which he will suggest for adoption. Philadelphia, Pa., June 23 The annual con ference of the Church Universale opens here to day. There no longer being denominations fighting for the same victory but with different weapons, the time will be taken up with a discussion of numerous questions raised by higher criticism, in cluding this one : "Did the idea of a .hell originate in a country of active volcanoes ?" Cincinnati, O., June 23) The old "lid" that was fitted over this city many years agO'was unearthed yesterday afternoon by some workmen who were excavating "Over the Rhine" for a new building for the Ingalls Co-operative Co. So heavy was the demand by communicators on the municipal newspaper for information as to what the "lid" 159 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. was and what it was used for that the issuance of an extra was imperative. The newspaper had a difficult time of it to make it clear that putting on the "lid" was synonymous for law enforcement, the difficulty consisting in explaining there had for a long period of years been general non-observance of law. San Francisco, Cal., June 23 The severe earth quake shock here last night caused more than momentary alarm, due to apprehension that large buildings might be damaged. A cursory examina tion shows that the new "basket" construction is all that was originally claimed for it by Architects Wm. Miller and Robert C. Gotwald. This con struction permits of considerable swaying without the possibility of breaking anywhere from cellar to garret. Springfield, O., June 23 The new directory cen sus, completed today, gives Springfield a population of half a million. The drilling of the eleventh well for internal heat for public use was started this morning. Mayor Burnett, descendant of a well known chief executive of two centuries ago, was out in his airship this morning, inspecting the city's world-famous park system. The monument to Te- cumseh, the Indian chief, is to be unveiled on July 4th. "Stop," I commanded. "Read no more. I must, if you will excuse me, write a note at once." "Go ahead, my boy, don't let me stop you. Give me one guess and I will tell you where it is going." 160 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. "Bury yourself in your paper. Imagine you are for the next five minutes in Syracuse/' This is the note I finally dispatched by one of the Fratersurb Message Delivery Company's mes sengers, each of which is obliged to wear while on duty a never failing speed recorder : "My dear Alice: Do not believe me a prevari cator. I kept my word and did not flirt with Chinese belles. Won't you believe me ? I must see you. Won't you please suggest an hour ?" 161 CHAPTER XXII. ECONOMICAL MEASURE. : * "? Learning is an addition beyond Nobility or birth; honor of blood, Without the ornament of knowledge, is A glorious ignorance. James Shirley. Probably because Alice's mother sent back a mes sage, reading "Alice has gone to New York to visit the Misses Spangler, of 72nd St., and will be absent for two weeks," I accepted, with alacrity, an invitation to accompany Raper to New York City, to which metropolis he had been assigned to write up a device for reaching the Martians by wireless telegraphy, which would be comparatively cheap, compared with the present flash system. Nakala Tensal, the greatest electrician of the day, had years before declared that communication with Mars by electricity was feasible and would one day be a reality. The gist of his argument was that the Earth and Mars lay in the same great, unbroken bed of ether and that communication was merely a matter of commanding sufficient power to start the neces sary electrical disturbance to transmit messages. The problem of power had, with the transmis- 162 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. sion of giant energy from Niagara Falls, become simplified. On reaching New York, Raper and I, after a brief rest, ran down to Wardenclyffe, Long Island, where, many years before, a huge tower had been erected for inter-planetary communication. It had been tried, but initially was a failure, not from a mechanical standpoint, but because it had never been possible to give the necessary notice to the scientists of Mars of what was wanted at their end to make the project a success. Notwithstand ing the fact that Mars was much older than the Earth, his inhabitants had been behind this planet's people in the use of electricity in some fields. With the development of the flash system of communication, Mars had finally been notified of the desire to substitute wireless telegraphy for economical reasons. It had taken several months to make it clear just what kind of a receiving apparatus and sending in strument as well as just what voltage would be necessary. Arrangements had progressed to the point where the initial test was to be made. The great electri cian had convincingly argued that it was possible by his improved apparatus to send wireless messages to any given point with as much accuracy as to fo cus rays of light by means of lens upon any given spot. It was at this time, too, that a more definite understanding had been reached as to the relations of the planets' dominant languages, so that alto gether everything was propitious for the test. 163 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. These being days of huge co-operative enterpris es and startling inventions and projects, the world at large had grown somewhat blase. There being, however, so much interest in unsolved mysteries of Mars, veiling his people, their occupations and soci ological relations, the news, widely heralded, of the imminent experiment, aroused the whole world as if a charge of dynamite had been exploded under it. John Cook and Byron Qingerman, conceded to be among the foremost electricians of the day, had direct charge of the test. By order of the National Board of Electrical Supervision, all needed elec trical energy from the great power houses at Niag ara Falls, now falls no longer, but instead dry, bar ren rocks, the water having been diverted to sluice ways, was turned on to the cables, leading to the tower at WardenclyfTe. A reading of the dials showed the equivalent of one million horse power, but a small per cent of which it was found neces sary to use after the instruments on the two planets had been tuned. Would the test be a success ? This was the question uppermost in the minds of the people of both spheres. When all was in readiness and the switch was thrown, thousands stood around almost breathless, awaiting the outcome. The electricity leaped from cable up mast to the strong, but delicately fashioned needles. There were flashes of blue fire as Operator George Carter sent the first message. Then came a wait, a wait in which much of the Earth's future 164 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. was enwrapped. Electricians, scientists and news paper men sat or stood around with tense eager faces. Carter was the first to smile as he sat watch ing intently for the answering signals. Then he leaned over lower and wrote with delight. The message from Earth to Mars read: "The Earth greets Mars and hopes their bonds of friend ship may grow as the system of inter-communica tion progresses." The answer returned was: "Your message re ceived and understood. All hail the day of im proved inter-planetary communication. Mars sends the Earth his best wishes." The gap had been spanned. Nearly everything was now possible. Some of the more enthusiastic of the newspaper editors began to predict that the time was not far distant when a union of the plan ets of the solar system would be formed. The inter-communication was kept up with short intermissions and in the course of the next few days the following additional information had been gleaned about Mars and his inhabitants, much of the information collected corroborating statements that had for years been made by eminent astrono mers: "Mars feels like the Earth's grandfather for the reason that he is several million years older. Qi- matic conditions being much more favorable than ours, the people live to ten fold the ages of the people of the Earth. - Their ability to fly has a dual explanation, desire and the comparative lightness 165 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. of their bodies. The difference in weight is due to the fact that on Mars the force of gravity is about two-thirds what it is here. "The Martians are giants in stature and people of great mentality, in consequence of which they have made advances in the arts and sciences, which have not yet even been dreamed of on earth. Our people expect to profit largely in consequence of inter-communication and to make advances that by the slow progress of evolution would take thou sands of years. So it is seen that inter-communi cation has possibilities so vast they are on the spur of the moment difficult of comprehension. As a worker, when it is necessary, the Martian excels, his strength being enormous and his endurance al most past belief. As nearly as can be estimated now one Martian is equal in strength to nine of our men. The Martian has a prolonged nose and arms of unusual length, according to Earth's standard. As a result of the rarefied air of Mars the people have large lungs and chests. They require gills, like those of a fish, so that great volumes of air can with ease be taken into the chest. In a field day meet the inhabitants of Earth would look like pygmies beside those of Mars." The foregoing, I will explain, are excerpts from the account Raper wrote of the tests. As soon as further communication is had along certain lines that have been somewhat difficult to reach, a book is to be published, giving an account of the informa tion collected. It would be superfluous to state that 166 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. this will be the volume of the year. On returning to our hotel, my newspaper friend and I had a most delightful surprise. Elmer D. Abbott, manager of the Greater New York Fuel Gas Co., dropped into the lobby. He espied us, and rushing over to where we sat, almost wrung our hands off before we knew who he was. What a reunion. We three had not been together since we left college, where for four years we had been like brothers. "How long are you here for?" Abbott inquired, turning first to one and then to the other of us. "Really, I cannot say/' Raper replied. "You know my time is not my own. I don't know where I am to be sent. Orders will probably come in this afternoon." "How about you, Young?" Abbott asked. "I may be here several days," I answered, think ing, of course, of the direct object of my visit east. "Raper, you must stay over tonight, anyhow," Abbott insisted. "I want both of you to go with me to the bal masque at the Colonial Club. Pretty decorations, fine music, great bevy of beauties, moonlight promenades, feast fit for Lucullus come, you must ; I will not take no for an answer." He wouldn't and we went. Truly Fate often guides one's footsteps. With Cupid for a partner he sometimes is hard on hearts. 167 CHAPTER XXIII. AT THE BALL. A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spoke again, And all went merry as a marriage bell. Byron. A perfect night, made so by a clear sky, millions of twinkling stars, a full moon, air, redolent with nature's sweetest perfumes, and the gentlest of breezes, helped to make the terpsichorean event at the Colonial Club one of the largest pearls in the casket of my memory. There is another reason as you will discover below. Divine is the one word to describe that night, a night of fair women, brave men, Strauss waltzes, tete-a-tetes on the wide, low, verandas, with old Neptune just barely stirring the water, the gentle lapping of which on the sandy beach was as soothing as if it were Nature's lullaby Inside, the club, a symphony of white walls and plain but elegant woodwork, with jardinieres filled with roses, with chairs, Davenports and cozy cor ners to match the style of architecture and with a soft glow of light over all, was filled with merry, rroving groups, in colors and changes kaleidoscopic. Gay laughter, badinage and persiflage commingled formed a cheering accompaniment to the strings, 168 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. reeds and brasses of the orchestra, broken now and then by a roll on the kettle drums. The shrill oboe, the soft flute, the hoarse bassoon, the ringing cornet and the vibrant strings, all melted together into a flood of melody, filling the hall, and dying away in the moonlight, stopped for a few minutes to break out a little later into the stirring and irre sistible strains of a waltz. Pulses were quickened, engagements hurriedly met and the floor filled with a music mad throng of graceful dancers, who glided over the floor with such ease that they seemed to be floating in space. Prince Charming and a demure shepherdess, Napoleon and ,a Spanish peasant girl of the Andalusian type, Frederick the Great and Queen Isabella, George Washington and Martha Wash ington, this must have happened by collusion, Romeo and Portia, and Faust and a fairy princess, formed momentarily the foreground of the brilliant picture before a trio, composed of Abbott, Raper and myself. We stood at the south end of the hall, looking on and trying to figure out acquaintances. As for myself no algebraic problem ever received more unfailing attention than my effort to pick out Alice from among that moving host. She was dancing, of course, because she was passionately fond of it. Raper, who had a round face and a pudgy figure, was dignified and possibly stately as Chief Justice Fuller. Abbott, tall, athletic and virile in thought and deed, was grandiloquent, that is he was when he talked, as Col. Mulberry Sellers. EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. As for myself I took at the costumers that which at once caught my fancy and burst into the limelight of that night as Benjamin Franklin. The music stopped and the dancers promenaded to where fancy prompted, most of them going to the piazza, a few only remaining in the club, where seats soon held groups, divided into twos, threes, and on up. Raper, a man of keen wit and infinite jest, was soon talking to a statuesque beauty, impersonating Queen Bess, and finally walked away with her, dis appearing in the mazes made by the various groups. Abbott, a moment later, fancying he saw some one he knew, flew across the floor and left me alone in my glory. A female figure flitted in front of me. There was something familiar about her and my eyes followed to where she joined two young ladies and two men. She wore a gown of white, with a lot of those dainty lace creations about low neck and wrists no man can describe without show ing his ignorance of fasjiion and dressmaking. She was evidently The Summer Girl. One companion was a Norwegian belle, with high peaked cap, one Euterpe, one Prince Charming and the last Sir Walter Raleigh. My heart fluttered when the sum mer girl bounded away and again came in my direction. Impulsively I started toward her. I got directly in her path, pretended not to see her and then turned suddenly and in a voice I just as im pulsively disguised, asked: "How many conquests tonight entered upon the ledger of the summer girl?" 170 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. "What a question," she replied, "for one of the wisdom of Franklin." It was Alice. I was sure of her voice. There could be no mistake. Continuing the disguise of my voice, I ventured: "Franklin once was young and had a heart as susceptible as anyone's. If the summer girl had existed then, who knows, he might have proven an easy captive." "Let me get you a glass of water, some lemonade or some punch." " 'If you would have it done, go. If not send/ " she quoted. "Water please." "Come," I said, and we walked away together, I on one of the happiest missions of my life. When I suggested that we go out on the piazza, the universal Mecca that night, she demurred, say ing that her friends would be looking for her. Then, fearing that I would lose her, I hurriedly added, "I know you. Your home is in Fratersurb." "Why, have we a distinctive look?" she inquired, plainly giving expression to the amazement she felt. "How do you know me? I thought that but for four persons I was among perfect strangers. You must be an adept in telepathy. Now go ahead and tell me more. What is my name?" "Alice Meredith," I promptly replied. "You interest me," she continued. "What new mental freak is this? You talk as if you had come from some secret bounded place in India. Have you been there?" "Yes." 171 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. "Recently?" "Yes." "Tell me about it." "My visit was very brief." "Were you alone ?" "No, with Father Gladstone's party." "Oh, you are a newspaper man. Did you meet Robert Young? He is from Fratersurb." "Young? Young? O, yes, I remember, he is the fellow that saved the life of the Titu's daugh ter in Peking." "Yes, I read about it this morning." The music had started up again. It was another waltz. "This is my dance," I insisted as I arose and led her away. She appeared puzzled and did not resist. That waltz! It marks the very apex of my dance career. The murk that had been hang ing over me was lifting. There was a burst of sunshine; I was dancing on to paradise. Dances, however, under such circumstances, have a rude way of ending and putting finis to dreams. She did not object when I again suggested the piazza. "That is a waltz I shall never forget," I de clared as we sat down. She arose in astonishment, looked at me more carefully and exclaimed: "It is you, Robert Young. Why could I not guess sooner ?" and she burst into tears. I had neglected to keep up my incognito. Why is it that such incidents now and then have to occur in public places? 172 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. "Don't," I pleaded, "I would not for all the world be the cause of a single tear. What have you to cry about?" "It is one way to get relief. I believed you false until I read the Fratersurb paper this morning." My heart went out in gratitude to Raper. He had kept part of his promise. Who is going to tell about the long, low con versation we carried on out there, sitting with a canopy of stars above and the man in the moon looking down with contentment plainly evident on his face. All I can say is that Hymen is peering from around the corner, looking as if it were about time for him to walk away arm in arm with Cupid. 173 CHAPTER XXIV. A RETROSPECT. Sin hath broke the world's sweet peace unstrung Th' harmonious chords to which the angels sung. Dana's Buccaneer. At the breakfast table the next morning the con versation turned on the absence, except sporadical ly, of crime in these latter days. It was brought up as the result of an order received by Raper to make a comparison between the past and the present, the object being to show in as striking a manner as possible the beneficent effects of Brotherhood rule. We had been joined at the table by Thomas J. Creager, one of the Brotherhood idealists. With the uprooting, tree and branches, of greed, the world's most perplexing social problems had been solved. It had been contended initially by Thomas L. Gaynor, Robert D. Brain and Stewart L. Tatum that, inasmuch as it was generally recognized that money was the root of all evil, it was unquestion ably the part of wisdom to put limitations on the use and power of money for the purpose of either curbing or suppressing the evil. These three were among the first of those that advocated zealously 174 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. and unflinchingly in the earliest days of Brother hood, not a division of wealth as proposed by many Socialists of those days, but instead the sane con trol of wealth for the benefit of humanity. Greed in the past, it is now conclusively proved, was directly or indirectly responsible for nine- tenths of all crime. "Do you realize," said Raper in opening the symposium, "the extent of crime, prior to the es tablishment of Brotherhood tenets? Let me give you some information that strikes me as appalling. We will take the record of one city alone for study and comparison. That city is Chicago, probably no worse and certainly no better than other cities of similar population two centuries ago. I have selected Chicago simply because, by good fortune, records of that metropolis were easily obtainable. These figures, according to my data, were carefully verified at the time they were made, that is in the year 1906. "Here is the awful record that will daze the students of sociology who, in the investigations and studies of these days, have forgotten to a great ex tent the changes that have taken place: "Disturbance in streets) every six seconds. "Arrests made every seven and one-half min utes. "Arrest for drunkenness every fifteeen minutes. "Larceny committed every twenty minutes. "Assault and battery every 27 minutes. "Burglary every three hours. 175 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. "A hold-up every six hours. "Suicides two every day. "Murders one every day. "Such a record could not last forever. Every great reform has always BEEN PRECEDED BY SOME GREAT EXCESS." "That was the time," Brain pointed out, "that 1 ,000 men in the United States possessed more wealth than the other 86,000,000 put together. Re sult, a new form of feudalism. It was a similar condition that resulted in the disintegration of the Roman empire." "In those days," Abbott remarked, "it was spe ciously argued that piling up wealth meant reward of industry. True, no one wanted to see the lazy placed on a commercial parity with the active. Still, no difference how energetic a man might have been, it was impossible in those days for him to amass a great fortune without monopolizing an op portunity that should have belonged to many. If the inordinately wealthy had been content to let well enough alone and if they had not foraged for further monopolization of the country's resources through the agency of special privileges, bribery and purchased legislation, the advent of Brother hood government would have been delayed some years, but ultimately would have come." "Right you are," I admitted. "Every fresh ag gression in those days of monopoly simply gave added impetus to the new idea that was slowly germinating. If the men, responsible for the tin- EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. natural and reprehensible features of commercial and industrial life in those days, had not been blind to everything but making money, conditions would not have, been so bad. All honor to the men of wealth who in those days tried in vain to stem the tide, which finally engulfed them. Those men, when the crucial moment came, were active in the promulgation of plans and policies for a better method of living. They had in the past been out numbered by those who made everything else subordinate to the accumulation of wealth, no mat ter how." "It is said,'' interrupted Raper, "that a crystal lization of the dominant idea those days was found among other things in what was called the anti- toxine trust, an organization dominated by greed, that increased to an outrageous price the cost of a medical necessity for children, afflicted with cer tain contagious and often fatal diseases." "If it is your purpose to discuss trusts and their nefarious operations it is possible for this sym posium to continue for weeks to come," Creager offered. "It is unfortunate that the greed for gain grew until it affected rich and poor alike, finally tainting the labor unions, which had been organized for the elevation of the toilers. It came in the worst shape among the latter when funeral pro cessions were held up by organized strikers. True, ii may be argued that the men had a just grievance, but it certainly was unfortunate that an expression of their objections to prevalent conditions had to 177 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. come in the burial of the dead." "What an interesting study mankind is," Abbott exclaimed as he ordered his second cup of coffee. "First individual struggle for supremacy, then tribal feuds and rule, then monarchies, absolute and limited, then republics and finally Brotherhood. It is gratifying to realize that the world has been growing better constantly. What next? What little beginnings some great movements have. At first they are so insignificant they barely attract notice. For instance, take the trailing of women's skirts through the dirty, germ-infected streets. You know I am a crank on the subject of sanita tion. In looking backward the other day, I found this record of date of May 5, 1906: The town council of Nordhausen, Prussian Saxony, has is sued an ordinance, prohibiting women from allow ing the trains of their dresses to drag in the streets as a measure for the protection of health and for the prevention of tainting the air with dust. The penalty for infraction of this ordinance is a fine of $7.50. The police department of Nordhausen had previously forbidden women to allow their dress trains to sweep the sidewalks of the Friedrich Wilhelm platz and the adjacent streets. The coun cil now extends the regulation to the entire city.' A multiplicity of causes led up to the establishment of the Brotherhood. Here is a sample of one of them. This is from a file of a New York City newspaper: 'Rent riots are feared because of wholesale evictions on the East side. One thoti- 178 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. sand more families are threatened with eviction be cause they are unable to pay increased rent. Other pdges were not so lenient as Judge Fitzgerald and the streets were filled with the belongings and chil dren of the evicted families. Many of the men at tempted to assault the evicting officers and an extra force of police was necessary.' But after all what were these to the evictions of thousands of poverty- stricken people in Ireland? In the worst of the clays of rule by special privileges, every man ought to have been entitled to decent shelter and food." "Do you know," I said, "that when Roosevelt, one of the presidents under the old regime, tried to put a crimp in the operations of some of the mo nopolies, thereby taking official cognizance of their misdeeds, by insisting on the regulation by the gov ernment of inter-state commerce and transporta tion, he was hitting a blow at a form of greed that was thousands of years old and had been al lowed to wax fat simply because the people's ser vants had failed to do their sworn duty? The old Babylonian king, Hammural, who reigned about 2,250 years Before Christ, was a believer in govern ment rate regulation. Here are the laws on the subject that were on his statute books: 'If a man hire a i , its hire is 3 S. E. silver per day as its hire. If a man hire a sailboat, he shall pay 2^2 S. E. silver per day as its hire. If a man hire a boat of 60 Gur (tonnage), he shall pay 1-6 of a shekel of silver as its hire per day.' Even back in those days the same old problems the Brotherhood 179 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. has solved were constantly bobbing up. For proof here is the following from the prologue of that king's code: 'I was called to cause justice to pre vail in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak, to go forth like the Sun over the Black Head race, to enlighten the land and to further the welfare of the people, who made justice prevail and who ruled the race with right/ " Abbott had an engagement to fill and the discus sion came to an end. As he arose Raper said that he had a story of the past, one illustrating some of the crudities of the times, that he wanted us to read. "It is a human interest story," he said, "and will, I think, prove profitable/' I settled down to "kill time." Alice had given me permission to call that night at the Spangler home. Work under such circumstances was out of the question. 180 CHAPTER XXV. WHEN IN DOUBT DON'T. Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt. Shakespeare. As I ascended the steps, leading to the Spangler home, the strains of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, in turn plaintive, soulful and mellowing, came through the open door. Entranced I paused on the threshold and listened. Alice was at the piano. I recognized her touch and knew that the composi tion was a favorite with her. As she struck the last bars I made my advent, diffident, yet optimistic, believing that Alice's "No" might, with the use of a line of argument I had decided upon, be made to spell "Yes." I placed great reliance in the old so called axiom that a woman's "No" means "Yes." The soft light of the room, the perfume of rare exotics and Alice's bewildering beauty were intoxi cating. Clad in a clinging gown of black, having misty ends of lace that emphasized her statuesque beauty, she came forward to greet me. Her eyes were alive with light and her satin-like cheeks were aglow with health. "You play beautifully," I remarked to open the 181 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. conversation. "I could almost fancy as I stood and listened that I was under the spell of moonlight and in a land of enchantment." "I am glad you like it," she answered. "Nothing prettier was ever written. Notwithstanding all the music the present has given us, we still delight to go back to the old masters. Nothing better will ever be written." "Music is a good introduction to the subject I have come here tonight to discuss," I said some what precipitately. "Alice, why is it that you re fuse me when you have given confession of love for confession of love? I feel that you must have some exaggerated idea of duty." "You know," she replied, "that I, in fact all of us, have been taught from our first days of intelli gence certain ideals, the object being to strengthen Brotherhood rule. I have certain convictions, re garding marriage, that I have not been able to overcome. I again confess that I love you and that you are the one man of millions that I would marry if there did not seem to be an apparently in surmountable obstacle in the way. I would not be true to myself if I were to answer Yes." "But isn't it possible that you are mistaken? Sometimes we take the wrong view of a subject because we see it in one light only. When it is looked at from a different viewpoint we readily see that first impressions were wrong." "It seems superfluous for me to say that I have, I think, looked at the subject of marriage from 182 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. every possible point of view and that I still have the same conviction. If it is consolation for you to know that my answer is painful to me, then you have it. Duty first always is what I have been taught from childhood." "But, Alice/' I expostulated, "isn't it possible that you are wrong in your conclusions and that after all you are taking a too serious view of the matter ? It is the part of wisdom for one to change her mind when new information is furnished and new arguments are adduced. I will try to grow as eloquent as Demosthenes himself and if necessary will stand for hours in the face of a tempest with a stone in my mouth, in hope of converting you. Let us be perfectly frank with each other. If you will never marry, I will go into celibacy. If you become an old maid, I'll become an old bachelor. I fancy you are sacrificing your life to a fetich. Just fancy in years to come the young girls point ing you out as the old maid, Miss Meredith." Alice shuddered as I purposely repeated the term, old maid. I felt I had gained an advantage and I continued with new hope: "You are young, full o'f life and gay. Youth cannot last forever. Fancy your desolation in days to come when old age sets his seal on you. When you reach that stage of life, will you then be able to say that you made the wise decision tonight in repeating your 'No ?' Alice, not only your present but your future is wrapped up in your answer. You remember the words of the librettist, 'When love is young and 183 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. life is gay,' etc. Take time about this matter. Do not say 'No.' Think the matter over more. There certainly is a loop hole from which your conscience can with good grace escape." Alice was visibly affected. She bowed her head and sat absorbed in thought. Finally she an swered : "I will do as you suggest." "My answer when?" I asked. "Come to my home in Fratersurb, two weeks from tonight," she replied. I went away with step so light I scarcely seemed to touch the ground. Two weeks to wait! I felt I had won. Calling a motor car I sailed back to my hotel. I was so ab sorbed in my future that I was not aware we had reached the hotel until the driver, bowing cour teously, exclaimed, "Your hotel, sir." Raper, who was an all nighter when the occasion required it, was in the lobby when I entered, the center of a group that he was entertaining with an account, graphic of course, of our experiences on the lost and recovered Atlantis. "Old man," he said, joining me a little later, "you are looking fine tonight. Believe you have had some kind of a bracing tonic. Aha, I have it, the girl has said 'Yes/ Isn't that right?" "Not yet," I was compelled to answer, "but the outlook is rosy." "Good," he said. "You deserve her. Two weeks to wait. Well then, I am going to bore you tomor row with Elmer Paine's story. The main interest in it lies in its description of a condition of the past 184 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. almost unbelievable today. The story is founded on facts that were carefully verified by Paine. Come around to my room tomorrow morning about 9 and prepare to be victimized." "All right," I assented. "I have nothing to do for a day or two, anyhow, but to watch the clock to see when I am due to make certain calls on 72nd street." That is how I happened to listen to Paine's story. Next morning at the appointed hour I was in Raper's room. The scribe was waiting for. orders and like me was "killing time." Paine was one of the best press association men in the country. He was studiously exact and knowledge of that fact made my interest from a sociological standpoint keen in the story, which was later given wide publication in the Monthly Re view. This is the story as Raper read it to me. 185 CHAPTER XXVI. i THE SUPREMACY OF THE LAW. We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it Their perch and not their terror. Shakespeare. It was a cool, pleasant day of early Spring. The robins were flitting about and the dandelions were in bloom. The crowd at the Wingfield baseball park was in a state of excitement. The score was 6 to 6 and it was the turn of the Wingfield Reds at the bat. All but the last half of the ninth inning had been played. The Reds' opponents were the renowned Baltimore Orioles. Catcher Bitts singled and then stole second. Becker, the brawny second baseman, knocked a hot liner to middle field and reached first while Bitts slid to third and was pro nounced safe. Matthews struck out while Stenzel knocked a foul tip which the Orioles' catcher gob bled. The hopes of the Wingfield fans, and there were 4,000 of them on the grounds, fell. Bilkins went to the bat, Bilkins the most popular member of the home nine. Bilkins had just turned 22. He was a moulder and had a wife and two boys, twins. They were in the "bleachers" to see the game. The twins exclaimed "There's dad. Mamma, watch dad," 186 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. and they watched. So did 3,997 other persons. It was a critical moment. Wingfield held its breath. "One strike/' called the umpire, as Bilkins missed the ball. Then "two strikes" and Wingfield grew sick at heart. Bilkins looked at his wife and the twins, spat on his hands and gritted his teeth. The next throw the ball was driven to the far end of the left field. Bitts and Becker both scored and the champions went down in defeat before the Wing- field amateurs. Bilkins, as soon as he reached the home plate, was lifted off his feet by the ecstatic fans who car ried him on their shoulders. "Hurrah for Bilkins !" the crowd roared again and again. Bilkins looked around uneasily until he saw two little boys in pinafores and their mother beside them. The mother waved her handkerchief and the boys threw him kisses. The cheers of the crowd rang in Bilkins' ears for days afterward. His pulses had been thrilled with the joy of leadership. ***** The devout were hurrying home from church. "What," exclaimed Mayor Tolus as he stepped out of The Church of the Good Shepherd, "Officer Charlie Hollis shot? Horrible." The news spread rapidly. Little by little the atrocity of the deed be came known. People gathered in knots on the streets and discussed the crime. It was the twelfth murder in Wingfield in 18 months. Hollis was lured by Dick Nixon, a bad Kentucky 187 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. negro, to the latter's room. The officer went out of kindness. The negro pleaded that his clothing was held by an arrogant landlord. He wanted the offi cer's aid to recover his property. Blindly Hollis fell into the trap. Six weeks before, the officer had arrested Nixon. The latter had sworn revenge but the officer did not know it. Early Sunday morning Nixon offered to wager a quarter he would kill a white man before noon. No sooner was Hollis in the room and the door closed than the negro turned on him with the fury of a tiger and emptied a revolver into the offi cer's body. Police headquarters were but half a square away. Hollis, faint and bleeding, climbed the stairs leading to the chief's room. There he lay down on a table and died. Nixon, in the meanwhile, had been captured. He sat by but seven feet away unconcernedly chewing tobacco as the officer breathed his last. * * * * * A few hours passed and the tragedy only was discussed by the 45,000 people of Wingfield. In dignation grew with each hour. Wingfield was a city of factories. Men in the shops could not work. They were restless, so great was their rage. Hollis was a veteran policeman and was liked by every body. His death was felt to be a personal loss. In the foundry at the wheel works Bilkins listened to the talk. "He ought to be lynched," declared one big throated man with a grizzled beard. "If he ain't, 188 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. he will get off as easy as all them other fellows did." "You can't hang a man in this county," asserted another. "You don't dast do it. There never was a man hung here." Bilkins heard them. He drank in every word. That night as he held a hopeful on each knee he thought of poor dead Hollis and his two little ones, and instinctively held his boys closer. ***** The staff of The Morning Post had just held a consultation. Stark, the court man, forgot his in structions about a divorce suit. Wilkins could not remember whether the city editor said the bride's name was Jones or Smith. Titlow, the telegraph editor, could take no interest in the pages of "flimsy" about the Russo-Japanese war. They were, relatively, unimportant. Qark, Feeney, Reid, Warren, and other members of the local force could think of but one thing) the Hollis murder. It dominated everybody and everything. They had heard of nothing else all day. Every detail of the tragedy had been told over again and again. In his private office Managing Editor Stumps had a caller. He was Alfred Fitzgerald, the noted cor respondent of the Cincinnati Herald. "You don't mean it?" interrogated Fitzgerald. "Yes, I do," declared Stumps. "Conditions here are shocking. There is a bitter war on between the common pleas judge and the police judge As the police judge has final jurisdiction now, owing to EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. a recent Supreme court decision, in comparatively few cases, much extra work is thrown on the com mon pleas judge. One it seems, tries to undo the work of the other. This very negro Nixon was recently released by the common pleas judge after the police judge had given him a work house sen tence. The public is disgusted. "Apart from this, murder case after murder case has been tried and in every instance the penalty has been light and incommensurate with the crime. The judge blames the jury and the public blames the judge and the prosecutor." There was a knock at the door and Dr. M. C. McBride, rector of the Episcopal church, was ad mitted. After introductions, Mr. Fitzgerald turned to the rector and said: "Wingfield has one of the leading colleges of the country, one of the finest libraries in the state, much wealth and great cul ture. How do you account for the reign of terror here?" "The question is easily answered," replied the rector. "The colored population here is about 8,000. A part of the colored vote, enough to constitute the balance of power, is purchaseable. At each municipal election there is a struggle to get that vote and usually the party and the can didates that get it win. Money is dumped into the hands of the precinct 'bosses' who in turn dole it out to their followers. I have known as many as 200 negroes to be corralled at one place on elec tion day. One by one they were sent out and voted 190 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. and then paid a dollar each. Sometimes in a close campaign, the price has been run up to $5 per head. "Don't misunderstand me. I am not arraigning the entire negro population. There are many es timable colored people here who deplore the con ditions that make the ballot the opposite of sacred. As to parties each is guilty and guilty not only here but in other cities. "The negro saloons here are located on a thor oughfare, opprobiously denominated the Levee. It is a ramshackle row of buildings in the heart of the city with the railroad yards for an outlook. Each one of the saloonists has become a 'boss' with a 'pull.' So many liberties have been taken without rebuke that not only the 'bosses' but the habitues of these places know practically no restraint. The human dregs of the state have settled here. One minister, after visiting the locality, preached a ser mon on 'Darkest Wingfield.' One crime after an other has failed to arouse the good citizenship to the hideousness of the monster harbored. Twenty years of toleration have dulled the moral sense of the community." Fitzgerald saw the Levee. It was worse, he de clared, than the Chinese quarter in San Francisco. Buildings of 9 or 10 rooms each had double that number of renters. It was a motley population of the worst elements of humanity. A policeman told him that from the standpoint of revenue these mis erable, shed-like homes of vice, poverty and crime 191 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. were among the most profitable in the city and that the owners were whites. * * * * Bilkins went down town that night. He kissed his wife and boys good bye and did not expect to be gone long. He met Bitts and Stenzel and they strolled to "The Sanvidere." It was a hangout for ball players, turf lovers and pugilists. It was re spectable as such places go. They sat down at a table and had some beer. The conversation turned on the Hollis murder. They could talk of nothing else. They felt as did everybody else, that it was time to end the reign of lawlessness. There was a rush from the outside and a party of shop men came in and sat down. Bilkins knew most of them. "Let's lynch the nigger," suggested a wiry tool maker. There was not a dissenting voice. This sentiment was expressed not down south, but in an old Abolition stronghold ; Wingfield had been one of the main stations of the Underground railway. It had seethed with patriotism when the Civil war broke out and it this city of 10,000 souls then had sent one whole regiment to the front to fight for the union. "This shootin' and murderin' must be stopped," exclaimed Dave Elder. He was an old machinist, gray bearded and gray haired, but as robust as a Roman warrior. He was an old soldier and a widower without children. "There's got to be some justice in this town/' he added. 192 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. "Turbana is going to send down a box of sand," asserted Bill Smith, a boiler maker. "They don't need to," retorted Elder. Turbana was a neighbor ing town, with a record of two lynchings in six years. By this time there was a mob of 2,000 people at the county jail where Nixon was a prisoner. The mob was restless. It was of one mind but lacked a leader. At Smith's suggestion the crowd in the saloon walked down to the jail. They were prompted by curiosity. The police on guard were powerless. They were pushed aside by some of the more tur bulent and shoved hither and thither. The blue coats seemed paralyzed with the dread of impend ing trouble. In a measure they shared the feeling of the mob. They had lost a brother officer. But a few hours before he had been at roll call with them. They feared another weak kneed jury They had no right, however, to speculate nor to moralize. There was sworn duty before them. The mob grew bolder. There were hoarse yells for Nixon. Boldness developed into violence. A part of the crowd began stoning the side of the jail in which the murderer was confined. Every window was broken. Mayor Tolus, apprehending mob vio lence, had called on the militia for aid. The soldiers could not be found. At the end of a three hours' search but 20 men out of two whole companies could be gotten together. This force was deemed wholly insufficient to pit against a 193 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. frenzied mob of thousands for now it was thou sands. The spirit of the occasion was shown in the declaration of two soldiers, made privately, of course, that they were not going on duty, perhaps to be ordered to shoot into the ranks of friends or relatives. Sheriff Mortzhan had a closed carriage in wait ing at a stable half a block from the jail, but the mob was watchful. They would not let him spirit the murderer away. At 10.30 the mob had dwindled to one-third its original size. The hooting and jeering had stopped and the mob had ceased throwing stones. The authorities began to feel easier. They be lieved the crisis had passed. Instead it was the lull before the storm. Fifteen minutes later, a body of organized men marched to the jail with the precision of soldiers. On an adjoining thoroughfare they were taken for guardsmen. They meant business. Their faces were set and their hands gripped revolvers. One company was equipped with an iron rail taken from the railroad yards. There was no unnecessary talk ing. Bent on law breaking the crowd was quiet and orderly. There was a low word of command and the iron rail was swung once, twice, thrice against the jail door. Down it fell and as it did the crowd dashed for the opening. Jailer Stegory ordered them back. He might as well have tried to stop a storm. "The keys, Stegory," a dozen determined men 194 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. shouted in chorus. There were half a dozen guns pressed against Stegory's forehead. One man pulled the keys from the jailer's pocket. Down the corridor to the row of cells the mob hurried. Nixon was in front at the door of the revolving iron cage. The other prisoners had forced him there. They did not want the mob to make a mis take. The cowering wretch was dragged through the door and a noose thrown over his head. As he was pulled down the corridor he was kicked and beaten while he whined for mercy. A giant in the mob hit him over the head with a club, and tore the flesh open. Bleeding and senseless Nixon was jerked into the jail yard. An unknown man bent over him, pressed a revolver to his breast and fired. A square away was a telegraph pole. To this the mob hurried with the inanimate form. One young fellow shinned up the pole, threw the rope over a cross arm and a hundred hands pulled the wretch up in the air. Then the mob riddled the body with bullets. Men laughed and joked with one another over the deed. They dispersed and went home to sleep. ***** A party of twenty went home together that night. When they were away from the crowd they pressed close to Bilkins. "Bilkins did it," they chorused, "Bilkins had the nerve," they said. Bilkins was not glad. He did not exult over the praise. Doubt loomed up before him, and remorse followed doubt. 195 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. Bilkins hurried home to his wife and boys. Bil- kins, the leader of the mob Bilkins, who had been caught up by the spirit of the crowd and swept off his feet. Before he realized it he had become one of them and then their leader, one of the crowd of men wolves ready to rend a human being to pieces. They had swept on and on. Nothing had deterred them. Their work was finished when a life was given up for a life ; and Bilkins had headed the mob Bilkins the hero of the diamond. * * * * * Mayor Tolus sat in his office. He swung around first to one 'p none an d then to the other on his desk. The members of the Board of Public Safety the Sheriff and the County Prosecuting Attorney were with him. "Hurry me ten companies of sol diers," he said to the Governor, fearing threats of further violence. It took time to mobilize the soldiers and get them to Wingfield. The next night after the lynch ing the streets were filled with a second mob. The cry, ''Burn the Levee" was taken up. The crowd surged back and forth in the streets: it was wild, restless, reckless. The disorderly element was conspicuous in it. The men of the night before were missing. An hour passed and there were shots on the Levee. Volleys followed. Then a tongue of flame leaped up. The threat to fire the levee had been carried out. The mob would not let the fire department throw water on the dives, for dives they were, but did 196 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. help the fire laddies save adjacent property. In the morning the Levee was in ruins and the city was practically under martial law. The soldiers had come in the night. * * * * * At first there was a feeling among citizens gen erally of exultation of satisfaction, because Nixon was dead and the Levee gone. This feeling later, when the public became sober, gave way to horror and disgust. The whole country burst out in indignation. The newspapers were laden with editorials excoriating Wingfield, Wingfield where the outrage of slavery had been most fiercely preached. The South grew satirical. The people of Dresden, Tenn., adopted at a mass meeting, resolutions, urging the necessity of sending mis sionaries to Wingfield. ***** ''Gentlemen of the Grand Jury," said Prosecut ing Attorney McDrew, "no difference what our personal sentiments are or have been about the riots, there is a duty to the State we must per form. We must purge ourselves as far as we are able of the outrage of mob law. No community can tolerate it. No people dare let it obtain a foothold. Life, property, civilization are all at stake. With a mob once started there is no telling where, if uncurbed, it will stop. If the perpetrators of this outrage against the law go unpunished, danger is added to danger. No man's property or life will be safe. They may take 197 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. offence at you or at me. They may burn our homes or attempt our lives. Mob law is the boundary line between civilization and barbarism. We must root it out." The sentiments of the prosecutor were approved by the jury. More than 400 witnesses were called. Little by little a chain of evidence was forged. ***** Poor Bilkins. There were tears in his eyes that day when he sat in court and listened to the Judge, He was the picture of despair. "Seven years in the penitentiary," was the sentence. The wife and the twins were at his side when the fateful words were pronounced. The poor little woman fainted and the boys sobbed pitifully. The lobby looked on in undisguised sorrow. The sheriff led Bilkins away. Dave Elder muttered unintelligibly to himself. "The law must be obeyed" rang in his ears. He strode over to Mrs. Bilkins. "Come Anna," he said, taking her hand, 'Til take you home. You and the babies shall not suffer." 198 CHAPTER XXVII. THE NEW BRIDGE. Profounder, profounder, Man's spirit must dive: To his aye-rolling orbit No goal will arrive. The heavens that now draw him With sweetness untold, Once, found, for new heavens, He spurneth the old. Ralph Waldo Emerson. "Hardly credible in these enlightened days," I exclaimed. "After all, civilization is only compara tive. Two hundred years ago, four hundred years ago, six hundred years ago, eight hundred years ago, one thousand years ago, what marvelous prog ress mankind has made! Suppose one could fall into a Rip Van Winkle sleep now some place up in the Catskills and awake two hundred years hence. I venture the prediction that the world would be unrecognizable. In the light of past advancement nothing is impossible. What, anyhow, is the ulti mate destiny of man? If, as one scientist says> the earth will still be inhabitable one hundred mil lion years from now, what changes are certain f Alterations in methods of living, environment,, pleasures, desires and ambitions will change man physically and mentally. Your man of a million 199 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. years from now may be as different from the man of today as the man of best intelligence two hun dred years ago was from the pygmies of Central Africa or the Dvoraks of Borneo. If the atmos phere of the earth should grow rare, Nature would act promptly and supply man with larger lungs. Larger lungs would mean a larger chest and a man physically of different shape from the creature of today. The tabloid method of feeding, if persisted in, may result in time in the di sapper ance of teeth. The possibilities are boundless. The cultivation of the anti-greed spirit may produce a race of men who will in a large measure be alike. Then and not till then will the dream of the Socialists be realized." "That reminds me," remarked Raper, "of what a noted writer of two centuries ago said. I had oc casion recently to look him up. His contention went something like this: 'No matter how much difference there may be in the tomorrow of Social ism in its today, when all of it shall be inaugurated as a system, all things must be owned collectively and that means that the high and the low come to a common level ; the good and the bad start even ; the idle and the industrious share and share alike ; the illiterate and the learned, the capable and the incompetent, the fool and the wise man, the virgin and the troll, the negro and the white, all come to the universal pot, and ladel out an equal porringer full of pottage. God! What a sordid, sickening dead level ! What an enforced equalizing of all 200 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. rren and all women, in a world where God never, made two grains of sand, two leaves of the forest, two birds of the air, two fish of the sea, two beasts of the field exactly equal.' There is a lot of truth in that and yet the Socialists have a good argu ment in desiring a better condition of mankind. For that they are to be commended. They may be mistaken in their deductions and yet after all they are simply teaching an idealistic condition, based on the belief that we all belong to one great family and that the concern of one should be the concern of all. Don't misunderstand me. I am not a Socialist, yet I confess that many of the Socialist doctrines appeal to me. Of course when Brother hood was originally proposed those ferninst it shouted Socialism, but not accurately. Brother hood, it is true, may be a sop to Socialism. Un doubtedly it is and yet it does not wipe out in dividuality. It does, however, put limitations on the ability of any one man to profit to an enormous extent at the expense of the many. It may lead up to Socialism. The Socialists, after a period of somnolence, are again active. Possibly the en vironment provided these days for mankind gen erally, real compulsory education not only in free schools but in free colleges, and the inculcation from the earliest days of understanding of the anti- greed spirit may in time result in Socialism or something akin to that. Two hundred years ago the world had made great strides in that direction. The Socialistic idea seemed to seize the masses all 201 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. at once and obtained a strong foothold. Social and industrial conditions in those days furnished fertile soil for its growth. The world is growing better and people are getting closer together. The snob bishness and arrogance of the past are known now only in history. Class distinctions, once so sharply defined, are obliterated. Who can say that the world is not better off for it ? The best capital any country can have is honest, intelligent and generous manhood." "Raper, you ought to go on the lecture plat form," I asserted. "You talk with the logic and eloquence of a modern Daniel Webster. But let's get away from the past for a while. That lynching story has left a bad taste in my mouth. Come, let us go down to lunch. I promised Alice to go with her this afternoon down to Long Island to see the new botanical gardens." Raper, declaring that he was hungry enough to eat salt pork and beans, needed no second invita tion. After lunch I went up to the Spangler home, got Alice, and with her started to carry out the after noon's program. "Oh," she exclaimed, when we had reached the lower end of the island, "let us cross the river on the new endless belt bridge. The girls up at the house say it is great fun." Now let it be explained that the congestion early in the morning and late in the afternoon on the sus pension bridges, the ferry boats and the motor cars, 202 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. to say nothing of the subways and pneumatic tubes, had a few years before grown to such proportions that a municipal commission was named to devise means to handle the crossing crowds in the so- called "rush" hours, different, however, from the "rush" hours of long ago in that the people showed more consideration for one another. This commission finally hit upon the endless belt bridge. The best engineers in the country prompt ly pronounced the plan feasible and three months later the initial work was started. The bridge has now been in operation six years and works like a charm. The so called belt is of minite, which superseded Bookwalter steel as a metal easily shaped and possessing almost incal culable strength. This roll of minite is five hun dred feet wide and turns at the rate of ten miles per hour on a series of wheels, driven by electric power from Niagara Falls. At each end are over lapping rolls, each running slower and slower, un til the crossing crowds can step off with absolute safety. Each side of the belt is, of course, lined with strong and high wire mesh fences, topped by flexible guard rails. This new device, that is now working with such marked success, has a carrying capacity of 8,000,000 people per hour. To prevent sagging, which the engineers said would not be dangerous, huge arms, built out at various angles from each abutment and each containing duplicate sets of wheels, all forming an arch, were construct- 203 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. ed. Thus was one of New York's greatest prob lems solved. Our trip over was fully as interesting as Alice had anticipated. We took a position near the west railing and looked out on one of the world's greatest panoramas. There was life all around us and above and below. As we stood in silence and gazed I ventured the declaration that two weeks was a long time to wait. Alice firmly but gently forbade me speaking of the subject again until the time fixed. I pointed out to her the ruins of Fort Hamilton and the other structures built years ago to guard the Narrows. With the disarmament seventy-five years ago of the world powers there was no longer need for great navies and miles of fortifications. The millions that had been spent that way were later diverted into educational channels for the pur pose of making better men and women and to promulgate the anti-greed campaign. Look around you today, fellow citizens, and view the magnificent results. Our afternoon at the botanical gardens, stocked with the many old and new plants, the latter made possible by the development of the Burbank idea in many different channels of horticulture and ar boriculture, was one of unalloved delight, or would have been for me had I been able to forecast Alice's momentous answer. That evening when I was back in the quiet and solitude of my room I became oppressed with the 204 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. sickening dread that Alice would remain obdurate and adhere to an exaggerated sense of duty. I grew sick at heart at the prospect. While I sat wrapped in gloom Raper bounded into my room with the information that the translation of the tablets he had found at Atlantis had been delivered to him. "Wonderful," he exclaimed. Then taking an other look at me, he added, "Down in the mouth again, old chum, eh? Come, brace up. This won't do." 205 CHAPTER XXVIII. AN AGE AGO. The fault kings do Shine like the fiery beacon on. a hill, For all to see, and seeing, tremble at. Hemming' s Fatal Contract. The translation, of necessity a most liberal one, ran as follows: Having been chosen by lot at a meeting of the Secret Ten, the executive body of the Order of Justice, to rid the country of King Marvo, the tyrant, who has weighted the people down with taxes they can no longer bear, ruthlessly despoiled homes of their fairest flowers, made widows of the land's wives and orphans of their children, waged unholy war after unholy war that his passion for greed, glory and power might be satisfied, and left the country a patchwork of bloodied homes, I feel it my duty to leave to pos terity a record of some of the more flagrant wrongs that have resulted in the Secret Ten's decision. What is man, anyhow, under the dominion of a tyrant, whose word is law and whose friends are the sycophantic court hangers on, who fawn on him, feed him on flattery and persuade him he is the greatest living ruler? No longer is a petition for improved conditions received. Was it not but 206 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. last week that my kinsman, Gonda Klino, bearing an address from the toilers, mere slaves, asking for clean food and better shelter, was laughed at by the tyrant and his courtiers, drunken with wine, and tossed out to the lions to be eaten alive. My ears still ring with his cries of agony as the beasts, starved to make the punishment of offenders more frightful, tore him limb from limb? Who is there now to comfort his wife and feed his two little children, dark eyed Maza, and little Nana, the lat ter little more than a babe? It was but two weeks ago yesterday that beautiful Sista, the wife of my long time friend, Tama, was ruthlessly torn from his arms and placed in the tyrant's seralgio. Has the sun god forgotten us? I have ceased to pray, as I did only when in great distress of mind. I now believe with my old teacher that after all life is a chemical product and that man must work out his own destiny. This belief gives me courage to act my part. Men must act together to get justice. After all are we not brothers and should we not be as one for the good of all? Marvo is mad, mad with the flood of blood that his incessant wars bring. All the country to the East he aspires to rule. More power, more riches, more glory, is his never dying slogan. Men, the great army of thousands upon thousands, are to him mere tools to gain a new empire or more gold. His heart is as hard as flint and cries of distress never pass the high palace walls. Big of neck, low of brow, and cold of heart, this monster, Marvo, 207 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. with his thick, cruel lips, unsightly leer and heavy, determined chin, knows naught of mercy. O, Sun God, if you do really exist, why do you allow such an infamy as rule by this gorgon, of a people, kind, loving and just by nature? His victorious armies, now swarming over The Hellas, will soon move on to Egypt, leaving behind a wide road of blood, ruin and pillage. My anger has grown since my boyhood friend, Cato Pije, came home with his eyes gouged out and one hand hacked off, a living monument to the greed of this tyrant for gain. Oh, if we could but arouse the poor, miserable, wretched people to a sense of their rights. Accustomed from childhood to permit themselves to be driven as slaves, with no property, not even wife or children sacred, their spirit has been crushed, and while the fire of rebellion burns here and there, who is there strong enough to march against the tyrant and end his inglorious reign ? No one. The army, privileged to go to any excess, simply reflects the cruelties of the master. My mind is made up. If necessary my life goes as a sacrifice in the effort to right our multifarious wrongs. I shall tomorrow morning enter the palace, painted and garbed as an Egyptian, crave an audience as the representative of the king and pretend to make overtures for peace. When the opportunity offers itself I shall plunge this dagger into his breast, light this secret powder and while it fills the throne room with smoke, make my escape, crying "Fire! Fire!" It is wrong to 208 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. kill. So we have been taught all these years and yet when the wild beasts enter our fields and attack our flocks we kill them. Why not then kill him who, judged by results, is worse than all the wild beasts of Atlantis ? The prophet Wo is to be put to death. He has dared inferentially to condemn the King. From the high tower day before yesterday, he exclaimed : "Listen, my brethren, and hear the cry. The moon is red, the sun is red, the land is red. Atlantis is doomed. It shall sink from sight and the deep shall roll over it." His prophecy was speedily carried to the King, who has ordered him painted red from head to feet and placed under the great sun glass in the court yard, where he will turn and twist in agony as the hot rays make his flesh burn and curl up. If I fail and am captured, what will be my fate? Horrors ! Slow death on the rack, death covering a period of seven days. I have a right to shudder. But I will not falter. I have sworn the irrevocable oath. Some day I may be called patriot. Tomor row I will be murderer. Such are the distinctions centuries make. This screed I will consign to the Secret Ten to do with it as they may order, per haps for another unfortunate to peruse after he has been assigned the task allotted me, provided I fail. What was that? Another earthquake. These rumbles grow frequent. They recall my visit with my teacher, Father Vino, to the Chasm of the Past f where when the earth split open, was exposed to 209 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. view the carcasses of great animals that must have lived ages before. There is none like them now. One creature must have been primitive man. The tyrant reminds me of him, so much are they alike in low brows and big necks. This primitive man was covered with long coarse hair, had great fangs pro truding from thick lips and long sharp nails on both hands and feet. By his side was a club, evi dently his only weapon. Is it true, as Father Vino contends, that life on this earth has in size and character been measured through all the ages by the chemical condition of the earth and the air and the water ? O, great Sun God, answer. Now in the hour of my greatest trial help me. ***** M V hands are red with blood. Here am I hidden in the cave I learned of when a boy. The tyrant is dead. The ruse worked. The cry of fire diverted attention from me and I es caped. Human blood hounds are on my heels. In stinct tells me so. I am tired and my limbs refuse to carry me further. I care not what becomes of me. My head is buzzing and my eyes heavy. How horrible to stain one's hands with human blood ! My heart seems to be in my throat and about to choke me. Ah, that is better. I have made an effort, feeble as it is, to brace up, and await the inevitable. Death has no terrors for me. It was life that presented the gloomy prospect. Have I acted wisely ? Who will profit by my act ? No one. There will be another tyrant to rule as badly as Marvo did. It is the system that is wrong. Some 210 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. day, an age from now, all will be changed and there will be no more tyrants. Then men will live hap pily, free from strife, from wars, great wastes that they are, and from the thousand and one wrongs that oppress today. O that I could live to see that day. It is growing dark. I cannot see to write more. My hand grows weak and palsied. Great Sun God, they are coming. They will rend me to pieces. These butchers of the king know no mercy. Hear their hoarse cries. They know they have me trapped. My throat is as dry as an oven and my tongue is swollen. I am lost. I cannot see more. A note on the last tablet explains that the parch ment on which the above was written was found later in the cave by friends of the man who was slaughtered by the king's emissaries, carefully pre served and five hundred years later transmitted to tablets and placed in the library of the capital city of Atlantis. 211 CHAPTER XXIX. SUNDAY AT CHURCH. Love never fails; though knowledge cease, Though prophecies decay, Love Christian love, shall still increase, Shall extend her sway. William Peter. When I called the next Sunday morning at the Spangler home to take Alice to church she was un usually grave, forcing me to believe that after all the fond hopes I had entertained, ultimate rejection was to be my fate. The day was a beautiful one and the last on which depression should have ex isted. The subject dearest to me was tabooed. I must maintain silence on it until Alice gave me per mission to speak. We had decided to attend ser vices in the Church Universale in Fifth avenue. It was a great pile of brick and stone, stately and im posing in architecture, both in exterior and in terior. Its principal beauty was found in its in effable grace and simplicity. Great bunches of fragrant flowers filled vases standing at various points of vantage. The church, which with its great galleries, had a seating capacity of six thou sand, was well filled when we entered. There were no private pews, and no places of special advantage to be purchased with money. Absolute equality as 212 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. to the occupancy of pews prevailed. Had there been beggars in the street, they would have been received with as warm a welcome as those able to garb themselves in silks and satins and broadcloth. Fortunately under Brotherhood rule there are no beggars today and no tramps. Both long ago were relegated to the past by elimination, made possible by proper education and good government. The music the word sublime describes it better than any other. The form of service was a composite of that which had prevailed in Christian lands in the past, neither too ornate, too garish nor too plain. It met all requirements. The Church Universale was based on the simple and logical proposition that all men are brothers and that all of their relations in life, social or business, should be brotherly, free from cant, greed and jealousy. This doctrine is re ligiously taught all school children from the primer clear down through the curriculum to algebra and rhetoric. This education is compulsory and its beneficent results are apparent in the peace, pros perity and happiness enjoyed by the Brotherhood people, the envied of all mankind. The Church Universale was the natural evolution of the friendly feeling that dominated all Christian churchmen two centuries ago. The hostile spirit that once was dis played gave way as the partisans of this denomi nation or of that sect began to realize with the broadening of general intelligence that all were actuated by the same general spirit, no difference how much their forms of worship and methods of 213 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. church government might differ about petty details. Thus it was that Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians and the various other denominations began to get closer together and to find something to admire in their fellow religion ists. Where once intolerance had ruled and acri mony had resulted over finely drawn points of doc trine, fraternizing began that ultimately ended in the amalgamation of all churches, with one object in common in view. Ascendancy was given to the principle of correct living on earth and less atten tion paid to mooted points, hinging on the doctrines of predestination, infant baptism, sanctification and eternal punishment. No preacher longer promul gated the cruel and revolting idea of a hell with a lake of brimstone, demons with tridents and red hot furnaces all kept ready for sinners tumbled down the opening from Earth. The minister occupying the pulpit that morning was the Rev. John Clark Hill, who smiled benign ly on his congregation as he took his place in the pulpit, announced a hymn and then joined with zest in the congregational singing of it. It was sig nificant that there were no hypocritical faces in the great gathering. As a rule the face is a good index to the thoughts. It is difficult to hide the beauty and generosity of a good heart. They are bound to crop out in the eyes, in the mouth and in the expression. The culti vated goodness of the Brotherhood people was evident in every face. It was unusual to see one 214 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. that had a tired, worried look. Ideal life had been reached. And that singing! None of it was done perfunctorily. There was a volume of melodious sound that truly made the welkin ring. Then the pastor read the lesson, Christ's ser mon on the Mount, in which all of the philosophy of the past had been boiled down. There was rapt attention as he read: "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the king dom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust shall consume, and where thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume and where thieves do not break through nor steal ; for where thy treasure is there will thy heart be also." The sermon that followed was simple, plain and direct, free from circumlocution, pedantry or affec tation. It went right to the hearts of the speaker's hearers and I believe prompted all present to cling with added fervor to the principles of ideal exist ence. It is almost superfluous to explain that the Church Universale is institutional in character and that it provides with work shop, gymnasium and 215 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. entertainments for the wants of the young. The day was so bright and so beautiful that Alice and I walked home, enjoying every minute of the bright sunshine and bracing air. Alice rather startled me when she asked: "Do you b'elieve in reincarnation?" "I am not sure I do," I replied. "It is a sub ject to which I have given more or less study. I have also made some investigation along the same line, none of which is convincing or conclusive. I believe firmly in the indestructibility of matter and the recurrence of matter apparently destroyed in some new chemical form, which you may express by whatsoever mysterious symbols you please. I know there has recently been quite a revival of the idea and that the esoteric now commands more at tention than it ever did before. The doctrine is an old one and has its millions of firm followers among the Brahmins and Buddhists, some of whom are among the greatest philosophers and scholars in the world. I have had some experi ences myself that have left me in doubt. All of my teachings and my intuition prompt me to believe that there is no such thing as reincarnation as taught by the Orientals and yet if I had come from a race that believes in it and had been taught it from the first I am confident that I should believe in it." "I have had some queer experiences in studying the subject," mused Alice, for the moment, I thought, almost unconscious of my presence. 216 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. "They have left me impressions I wish I could shake off. It is not easy sometimes to decide where reality ends and imagination begins. The line of demarcation is at times exceedingly faint." "What's the use of taking seriously what it is im possible to be certain about," I urged. "You re member the motto of the old French savant, 'when in doubt don't.' " Alice turned and looked at me curiously. She was still grave and to a certain sense preo'ccupied. Had I said something that had added to her ob vious bewilderment? We reached the Spangler home and parted with tenderness characteristic of a couple whose future might be bound indissolubly together. During the remainder of the day the conviction grew on me that Alice would, on the eventful day fixed at her home in Fratersurb, repeat the answer she had given me on the night I had proposed, with the moon and the stars as silent witnesses of the depth of my affection and the honesty and sincerity of my surrender. 217 CHAPTER XXX. BACK TO THE CAPITAL. From that day forth, in. peace and joyous bliss They lived together long without 'debate; Nor private jars, nor spit of enemies, Could shake the safe assurance of their state. Spencer's Fairy Queen. N. B. The final chapter of this narrative was written by Raper, the newspaper man, for reasons that will appear later. Bob Young was burning with impatience when he returned to Fratersurb. It was almost impos sible to calm him. He feared that instead of help ing matters his injunction, "When in doubt, don't," would operate to his disadvantage, in fact might be the cap sheaf to the shock of argument already built by Alice Meredith against marriage. His worry was intense and the night before the date fixed for the answer to be given him he, from sheer anxiety, did not sleep. At the last minute he lost confidence in my claim that I would soon receive an invitation to be best man at his wedding. To add to his cares, Father Gladstone summoned him for a final lecture, preparatory to his elevation to one of the highest places in the Brotherhood do main highest in the sense of equipment to promul- 218 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. gate Brotherhood doctrines. Bob, my old chum, was as nervous as a school girl about to read her commencement essay, when he stood up before Father Gladstone in the latter's study and received his charge. I had the good fortune to be present. I will not repeat all that Father Gladstone said on the momentous occasion. True, it is all worthy of reproduction, but you, kind reader, are most in terested now, I assume, in the termination of my friend's love affairs. That which Father Gladstone said that most appealed -to me was this : "Your life will be full of important responsibilities. Eternal vigilance on your part is necessary to keep alive Brotherhood doctrines, to see that there is no retro gression and in particular to see that any outcrop- pings of once dominant greed are summarily dealt with. Some men will always lead. The Brother hood has aimed by persistent education to see that they lead aright. The past is full of striking rea sons why there should be no lapsing into the old ways. Always be aggressive in publishing Brother hood ideas. In the past it was originally pointed out that Brotherhood could never be successful be cause of the varying mental, moral and physical strength of men. This was the most cogent argu ment made against us. We, of necessity, admitted the varying qualities of men and answered that we did not expect nor wish to make all men alike, but instead desired to eliminate from our social struc ture the admittedly gross inequalities that had grown up with the world's industries and com- 219 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. merce. Then the specious argument was made that it was our purpose to deprive men of their just re ward for those qualities, known as energy, enter prise, push, nerve and genius. We answered that the contention was a mistake, that we believed in rewarding those exhibiting special industry but also believed in placing a limitation on the magnitude of the reward. The wisdom of our contention has been proved in so many different ways that one who now questioned it would at once be denomin ated an imbecile. Contrary to claims made Brother hood has not put a check on the world's progress, but by producing general satisfaction with the order of things, has stimulated activity in all of the arts, sciences and industries. Never waver. We are right. The world is better and the people happier. These two facts are the quintessence of the whole story." At any other time my friend would have been deeply stirred by these admonitions. There arc times in every man's life when love will gain the ascendancy. Bob Young had reached that stage. In the meantime, while he was eagerly watching the clock for the approach of the hour fixed for him to learn his fate, I was not idle. By strategy I managed to get away from his side long enough to call at the Meredith home. I had met the daughter of the house once before. As tactfully as I could I explained my mission, which was to inform Miss Meredith of Bob's awful dread that she would again reject him. The situation was a 220 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. delicate one for me and a false word might have done a world of harm. I prefaced my statement with the explanation that Bob did not know of my presence or of my intentions, which were hon estly to do all I could to bring two loving hearts together. Of course some may argue at this point that "Faint heart ne'er won fair lady," and that if Bob did not remain firm and courageous to the end he did not deserve the prize. I cannot agree with them because there are mitigating circumstances, including the somewhat distressing and discourag ing fact that he had been rejected once before for reasons that were yet a mystery to him. Miss Meredith listened to me with every courtesy and with characteristic good sense. She was not offended, but on the contrary appeared to be grate ful to me for the interest I was taking in their af fairs. She listened as I summarized the situation, paying special attention to my statement of Bob's anxiety, misgivings and dread. Throughout the long narrative, which was possibly somewhat inco herent, considering the embarrassment I at first la bored under, she was most patient. When she had heard me through, she turned to her diary, which lay on a nearby stand, found page 141 and calm ly said, "Read." I began what was sacred and never intended for my eyes. The girl knew how close I had been to Bob, through years of intimate association and her confidence in me was unshaken. I consider this the highest compliment that was 221 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. ever paid me. I read: "Dear Bob tonight asked me to be his wife. I had been so impressed by my studies of reincarnation and my duties to Brother hood that I refused him. I told him by way of ex planation that I should never marry. Now that he is gone and possibly lost to me forever, I know my heart better. I love him dearly, better than anyone else in all the world. Was I right? Have I been misled? Have I taken a too serious view of the situation? After all, did I really see into the past or was that only a phantasm? Someone has said that one can believe almost anything by as siduous study within the boundary lines of the sub ject. Is it true that my great great grandmother was a stony-hearted, selfish snob, given up to gar ish display, and who with vast wealth, treated the suffering and even the starving under the shadow of her home, with a cruelty and indiffer ence hard to believe? That is what I saw in my vision. I know that at one time such people ex isted. If it be true that my near ancestor was such a person, my humiliation would be so great that in these days of Brotherhood I would be ashamed to face the world with the guilty knowledge. * * : Today I sent Bob a message that I loved him. Five minutes later, considering the admission a weakness, I was ready to recall ft. . * * * * I have had papa look up my great great grand mother's history and I find that it is about as I saw it. How can the truthful vision be explained? People often see things for the first time in dreams 222 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. that are striking in their accuracy. Some see a portrayal of future events that proves correct. What freak of the mind is it? What is it that is still a mystery to the best metaphysicians? Papa's rev elation has brought back my doubts about marry ing. * * * * Mr. Young had a Chinese girl in his arms today. Horrid creature! I never want to see him again. I believed in him absolutely. I feel so badly I could cry. * * * * My mind is made up. I shall never marry. * * * * And to think that I accused Bob unjustly. He saved the girl's life. Good, brave Bob. What do I care anyhow about the foibles of my great great grand mother. * * * * Bob was at the ball last night. T was awfully glad to see him. I have promised to give him an answer in two weeks. * * * * B o b will be here tomorrow night. I am so glad." The ink in which the latter statement was writ ten showed that it was not many hours old. I felt happy on Bob's account. I already fancied myself at the altar in the role of best man. The strains of Mendelssohn's wedding march were ringing in my ears. ''Miss Meredith," I said, "I greatly appreciate the confidence you have reposed in me. I think you have done right and violated no correct womanly reserve. Little things sometimes lead to grave misunderstandings. So in this case. Bob has been looking into his past and fancies that he was once a cheap peanut politician, a ward heeler, and a 'thirty cent' boss. Admitting for the sake of 223 EVE AND THE EVANGELIST. argument that you have really seen into the past, which I doubt, is there on that account any real, sane reason why two lives should be blighted be cause of what some ancestor, or you or he in a former existence did ? It is all nonsense." Miss Meredith looked thanks from her bright eyes. She said with fervor, "I thank you very much for what you have done." I felt that the interview was at an end and left. Because I was not permitted to be present I do not know what was said that night when the two lovers met, one at first filled with doubt, the other happy in the revocation of a decision once made and announced. The wedding was a memorable affair and I was best man as I told Bob I would be. He got me away from the jam at the reception over into a cor ner long enough to almost crush my hand and ex claim : "Old chum, I am your debtor for life." Rice throwing before that had always appeared barbarous to me. Now I know the joy of it. END. THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW RENEWED BOOKS ARE SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE RECALL LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS Book Slip-Series 458 N9 823302 PS3535 Rice, H.E. 1226 Eve and the evange- E8 list. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS