The Mark of the Beast | Page 6

as she uttered the precious, though
to her the hated name of the Son of God.
CHAPTER I.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER.
The huge London church was crowded in every part, and men had been
standing in the aisles from the first moment that the service began. The
preacher who had attracted so huge a crowd at two-thirty on a weekday
afternoon, was one of the very youngest of the "coming men" of the
English church. Tall, thin, with a magnificent head crowned by a mane
of hair that was fast becoming prematurely grey, and a face so intense
in its cast, and set with eyes so piercing, that strangers, not knowing
who he was, would almost inevitably turn to look at him when they
passed him on the street. His career had been a strange one. Ordained at
quite an early age, he had been offered a living within six months of his
ordination. He entered upon his charge, preached but once only, then
met with an accident that laid him low for seven years. The seven years
were fruitful years, since, shut up with God and His word, he had
become almost the most remarkable spiritually-minded Bible student of
his time.
The day came, at length, when once more he was strong enough to do
public service, and though without a living, from the moment that he
had preached his first sermon, after his recovery, he found himself in
constant request on every hand. He lived in close communion with God,
and his soul burned within him as he delivered--not an address, not a
sermon, but the message of God. The music of the voluntary was filling
all the church, while the offering was being taken. Then, as the last
well-filled plate was piled on the step of the communion rail, the
voluntary died away in a soft whisper. Amid a tense hush, he rose to
give out the hymn before the sermon. Clear, bell-like, his voice rang
out:
"When I survey the wondrous cross."
The hymn sung, he gave out his text: "Did not I choose you the twelve,
and one of you is a demon."
"You will note," he began "that I have changed the word devil to
demon. There is but one devil in the universe, but there are myriads of
demons, fallen angels like their master, the Devil, only they were

angels of lesser rank."
He paused for one moment, and his eagle eyes swept the sea of faces.
Then in quiet, calm, but incisive tones he asked:
"Who,--what, was Judas Iscariot? Was he human, was he man, as I am,
as you are? or, was he a demon? Jesus Christ our Lord, who knew as
God, as well as man, declared that Judas was a demon--a fallen angel."
The silence was awesome in its tenseness. Every eye was fixed on the
preacher, necks were strained forward, lips were parted--the people
held their breath.
Again that clear, rich bell-like voice rang out in the repeated question:
"Who, I repeat, was Judas Iscariot? Was he a man, in the usual
acceptance of the term, or was he a demon incarnated? What does the
Bible say about him? In considering this I ask you each to put from
your mind, as far as it is possible for you to do so, all preconceived
ideas, all that you have been accustomed to think about this flame of
evil in the story of Christ.
"And first let me say what my own feeling, my own strong personal
conviction is regarding Judas Iscariot. I believe him to have been a
demon incarnated by the power of the Devil, whose intent was to
frustrate God's plans. In all his foul work of destruction and confusion,
the Devil, from the time of the Fall in Eden, has ever been busy
counterfeiting all that God has wrought out for the salvation of the
human race, and as the time approaches for his own utter defeat so the
more cunning will his devices of evil become.
"In the foulness of his thoughts to frustrate God's purposes of salvation,
I believe that when he knew that the Christ had been born, that God had
Himself become incarnate, so that He might deliver man--for we must
never forget that 'God was in Christ reconciling the world unto
Himself--that he, the Devil, incarnated one of his demons, who
afterwards became known as Judas Iscariot, the Betrayer of Christ."
For one instant the preacher paused, for the awed and listening mass of

people who had been literally holding their breath, were compelled to
inbreathe, and the catch of breath was heard through all the place.
"To use a twentieth century expression," he went on, "I may seem to
have 'given myself away' by this statement of my own conviction. But I