Deck sat down. A murmuring that had started during his speech now broke out into cries of, “Nonsense!” “Pedantry!” “Turn him out!”, yet whispering in the audience showed many quieter voices were discussing his words. On the platform Starky and Thomas looked appealingly to the chairman who again sat with downcast eyes until another voice from the floor said, “Brother Henry, I am Arthur Rees from Sunderland in Northumbria. May I speak?”
“Certainly,” said Henry.
“When Brother Starky says a Vessel of the Holy Ghost may be among us, does he refer to Christ’s second coming?”
“Eh. . yes! I do! But in The Spirit!” cried Starky, then added hastily, “And in the body too. . of course. . also in the body.”
“Thankyou for being so clear,” said Rees. “True Christians should always expect Christ’s second coming at any moment, for if we do not we may miss it, as the foolish virgins missed the bridegroom in the parable. That is why we Christians have been expecting Christ ever since His resurrection. But can we be sure His second coming is now so very near? Brother Starky says the world has grown as wicked as when God drowned nearly everyone in Noah’s flood, but is not the world today, with its many admitted evils, better than it was in the days of the Emperor Nero? Or before the Protestant Reformation? I agree with him that many Church of England clergy are worldly men with worldly motives, but do not agree that there are no pure-hearted Christians outside the Lampeter Brethren. In other churches there are many pure believers. I myself am thinking of joining the Baptists. .”
This caused a muffled commotion in which a woman screamed, “Shame!”, then tried to look as if she had not. Rees cried, “Surely we should only do what Jesus commanded! Let us love the Lord our God with all our hearts and souls and minds and our neighbour as ourselves! Let us even love neighbours who ignore us, mock us or treat us as enemies! God still wants Christians to love and serve fallen humanity, especially if we are priests.”
He sat down in a sudden, respectful silence which lasted some seconds before hands were raised by many eager to speak. The chairman suddenly looked up and in a strange sing-song that disconcerted everyone chanted, “Brother Deck again has the floor.”
“I d-d-do not wish to suggest anything of-of-of-offensive to Brother Prince and his followers,” said Deck, confused by the strange voice that singled him out but swiftly mastering his stammer, “I only suggest that Brother Starky’s motion is prem — is premature. Let all the Lampeter Brethren and their congregations watch for signs that Christ is returning or has returned, because surely these signs will be miracles that none who see them can doubt, and that no show of hands, no counting of heads can set in train. I move that all in the Lampeter Brotherhood correspond with each other, perhaps using our minutes secretary, Brother Thomas, as a kind of central post office. If any of us encounter a miracle showing that Christ has returned, let him share that news, not confine it to one circle of ad-ad-ad-admirers.”
“Let Brother Deck’s commands be obeyed!” Henry almost screamed in his peculiar new voice, “This meeting is now at an end! Amen, Amen, and Amen!”
He swiftly left the platform and room, followed closely by Starky, Thomas, Julia, Mrs Starky and Rees. The remaining Lampeter Brethren and Princeites were so confused that they mutteringly left the hotel without more public discussion.
A fortnight after the Royal Hotel meeting Arthur Rees and Laurence Deck called on Prince at Belfield Terrace, Weymouth. He received them as he received all visitors nowadays, Julia seated on one side and Starky on the other. He arose as Rees and Deck entered — murmured a welcome — shook their hands warmly — sat calmly smiling as the visitors, on a sofa facing them, exchanged remarks about the weather with his followers. Suddenly Rees said wildly, “O Brother Prince, I do not know how to start saying what we are here to say!”
“Yet say it.”
“This letter in my hand — Brother Deck has also received a copy — purports to be minutes of our last meeting of the Brethren. It is not! I doubt if Brother Thomas wrote a word of it!”
“He wrote every word of it,” said Prince mildly, “I know this because he wrote down what The Spirit dictated to him through my lips. The voice was mine but the words were God’s. Brother Thomas then made a copy in his own hand while Sisters Julia and Starky made other copies. The Spirit directed that Thomas’s manuscript epistles be posted to you and Deck. The other copies went to the other former Brethren.”
“Who are as shocked as we are! The only Lampeter Brethren it mentions as present are you, Starky, Thomas and Price!”
“Because we were the only Brethren present in heart and soul. You and the rest were not. You heard Brother Starky knocking at the door of your hearts, begging you to open and admit salvation through the Holy Spirit’s love. You preferred to shut it out.”
“O Brother Prince! O my dear, dear Brother Henry!” cried Rees, starting to weep.
“Are we brothers?” murmured Henry.
“Yes! Brothers in God from the moment we first confessed and prayed together in your room at St David’s College, Lampeter, brothers-in-law since I married your sister!”
Henry said absently, “I regret that. There is still enough fleshly inclination in my heart to regret that you are no longer, in truth, my brother.”
He closed his eyes and kept them shut until Rees and Deck left the room.
“Brother Prince — for I insist on still calling you so — ” said Deck, “This letter lies when it says the meeting ended with everyone present unanimously voting you to be the Redeemer foretold in the Bible.”
“That letter tells a truth you did not see, and cannot see because you are blind.”
“But it stands to reason! —”
“I am not reasonable, Deck,” Henry interrupted smoothly, “If I fell so low as to reason with you I would become the old, selfish, fleshly Henry Prince you once knew. I would have to agree with you. But that Henry Prince is dead. I am now as a little child who says only what The Spirit wishes. Sometimes I hardly understand what it says through me, but I know it is eternal damnation not to believe it.”
Deck stood up saying, “Rees, we had better leave,” but Rees begged, “Let me try once more! Henry, on our way here yesterday we stopped in Brighton where I questioned some who have heard you preach. .”
“You were spying, in fact,” said Julia.
“I was enquiring. One said you and Starky claimed to be the two witnesses of Revelations, another that you call yourselves the Prophet Elijah and the Holy Ghost made flesh. Is this true?”
Henry said, “I am not permitted to reply”.
“We do not say we did, neither do we say we did not,” Starky explained.
“O my poor Brother Henry!” sobbed Rees, standing up, “You were the best of us at Lampeter — the purest, bravest and most truly humble. O what has turned you into such a dreadful, such a silly creature?”
At this impiety Julia and Starky stared aghast at Henry. One of his eyes may have flickered open and shut, otherwise he did not move for two or three seconds then whispered, “Get thee behind me, Rees. Get thee behind me, Deck.”