overed his skull; it had been black, it was turning grey. His ears
were very small and fine. His jaws, his chin, his upper lip were dark,
iron-dark, where he had shaved. His voice, when he spoke and especially
when he raised it in preaching, was harsh, like the grating of iron
hinges when a seldom-used door is opened.

It was nearly half-past twelve. He had just come back from church,
hoarse and weary with preaching. He preached with fury, with passion,
an iron man beating with a flail upon the souls of his congregation.
But the souls of the faithful at Crome were made of india-rubber, solid
rubber; the flail rebounded. They were used to Mr. Bodiham at Crome. The
flail thumped on india-rubber, and as often as not the rubber slept.

That morning he had preached, as he had often preached before, on the
nature of God. He had tried to make them understand about God, what
a fearful thing it was to fall into His hands. God--they thought of
something soft and merciful. They blinded themselves to facts; still
more, they blinded themselves to the Bible. The passengers on the
"Titanic" sang "Nearer my God to Thee" as the ship was going down. Did
they realise what they were asking to be brought nearer to? A white fire
of righteousness, an angry fire...

When Savonarola preached, men sobbed and groaned aloud. Nothing broke
the polite silence with which Crome listened to Mr. Bodiham--only an
occasional cough and sometimes the sound of heavy breathing. In the
front pew sat Henry Wimbush, calm, well-bred, beautifully dressed. There
were times when Mr. Bodiham wanted to jump down from the pulpit and
shake him into life,--times when he would have liked to beat and kill
his whole congregation.

He sat at his desk dejectedly. Outside the Gothic windows the earth was
warm and marvellously calm. Everything was as it had always been. And
yet, and yet...It was nearly four years now since he had preached that
sermon on Matthew xxiv. 7: "For nation shall rise up against nation, and
kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences,
and earthquakes, in divers places." It was nearly four years. He had had
the sermon printed; it was so terribly, so vitally important that all
the world should know what he had to say. A copy of the little pamphlet
lay on his desk--eight small grey pages, printed by a fount of type that
had grown blunt, like an old dog's teeth, by the endless champing and
champing of the press. He opened it and