But here, in the middle-class multitude, if anywhere, lay the true strength and stay of the nation. With all their faults, these men were mainly of the right sort. But they were selfish, supine, indifferent, save to their own immediate comfort and advantage. In politics they were swayed by purely party cries, or else not moved at all. In municipal affairs they allowed themselves to be swamped by noisy social democrats; in religion, if not actually hostile to the Church, they maintained a cautious “non-committal” attitude. They placidly acquiesced in government by permanent secretaries--men of clerkly mind, the clustering, clinging barnacles on the great ship of State. But when conscription was talked of--when the idea of devoting a few years to military training, and, in some dire emergency, their lives, if need be, to the service of king and mother-country--they held up their hands in pious horror at the bare thought of anything so “un-English,”--and so very inconvenient! Thus may be very briefly summarised the outspoken and unflinching attacks on bodies of men and institutions which it had always been considered right to pat on the back, and on the leading members thereof, (to whom, as they already had much, it was servilely considered that more should be given). It certainly was manifest that the _Epoch_ writers had been given a free hand, and had used it, with _magna est veritas_ for their war-cry. Naturally, protests, remonstrances, denials, poured in from the attacked; for to few is it given to see ourselves as others see us. Yet, after all, it was but a twentieth century echo; a rough and trenchant postscript to a certain sermon preached long, long ago on a Syrian mountain-side to listening multitudes who were astonished at the Preacher’s doctrines. Whether this stirring of the dry bones would ultimately make for greater righteousness time alone could show. Dark are the workings of destiny; and in the path of reform immediate results can rarely be recorded. Undoubtedly the proximate outcome of the _Epoch_ campaign was a strengthening of the cause of the malcontents. The numbers of the Leaguers still grew and grew. They had, in fact, become an army on half pay; for every Leaguer, unemployed and unemployable, drew something from the coffers of the organisation, and thus the body of Adullamites drew in every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented. In effect, the rate-payers of London, who were for buying peace at any price, had provided their enemy with the sinews of war, and thereby hastened the approaching climax. CHAPTER XIII THE STRANGE OUTBREAK AT QUEEN’S HALL