The Christmas holidays were drawing near; and, impressed by the lamentable condition of his province, the newly-created Archbishop of London issued a pastoral, which was read from hundreds of pulpits to the assembled congregations. His lordship called upon all faithful children of the Church to keep the approaching Bank holiday, not as a day of feasting and pleasure, but as one of solemn prayer and national humiliation, to the end that the divine mercy might be vouchsafed and the tyranny of the time be ended speedily. He reminded Churchmen that, though too much ignored, the 26th December was the great commemoration-day of the first Christian martyr--Stephen, a man full of faith; Stephen who fearlessly denounced a stiff-necked generation, uncircumcised in heart and ears, rebels against the Just One, of whom they had been the betrayers and murderers. Christians, so-called, said the Archbishop in this modern time were not less betrayers and murderers of the Just One. They had received the law by the disposition of angels and had not kept it. “Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke; then a great ransom cannot deliver thee.” This episcopal admonition made a deep impression. At St Stephen’s Church in particular special services were arranged, and a great street procession was organised for the approaching Bank holiday. But while the pastoral counsel was adopted in many of the metropolitan churches, a spirit of rebellion sprang up in other quarters, and there was much resentment at what was described as an act of ecclesiastical dictation. The publicans, in particular, were furious at the idea of their custom being diminished on one of the great drinking days of the Christian year. In all these past months of stress and trouble the trade had reaped huge gains from the disorder that prevailed. The swing-doors of their Temples of Bacchus at nearly every street corner were never still. Men and women thronged the showy bars; they drank, and drank again, the flaring lights shining on their dulled eyes and sodden faces. They talked, maundered, shouted choruses, quarrelled, fought; the beer engines poured forth unending streams into innumerable “pewters” and the money poured into the tills. Humanity sank deeper and deeper into the slough of despond and the slime of self-indulgence; and the brewers and publicans reaped their rich reward as licensed purveyors of poison for the people. CHAPTER XXIII THE CRANKS’ CORNER