"Yes," replied Ralph, and his voice rang with a rare assurance, and every line of his face held a wondrous nobility. "Yes, I believe it all. If I had not been a blind, conceited fool of a sinner, a week ago, I should have known that all this, and much more was true, and I should have found my way in penitence and faith to the feet of the Nazarene, of Jesus Christ the World's Redeemer, and, finding pardon for my sin, as I should have done, I should have been made one of the Church of God, as my friend, and Editor-in-chief, Tom Hammond, had done. And, had I listened to him, I should now have been with those blessed translated ones of whom I have written in that article of which you speak, Mr. Apleon. "I sat in that chair where you now sit," Ralph went en. "Mr. Hammond, in his eagerness to win me to Christ, leant forward over this desk--he was sitting where I am--to lay his hand on my wrist, when, with angry impatience, I leaped to my feet, and declaring that he must be going out of his head, I swung round on my heel. "Instantly there fell upon the room an eerie stillness. I swung back on my heel to reply to my friend, but his chair was empty, he was gone--gone to the Christ whom he loved, 'caught up in the air' to meet his Lord, where all those other missing saints have been taken. "Yes, yes, Mr. Apleon, a thousand times yes, to your question, 'do I believe all that I have written there in that article.' Here in this little pamphlet--" He laid his hand, as he spoke, upon a small book that had been Tom Hammond's, which bore the title "THE SECOND COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. Systematically arranged from passages in the Holy Scriptures, for Students, Teachers, and others. By the Rev. Robert Middleton." "Here, in this little book," he went on, "there is not only set out with the most luminous clearness, with the actual Bible texts, all that I have written in that article, but also many other truths and texts which have already been literally fulfilled during the last forty-eight hours--even as the book said that they would be." With the old mocking, quizzical smile, the handsome Apleon interrupted him, asking: "What do you mean by the _real_ Church of God? The Romish Church, The Greek Church, The Anglican Church or any one of the multitude of dissenting churches?" It was Ralph's turn to smile now, as he said: "None of those churches could be called THE CHURCH OF GOD. The _true_, the _real_ church was composed of true believers, men and women who had been born again by the Spirit of God, and who, numbered among every section of so-called Christians--and some who were wholly unattached--made up in their wide-world entirety the true Church of God, the Bride of Christ." "And what," asked Apleon, "of the rest, the vast bulk of the worshippers at the various churches? What is their fate to be?"