Mr. Trimblerigg had seen that habit--habit of mind as well as body--is the dead weight in the world’s affairs which separates man from faith, and prevents mountains from being moved. And so with Second Adventism, backed by spiritualism and prophecy, he had routed men’s minds out of their groove, simply by convincing them that on a given date, willy-nilly, the groove was coming to an end. Mr. Trimblerigg’s greatest exploit was not in building a city capable of containing a million souls, but in finding a million souls ready to flock to it. And he had done so, in the main, by convincing them that the New Jerusalem meant good business. ‘Homes for Haloes,’ the motto he had chosen for his scheme, did not really mean much when you came to examine it, for though the homes were fast taking shape, the haloes were still to seek. But ‘Homes for Heroes’ or ‘Homes for Haloes’, have an encouraging sound about them, and each, on different occasions, have served their turn, helping publicists out for popular applause to rouse a fictitious enthusiasm in their followers, till cold fact came after and snuffed it out. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE _The Procession Ends_ Having announced a date for the end of the world--the old world with its troublous record, its damaged reputation, its useless strivings after success,--an end which was to be brought about not by the death and destruction of the wicked, but by a new birth unto righteousness upon an unprecedented scale,--having so definitely announced the spiritual transformation which was about to take place before the eyes of all, the Second Adventists had to live up to it. And to their credit, be it said, they did so without a qualm of doubt. Mr. Trimblerigg’s experience since his adoption of Second Adventism had convinced him that if only it were well organized for a fixed purpose, prayer could get itself answered; and that given a commanding majority and a united aim, the human race was master of the Event. He had backed his country through war with prayerful conviction, had even prayed that it might go on an extra eighteen months so as to avoid a negotiated peace, and secure the dictated one which was to be so much better; and then, because hearts and aims were divided, had seen the dictated peace lost and become very much worse than a negotiated one; and though he did not for a moment consider that his own prayers and strivings for a dictated peace made him in the least responsible for its bad results, he had an uneasy suspicion that the world, and even his own country, might have done better for itself by letting the war end sooner than it did, for the simple reason that though it could agree about fighting it could not agree about peace.