Under this doctrinal pressure Mr. Trimblerigg became futurist. He started a course on the literal interpretation of prophecy. It was a branch of theology which the modern school of Free Evangelicalism had neglectfully allowed to go out of fashion, fearing perhaps what definite repudiation might involve. Here Mr. Trimblerigg saw his way. Unfulfilled prophecy had this advantage: it could always be apprehended and never disproved. Also the sleeping atavisms of human nature favoured it; just as they favour palmistry and table-turning, and the avoidance of going under ladders or looking at the new moon through glass. When these currents of instinctive credulity are wisely drawn into the service of religion they may do great things. And so it was that Mr. Trimblerigg made a slight mistake when without meaning to do great things in his present connection, he let himself go. Before he had realized the danger, his chapel became full to overflowing; crowds far larger than it would hold waited at the door; and through that, and through windows set wide, his word went forth into the world and stirred it more than he wished it to be stirred. Reporters came to listen to him; Free Evangelicals of the older school wobbled and came over; and while his own congregations increased, down at the larger chapel below Grandfather Hubback’s diminished, and relations became strained. This was not what Mr. Trimblerigg had intended; meaning only to temporize he had exalted himself to a height from which it would be difficult, when the time came for it, to make an unconspicuous descent. He did not wish his ministry among the True Believers to remain memorable; but when upon the platform the word came to him with power, it was very difficult to refrain. It was also very difficult to remember afterwards what he had actually said: Mr. Trimblerigg had too much verbal inspiration of a momentary kind. If this sort of thing went on long, he might establish a record against himself fatal to his future career. The Free Evangelicals were beginning to feel sore; the door which he wished kept open for him in a friendly spirit, might narrow, might even close against him in the day of his need. And then two things happened which he turned briskly to account. The first was an invitation from the Synod of True Believers to deliver the set discourse at the Annual Congress. It was a great, an unexpected, and an embarrassing honour; for the set discourse, by unwritten tradition, was always given in defiance of modern theology and in defence of the literal interpretation of Scripture. If he did this to the satisfaction of the True Believers, his secession to the Ministry of Free Evangelicalism in the immediate future would become almost impossible.