Mr. Trimblerigg had then--as always--a perfectly clear conscience. He was very busy, he was doing good work; his doctrine of relative truth was giving theology a more modern and a much more sensible mind about all the things it could not really prove but loved to fight about; the coalition of the Free Churches was advancing under his manipulation by leaps and bounds; behind that loomed Disestablishment. Given a greater corporate union of Nonconformity, the argument for it would be irresistible; and when it came he would be the up-to-date Luther before whose assault that final stronghold of religious privilege toppled to ruin. For Mr. Trimblerigg had been busy not only in the organization of missions but upon the political side also; and would no doubt by this time have gone into Parliament had not somebody already been there before him who was doing what he would have done in exactly the same way--with the same brilliance, the same elasticity, the same eloquence, the same hand-to-mouth conviction, and the same enthusiastic and catchword-loving following. Parliament did not need two wizards to cast upon it the same spell. That was the reason why Mr. Trimblerigg kept his wizardry for the Churches. And so, through strenuous years Mr. Trimblerigg laboured to make Free Evangelicalism greater, and more powerful, and more feared than it had ever yet been; and before he had touched middle age he began to be spoken of as candidate for the high office of President at the Annual Conference--a post for which previously no head without grey hair on it had ever qualified. It only wanted some great cause, some big agitation led by himself, to carry him through and make him, before he reached the age of forty, the most prominent figure in the Nonconformist world. And then, while he was looking for it, came, just in the nick of time, the story, the horrible story of the Puto-Congo atrocities. He was no missionary and no trader, but a mere outsider who brought it to Europe; and when, for reasons, Government threw a belittling doubt upon it, questioning the motives and veracity of its reporter, then Mr. Trimblerigg saw his chance, and blew a blast to the Free Evangelical mission world. He took up the cause, made it his own, and gave it all the publicity it required. CHAPTER FIFTEEN _The Sound of a Trumpet_ When the campaign started the Puto-Congo Consolidation Company was paying its shareholders from 20 to 30 per cent, independent of bonuses which dropped to them like manna every alternate year; and its shares stood in the market at 200 per cent above par. It had held its own against a six months’ exposure of its methods, not only without a drop in the quotations, but with a slight rise when official cold water had been thrown on the report of the egregious Mr. Morment, whose unfair and superficial investigation had caused all the trouble.