“The Reverend John has been a great disappointment to me, Jack,” Nordenholt admitted to me one day. “That man has the makings of a great demagogue or a great saint in him; and it seems to me that the spin of the coin has gone against me, for I thought the saint would come uppermost. He isn’t as big as I thought he was. His head has been turned by all this adulation; and unless I am mistaken again we shall find him becoming a public danger before very long. He thinks he has his own work to do, preparing for the Kingdom of Heaven; and in doing that he seems to sweep aside all earthly affairs as trifles. He despises them. I don’t. To me, he seems to be like a child in a game who won’t abide by the rules. His heaven may be all right; but if it is to be attained by shirking one’s work on earth--not _striving_ to live--it seems to me a poor business. I think life is important, or it wouldn’t exist; and I’m working to keep it in existence. He seems to believe it is of no value, if he really means what he says. We can’t agree, that’s evident.” It was not long before the Reverend John’s campaign filled even my mind with apprehension. His style of preaching changed and grew more incoherent; his phraseology became wilder; and a minatory tone crept into his sermons. And the tremendous personality of the speaker, coupled with all the art of the orator, made even these obscure ravings powerful to influence the minds of his hearers. He began to speak of curses from heaven upon a generation which had forgotten the right path. The Famine was a sign that all life was to be swept from the earth’s face. And thence he passed to the proposition that any struggling against the Famine was a hindrance to the workings of the universe. I think that it was about this time that he discarded ordinary clothes and began to go about clad in a curious garment manufactured from the skin of some animal. Except for his fiery beard, he recalled the sandal-shod John the Baptist represented in old illustrated Bibles. Nor was he alone in this fashion: some of his more prominent adherents also adopted it, though in their cases the results were not so imposing. And now things moved rapidly towards their end. The Reverend John preached daily in the streets, predicting a universal entry into Nirvana. His curses against those who worked for the physical salvation of the people to the detriment of their Karma became louder and more frequent; and it was not long until he spent most of his energies in comminations. From cursings, he passed to threats; and his attacks upon Nordenholt grew in vehemence day by day. And still Nordenholt, to my growing wonder, held his hand and forbore to strike.