58 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



and her eldest daughter Columbia virtually rulers of the world, fore- 

 most in political freedom, in liberty of conscience, in commerce and 

 in wealth ; what would have been the martyr's thoughts and emotions ? 

 Would he not have longed with vehement desire to witness the 

 coming glory, when the world would stand on the very threshold of 

 the kingdom of heaven on earth, if indeed it were not fully set up in 

 the days when such wonders would come to pass ? 



Let us imagine the last desire of the martyr gratified ; let us 

 imagine him conducted from the celestial regions back to the earth 

 in this our day ; let us suppose a discrete power of vision only per- 

 mitted him : a capacity for hearing only certain sounds ; let us sup- 

 pose him guided over the nations of Christian civilization, able only 

 to see warlike preparations and to observe the sorrows and misfor- 

 tunes of its peoples. All Europe would lie below him a military 

 camp, the din of preparation for deadliest warfare everywhere assail- 

 ing his ears. Let him, accompanied by his heavenly Asmodeus, pass 

 over Chatham and Woolwich— working night and day in the same 

 fearful occupation ; let him visit the shipyards and behold wonderful 

 instruments of destruction of gigantic size ; let him then be handed 

 over by his guide to the escort of General Booth ; with him let the 

 martyr visit the dockyard gates of London, the wealthiest city of the 

 world and the very heart of the world's Christian effort, and see there 

 the anxious, eager search for a chance to work at roughest toil ; let 

 him see the despair in the faces of the hundreds who turn away not 

 fortunate enough to obtain the privilege of abject drudgery ; let him 

 visit the refuges in the slums of the east end ; the hundreds of thous- 

 ands of hopeless toilers in sweater's dens ; let him hear Gen. Booth 

 speak of three millions of Englishmen on whom the sun of prosperity 

 never shines, whose lives are passed in deepest gloom, scarcely living 

 at all indeed, but rather slowly sinking from the cradle to the paup- 

 er's grave, born in adversity, reared in poverty and dying in despair. 

 Witnessing these horrors in his beloved home, what must the 

 emotions of the martyr be ? If the redeemed can weep ; if the glori- 

 fied soul can be wrung with anguish, that of Ridley would go back to 

 his heavenly home, his eyes fountains of tears and his heart heavy with 

 grief. The news he would take to the rest of the glorious army of 

 martyrs would be : "The Kingdom has not yet come to earth, the 

 power of Satan there is greater now than ever," 



