Publisher's Synopsis
He stood at the corner of the table with his hat and overcoat on, just as he had rushed into the room 'Christ has come again!' The servants were serving the entrees. Their breeding failed them. They stopped to stare at Chisholm. The guests stared too, those at the end leaning over the board to see him better. He looked like a man newly startled out of dreaming, blinking at the lights and glittering table array. His hat was a little on one side of his head. He was hot and short of breath, as if he had been running. They regarded him as a little bewildered, while he, on his part, looked back at them as if they were the creatures of a dream. The first third of the book, The Tales Which Were Told, shares a variety of essentially unconnected anecdotes about The Lord's reappearance, in which he rights wrongs, heals the sick and injured and imparts wisdom. In the second third, The Tumult Which Arose, the people become aware of the Lord's presence and take pains to welcome him. As one might expect in a story about Christ, the final third of the book, The Passion of the People, describes what happens when the Lord doesn't match, or abide by, the people's preconceived notions. My favorite scene in this regard takes place in a church. In the midst of a sermon on the second coming, a mysterious stranger steps forward to join the preacher on stage. What follows is a scene that I felt had extreme relevance today: When the Stranger had gained the platform, He turned towards the people, asking: 'Who is there here that knows Me? Is there one?' There was not one that answered. He turned to the preacher. 'Look at Me well. Do you not know Me?' For once in a way Philip Evans seemed uncomfortable and ill at ease and abashed. 'How shall I know you, since you are to me a stranger?' 'And yet you have looked for My coming?' 'Your coming? Who are you?' 'Look at Me well. Is there nothing by which you may know Me?' 'I may have seen you before; but, if so, I have certainly forgotten it, which is the more strange, since your face is an unusual one.'"