had begun to sprout in Christendom as early as the sixteenth
century. It was just at that time that a new and terrible heresy
first made its appearance in the north of Germany.* [*Luther's
reform] A great star 'shining as it were a lamp... fell upon the
fountains waters'... and 'they were made bitter.' This 'heresy'
blasphemously denied 'miracles.' But those who had remained
faithful believed all the more ardently, the tears of mankind
ascended to Him as heretofore, and the Christian world was
expecting Him as confidently as ever; they loved Him and hoped in
Him, thirsted and hungered to suffer and die for Him just as many
of them had done before.... So many centuries had weak, trusting
humanity implored Him, crying with ardent faith and fervour: 'How
long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not come!' So many long
centuries hath it vainly appealed to Him, that at last, in His
inexhaustible compassion, He consenteth to answer the prayer....
He decideth that once more, if it were but for one short hour,
the people--His long-suffering, tortured, fatally sinful, his
loving and child-like, trusting people--shall behold Him again.
The scene of action is placed by me in Spain, at Seville, during
that terrible period of the Inquisition, when, for the greater
glory of God, stakes were flaming all over the country.

Burning wicked heretics,
In grand auto-da-fes.

"This particular visit has, of course, nothing to do with the
promised Advent, when, according to the programme, 'after the
tribulation of those days,' He will appear 'coming in the clouds
of heaven.' For, that 'coming of the Son of Man,' as we are
informed, will take place as suddenly 'as the lightning cometh