"How God will laugh when I tell him
about this."

"Oh, Laud," continued the minister,
"who didst come down upon this earth to
die for thy children "

"What!" exclaimed Mercury. "God
came down upon this earth to die for his
children? Why, what a fantastic idea!
Are God's Children so stupid that they
think he would commit suicide for such a
trivial cause?"

The thought was so extremely ridicu-
lous that Mercury began to laugh aloud.
The verger approached him again and
said to him:

"Now, behave yourself; this is the last
warning I will give you," and in company
with another verger he remained standing
threateningly near Mercury.
Again Mercury became very quiet, and
again he listened to the minister, but this



34 God's Children

time he heard words which excited not
his ridicule but his wrath.
"Oh Laud," exclaimed the minister,
"bless our army in Africa. May our
glorious British regiments be victorious
over those vile Boers. May they, in
righteous anger, oh Laud» slaughter those
rebels who have dared to resist the onward
march of progress and civilization."

This was more than Mercury could
tolerate. Rising angrily, he cried in
threatening tones: "That is an abomin-
able blasphemy; God is kind and merci-
ful and you insult his name when you
invoke his assistance in perpetrating
wholesale murder. Your foolish talk
about his dying for you may be harmless,
but when you seek his aid for the doing
of bloody deeds, then" — but Mercury got
no further with his protest, for the two
vergers seized him by the collar of his
coat, and that part of his clothing, which
on account of its looseness afforded an
ample grasp, and they then threw him
out of the Abbey.
