The Vicar of Helleston stuck to his contention, and a terrific
correspondence ensued. With the arguments exchanged--which tended
more and more to appeal from common sense to metaphysics--we need
not concern ourselves. The most of them reappeared the other day
(1900-1901) in the public press, and will doubtless reappear at the
alleged beginning of every century to come. But in his sixth letter
the Vicar of Helleston opened what I may call a masked battery.
He said--and I believe the fellow had been leading up to this from
the start--that he desired to thresh the question out not only on
general grounds, but officially as Vicar of Helleston; since he had
reason to believe that a certain day in the opening year of the new
century would bring a term to the Millennium; that the Millennium had
begun in Helleston close on a thousand years ago; and that (as he
calculated, on the 8th of May next approaching) Satan might
reasonably be expected to regain his liberty (see Revelation xx.).
For evidence he adduced a local tradition that in his parish the
Archangel Michael (whose Mount stands at no great distance) had met
and defeated the Prince of Darkness, had cast him into a pit, and had
sealed the pit with a great stone; which stone might be seen by any
visitor on application to the landlord of the "Angel" Inn and payment
of a trifling fee. Moreover, the stone was black as your hat (unless
you were a free-thinking Radical and wore a white one; in which case
it was blacker).
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