Andy Luke's Blog, page 12
June 23, 2017
3.5 Sunday is Yesterday
John McCarter cast an eye over the simple Christmas tree and returned to his books.
Year’s income: $780. $300 out in cash to Ignacz for salary: his other $100 advanced by Mrs McCarter. Minus: electric (lighting); printer’s bills; travel; hall rental, tithes. Minus: postage and stationery for reports to the church; blankets; towels and soap. Then his salary for his own family: rent; food; clothing; coal; taxes; garden tools and seeds; the thatching.
He couldn’t make this.
Ignacz sat before him...
June 22, 2017
3.4 Travelling Preachers
John McCarter had led the mission alone, but kept from his door the reasons for its closure. Now he had Ignacz. Ignacz who’d convinced the Presbytery and was able to converse with the Jewish immigrants from Roumania and Russia. Nearly nine o’ clock, he gathered the papers and books to his suitcase, met his partner in the hall. They prayed on the tram. They took the bus for the village of Cardinal. John passed Ignacz his mail. Inside was a letter from McGill University, where he’d sent ‘Essay...
June 21, 2017
3.3 Ignacz the Missionary
McCarter and Ignacz discovered together: Old Vieux near the docks; Jacques Cartier Square; Peel Street; the souls of soldiers and tailors ready to receive Christ. Ignacz improved his English and French while clearing Hebrews for Heaven in Griffintown. The Lord has armed them with flyers, demon traps in prayer groups, scheduled many evenings. McCarter guided, but also was awed by the courage of the boy from Budapest. Depending on the audience he was Trebitsch or Timotheus, as baptised. McCarte...
June 20, 2017
3.2 Get McCarter
A tram took him downtown to the Presbyterian College. He sprang through halls and knocked jubilantly on Scrimger’s office. When called, he met the professor and McCarter with warm, excited hand-shakes.
Scrimger said, “Reverend McVicar sends his apologies.”
“I heard it said he is an exemplary professor and I know how much the Mission means to him,” said Ignacz. “Might I begin in asking the Lord to bless us today?”
Scrimger agreed. Ignacz kneeled on the floor. McCarter felt his sixty-eight year...
June 19, 2017
3.1 Montreal
December 1900, Montreal
The Old Port bustled by two kilometres of the St. Lawrence River. Heavy cargo ships lowered their wealth by crane. Containers lined the streets with smoke and brine. Longshoremen shouldered crates along the wharf to the railway tight against it. Horses and carts queued in the roads. The lucky ones travelled a mile north: past Dominion Square, Mount Royal, and to the Golden Square Mile. The rebuilding drew on those old, narrow streets of Montreal but becam...
June 17, 2017
New British Fun Comics / Artist Call-Out
(Peter authors the regular Splank! blog. It’s a keen eye on crowd-funded...
June 16, 2017
2.5: The Watch Thief
“I want to get out of here soon. How was London and Hamburg?” Jozsef asked.
“I was only briefly—“
Lajos interrupted them. “You should stay and finish your studies, Jozsef.”
“We can’t all be big academia stars,” said Jozsef.
Ignacz laughed. “Yes. Not every academy is so responsible. I have been accepted by Reverend Frank of the Hamburg seminary. Perhaps Jozsef can come and visit me when he’s of age.”
“Our parents are struggling,” said Lajos. “He’ll need to pay his fare, not lie about all day.”...
June 15, 2017
2.4: Return to Whitechapel
The hours went by. Chaim Lypshytz in his office thumbed bibles and ledgers: dusted a cross, sipped copper water. Ignacz took to the theological texts, took to the prayer books and took them away.
The days went by. Ignacz lost his temper, accused of stealing a towel. Lypshytz, amid the arguments, heard a third man say his silver chain was away as well. Ignacz compared this to the trumped up charges laid before Christ by disgruntled Roman soldiers.
Two weeks went by. The departure left dashed h...
June 14, 2017
2.3 : Bristol Wanderers
Epstein’s dim hairline receded into a plague of baldness, a drooling beard too. He stepped behind the pulpit, fronted with a wet cross, and spoke.
“At the ringing of the first bell you must rise at once! Be washed, dressed and making your bed. Then report here to the lecture room for prayer. This is not a free house. You are expected to learn the Messianic passages, the Acts and Epistles, and Our Lord’s Miracles and Parables.”
His dreary voice rattled with condescension and over-stressed ees...
June 13, 2017
2.2 : London Nights
He took a bed that night, lumpy and bitten, but a bed. The London Society for Promotion of Christianity among the Jews, (Barbican Mission), was run by Reverend Lypshytz. Sixty-five years old, he was a convert, not unsympathetic to those in his care.
“Master Trebitsch as I explained your stay here was only temporary, I’m sorry,” he adjusted his spectacles. “You must leave us.”
“But where? Where? Don’t you see? If I am to follow the Lord’s path, he must let me rest on the way.”
“Yes. The missio...
