Diotimos Library · Literary Fiction Collection · English Edition
The Keepers of the People
A Critical Edition of the 1898 Novel
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English Edition · Branch 218 of 254
Chapter XVI · The Affair of the Missionary · pp. 301–316
The Keepers of the People
p. 312The missionary tried to meet his eyes; shifted his feet uneasily under his heart-reading gaze; and looking at Ruth, seemed to address himself to her: “I promised to be silent — yes. Certainly, I promised to be silent. I was the chosen messenger of the Lord; and if I had not promised, I should have had no chance of delivering my message. Perhaps — perhaps — I meant to keep my promise. But when I found myself among all these heathen, living a riotous life in their darkness, singing and dancing to their awful doom, ignorant of the great and terrible day of the Lord, how could I keep silent? When I saw that fair harvest of souls, ready for the garnering, how could I not try to lighten their darkness, and gather them in?”
He was speaking the truth; he had been plainly moved by the spiritual darkness of the Varandals, and unable to refrain from trying to lighten it: his eyes shone, and his voice rang with an exaltation. Ruth’s face showed that she understood, and felt for him. But the need of the priest to be always in the right, to show that what he did was right because he did it, came suddenly upon him; and he went on, “But what is a promise to the unrighteous? It is naught. The children of light have no dealings with the children of this world. The Lord told me that it was no promise! The spirit of the Lord came upon me, and I spoke! He bade me deliver my message; and I delivered it! Were a thousand promises between, I would deliver it!”
“That is how you hold pledged faith, is it?” said Prince Ralph.
“Pledged faith? Pledged faith? I am a worker in the vineyard of the Lord!” cried the missionary.
“I understand,” said Prince Ralph. “And what were you going to do for the Varandals?”
“It is my task to lead them from the broad road that leadeth to destruction, into the straight and narrow path! To draw them from their singing and dancing, and stringed instruments, and the juice of the grape to prayer and repentance! To bring them to a knowledge of the Lord! To the fear of everlasting damnation!”
“You wished to dress them in black?” said Prince Ralph, glancing at the coat.
“I wished their hearts to put on mourning for their great wickedness!” cried the missionary.
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book II, Chapter XVI · The Affair of the Missionary · Book II, Chapter XVI · The Affair of the Missionary · pp. 301–316
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Edgar Jepson’s The Keepers of the People begins as a late-Victorian lost-kingdom romance and becomes an unsettling political argument. Ralph Falcon moves from an English country house to the hidden state of Varandaleel, where laughter, secrecy, violence, education, and the duties of rulers are tested against one another.
Historical Text
The novel was first published in London in 1898 by C. Arthur Pearson. This reading text follows the owner-supplied critical edition, whose copy-text is the Methuen Colonial Library issue of the same year digitised by the Internet Archive. The supplied editorial note records the edition’s corrections, normalisations, limits, and unresolved textual risks.
About This Edition
This English Edition preserves the complete supplied text and apparatus: the introduction, reading guide, key words, plot outline, editorial note, both books and all thirty chapters, and the end notes. Its reader branches end at paragraph boundaries, with the original chapter structure and chapter page references mapped to the 1898 printing.
Rights
Edgar Jepson’s 1898 novel is in the public domain. The introduction, reader’s guide, key words, outline, editorial note, notes, editorial arrangement, and design of the supplied edition are © 2026 Diotimos Editions.