Robert Hugh Benson's Lord of the World opens with a prologue set in a room 'forty feet below the level of the Thames embankment,' lined with 'green jade-enamel' and lit by 'artificial sunlight.' The year is not stated, but the text notes it is 'sixty years since the world, recognising that space is not confined to the surface of the globe, had begun to burrow in earnest.' This underground domesticity is presented as ordinary, with hydraulic lifts and a 'volor-station' at Blackfriars. The catalog subjects list this as Science Fiction and Second Advent fiction, but the excerpts do not yet depict a Second Advent; instead they show a world where a 'Bill of Worship' has just passed, establishing a national religion that replaces Christianity. The narrative voice is direct, even self-aware: the author's preface calls the book 'terribly sensational.'

Underground Dwellings and Artificial Sunlight

The prologue establishes a material world markedly different from 1907. Mr. Templeton's sitting room is 'lined throughout with the delicate green jade-enamel prescribed by the Board of Health' and suffused with 'artificial sunlight discovered by the great Reuter forty years before.' The temperature is regulated to 'exactly 18 degrees Centigrade.' Furniture is made of 'soft asbestos enamel welded over iron, indestructible, pleasant to the touch, and resembling mahogany.' These details are not merely decorative; they signal a society that has systematically engineered its environment. The room has 'neither window nor door'—access is via hydraulic lifts. The narrator notes that Mr. Templeton is 'a plain man, content to live as his father had lived before him,' implying that such technology is already a generation old. The catalog subject 'Science Fiction' is clearly supported, but the excerpts also show that Benson uses these inventions to create a setting that feels both advanced and sterile, a backdrop for the religious conflict to come.

The Bill of Worship and a New State Religion

In the excerpt from the House of Commons, a woman watches as the 'Bill of Worship' is assented to. The scene is charged with quasi-religious emotion: she hears 'her own heart beat,' sees 'the long ridges of heads rise,' and feels 'a gentle sobbing somewhere in the air.' The bill is assented to by a voice speaking 'half a dozen words in Esperanto,' the constructed international language. Later, a former Catholic priest, Mr. Francis, is commissioned to organize ceremonies for the new national worship. He states, 'There are thousands who have the instinct of worship, without knowing how to satisfy it.' The catalog subject 'Second Advent' is not directly evident here; instead, the excerpts depict a world that has replaced Christian worship with a state-sponsored, humanistic ritual. The woman's internal monologue reveals that she believes Christians 'had understood that man must worship—must worship or sink,' but that they 'degraded it, darkened light, poisoned thought.' This suggests a deliberate inversion of Christian theology, not its fulfillment.

Character Contrasts: Father Percy Franklin and Mr. Francis

Two priests appear in the excerpts. Father Percy Franklin is described in the prologue as 'rather a remarkable-looking man, not more than thirty-five years old, but with hair that was white throughout; his grey eyes, under black eyebrows, were peculiarly bright and almost passionate.' His appearance is striking, and the narrator adds that 'strangers usually looked twice at him.' In contrast, Father Francis is introduced later as a 'harmless kind of man' who had been a Catholic priest 'a few months before' and is now advising the government on the new worship. The excerpts do not explain his conversion, but his role as a former priest now serving the state religion creates a tension. The woman, Mabel, is 'conscious of a sudden interest' upon learning his background. These two figures—one steadfast, one apostate—seem poised to represent opposing responses to the secularizing world. The excerpts do not reveal their fates, but the contrast is established through physical description and social positioning.

The excerpts from Lord of the World present a future that is technologically advanced but spiritually contested. Benson's preface acknowledges the book's sensationalism, and the text itself balances detailed world-building with theological argument. Readers should attend to the way setting and character are used to dramatize the conflict between Christianity and a humanistic state religion. The catalog subject 'Second Advent' may become relevant later, but the excerpts focus on the establishment of a rival worship, not the return of Christ.