page_title: Lord of the World
section_title: Book III: The Victory
hierarchical_section_title: Lord of the World / Synopsis / Book III: The Victory
caption_attribution_description: English: Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the Eucharist, the Body of Christ. The Eucharist is held in a modern monstrance, flanked by candles. We gaze over the shoulders of altar servers who are kneeling in adoration.
context_page_description: Lord of the World is a 1907 dystopian science fiction novel by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson that centres upon the reign of the Antichrist and the end of the world. It has been called prophetic by Dale Ahlquist, Joseph Pearce, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.
context_section_description: After the destruction of Rome, Cardinals Franklin and Steinmann traveled to the deathbed of the only other survivor of the College of Cardinals — the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. They held an impromptu Papal Conclave, which resulted in the election of Cardinal Franklin as Pope Sylvester III. Soon after, the Latin Patriarch died and Cardinal Steinmann returned to Berlin, where he was promptly lynched.
  Pope Sylvester has since reorganized the Church so that it will survive the global persecution under Felsenburgh's Government. He has secretly rebuilt the College of Cardinals, but his actual name and location (Nazareth) are known only to the members of the College.
  Meanwhile, Felsenburgh has ordered the Test Act — all the world's people must either formally disavow the existence of God or be executed without trial. While large numbers of religious believers refuse and are slaughtered, many others agree without any qualms. Mr Philipps, who states that he cannot disavow the existence of God and cannot either confess to Him, is granted a week to make up his mind.
  With the last remnant of her faith shattered, Mabel Brand secretly leaves her husband and checks into a voluntary euthanasia clinic. All of Oliver's attempts to find her are in vain. After the eight-day waiting period required by law, Mabel writes a suicide letter to her husband and voluntarily suffocates herself using a provided gas mask. As her life fades away, Mabel finds, "something resembling sound or light, something she knew in an instant to be unique, tear across her vision. Then she saw, and understood..."
  Due to an informer—Cardinal Dolgorovski of Moscow—the President has learned of the new Pope and his plans for a secret meeting of remaining Cardinals in Nazareth. The President demands the British Cabinet to join in a volor-bombing attack to wipe out the Church, while allowing the inhabitants of the village to escape. He further suggests that Cardinal Dolgorovski should be executed to prevent him from "relapse" and taking over the remnants of the Roman Catholic Church. Oliver Brand and the Cabinet give the President their unanimous assent.
  In Nazareth, Pope Sylvester is told that Cardinal Dolgorovski has refused a direct order to attend. He realizes that Dolgorovski has been turned and that Nazareth is about to be destroyed. He gives orders to warn the city's residents to flee and then offers Mass followed by Eucharistic Adoration.
  As Felsenburgh personally flies in the volor-squadron, the narration states, "He was coming now, swifter than ever, the heir of temporal ages and exile of eternity, the final piteous Prince of rebels, the creature against God, blinder than the sun which paled and the earth which shook; and, as He came, passing even then through the last material stage to the thinness of a spirit fabric, the floating circle swirled behind Him, tossing like phantom birds in the wake of a phantom ship.... He was coming, and the earth, rent once again in its allegiance, shrank and reeled in the agony of divided homage...."
  As volor firebombs begin to rain down on Nazareth, Pope Sylvester and the Cardinals calmly continue to chant the Pange Lingua before a Host exposed in a Monstrance on the altar. The last words of the novel are: "Then this world passed, and the glory of it." (Sic transit gloria mundi).
caption: The Eucharist displayed in a monstrance,  flanked by candles being adored by a kneeling altar server.
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