Why these combats?  To set us free?  But thou hast made slaves of us.  Our conscience is outraged, our happiness gone, our prosperity destroyed.  What need have we of further conquests, when the land of our fathers has grown too wide for their children?  Is it to satisfy the greed of some among us, and can it be that the Country will fill their maw at the cost of public misfortune?

Patriotism, sold to the rich, to those who traffic in the blood of souls and of nations!  Partner and accomplice, covering your villainies with an heroic mantle, look to thyself!  The hour is coming when the peoples will shake off the vermin, the gods and masters by whom they have been deceived.  They will drive out the guilty from among them.  I shall strike straight at the Head whose shadow is over us all.—­Thou who sittest impassively on thy throne, while multitudes slaughter each other in thy name, thou whom they worship while they hate their fellow-man, thou who hast pleasure in the bloody orgies of the nations, Goddess of prey, Anti-Christ, hovering over these butcheries with thy spread wings, and hawk’s talons;—­who will tear thee from our heaven?  Who will give us back the sun, and our love for our brothers?...  I am alone, and have but my voice, which will soon be silent, but before I disappear, hear my cry:  “Thou wilt fall, Tyrant, for humanity must live.  The time will come when men will break this yoke of death and falsehood;—­that time is near, it is at hand.”

THE LOVED ONE’S REPLY

My son, your words are like stones that a child throws at the sky which he cannot reach; they will fall back on your own head.  She whom you insult, who has usurped my name, is an idol carved by yourself, in your own image, not in mine.  The true Country is that of the Father.  She belongs to all, and embraces everyone.—­It is not her fault if you have brought her down to your own level....  Unhappy creatures, who sully your gods; there is not a lofty idea that you have not tarnished.  You turn the good that is brought you, into poison, and scorch yourselves with the very light that shines on you.  I came among you to bring warmth to your loneliness; I brought your shivering souls together in a flock, and bound your scattered weakness in sheaves of arrows.  I am brotherly love, the great Communion; and you destroy your fellows in my name, fools that you are!...

For ages I have toiled to deliver you from the chains of bestiality, to free you from your hard egotism.  On the road of Time you advance by toil and sweat; provinces and nations are the military milestones which mark your resting-places.  Your weakness alone created them.  Before I can lead you farther, I must wait till you have taken breath; you have so little strength of lungs or heart, that you have made virtues of your weaknesses.  You admire your heroes for the distance they went before they dropped exhausted; not because they were the first to reach those limits.  And when you have come without difficulty to the spot where these forerunners stopped, you think yourselves heroes in your turn.