Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/135

Rh when he created the world. You have taken it from us by fraud or by violence, and you have hidden it in the depths of the earth, like the slothful servant in the Gospel who hid his talent in the ground. Give it back to us now, without delay; give it back! We will take no excuse.

Those who preceded you had some reason to keep this law to themselves, because no one asked them for it; the welfare of others matters little to strangers.

But, now, give us this law, or at least explain it to us.

170. You all give us the same excuse. It is not I who am to blame, says one; nor I, says another; nor I, says a third: and the nor I will never finish: but who will say. It is I? If we address the chief men of the State, they say also, we are not to blame. In a word, the universe has become, as it were, a perfect circle, where no one is on the circumference, and all the world are in the centre. Ask this one or that, and he answers invariably, It is not I!

If the question were of boasting, of raising oneself to the clouds, or of riding on the backs of poor people, you will all cry, It is I! It is I! But if we speak of holding out the hand to the millions who are perishing in misery, It is not I. you say at once. Who among you will say I! I! Though our emperor, Alexander Nicolaïewitch, has delivered us from slavery, that has nothing