Page:Rolland - Clerambault, tr. Miller, 1921.djvu/163

 made docile sheep of the free souls of men!... All this enslaving education, whether lay or Christian, though it dwells with an unhealthy joy on military glory and its beatitude, still shows its utter hollowness, for both Church and State bait their hook with Death_....

_Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, politicians, and priests, artists, authors, dancers of death; inwardly you are all full of decay and dead men's bones. Truly you are the sons of them that slew Christ, and like them you lay on men's shoulders burdens grievous to be borne, which you yourselves would not touch with the end of your fingers. Crucifiers are you like them, and those who come among you to help the suffering peoples, bringing blessed peace in their hands, you imprison and insult them, and as the Scripture says, persecute them from city to city until all the righteous blood shed upon the earth shall fall upon your heads_.

_You work only to provide food for Death; your countries are made to subdue the future to the past, and bind the living to the putrifying corpses of the dead. You condemn the new life to perpetuate the empty rites of the tomb.... Let us rise! The resurrection, the Easter of the living, is at hand_!

_Sons of men, it is not true that you are, the slaves of the dead and are chained by them like serfs to the earth. Let the dead past bury its dead, and itself with them; you are children of the living, and live in your turn. Souls who are bound to the countries of the past, shake off the neurasthenic torpor, wracked by outbursts of frenzy, which weighs you down. Shake it off, my brothers, you who are young and strong; be masters of the present and the past, fathers and sons of your works. Set yourselves free! Each one of you is Man;--not flesh that rots in the tomb, but the blazing fire of life which purifies corruption and renews long-de