Page:The Golden verses of Pythagoras (IA cu31924026681076).pdf/196

 all those who are cruel Smite with strength the proud Turanian who afflicts and torments the just." One knows to what pitch of wrath Moses was kindled against the Midianites and the other peoples who resisted him, notwithstanding that he had announced, in a calmer moment, the God of Israel as a God merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth. Mohammed, as passionate as Moses, and strongly resembling the legislator of the Hebrews by his ability and firmness, has fallen into the same excess. He has often depicted, as cruel and inexorable, this same God whom he invokes at the head of all of his writings, as very good, very just, and very clement. This proves how rare a thing it is to remain in the golden mean so commended by Kong-Tse and Pythagoras, how difficult it is for any pupil to resist the lure of the passions to stifle utterly their voice, in order to hear only the voice of the divine inspiration. Reflecting upon the discrepancies of the great men whom I have just cited, one cannot refrain from thinking with Basil, that, in effect, there are no men on earth veritably wise and without sinə; above all when one considers that Jesus expressed himself in the same details as Krishna, Zoroaster, and Moses; and that he who had exhorted us in one passage to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, and to pray even for those who persecute and calumniate us, menaces with fire from heaven the cities that recognize him not, and elsewhere it is written: "Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword" ; "For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father,