Page:The forerunners.djvu/27

Rh their whole future. It is always afraid of other races achieving eminence, naming it as a peril, and tries to thwart all symptoms of greatness outside its own boundaries, forcing  down races of men who are weaker, to be eternally fixed  in their weakness.… This political civilisation is scientific, not human. It is powerful because it concentrates all its forces upon one purpose, like a millionaire acquiring  money at the cost of his soul. It betrays its trust, it weaves its meshes of lies without shame, it enshrines gigantic idols of greed in its temples, taking great pride in the costly  ceremonials of its worship, calling this patriotism. And it can safely be prophesied that this cannot go on.…"

"This cannot go on." Do you hear, Europeans? Are you stopping your ears? Listen to the voice within! We ourselves must question ourselves. Let us not resemble those who ascribe to their neighbour all the sins of the world,  and think themselves blameless. For the curse under which we are labouring to-day, each one of us must bear his share  of responsibility. Some have erred by deliberate choice, others through weakness, and it is not the weak who are  the least guilty. The apathy of the majority, the timorousness of the well-meaning, the selfishness and scepticism of  listless rulers, the ignorance or cynicism of the press, the  rapacity of profiteers, the faint-hearted servility of the  thinkers who make themselves the apostles of devastating  prejudices which it should be their mission to uproot; the  ruthless pride of intellectuals who value their own ideas  more than they value the lives of their fellow-men, and  who will send millions to death to prove themselves in  the right; the counsels of expediency of a church that  is too Roman, a church in which St. Peter the fisherman  has become the ferryman of diplomacy; pastors with  arid souls, with souls keen-edged as a knife, immolating  their flocks in the hope of purifying them; the blind  submission of the silly sheep.… Who among us is  free from blame? Who among us can wash his hands of