THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 From the collection of 
 
 Julius Doerner, Chicago 
 
 Purchased, 1918. 
 
 2.4-4-
 
 THE 
 
 POOR MAN'S GOSPEL. 
 
 
 COMPILED 
 
 FOE THE NEW WOELD. 
 
 [FROM THE FRENCH.] 
 
 J. L. JACQBSQIT. 
 
 CHICAGO 
 HISTORICAL 
 SOCIETY ' 
 
 CHICAGO : 
 
 THE CHICAGO LEGAL NEWS CO. 
 1879.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by 
 
 THE CHICAGO LEGAL NEWS COMPANY, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 STEREOTYPED, PBINTED, BOUND AND PUBLISHED, BY 
 THE CHICAGO LEGAL NEWS COMPANY.
 
 J/Sp 
 
 I- 
 
 rs 
 
 . 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 TO THE PEOPLE. 
 
 THIS book has been principally written for you ; 
 it is to you that I offer it. May it, in the midst of 
 so many ills which fall to your lot, so many afflic- 
 tions which weigh upon you, with little or no in- 
 termission, revive you and give you a little conso- 
 lation! 
 
 To you who bear the burden of the day, may it 
 be to your poor wearied spirit as is, in the corner of 
 a field, at mid-day, the shade of a tree, howsoever 
 insignificant, to him who has labored the whole 
 morning under the burning rays of the sun. 
 
 You live in evil times, but those times will pass 
 away. 
 
 After the rigors of winter, Providence brings 
 back a season less harsh, and the little bird praises 
 in its song the beneficent hand which has restored 
 to it warmth and plenty, and its mate and its soft 
 nest. 
 
 (3) 
 
 680204
 
 4: PREFACE. 
 
 Hope and love. Hope sweetens all things, and 
 love makes all things easy. 
 
 There are at this moment men who suffer much, 
 because they have loved you much. I, their broth- 
 er, I have written down the account of what they 
 have done for you, and what has been done to them 
 because of that; and when violence shall have ex- 
 pended its strength, I will publish it, and you will 
 read it then with tears less bitter, and you will also 
 love those men, who have loved you so well. 
 
 Now, if I should speak to you of their love and 
 of their sufferings, I would be cast with them into 
 the dungeon. 
 
 I would descend there with joy, if my going 
 would lessen a little your wretchedness; but you 
 would not thereby obtain any relief, and for that 
 reason you must wait and pray God to shorten the 
 trial. 
 
 Now it is man who judges and who punishes: 
 soon it will be He who will judge. Happy those 
 who shall see His justice! 
 
 I am old: listen to the words of an aged man. 
 
 The earth is dismal and dry, but she will become 
 green again. The breath of the wicked will not 
 eternally pass over her as a scorching wind.
 
 PREFACE. 5 
 
 What has been, Providence willed should be done 
 for your instruction, that you may learn to be good 
 and just, when your hour shall come. 
 
 When those who abuse their power shall have 
 passed from before you as the mire from the gutter 
 in a day of storm, then you will understand that 
 the good alone is lasting, and you will fear to pol- 
 lute the air, which the wind from heaven shall have 
 made pure. 
 
 Prepare your souls for that time, for it is not far 
 distant it approaches. 
 
 Christ, nailed to the cross for you, has promised 
 to deliver you. 
 
 Believe in His promise, and, to hasten its fulfil- 
 ment, reform wherein you need reform ing, practice 
 all virtues, and love one another as the Savior of 
 the human race has loved you, EYEN UNTO 
 DEATH.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEB. PAGE. 
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 3 
 
 I. THE LIGHT APPEARS 11 
 
 II. THE SLAVES OF OLD AND THE FREEMEN OF 
 
 TO-DAY . . . . . .12 
 
 III. THE RULERS OF THIS WORLD . . . 17 
 
 IV. AND THEY WERE SAD . . . . .19 
 
 V. ONE FATHER IN HEAVEN AND ON EARTH . 22 
 
 VI. JUDGE NOT 24 
 
 VII. THE TRAVELER AND THE ROCK . . 25 
 VIII. LABOR ENFRANCHISED is MASTER OF THE 
 
 WORLD 28 
 
 IX. JUSTICE AND FRATERNITY .... 30 
 
 X, THE TRAMP IN JAIL 32 
 
 XI. UNION is STRENGTH 35 
 
 XII. THE SACRED WAR 38 
 
 XIII. A SERMON ON LOVE 41 
 
 XIV. THE PROLETARIAN 43 
 
 XV. THE UNBELIEVER 48 
 
 (7)
 
 8 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER. PAGE. 
 
 XVI. THE TWO NEIGHBORS .... 50 
 
 XVII. PRAYER 53 
 
 XVIII. THE REWARD OF JUSTICE AND FRATERNITY 55 
 
 XIX. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER ... 58 
 
 XX. SOCIETY, ITS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE 
 
 (Parti.) 61 
 
 XX. SOCIETY, ITS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE 
 
 (Part II.) 68 
 
 XX. SOCIETY, ITS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE 
 
 (Part III.) .72 
 
 XXI. THE CITY OF SATAN AND THE CITY OF GOD . 78 
 
 XXII. THE SEVEN KINGS (Part I.) . . . 81 
 
 XXII. THE SEVEN KINGS (Part II.) ... 87 
 
 XXIII. ALL ARE BORN EQUAL .... 90 
 
 XXIV. DUMB ANIMALS AND INTELLIGENT ANIMALS 92 
 XXV. LIBERTY 95 
 
 XXVI. THE PRAYER OF THE PROLETARIANS . 97 
 
 XXVII. CHRIST AND THE PEOPLE . . . .100 
 
 XXVIII. INTOLERANCE OF RELIGION . . . 103 
 
 XXIX. THE LAW OF CHRIST 106 
 
 XXX. FATHER AND SON 108 
 
 XXXI. THE FRUIT OF SIN 110 
 
 XXXIT. A LESSON FROM THE SWALLOWS . . 112 
 
 XXXIII. MAN, HIS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE . 113 
 
 XXXIV. THE REIGN OF SATAN . . . .118 
 XXXV. THE WAR BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR 120 
 
 XXXVI. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST . . 123 
 
 XXXVII. THE MIGHTY OF EARTH ... . .126 
 
 XXXVIII. THE PERSECUTION OF TRUTH . 127
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 9 
 
 CHAPTEB. PAGE. 
 
 XXXIX. THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE- AND WHAT 
 
 HAS BECOME OF THEM . . . . 128 
 
 XL. THE LEGACY TO OUR CHILDREN . . 132 
 
 XLI. LIBERTY AND JUSTICE .... 134 
 
 XLII. THE SLAVE AND THE FREEMAN . . 136 
 
 XLIII. THE TWO IDOLS ..... 138 
 
 XLIV. NOTHING WITHOUT GOD . . . . 141 
 
 XLV. OBSERVATION OF DUTY THE FULFILMENT 
 
 OF THE LAW 143 
 
 XLVI. THE PROPHET 150 
 
 XLVII. THE CONSPIRACY OF EVIL . . . 155 
 
 XLYIIT. THE AGED MAN AND THE PILGRIM . .161 
 
 XLIX. THE MILLENNIUM 171 
 
 L. LIFE AND DEATH 173 
 
 LI. THE TRUE END OF LIFE .... 175 
 
 LII. WE WALK IN DARKNESS .... 177 
 
 LIII. THE CHURCH-YARD 178 
 
 LIV. THE EXILE .180 
 
 LV. THE TRINITY 182 
 
 THE DEAD . 186
 
 THE POOR MAN'S GOSPEL 
 
 I. 
 
 THE LIGHT APPEARS. 
 
 IN the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
 of the Holy Ghost. Amen. 
 
 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, 
 good will toward men. 
 
 He that hath ears to hear, let him hear ; he that 
 hath eyes, let him open them and see, for the time 
 approacheth. 
 
 The Father engendered His Son, His Promise, 
 His "Word, and the "Word was made flesh, and 
 dwelt among us ; and He was in the world, and the 
 world knew Him not. 
 
 The Son hath promised to send His Spirit of 
 Comfort, the Holy Ghost, which proceedeth forth 
 from the Father and from Him, and which is their 
 mutual love ; He shall come and renew the face of 
 the earth, and it will be like a second creation.
 
 12 
 
 Eighteen centuries ago, the Word strewed the 
 seed Divine, and the Spirit of God fecundated it. 
 Mankind have seen it in blossom, they have tasted 
 of its fruit, of the fruit of the tree of life, trans- 
 planted to their wretched dwellings. 
 
 I say unto you, there was great joy among them 
 when they saw the Light spring up, and when they 
 felt themselves entirely penetrated with a celestial 
 fire. 
 
 At present, the earth has become dark and cold 
 again. 
 
 Our fathers have seen the sun decline. "When 
 it descended under the horizon, all humankind were 
 startled. Then, there was in that night, I know 
 .not what, which is nameless. Children of the 
 night ! the Occident is dark, but in the Orient the 
 light appears. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE SLAVES OF OLD AND THE FREEMEN OF TO-DAY. 
 
 IN the beginning, it was not necessary for man to 
 work in order to live : the earth spontaneously sup- 
 plied all his wants. 
 
 But man did what was evil ; and as he had re- 
 volted against God, the earth revolted against him.
 
 SLAVES OF OLD AND FREEMEN OF TO-DAY. 13 
 
 That befell him, which befalls the son who re- 
 volts against his father : the father withdraws his 
 love from him and abandons him to his fate ; and 
 the servants of the house refuse to attend upon him, 
 and he goes away, looking here and there for his 
 miserable livelihood, eating the bread which he has 
 earned in the sweat of his face. 
 
 Ever since, then, God has condemned all men to 
 work, and all have their labor, either of the body or 
 of the mind ; and those who say : I will not 
 work ! are the most wretched : 
 
 For, even as the worms devour a carcass, so the 
 vices devour them, and if it is not vice, it is ennui. 
 
 And when the will of God was that man should 
 work, He hid a treasure in labor, because He is a 
 Father, and because the love of a Father never 
 dies. 
 
 And for him who makes a good use of that treas- 
 ure and does not squander it like a fool v there 
 comes a time of rest, and then he is like man was 
 in the beginning. 
 
 And God gave man this precept also : Help 
 one another ; for there are among you the strong 
 and the weak, the infirm and the well ; and yet all 
 must live.
 
 And if you act in this manner, all shall live, be- 
 cause I shall reward your compassion for your 
 brother, and I shall render your sweat fertile. 
 
 And that which God has promised, always comes 
 to pass, and never has he been seen in want of 
 bread who helps his brother. 
 
 Now, in former times, there lived a wicked man, 
 accursed of Heaven. And that man was strong, 
 and hated work ; so that he said to himself: "What 
 shall I do? If I do not work, I shall die, and work 
 is intolerable to me. 
 
 Then a thought from Hell entered his head: 
 During the night, he went and seized some of his 
 brothers, whilst they were sleeping, and loaded 
 them with chains. 
 
 For, he said to himself, I will compel them 
 with rods and with lashes to work in my place, 
 and I shall eat the fruit of their labor. 
 
 And he did what his brain had conceived, and 
 others on seeing that did the same, and there were 
 brothers no more: there were masters and slaves. 
 
 That day was a day of mourning over all the earth. 
 
 A long time afterwards there lived another man, 
 more wicked than the first, and more accursed of 
 Heaven.
 
 SLAVES OF OLD AND FKEEMEN OF TO-DAY. 15 
 
 Seeing that men had everywhere multiplied, and 
 that their multitude was numberless, he said to 
 himself: 
 
 I might perhaps succeed in binding some of 
 them in chains, and in ' forcing them to work for 
 me; but I should have to feed them, and that would 
 diminish my gain. Let me do better: let them 
 work for nothing! They shall die, it is true, but 
 as their number is very great, I shall amass wealth 
 before they shall have diminished much, and enough 
 of them will always remain. 
 
 Now, all that multitude lived by what they 
 received in exchange for their work. 
 
 Having spoken then in this manner, he addressed 
 himself privately to a few of them, and said : You 
 work during six hours, and are paid one piece of 
 money for your labor: work during twelve hours, 
 arid you will earn two pieces of money, and live a 
 great deal more comfortably, you, your wives and 
 your children. 
 
 And they believed him. 
 
 After that, he said to them: You only work 
 during half of the days of the year: work all the 
 days of the. year, and your earnings will be 
 double.
 
 16 THE POOR MAN'S GOSPEL. 
 
 And they believed him again. 
 
 "Now it resulted therefrom that the quantity of 
 labor having become one half greater, without the 
 demand for labor increasing, the half of those who 
 formerly lived by their labor, could find nowhere a 
 person to employ them. 
 
 Then the wicked man, in whom they had believed, 
 said to them: I will give work to all of you, upon 
 condition that you shall not diminish your hours 
 of labor, and that I shall pay you only the half of 
 what you now receive: for I am willing to do you 
 a service, but I cannot ruin myself for you. 
 
 And as they were starving, they, their wives and 
 their children, they accepted the proposal of the 
 wicked man, and they blessed him : for, said they, 
 he gives us life anew. 
 
 And continuing to impose upon them in the 
 same manner, the wicked man augmented their 
 work ever more and more, and diminished their 
 wages in the same proportion. 
 
 And they died from want, and others were eager 
 to replace them: for indigence had become so gen- 
 eral in that country, that whole families sold them- 
 selves for a piece of bread. 
 
 And the wicked man, who had told lies to his
 
 THE RULERS OF THIS WORLD. 17 
 
 brothers, amassed more wealth than the wicked 
 man, who had bound them in chains. 
 
 The name of the latter is Tyrant; as for the other, 
 he is unnamed out of Hell. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE RULERS OF THIS WORLD. 
 
 WHY do the animals find their nourishment, each 
 according to his kind ? It is because no one among 
 them takes away that of the others, and because 
 each contents himself with that which supplies his 
 needs. 
 
 If in a hive, one bee should say : All the honey 
 which is here, is mine, and thereupon should dis- 
 pose of the fruits of the common labor as it pleased, 
 what would become of the other bees ? 
 
 The earth is like a great hive, and men are the 
 bees. 
 
 Each bee has a right to the portion of honey, 
 necessary to its subsistence, and if, among men, 
 there be any who are in want of that portion, it is 
 because justice and fraternity have disappeared 
 from among them. 
 
 Justice that .is life ; and fraternity that is life 
 also, and a more sweet and fruitful life.
 
 18 
 
 There have arisen false prophets, who have per- 
 suaded some men that all others were born for them ; 
 and what these have believed, others have believed 
 also on the word of the false prophets. 
 
 When this false teaching prevailed, the angels in 
 heaven wept, for they foresaw that much violence, 
 and many crimes, and many evils would spread 
 abroad over the earth. 
 
 Men, equal among themselves, are born for God 
 alone, and whoever says the contrary, utters a blas- 
 phemy. 
 
 Whosoever will be great among you, shall be 
 your minister ; and whosoever of you will be the 
 chiefest, shall be servant of all. 
 
 The law of God is a law of love, and love does 
 not exalt itself over others, but it sacrifices itself to 
 others. 
 
 He who says within his heart : I am not as 
 other men, but all others have been given to me, 
 that L may command them, and dispose of them 
 and what is theirs according to my fancy : that 
 man is the child of Satan. 
 
 And Satan is the king of this world, for he is the 
 king of all those who think and act after this man- 
 ner ; and those who think and act thus, have made
 
 AND THEY WERE SAD. 19 
 
 themselves, by his counsels, masters of the world. 
 
 But their empire will be only for a time, and we 
 approach the end of that time. 
 
 A great battle will be fought, and the angel of 
 justice and the angel of love will fight with those 
 who have taken arms to re-establish among men 
 the reign of justice and the reign of love. 
 
 And many will perish in that combat, and their 
 names will remain on earth as rays from God's glory. 
 
 Therefore, ye who suffer, take courage, strengthen 
 your hearts : for to-morrow will be the day of trial, 
 the ^day when each must surrender, with joy, his 
 life for his brothers ; and the day that will follow, 
 will be the day of deliverance. 
 
 IT. 
 
 AND THEY WERE SAD. 
 
 THE sun had risen in his splendor; his light 
 streamed over the declivities of the mountains, 
 pierced through the dark shadows of the forest, 
 and sparkled in the dew, covering the light gossa- 
 mers, which like an impalpable, movable net- work 
 were spread over the meadows and fields; fresh 
 odors like unto the breath of the genii of the 
 earth perfumed the calm air; mysterious voices,
 
 20 
 
 heard from afar, murmured unknown sounds, 
 scarcely perceptible to the ear: the last echo of the 
 dreams of night. 
 
 Great art Thou, oh God! Thou art great in Thy 
 works. 
 
 And I saw come forth from the huts, scattered 
 here and there over the hills and in the valleys, old 
 men and young men, all of them pale, emaciated, 
 and bent under the burden of agricultural imple- 
 ments. They walked slowly, as if, in addition, they 
 were bearing along with them I know not what 
 internal load. JSTow and then, halting, their eyes 
 dwelt in thought upon all these divine splendors. 
 
 And they were sad. 
 
 The trees, full of sap, said to them: Behold these 
 blossoms; they will soon turn into fruit, which will 
 ripen for you. 
 
 And they were sad. 
 
 The vine spoke to them : In my branches I pre- 
 pare in secret a juice, which will infuse new life into 
 you, and warm your frozen limbs, when winter shall 
 have come. 
 
 And they were sad. 
 
 The meadows spoke : We have prepared a ban- 
 quet for your sheep, your oxen and your cows;
 
 AND THEY WERE SAD. 21 
 
 bring them here, and in a hundred various ways, 
 they will repay to you, what we shall give them. 
 
 And they were sad. 
 
 And the fields also spoke to them: Are your 
 barns ready? All the day and the night, we are 
 working in order to till them. Therefore, take ye 
 no thought neither for yourselves, nor for your 
 wives, nor for your little children. God has bidden 
 us to provide abundantly for their wants. 
 
 And they were sad. 
 
 All Nature cried aloud to them: 
 
 I am your Mother; come here, my children! 
 all of ye, come and drink plentifully at my inex- 
 haustible breast! 
 
 And they were sad, and their chests heaved, and 
 great tears trickled from their eyes. 
 
 "What does that signify, oh God? and what secret 
 sorrow lies hidden, then, at the bottom of man's 
 heart? 
 
 They are sad, because those fruits will not ripen 
 for them; because the juice of the vine shall not 
 warm them in winter; because they shall have no 
 share, neither in the wool of their sheep, nor in the 
 milk of their cows, nor in the flesh of their oxen ; 
 because others shall cut the grain from their fields,
 
 22 
 
 and reap where they have sown in fatigue and in 
 the sweat of their face; because they already hear 
 their little children cry with hunger; and because 
 they see the hearts of those who gave them life 
 breaking; because a violent race, devoid of pity and 
 love, has placed itself between them and the com- 
 mon Mother; and because that race will not tole- 
 rate their lips at her inexhaustible breast! 
 
 And Thy justice, oh God? 
 
 My day of justice will come, doubt it not; and 
 that day will be a holy day in Heaven, and a day 
 of great joy on earth! 
 
 Y. 
 
 ONE FATHER IN HEAVEN AND ON EAETH. 
 
 You are all children of the same father, and 'the 
 same mother has nursed you; why then do you not 
 love one another as brothers ? and why do you treat 
 one another rather as enemies? 
 
 He who loves not his brother, is seven times 
 accursed, and he who makes himself the enemy of 
 his brother, is accursed seventy times seven. 
 
 This is why kings and princes, and all those 
 whom the world calls great, have been accursed:
 
 ONE FATHER IN HEAVEN AND ON EARTH. 23 
 
 they have not loved their brothers, and they have 
 treated them as enemies. 
 
 Love one another, and you will fear neither the 
 great, nor princes, nor kings. 
 
 They are strong against you, only because you 
 are not united, only because you do not love one 
 another as brothers. 
 
 Say not: He is of one nation, and I am of 
 another nation. For all nations on earth had the 
 same father, who is Adam, and they have the same 
 Father in Heaven, who is God. 
 
 If one member is injured, the whole body suffers. 
 You are all of the same body: one of you cannot be 
 oppressed, without all being oppressed. 
 
 If a wolf springs upon a nock, he does not devour 
 the whole flock immediately: he seizes one sheep 
 and eats it. Then, his hunger having returned, he 
 seizes another and eats it, and so continues until the 
 last, for his hunger always comes back. 
 
 Be not as the sheep, who when the wolf has car- 
 ried away one of them, are frightened for a moment, 
 and then begin to graze again. For, think they, 
 perhaps he will content himself with a first or 
 a second victim : and wherefore should I be uneasy 
 about those whom he devours? What does that
 
 matter to me? it will only leave so much the more 
 grass for me. 
 
 Yerily, I say unto you: Those who think in this 
 way, are marked to be the food of the beast which 
 lives on flesh and blood. 
 
 VI. 
 
 JUDGE NOT 
 
 WHEN you see a man, led to prison or to the 
 scaffold, do not cry out immediately : He is a wicked 
 man, who has committed a crime against his fellow- 
 men. 
 
 For it may be that he is a good man, who wished 
 to serve his fellow-men, and who is punished there- 
 for by their oppressors. 
 
 When you see a whole nation, loaded with chains 
 and given up to the executioner, do not cry out 
 immediately: That nation is a violent nation, which 
 disturbed the peace of the earth. 
 
 For it may be that it is a nation of martyrs, 
 which dies for the welfare of mankind. 
 
 Eighteen centuries ago, in a city of the Orient, 
 the pontiffs and the kings of that time, nailed to a 
 cross, after having scourged him, a rebel, a blas- 
 phemer, as they called him.
 
 THE TRAVELER AND THE ROCK. 25 
 
 The day of his death, there was great terror in 
 Hell, and great joy in Heaven. 
 
 For the blood of the Just One had saved the 
 world. 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE TRAVELER AND THE ROCK. 
 
 WHEN a tree stands alone, it is shaken by the 
 winds and stripped of its leaves; and its branches, 
 instead of rising, droop as if they were seeking the 
 earth. 
 
 When a plant grows alone, finding no shelter 
 against the burning heat of the sun, it fades away, 
 withers, and dies. 
 
 When man is alone, the breath of power bears 
 him downward to the earth, and the scorching cov- 
 etousness of the great of this world absorbs the sap 
 which should nourish him. 
 
 Be not then as the plant and the tree which grow 
 solitary: but be united the one with the other, and 
 mutually lean on, and shelter one another. 
 
 As long as you shall be disunited, and every one 
 shall think of himself alone, you have nothing to 
 expect but suffering, and affliction, and oppression. 
 
 What is feebler than the sparrow, and more de-
 
 26 
 
 fen seless than the swallow ? Nevertheless, when the 
 bird of prey appears, the swallows and the sparrows 
 succeed in driving him aw r ay, by gathering around, 
 and pursuing him in a body. 
 
 Take example from the sparrow and the swallow. 
 
 He who separates himself from his brothers, fear 
 follows him wherever he goes, sits down by him 
 when he takes rest, and does not leave him during 
 his sleep. 
 
 Therefore, if you are asked: How many are you? 
 answer: We are one, for our brothers, are ourselves, 
 and we, are our brothers. 
 
 God has made neither small nor great, neither 
 masters nor slaves, neither kings nor subjects: He 
 has made all men equal. 
 
 But among men, some have more power either 
 of body, of mind, or of will, and those are the ones 
 who seek to subject others, when pride or covetous- 
 ness extinguishes in them the love for their brothers. 
 
 And God knew that it would be so, and therefore 
 He has commanded men to love one another, so 
 that they might be united, and the weak not fall 
 under the oppression of the strong. 
 
 For he who is stronger than one, will be less 
 strong than two; and he who is stronger than two,
 
 THE TEAVELEE AND THE EOCK. 27 
 
 will be less strong than four; and therefore the 
 weak will fear nothing, when, loving one another, 
 they shall be truly united. 
 
 A man traveled in the mountains, and he arrived 
 in a place, where a huge rock, having rolled down 
 on the path, filled it up entirely, and except the 
 path, there was no other passage, neither on the left, 
 nor on the right. 
 
 Now, that man, seeing that he could not con- 
 tinue his journey, on account of the rock, endeav- 
 ored to remove it, to make himself a passage, and 
 he wearied himself very much in the attempt, and 
 all his efforts were vain. 
 
 Seeing which, he sat down, filled with sadness, 
 and said: What will become of me, when night 
 comes on, and overtakes me in this solitude, with- 
 out food, without shelter, without any defense, at 
 the hour when the wild beasts come out to search 
 for their prey? 
 
 And while he was absorbed in that thought, it 
 chanced that another traveler came, and the latter, 
 having attempted to do what the first had attempt- 
 ed, and having also found himself unable to remove 
 the rock, sat down in silence and bowed his head. 
 
 And after this one, several others came, and not
 
 one was able to remove the rock, and the fear of all 
 was great. 
 
 Finally one of them said to the others: Brothers, 
 let us pray to our Father who is in Heaven: per- 
 haps He may take pity on us in our distress. 
 
 And this counsel was heeded, and they prayed 
 from their heart to the Father who is in Heaven. 
 
 And when they had prayed, he who had said: 
 Let us pray, spoke again : Brothers, that which no 
 one of us has been able to do alone, who knows, but 
 we may accomplish it together? 
 
 And they rose up, and all together they pushed 
 against the rock, and the rock yielded, and they 
 proceeded on their way in peace. 
 
 The traveler is man, the journey is life, the rock is 
 the trouble which he meets at every step on his path. 
 
 ~No man would be able to raise that rock alone; 
 but God has measured the weight of it, so that it 
 never blocks the way of those who journey together. 
 
 YIII. 
 
 LABOR ENFRANCHISED IS MASTER OF THE WORLD. 
 
 You are in this world like strangers. 
 
 Go North and South, to the Orient and to the
 
 LABOR ENFRANCHISED, MASTER OF THE WORLD. 29 
 
 Occident, in whatever place you shall come, you 
 will find a man, who will drive you away, saying: 
 That piece of ground is mine. 
 
 And after having traveled over all countries, you 
 will return, convinced that there is nowhere a poor 
 little corner of earth, where your wife in travail may 
 bear her firstborn ; where you may take rest in old 
 age, your labor finished; where, after your death, 
 your children may inter your bones as in a place 
 of your own. 
 
 That is, indeed, very sad. 
 
 And, yet, you must not grieve too much, for it 
 is written of Him, who saved the human race: 
 
 The fox has his hole, and the bird of the air has 
 its nest; but the Son of man hath not where to lay 
 His head. 
 
 Now, he became poor, in order to teach you to 
 endure poverty. 
 
 It is not that poverty comes from God, but it is 
 a consequence of the corruption and of the wicked 
 lusts of men, and this is why there will always be 
 the poor. 
 
 Pdverty is the child of sin, the germ of which is 
 in each man, and of servitude, the germ of which is 
 in every society.
 
 30 . 
 
 There will always be poor, because man never 
 can destroy the sin within himself. 
 
 There will always be fewer poor, because 'grad- 
 ually servitude will disappear from society. 
 
 Do you wish to labor for the destruction of pov- 
 erty, work at the destruction of sin, first in your- 
 selves, then in others, and of servitude in society. 
 
 It is not by taking away what belongs to others, 
 that you can destroy poverty; for how, in creating 
 the poor, would one diminish the number of the poor? 
 
 Every one has a right to preserve what he has, 
 except for that, no one would possess anything. 
 
 But each has a right to acquire by his labor what 
 he has not, except for that, poverty would be eternal. 
 
 Enfranchise therefore your labor, enfranchise your 
 arms, and poverty shall be among men only as an 
 exception, which God suffers in order to remind them 
 of the infirmity of their nature, and the mutual 
 assistance and love which they owe the one to the 
 other. 
 
 IX. 
 
 JUSTICE AND FRATERNITY. 
 
 WHEN the whole earth groaned in the expecta- 
 tion of deliverance, a voice arose from Judea, the
 
 JUSTICE AND FKATEKNITY. 31 
 
 voice of Him who came to suffer and to die for His 
 brothers, and whom some called in scorn the Son of 
 the carpenter. 
 
 The Son of the carpenter, then, poor and forlorn 
 in this world, said : 
 
 Come unto me, all ye that labor, and are heavy 
 laden, and I will give you rest. 
 
 And from that day to the present time, not one 
 of those who have believed in Him, has remained 
 without relief in his misery. 
 
 To cure the evils which afflict mankind, He 
 preached to all justice, which is the commencement 
 of fraternity, and fraternity which is the consum- 
 mation of justice. 
 
 Now, justice commands us to respect the right of 
 others, and sometimes fraternity bids us give up 
 our own right, for the sake of peace or some other 
 blessing. 
 
 What would be the world, if right ceased to 
 reign, if each were not secure in his person, and 
 could not enjoy without fear that which belongs to 
 him? 
 
 Better to live in the midst of the forests, than in 
 a society, thus given up to plunder. 
 
 What you shall lay hold of to-day, another will
 
 02 THE POOK MAN S GOSPEL. 
 
 snatch from you to-morrow. Men will be more 
 wretched than the birds of the air, from whom the 
 other birds ravish neither food nor nest. 
 
 What is a poor man ? A man who as jet has no 
 property. 
 
 "What does he wish for? To cease to be poor, that 
 is to say: to acquire property. 
 
 Now, he who robs, who plunders, what does he 
 do but to abolish, so far as is in his power, the very 
 right of property? 
 
 To plunder, to steal then, is to attack the poor 
 man as well as the rich man; it is to overthrow the 
 foundation of all society among men. 
 
 "Whoever has nothing, would be unable to acquire 
 property, except that others already have property ; 
 because they alone can give him something in 
 exchange for his labor. 
 
 Order is the advantage, the interest of all. 
 
 Drink not at the cup of crime: at the bottom is 
 bitter sorrow, and anguish, and death. 
 
 X. 
 
 THE TKAMP IN JAIL. 
 
 On ! who shall give back to me the valley where
 
 THE TEAMP IN JAIL. 33 
 
 I was born; and my rocks; and the high pine-trees, 
 sown over their declivities; and the verdant mead- 
 ows, where in limpid water, hidden under the 
 flowery grass 1 bathed my feet at the melting of 
 the snow? 
 
 Between the earth and me, poor child of the 
 mountains, they have placed a massive wall and 
 iron bars. 
 
 When I appeared before them, they asked me: 
 How do you live? 
 
 By the work of my hands, I answered, but all at 
 present refuse it, and nothing remains for me to do, 
 bat to starve and die. 
 
 You die with hunger? 'tis crime! And your 
 dwelling-place? Have you a dwelling-place? 
 
 The night having come, and all the doors being 
 shut to me for want of money, I seek shelter where 
 Providence guides me. 
 
 You have no dwelling-place? 't Is crime! Law is 
 express on that point: Prison! 
 
 Impostors, who call yourselves the disciples of 
 the Son of Man, of Him who went through this 
 world, poor and forlorn, and had not where to lay 
 His head, look up to His image above you, behold 
 the indignant expression of His face, and see His 
 2
 
 lips open in saint-like wrath to accurse both you 
 and your laws! 
 
 Are not the air and the sun the property of all ? 
 Has God constructed jails for any of His creatures? 
 
 Sheperds of my native valley, rejoice in your 
 humble huts! There, at least, poverty is no crime, 
 and there the traveler always finds a little milk and 
 a crust of bread to appease his hunger, and dried 
 leaves to rest on. 
 
 In the midst of you, my brothers ! how happily 
 passed the blessed days of my youth! How deli- 
 ciously my thoughts would wander in the boundless 
 realms of fancy, while reclining on the greensward, 
 at the foot of *a moss-grown rock, I inhaled the 
 intoxicating fragrance of our perfumed plants, lis- 
 tening to the sweet song of the thrush, and the 
 roar of the torrent, which rolled on and dashed its 
 spray on the pebbles at the bottom of the ravine! 
 
 How thickly these reminiscences crowd upon me ! 
 I eee the light clouds creeping up the mountain- 
 ridges, folding and folding again into a thousand 
 fantastic shapes, then rising toward their top, and 
 surrounding them with a dark diadem. 
 
 "What is the meaning of that scarcely perceptible 
 point above me? It is the eagle, who pursues his
 
 UNION IS STRENGTH. 35 
 
 calm, majestic flight through immensity. He, the 
 eagle, is free! 
 
 And the wild goat also is free on its solitary rock, 
 and the bear is free in its cavern, and the bird in 
 the woods, and the insect in the grass. 
 
 Oh ! wherefore cannot I be the insect in the grass, 
 the bird in the woods, the bear in its cavern, or the 
 wild goat on its solitary rock! 
 
 All creatures go and come as they please, and 
 breathe, under God's heaven, an air which none 
 metes out to them. 
 
 The pauper is the only exception ; the pauper is 
 an outlaw; he is the outcast of creation. 
 
 Who could have foretold, oh God! that the day 
 would come, when I should lament my being a man ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 UNION IS STEENGTH. 
 
 WHEN one of you suffers an injustice, when, on 
 his way through the world, the oppressor overthrows 
 and places his foot upon him; if he complains, no 
 one hears him. 
 
 The cry of the poor ascends to God, but reaches 
 not the ear of man.
 
 36 
 
 And I asked myself: Whence comes this evil? 
 Can it have been the will of Him who created the 
 poor as well as the rich, the weak as well as the 
 strong, to take away from the one all fear in his 
 iniquity, from the other all hope in his wretched- 
 ness? 
 
 And I perceived that this was a horrible thought, 
 a blasphemy against God. 
 
 Because each of you loves only himself, because 
 he separates himself from his brothers, because he 
 is alone and wishes to be alone, his complaint is 
 not heard. 
 
 In spring, when everything revives, there comes 
 from the grass a noise which arises like a long 
 murmur. 
 
 That noise, formed by so many noises, that one 
 would not be able to count them, is the voice of an 
 innumerable number of poor, little, invisible crea- 
 tures. 
 
 Alone, no one of them would be heard: all to- 
 gether, they make themselves heard. 
 
 You also are hidden in the grass; why does no 
 voice come forth from you? 
 
 When one desires to cross a rapid river, a long 
 line is made in two rows, and thus clinging together,
 
 UNION IS STRENGTH. 37 
 
 those who, alone, would not have been able to resist 
 the force of the waters, pass over without trouble. 
 
 Act in this manner, and you will break the cur- 
 rent of iniquity, which sweeps you away when you 
 are alone, and casts you bruised upon the bank. 
 
 Let your resolutions be slow, but firm. Yield 
 not to a first, nor to a second impulse. 
 
 But if some injustice has been done to you, com- 
 mence by banishing from your heart every feeling 
 of hatred, and then, raising your hands and eyes on 
 high, say to your Father, who is in Heaven: 
 
 O.h, Father! Thou art the protector of the inno- 
 cent and of the oppressed ; for it is Thy love which 
 has created the world, and it is Thy justice which 
 governs it. 
 
 Thy will is that it reign on earth, and the wicked 
 oppose their evil wish to it. 
 
 For this reason, we have resolved to fight against 
 the wicked. 
 
 Oh, Father! give wisdom to our spirit, and 
 strength to our arms! 
 
 When you shall have prayed thus from the 
 bottom of your soul, battle and fear nothing. 
 
 If, at first, victory seems to elude you, it is but a 
 trial, it will return again: for your blood will be
 
 38 
 
 like the blood of Abel, killed by Cain, and your 
 death will be like the death of martyrs. 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE SACRED WAR. 
 
 YOUNG soldier, whither dost thou go? 
 
 I go to battle for God and the altars of my native 
 land. 
 
 May thine arms be blessed, young soldier! 
 
 Young soldier, whither dost thou go? 
 
 I go to battle for justice, for the holy cause of 
 the people, for the sacred rights of mankind. 
 
 May thine arms be blessed, young soldier! 
 
 Young soldier, whither dost thou go ? 
 
 I go to battle for the deliverance of my brothers 
 from oppression, to break their chains and the 
 chains of the world. 
 
 May thine arms be blessed, young soldier! 
 
 Young soldier, whither dost thou go? 
 
 I go to battle against the men of iniquity, in 
 favor of those whom they crush and trample under 
 their feet, against the master for the slave, against 
 the tyrant for liberty. 
 
 May thine arms be blessed, young soldier!
 
 THE SACKED WAK. 39 
 
 Young soldier, whither dost thou go ? 
 
 I go to battle that all may no longer be the spoil 
 of the few, to raise up the drooping heads, and to 
 support the knees which bend. 
 
 May thine arms be blessed, young soldier! 
 
 Young soldier, whither dost thou go? 
 
 I go to battle that the fathers may no longer 
 curse the day, on which was said to them : A son is 
 born unto you ; nor the mothers that on which they 
 pressed him for the first time to their breast. 
 
 May thine arms be blessed, young soldier! 
 
 Young soldier, whither dost thou go? 
 
 I go to battle that the brother may no longer be 
 afflicted at seeing his sister fade away like the plant 
 which the earth refuses to nourish; that the sister 
 may no longer gaze in tears upon her brother who 
 parts, and shall return no more. 
 
 May thine arms be blessed, young soldier! 
 
 Young soldier, whither dost thou go? 
 
 I go to battle that each may eat in peace the fruit 
 of his toil; to dry the tears of the little children 
 who ask for bread, and receive the answer: There 
 is no more bread: what remained has been taken 
 away from us. 
 
 May thine arms be blessed, young soldier!
 
 40 
 
 Young soldier, whither dost thou go? 
 
 I go to battle for the poor, that he may not always 
 be despoiled of his share in the common heritage. 
 
 May thine arms be blessed, young soldier! 
 
 Young soldier, whither dost thou go ? 
 
 I go to battle and to drive hunger from the huts, 
 to bring back to homes abundance, security and 
 gladness. 
 
 May thine arms be blessed, young soldier! 
 
 Young soldier, whither dost thou go? 
 
 I go to battle to restore to those whom their 
 oppressors have cast into the depths of dungeons, 
 the air which their lungs need and the light which 
 their eyes seek. 
 
 May thine arms be blessed, young soldier! 
 
 Young soldier, whither dost thou go? 
 
 I go to battle to overturn the barriers which sep- 
 arate nations, and prevent them from embracing as 
 sons of the same father, created to live united in the 
 same love. 
 
 May thine arms be blessed, young soldier! 
 
 Young soldier, whither dost thou go ? 
 
 I go to battle to liberate thought, speech, con- 
 science, from the tyranny of man. 
 
 May thine arms be blessed, young soldier!
 
 A SERMON ON LOVE. 41 
 
 Young soldier, whither dost thou go ? 
 
 I go to battle for the eternal laws, descended from 
 
 O ' 
 
 on high, for justice which protects right, for fratern- 
 ity which mitigates the evils which are inevitable. 
 
 May thine arms be blessed, young soldier! 
 
 Young soldier, whither dost thou go? 
 
 I go to battle that all may have in heaven a God, 
 and on earth a fatherland. 
 
 May thine arms be blessed, seven times blessed, 
 young soldier! 
 
 XIII. 
 
 A SERMON ON LOVE. 
 
 You have only a day to spend here on earth; act 
 in such a manner that you may spend it in peace. 
 
 Peace is the fruit of love; for in order to live in 
 peace, we must bear with a great many things. 
 
 None is perfect, each has his failings; each hangs 
 upon the other, and love alone renders that weight 
 light. 
 
 If you cannot bear with your brother, how will 
 your brother with you? 
 
 It is written of the son of Mary: that having 
 loved His own which were in the world, He loved 
 them unto the end.
 
 42 
 
 For that reason : love your brother who is in the 
 world, and love him unto the end. 
 
 Love is indefatigable, it never grows weary. Love 
 is inexhaustible; it lives and is born anew in the 
 living, and the more it pours out, the fuller its 
 fountain. 
 
 Whosoever loves himself better than he loves his 
 brother, is not worthy of Christ: who died for His 
 brothers. Have you given away every thing you 
 possess? go and give up your life also: love will 
 restore all to you. 
 
 Yerily, I say unto you: the heart of the man that 
 loves, is a paradise on earth. He has God within 
 him, for God is love. 
 
 The wicked man loves not, he covets: he hungers 
 and thirsts for everything; his eye, like unto the 
 eye of the serpent, fascinates and allures, but only 
 to devour. 
 
 Love rests at the bottom of every pure soul, like 
 a drop of dew in the calyx of a flower. 
 
 Oh! if you knew what it is to love! 
 
 You say that you love : and many of your broth- 
 ers are in want of bread to sustain their life; in 
 want of clothing to cover their naked limbs; in 
 want of a roof to shelter themselves; in want of
 
 THE PKOLETAKIAN. 43 
 
 a handful of straw to sleep on whilst you have all 
 things in abundance. 
 
 You say that you love: and a great number 
 there are who, destitute of succor, pine away their 
 lives in sickness on a miserable couch poor 
 wretches who weep, whilst no one weeps with them ; 
 how many little children there are who, shivering 
 with cold, go from door to door, begging the rich 
 for the crumbs from their table, and do not obtain 
 them. 
 
 You say that you love your brothers: and what 
 then would you do, if you hated them? 
 
 Yerily, verily, I say unto you: whosoever, being 
 able to do so, does not relieve his brother who 
 suffers is an Enemy to his brother; and whosoever, 
 being able to do so, does not give nourishment to 
 his starving brother is the Murderer of his 
 brother. 
 
 XIY. 
 
 THE PROLETARIAN.* 
 
 TAKE pity, oh God, on the poor proletarian ! 
 "When I came into this world, my father was no 
 
 * PROLETAKIAN : A man who has no property, and depends entirely 
 on his physical strength for support.
 
 more. One day, the fleshless spectre, called Misery, 
 entered his dwelling; he struggled against it hand 
 to hand; he struggled for a long time; but finally 
 his strength abandoned him. Then came down the 
 angel who delivers, and inclining over his couch : 
 Thou hast, said the angel, accomplished thy rough 
 task in this world; now, pass on to a better life. 
 
 My mother, with her own hands, dressed him for 
 the grave; then she remained alone. Alone? I^o; 
 the spectre was constantly there. 
 
 When the time of her delivery had come, she 
 gave birth to me, with great pains, and she cried. 
 She cried, my mother, for she had no swaddling- 
 clothes to wrap her first-born in. 
 
 And later, her tears fell more abundantly still, 
 when she saw that her milk was drying up for want 
 of food, and that the heat of her breast, as little as 
 her feeble breath, were able to warm the emaciated 
 limbs of her child. 
 
 By strength of love, making a sacrifice of her own 
 life, she preserved mine. Working all the day, all 
 the night long, without fire during the winter, and 
 exposed to the burning heat in summer, her only 
 care, during all those long and wearisome hours, con- 
 sisted in protecting me from the sufferings she
 
 THE PROLETARIAN. 45 
 
 endured for my sake, and her only delight was to 
 smile on me. 
 
 However, I grew up. She redoubled her efforts, 
 in order that a little instruction might smooth the 
 path, which I was to tread in later years. Oh! 
 how her heart leaped with joy, when the school was 
 over, on seeing her child return gay and contented 
 as we are at that age dressed in his little blouse, 
 with a leathern belt, girded round his waist, a cap on 
 his golden locks, and the strap, which contained his 
 books, dangling from his shoulder! 
 
 Then came the time of my apprenticeship. I 
 rejoiced at the idea that the time would not be long, 
 before I should be able to pay back to her, from 
 whom I had received everything, a little of that 
 which her inexhaustible tenderness had bestowed 
 upon me. In my dreams, I saw myself bringing 
 her the fruit of my first labor, and saying to her: 
 Now, let the toil be mine, mother! and do you take 
 repose. 
 
 Alas ! in a few years she had worn out her whole 
 existence. He who from Heaven had made himself 
 the support, the comforter of the poor widow, 
 called her back to Him. Her decline was rapid. 
 At last, she expired in my arms. The very moment
 
 46 
 
 she breathed her last, her mute lips were smiling 
 at me, and her dying look blessed me for a last 
 time. 
 
 When they lowered her into the grave, and the 
 sound of the falling mould grew duller and more 
 dull, Thou alone, oh God! Thou knowest what 
 passed within me. 
 
 Henceforth, standing alone in this world, I lived 
 as if I did not belong to it, feeding on reminis- 
 cences, vague reveries and melancholy hopes. 
 
 One day, in the midst of those sombre shadows, 
 a gentler light appeared to me. On my solitary 
 path, Providence guided a youthful maiden, an 
 orphan like myself. The dew of spring is less pure, 
 than was her heart. After a first glance, our eyes 
 looked downward, and it was. our silence alone 
 which spoke. Our souls, inclining the one toward 
 the other, in that moment were united forever. 
 
 No! heaven, among its purest ecstacies, has noth- 
 ing that can be compared to the ravishing hours 
 which flew away during our conversations. I said 
 to her: There is not one who cares either for you 
 or for me; to us two the world is a wilderness. My 
 poor, little turtle-dove of the forest, I will go and 
 look for your food, and I will build you a nest,
 
 THE PEOLETAEIAN. 47 
 
 where you shall repose, sheltered from cold and 
 storm. 
 
 Whereto she answered: And whilst I shall be 
 occupied with other cares during jour absence, at 
 your return my caresses will soothe away your 
 weariness: but, oh my well-beloved! come back 
 quickly! 
 
 I wasted away in the longing for her possession; 
 but she, wiser than I was, repressed my ardor, and 
 said: Think of those who will come; let us first 
 save a little. 
 
 The term of this long waiting was nearly ended, 
 when, of a sudden : Labor is no longer in demand. 
 They cut down the wages, and they go on cutting 
 them down: take that, or starve! 
 
 Our laboring strength is all that we possess; 
 other property than our muscles we have not ! That 
 is the way in which the proletarians make answer. 
 And they concert together that they may live: they 
 are thrown into prison. 
 
 Oh,, justice of mankind! how shalt thou tremble 
 in thy fear that day, when thou art judged by the 
 Justice of God! 
 
 The rest is but one lugubrious dream. 
 
 During the long and dreary weeks of my confine-
 
 48 THE POOR MAN'S GOSPEL. 
 
 raent, I saw her twice, thrice perhaps, through the 
 grates of my cell. The last time, her sunken eyes 
 sparkled with strange fire, her knees were bent, she 
 could scarcely stand. 
 
 Thereafter, I did not see her again. 
 
 Oh, mother darling! Oh, my dearest beloved! 
 Is it you whom I perceive there above me in that 
 light? "Who calls me? Is it you? Do not forsake 
 me! oh, do not forsake me! I feel my chains give 
 way: one moment, one single moment more, and 
 we shall be reunited. 
 
 Take pity, oh God, on the poor proletarian! 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE UNBELIEVER. 
 
 You will meet men, who love not God, and who 
 fear Him not: shun them, for a vapor of execration 
 issues from them. 
 
 Shun the impious, for his breath kills; but hate 
 him not, for who knows, if God has not already 
 changed his heart? 
 
 o 
 
 The man who, even sincerely, says: I believe not, 
 often deceives himself. Deep down in the soul, at 
 the very bottom, there is a root of faith, which 
 withers not.
 
 THE UNBELIEVER. 49 
 
 The word which denies God, scorches the lips 
 over which it passes, and the mouth which opens to 
 blaspheme, is a vent of hell. 
 
 The impious is alone in the Universe. All crea- 
 tures praise God, all that feel bless Him, all that 
 think adore: the sun by day and stars by night sing 
 Him in their mysterious language. 
 
 He has written on the firmament His name thrice 
 holy. 
 
 Glory to God in the highest! 
 
 He has written it likewise in the heart of man, 
 and the good man preserves it there with love; but 
 others endeavor to blot it out. 
 
 Peace on earth to men of good will! 
 
 Their sleep is sweet, and their death is still more 
 sweet, for they know that they return to their Father. 
 
 Even as the poor laborer, at the decline of day, 
 quits the fields, seeks his hut, and sitting down at 
 the door, forgets his weariness, in viewing the 
 heavens: so, when evening comes, the man of hope 
 returns with joy to his Father's house, and, sitting 
 on the threshold, forgets the toils of the exile in 
 the visions of eternity.
 
 XYI. 
 
 THE TWO NEIGHBORS. 
 
 Two men were neighbors, and each of them had 
 a wife and several small children, and his sole labor 
 was to make for them a living. 
 
 And one of these two men made himself very un- 
 easy, saying: If I die, or if I fall sick, what will 
 become of my wife and my children? 
 
 And this thought did not quit him, and it gnawed 
 at his heart, as a worm gnaws the fruit, in which 
 it is hidden. 
 
 Now, although the same thought had come like- 
 wise to the other father, he would not entertain it; 
 for, said he, God, who knows all His creatures, and 
 who watches over them, will also watch over me, 
 and over my wife, and over my children. 
 
 And this one lived tranquilly, whereas the first 
 did not taste a moment of peace, nor of mental en- 
 joyment. 
 
 One day, as he was laboring in the fields, sad and 
 downcast because of his fear, he saw a number of 
 birds enter a bush, come out, and soon return to it 
 again.
 
 THE TWO NEIGHBOES. 51 
 
 And having approached, he saw two nests placed 
 side by side, and in each several young birds newly 
 hatched and still featherless. 
 
 And when he had returned to his labor, from 
 time to time he raised his eyes and watched the 
 birds, how they went and came, carrying food to 
 their young. 
 
 But, behold! at the moment that one of the mo- 
 thers came back with food in her bill, a vulture 
 seizes her, bears her away, and the poor mother, 
 vainly struggling in its talon, uttered piercing cries. 
 
 At this sight, the man who labored felt his soul 
 more troubled than before: for, thought he, the 
 death of the mother is the death of the children. 
 Mine have also but me. "What will become of them, 
 if I die? 
 
 And the whole day he was gloomy and sad, and 
 at night he slept not. 
 
 The next morning, on returning to the fields, he 
 said to himself: I will go and see the young of that 
 poor mother: several of them, without doubt, have 
 already perished. And he turned his steps toward 
 the bush. 
 
 And looking, he saw the young in good health ; 
 not one of them seemed to have suffered.
 
 52 THE POOR MAN'S GOSPEL. 
 
 And surprised at this, he hid himself to watch 
 what would take place. 
 
 And after a short time, he heard a feeble cry, and 
 he saw the second mother, bringing in haste the 
 food which she had gathered, and she distributed it 
 to all the young, without distinction, and there was 
 enough for all, and the orphans were not forsaken 
 in their distress. 
 
 And the father, who had doubted Providence, 
 related, in the evening, to the other father what he 
 had seen. 
 
 And this one said to him: Wherefore be uneasy? 
 God never abandons His own. His love has secrets 
 which we know not. Let us believe, let us hope, 
 let us love, and pursue our path in peace. 
 
 If I die before you, you will be a father to my 
 children ; if you die before me, I will be the father 
 of yours. 
 
 And if we both die, before they are old enough 
 to provide for themselves, they shall have for a 
 father the Father who is in Heaven.
 
 PEAYEE. 53 
 
 XYIL 
 
 PEAYEE. 
 
 you have prayed, do you not feel your 
 heart lighter, and your soul more content? 
 
 Prayer makes affliction less grievous, and joy 
 more pure: it imparts to the one I know not what 
 of strength and of sweetness, and to the x other a 
 celestial perfume. 
 
 What do ye on the earth, and have ye nothing to 
 ask of Him who placed you here? 
 
 You are a traveler in search of his fatherland. 
 Walk not with head bent down: you must raise 
 your eyes to know your way. 
 
 Your fatherland is heaven ; and when you look 
 up to heaven, does it move you in no way? does no 
 desire press upon you? or is that desire dumb? 
 
 There are some who say: Of what benefit is 
 prayer? God is too far above us to listen to creat- 
 ures so pitiful. 
 
 And who then made these pitiful creatures, who 
 gave them feeling, thought and speech, if not God? 
 
 And if He has been so good to them, was it to 
 cast them off afterwards, and to keep them afar 
 from Him?
 
 54: 
 
 Verily, I say unto yon, whosoever says within 
 his heart, that God despises His works, blasphemes 
 against God. 
 
 There are others who say: What is the nse of 
 praying? Does God not know better than we, what 
 we need? 
 
 God does know better than you, what you need, 
 and it is for this reason, that He wishes you to ask 
 it of Him; for God Himself is your first need, and 
 to pray to God, is commencing to possess God. 
 
 The father knows the needs of his son; must 
 that be a reason, why the son never should have a 
 word of prayer and of thanksgiving for his father? 
 
 "When the animals suffer, when they are in fear, 
 or when they are hungry, they utter plaintive cries. 
 These cries are the prayer which they address to 
 God, and God listens. Should man be then, in cre- 
 ation, the only being whose voice never ascends to 
 the ear of the Creator? 
 
 Sometimes there passes over the fields a wind 
 which dries up the plants, and then their withered 
 stems are seen to droop to the earth; but, moistened 
 by the dew, they regain their freshness, and raise 
 anew their languishing heads. 
 
 There are always blasting winds, which pass over
 
 THE REWARD OF JUSTICE AND FRATERNITY. 55 
 
 the soul of man, and dry it up. Prayer is the dew 
 which revives it. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 THE REWARD OF JUSTICE AND FRATERNITY. 
 
 to do unto others, what we should not wish 
 that others should do unto us, that is justice. 
 
 To do unto others, on every occasion, what we 
 should wish that others should do unto us, that is 
 fraternity. 
 
 A man lived by his labor, he, his wife and his 
 little children ; and as he enjoyed good health, had 
 vigorous arms, and easily found employment, he 
 could, without much difficulty, provide for his sub- 
 sistence and that of his family. 
 
 But it came to pass that times having become 
 very hard over all the country, labor was in little 
 demand, because it no longer yielded profit to 
 employers, and at the same time the price of the 
 necessaries of life advanced. 
 
 The man of labor and his family, then, began to 
 suffer much. Having soon exhausted his small sav- 
 ings, he was forced to sell, piece by piece, first his 
 furniture, then most of his clothing; and when he 
 had thus stripped himself, he remained, deprived of
 
 56 
 
 all resources, face to face with hunger. And hun- 
 ger alone had not entered his dwelling: sickness 
 had come in with it. 
 
 Now, this man had two neighbors, the one more 
 rich, the other less. 
 
 He called upon the first, and said: We are in 
 want of everything, I, my wife and my children: 
 have compassion on us. 
 
 The rich man answered him: How can I help 
 that? When you have worked for me, have I ever 
 withheld your wages, or have I ever deferred the 
 payment of them ? I never did any wrong, neither 
 to you, nor to any other: my hands are clean of -all 
 iniquity. I feel sorrow for your distress, but every 
 one must think of himself in these bad times: who 
 knows how long they may last? 
 
 The poor father answered not, and slowly return- 
 ing home, his heart full of anguish, he met his 
 other neighbor, who was less rich. 
 
 The latter, seeing him pensive and sad, said to 
 him: "What troubles you? there is care on your 
 brow and tears in your eyes? 
 
 And the father, with a trembling voice, made 
 known his distress to him. 
 
 When he had -finished: Wherefore, said the
 
 THE REWARD OF JUSTICE AND FRATERNITY. 57 
 
 other to him, be so despondent ? Are we not 
 brothers! And how could I abandon my brother 
 in his troubles? Come with me, and we will share 
 that which I enjoy through the goodness of God. 
 
 In this manner, the family which suffered was 
 relieved, until they could provide for themselves. 
 
 Several years passed by. The two rich neighbors 
 appeared before the Sovereign Judge of human 
 actions. 
 
 And the Judge said to the first: My eye has 
 followed thee on earth: thou hast refrained from 
 wronging thy fellow-men, from violating their 
 rights; thou hast rigorously accomplished the strict 
 law of justice; but in that accomplishment, thou 
 hast lived for thyself alone; thy hard, unfeeling 
 soul has not understood the law of love. And now, 
 in this new world, where thou enterest poor and 
 naked, unto thee shall be done as thou didst unto 
 others. Thou hast kept for thyself alone the bles- 
 sings which fell to thy lot; thou hast bestowed 
 nothing upon thy brothers: nothing shall be given 
 to thee. Thou hast thought of thyself alone: go 
 how, and live on thyself. 
 
 And turning towards the second, the Judge said 
 to him : Forasmuch as thou hast not only been just,
 
 58 THE POOR MAN'S GOSPEL. 
 
 but as fraternity has penetrated thy heart; because 
 that thy hand opened itself to distribute among 
 thy brothers, who were less happy, the blessings of 
 which thou wast the depositary; and since thy hand 
 wiped away the tears of those who wept: greater 
 blessings shall be given unto thee. Go and receive 
 the reward of him who has fully accomplished his 
 duties: the law of justice and the law of love. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 
 
 IT was a winter-night. The wind howled with- 
 out, and the snow whitened the roofs. 
 
 Beneath one of those roofs, in a narrow chamber, 
 were sitting, at their needle-work, a woman with 
 white hair and a young maiden. 
 
 And from time to time, the aged woman warmed 
 at a small brasier her thin hands. A lamp of clay 
 shed its feeble light around in this wretched abode, 
 and a ray from the lamp seemed to expire upon a 
 picture of the Blessed Virgin, hanging on the 
 wall. 
 
 And the young maiden, lifting her eyes, gazed in 
 silence, for a few moments, upon the white-haired
 
 MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 59 
 
 woman; then said to her: Mother, you have not 
 always been in such poverty. 
 
 And there was in her voice a sweetness and a 
 tenderness indescribable. 
 
 And the white-haired woman replied: My daugh- 
 ter, God is our Master: His doing is' well done. 
 
 Having uttered these words, she was silent for a 
 time; then she resumed: 
 
 When I lost your father, it was an affliction 
 which I believed beyond consolation: however, you 
 were left to me; but I thought at that time of only 
 one thing. 
 
 Later, I knew that if he had lived, and had seen 
 us in such distress, his heart would have broken ; 
 and I have realized that God had been good to him. 
 
 The young maiden made no answer, but dropped 
 her head, and a few tears, which she strove to hide, 
 fell upon the linen which she held in her hands. 
 
 The mother went on: God, who has been good to 
 him, has also been good to us. Of what have we 
 been in want, while so many others are in want of 
 everything? 
 
 It is true, we have been compelled to accustom 
 ourselves to a little, and to earn that little by our 
 labor, but does that little not suffice us? and have
 
 60 
 
 not all, from the beginning, been condemned to live 
 by their labor? 
 
 God, in His kindness, has given us every day 
 our daily bread: and how many have it not? a 
 shelter and how many know not where to retire? 
 
 He has given you, my daughter, to me: of what 
 should I complain? 
 
 At these last words, the young maiden, much 
 moved, sunk down at her mother's knee, took her 
 hands, kissed them, and lying upon her bosom, wept. 
 
 And the mother, making an effort to raise her 
 voice, said: My daughter, happiness is not possess- 
 ing much, but hoping and loving much. 
 
 Our hope is not of this world, nor is our love, 
 and if it be, it is only fleeting. 
 
 After God, you are my all in this world; but this 
 world passes away like a dream, and this is why 
 my love rises with you to another world. 
 
 "When I carried you unborn, one day I prayed 
 more ardently the Virgin Mary, and she appeared 
 to me during my sleep, and with a celestial smile, 
 she seemed to present to me a little child. 
 
 And I took the infant which she offered me, and 
 as I held it in my arms, the Virgin -Mother placed 
 on its head a crown of white roses.
 
 SOCIETY, ITS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 61 
 
 A few months later, you were born, and the 
 sweet vision was always before my eyes. 
 
 Saying this, the white-haired woman trembled, 
 and pressed to her heart the young maiden. 
 
 A short time after that, a devout soul saw two 
 shining forms ascend toward Heaven, and a group 
 of angels bore them company, and the air resounded 
 with their songs of gladness. 
 
 XX. 
 
 SOCIETY, ITS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 ALL things in this world are not like they ought 
 to be. There are too many evils, and those evils 
 are too great. Such can never have been the will 
 of God. 
 
 All men, born from one and the same father, 
 should have formed one single, great family, united 
 by the sweet tie of fraternal love. That family, in 
 its growth, would have resembled a tree, the trunk 
 of which, on shooting up, produces numerous 
 branches, whence spring boughs and twigs, and 
 from these, others still; all of them nourished by 
 the same sap, all animated by the same life.
 
 62 THE TOOK MAN'S GOSPEL. 
 
 In a household, all have in view the benefit of all, 
 because all love one another, and because all have 
 a share in the common weal. There is not one of 
 its members, who does not contribute to it in one 
 way or another, according to his strength, his intel- 
 lect, or his particular aptitudes; one does such a 
 thing, another something else; but the action of 
 each is profitable to all, and the action of all is 
 profitable to each. Whether there be little or much, 
 they share like brothers; around the domestic fire- 
 side no distinctions exist. Starvation is not per- 
 ceived to sit there by the side of abundance. The 
 cup, which God fills with His gifts, passes from 
 hand to hand ; and the aged man as well as the lit- 
 tle child, he who cannot endure fatigue any longer, 
 as well as he who cannot endure it yet; and he who 
 returns from the field, his brow bathed with perspi- 
 ration all indiscriminately bring that cup to their 
 lips. Their joys, their sufferings, are all common. 
 If one among them is infirm, if he is taken ill, if he 
 becomes unfit for labor before old age is there, the 
 others provide for and take care of him, so that he 
 is never abandoned. 
 
 There, where only one interest exists, no com- 
 petition is possible; from that moment no discus-
 
 SOCIETY, ITS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. ' 63 
 
 sions can occur. That which gives birth to dis- 
 sensions, hatred and envy, is the insatiable desire 
 of ever possessing more and more, when one pos- 
 sesses for one's self alone. Providence accurses those 
 individual possessions. They continually irritate 
 covetousness, and never gratify it. Those blessings 
 alone do we really enjoy, which we share with others. 
 
 Father, mother, children, brothers, sisters, are 
 there names saintlier and sweeter than those? and 
 for what reason are there any other names on earth ? 
 
 If those ties had been preserved such as they were 
 primitively, we never would have known the greater 
 part of the evils which afflict the human race, and 
 sympathy would have alleviated those evils which 
 are unavoidable. Those tears alone are composed 
 of unmixed bitterness, which drop down on no one's 
 bosom, and which no one wipes away. 
 
 Whence does it come that our destiny is so bur- 
 densome, and our life so full of miseries? Let us 
 lay the fault upon none but ourselves ; we have been 
 unmindful of the laws of nature, we have deviated 
 from its beaten path. He who parts with his 
 traveling companions, in order to climb up amongst 
 the rocks without assistance, must not complain if 
 the ascent is rough. '
 
 64 
 
 Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, 
 neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your 
 heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much 
 better than they? 
 
 There is room for all of us on this earth, and 
 God has rendered it fertile enough that it may 
 abundantly provide for the wants of all. There- 
 fore, if a great many of our fellow-creatures want 
 what is necessary to live, it is because man has 
 disturbed the order, established by God; it is be- 
 cause he has destroyed the unity of the primitive 
 family; it is because the members of that family 
 have first become strangers to one another, and 
 afterward enemies to one another. 
 
 Multitudes of particular societies, clans, tribes 
 and nations have formed themselves, which, instead 
 of protecting one another, had iio other thought 
 but of injuring one another. 
 
 All the wicked passions which arise from selfish- 
 ness and selfishness itself have armed brothers 
 against brothers; each has sought his own interest 
 at the expense of others; rapine has banished secu- 
 rity from the world; war has devastated it. They 
 have furiously contended for the bloody fragments 
 of the common inheritance. AVhen strength now
 
 SOCIETY,^ITS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 65 
 
 which was destined for labor which produces 
 is nearly entirely employed for destruction ; when 
 conflagrations, plunder and murder show man's 
 passage over the earth; when conquest overthrows 
 the natural relations between each population and 
 the space of territory which it occupies and is 
 able to cultivate; when numberless obstacles inter- 
 rupt or stop the communications between one coun- 
 try and another country, and the free exchange of 
 their productions; is it otherwise possible but that 
 disorders of so profound a nature should not give 
 birth to sufferings equally profound? 
 
 The nations thus set at variance amongst them- 
 selves, each nation, moreover, has brought discord 
 into itself. Some men have arisen, who uttered 
 this impious word: We alone have a right to com- 
 mand and to govern; the others have no business 
 but to obey. 
 
 They have made the laws in their benefit, and 
 maintained them by force. On one side: power, 
 wealth and enjoyment; on the other side: the 
 whole burden of society. 
 
 In certain times and in certain countries, man 
 has become the property of man; they have traf-
 
 66 THE POOK MAN'S GOSPEL. 
 
 ficked in man, they have sold him, they have bought 
 him like a beast of burden. 
 
 In other countries and in other times, without 
 depriving him of his liberty, they have done in 
 such a manner that the fruit of his labor was almost 
 entirely appropriated by those who held him under 
 their dependency. Better would have been for him 
 a state of complete slavery; for the master at least 
 feeds, lodges and clothes his slave, and takes care 
 of him when he is sick, on account of the interest 
 he has in preserving him; but he who belongs to 
 no one, they make use of him as long as there is 
 any profit to get out of him, and then they throw 
 him aside. What else might he be good for, when 
 old age and labor have worn out his strength, but 
 to die of hunger and cold at the corner of a street? 
 Yet, even the very sight of him might give offense 
 to those who enjoy all the pleasures of life. It is 
 possible that on seeing them pass by, he might ask 
 of them: A piece of bread, for the sake of God! 
 That would not be agreeable to hear. And so it 
 happens that they pick him up, and throw him into 
 one of those filthy places which they call POOR- 
 HOUSES, and which are like the approach to a dung- 
 hill.
 
 SOCIETY, ITS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 67 
 
 Everywhere, the excessive love of self has extin- 
 guished the love of others. Brothers have said to 
 their brothers : We are not of the same lineage as 
 you; our blood is purer; we do not wish to mingle 
 with yours. You and your offspring, you are forever 
 destined to serve us. 
 
 Elsewhere, they have established distinctions not 
 on birth, but on money. 
 
 How much are you worth? 
 
 So much. 
 
 , That is right; sit down at the social banquet, the 
 table is spread for you. As for you who possess 
 nothing, get you gone! 
 
 Does there exist a fatherland for the poor man? 
 
 And thus it is that wealth has marked the ranks 
 and established the classes ; they have had preroga- 
 tives of all kinds because they were rich ; the exclu- 
 sive privilege of having a share in the administra-, 
 tion of the affairs of all, that is to say of doing their 
 own business at the expense of all, or nearly all. 
 
 The PROLETARIANS, as they are called with a su- 
 perb disdain, although individually enfranchised, 
 have been collectively the property of those who 
 rule the relations between the members of society, 
 the movement of industry, the conditions of labor,
 
 68 THE POOR MAN'S GOSPEL. 
 
 its price, and the partition of its fruits. What it 
 has pleased them to ordain, they have called LAW; 
 and the greater part of those laws have been noth- 
 ing better than measures of private interest, means 
 for the augmenting and perpetuating of domina- 
 tion, and the abuses of the domination of the smaller 
 number over the greater number. 
 
 And that is what has become of the world, when 
 the tie of fraternity was broken : Repose and opu- 
 lence, and all the advantages on one side; whereas, 
 on the other side, nothing but fatigue and misery, 
 and the Potter's field at the end. 
 
 The former, under different names, constitute 
 what is called the higher classes of society; the lat- 
 ter form what is called the people. 
 
 XX. 
 
 SOCIETY, ITS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 
 PART II. 
 
 You are the people. In the first place, you 
 should know who are the people. 
 
 There are men who, bent under the burden of 
 the day, incessantly exposed to the sun, the rain, 
 the wind and all the inclemencies of the seasons,
 
 SOCIETY, ITS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 69 
 
 till the ground, deposit into its bosom, beside the 
 seed which shall bear fruit, a part of their strength 
 and of their life, and in this manner obtain from it, 
 by the sweat of their face, the food which is nec- 
 essary to all. 
 
 Those men are men of the people. 
 
 Others fell the forests; work the quarries and 
 the mines; descend to immense depths in the 
 bowels of the earth, in order to extract from it salt, 
 coal, mineral ore and all the materials indispensable 
 to trades and arts. These, as well as the former, 
 grow old in rough labor, with the purpose of pro- 
 curing for all the things which all need. 
 
 These, also, are men of the people. 
 
 Others melt the metals, mould them, and fashion 
 them into shapes, which render them fit for a thou- 
 sand various uses; there are others who work in 
 wood ; others weave the wool, the flax, the silk, and 
 manufacture cloths of all kinds; others in the same 
 manner provide for the different necessities which 
 spring either directly from nature, or from the 
 social condition. 
 
 These, likewise, are men of the people. 
 
 Many, amidst continual perils, travel over the 
 seas for the purpose of transporting the peculiar
 
 TO 
 
 productions of one country to other countries; or, 
 they struggle against waves and tempests under 
 the scorching sun of the tropics, as well as amidst 
 the polar icebergs, either to the end of increasing 
 the common stock by fishing, or in order to wrest 
 from the ocean a multitude of productions, useful to 
 human life. 
 
 These, equally, are men of the people. 
 
 And, who take up arms for their country, who 
 defend her, who sacrifice to her the most beautiful 
 years of their life, their vigils, yea, even their blood ! 
 who devote themselves and die for the security of 
 others, in order to warrant them the quiet enjoy- 
 ment of the domestic fireside, if not the children of 
 the people? 
 
 And there are some 'among them who, across a 
 thousand obstacles, pushed on, and sustained by 
 their genius, develop and perfect the arts, letters 
 and the sciences, which refine the morals, civilize 
 the nations, surround them with that brilliant splen- 
 dor, called glory, and in a word constitute the 
 most fertile among all sources of public prosperity. 
 
 And thus it is that in every country, all those 
 who toil and drudge in order to bring forth and to 
 spread the productions; all those whose labor turns
 
 SOCIETY, ITS PAST, PRESENT A.ND FUTURE. 71 
 
 to the profit of the whole community; the classes 
 which are the most useful to its welfare and the 
 most indispensable to its conservation, are none else 
 but the people. Take away a small number of 
 privileged persons, buried in mere enjoyment, and 
 the people is all mankind. 
 
 "Without the people, all prosperity, all develop- 
 ment, all life would be impossible; for, without 
 work no life is possible, and work is everywhere the 
 portion allotted to the people. 
 
 If the people suddenly disappeared, what would 
 become of society? Society would disappear with 
 it. There would be left only a few rare individu- 
 als, scattered over the land, who thereupon would 
 be obliged to cultivate it with their own .hands. In 
 order to live, they would immediately be compelled 
 to become the people themselves. 
 
 The question now which arises, is this: In that 
 society, which is almost entirely composed of the 
 people, and which only subsists through the people, 
 what is the people's condition? what does that 
 society do for the people? 
 
 It condemns them to struggle incessantly against 
 multitudes of obstacles of all kinds, which it opposes 
 to the amelioration of their lot, to the alleviation of
 
 72 
 
 their hardships; leaving to them but a scanty por- 
 tion of the fruit of their labor; it treats the people 
 like the ploughman treats his horse and his ox, and 
 oftentimes a great deal worse; under different 
 names it constantly proclaims: A servitude without 
 end, and a wretchedness without hope! 
 
 XX. 
 
 SOCIETY, ITS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 
 PART III. 
 
 IF it were possible to compute all the sufferings 
 which, for centuries and centuries, the people have 
 undergone on the surface of the globe, not in conse- 
 quence of the laws of Nature, but through the vices 
 of Society, the number would be equal to the grass- 
 blades, covering that earth, which is moistened with 
 their tears. 
 
 Will such, then, for ever be the case? Is that 
 multitude, then, doomed to go perpetually through 
 the same circle of afflictions? Have they nothing 
 to expect from the future? On all the points of 
 their road, traced through the immensity of time, 
 shall we, then, never hear anything else spring from 
 their hearts but that one mournful cry of distress?
 
 SOCIETY, ITS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 73 
 
 Is there really, then, within or without them, some 
 fatal necessity which must forbid them a better 
 condition until the end? Has God in heaven, then, 
 condemned them to suffer in the same manner for 
 ever and ever? 
 
 Throw it from you, that thought. That would 
 be as if you blasphemed within yourselves. 
 
 The ways of God are ways of love. That which 
 proceeds from Him, arej not the evils which afflict 
 those poor creatures, but the blessings which He 
 scatters around them with profusion. 
 
 The gentle, tepid breeze which revives them in 
 spring, is His breath ; and the dew which refreshes 
 them during the burning heat of summer, is His 
 moist respiration. 
 
 There are some who say: On coming into this 
 world, you are predestined to be tortured ; here be- 
 low, your life is and can be no other. But the real 
 tortures are those who create them, and because they 
 have established their welfare on no other founda- 
 tion than the misfortunes of others, they should like 
 to persuade them that their wretchedness is irre- 
 mediable, and that even to try to get out of it, 
 would be an attempt as criminal, as it is senseless. 
 
 Do not listen to such false reasonings. It is true,
 
 74' 
 
 perfect felicity to which every human being aspires, 
 is not of this world; we pass through it, in order to 
 attain an object, to perform our duties, and to accom- 
 plish a work; our repose will be on the other side 
 only, and the present is the time to labor. That 
 labor, however, pursuant to the design of Him who 
 imposes it, cannot be meant to be a continual chas- 
 tisement; but on the contrary, as much as the efforts 
 to which it obliges us will allow, that labor, although 
 a mixed happiness, may be a real blessing to us, a 
 commencement of the joy, in which shall consist the 
 reward of achievement. 
 
 "We are like the ploughman: He sows at the be- 
 ginning of winter, and does not reap before autumn. 
 Yet, who would call his fatigue entirely unproduc- 
 tive of pleasure, for does not contentment spring up 
 in his furrows in the same time with hope? 
 
 The remedy for that wretchedness, which they try 
 to make you believe is incurable, rests with your- 
 selves; and since the obstacle is not in Nature, but 
 in Man, you will be able to remove it as soon as you 
 wish; for those who misunderstand their own in- 
 terest, and would try to prevent you from remov- 
 ing it, what is their strength in comparison to 
 yours? You number a hundred against every one 
 of theirs!
 
 SOCIETY, ITS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 75 
 
 If up to the present, you have reaped so little 
 fruit by your efforts, how can you be astonished at 
 it? You held in your hands that which overthrows, 
 and you had not in your hearts that which builds 
 up; sometimes justice was not on your side; charity 
 never was. 
 
 You had to defend your rights; you yourselves, 
 or those who made use of your name, have often 
 attacked the rights of others. It was incumbent 
 upon you to establish FRATERNITY on earth, the 
 Kingdom of God and the reign of Love. Instead 
 of that, every one of you has thought of himself 
 alone; every one of you had no other interest in 
 view but his own ; hatred arid envy have inspirited 
 you. Search to the bottom of your hearts, and 
 almost everyone of you will Und there this secret 
 thought: I toil and suffer; that man does nothing 
 and swims in enjojonent; wherefore he rather than 
 I? and the desire which you foster, is to be in his 
 place, so that you might live and behave as he does. 
 
 That, now, would not be to exterminate the evil, 
 but to perpetuate it. The evil consists in the 
 injustice, and not in its being rather you than I 
 who profit by the injustice. 
 
 Do you wish to succeed? Do that which is good
 
 76 
 
 through good means alone. Do not confound the 
 force which is directed by justice and charity, with 
 the ferocious violence of the brute. 
 
 Do } T OU wish to succeed? So think of your 
 brothers as of yourselves; that their cause be your 
 cause; their interest your interest; their distress 
 your distress; see and feel yourselves only in them; 
 let your indifference be transformed into a profound 
 sympathy, and your self-love into self-sacrifice. And 
 if you do so, you shall not be any longer scattered 
 individuals, with whom a few, who are better united, 
 do whatever they please; you shall be one, and the 
 day on which you shall be one, you shall be all ; and 
 who hereafter shall dare to interpose himself 
 between you and the object you wish to attain? 
 Isolated, as you are standing at present, because 
 every one of you bestows attention upon himself 
 alone and his personal pursuits, they set you in 
 opposition the one to the other; they subdue you 
 the one through the other; but when you all shall 
 have one and the same interest, one and the same 
 will, the day that one and the same end shall be 
 pursued by you all where is the power that will be 
 able to vanquish you? 
 
 But it is most essential that you should well
 
 SOCIETY, ITS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 77 
 
 understand in what your task consists, or else all 
 your efforts will prove abortive. 
 
 Your task is not to create yourselves individually 
 a better lot, for in that case the great majority 
 would remain suffering in the same manner, and 
 nothing would "be changed in the world; good and 
 evil would continue in the same proportion, and as 
 they concern the individual, they would only be 
 distributed in a different way; there where you rise, 
 another would go down, and that would be the only 
 result. 
 
 Your task is not to substitute one domination 
 for another domination. "What does it matter who 
 rules? All domination implies: distinct classes; 
 consequently, privileges; consequently, an assem- 
 blage of interests which continually clash against 
 one another; and in consequence of the laws, 
 made by the higher classes to secure the advan- 
 tages of their superior position, the immolation 
 of all, or nearly all, to a few. The people is like 
 the soil of the earth, where all those different classes 
 take root. 
 
 But the task which is incumbent upon you, is 
 this, it is a great one: You have to form the UNI- 
 VERSAL FAMILY; to build the City of God; to real-
 
 78 
 
 ize progressively, by an uninterrupted course of 
 effort, His work in humanity. 
 
 And, when loving one another like brothers, you 
 shall mutually treat one another like brothers; 
 when each of you, seeking his happiness in the 
 happiness of all, shall unite his life to the life of 
 all, and his interests to the interests of all, ready 
 at any moment to sacrifice himself for all the mem- 
 bers of the common family, who in their turn are 
 ready to sacrifice themselves for him the greater 
 part of the evils, under the burden of which the 
 human race is groaning, will disappear, like the 
 mists, which veil the horizon, are dispelled on the 
 rising of the sun; and the will of God will be 
 accomplished, for His will is: That Love, gradually 
 uniting the scattered elements of mankind in a 
 manner ever and ever more intimate, and organiz- 
 ing them into one body, shall make all mankind 
 One, as He Himself is One. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 THE CITY OF SATAN AND THE CITY OF GOD. 
 
 THE evils which afflict the earth come not from 
 God, for God is love, and all that He has made, is
 
 THE CITY OF SATAN AND THE CITY OF GOD. 79 
 
 good; they come from Satan, whom God has ac- 
 cursed, and from those men who have 'Satan for 
 father and for a master. 
 
 Now, the children of Satan are numerous in the 
 world. In order as they pass by, God records their 
 names in a sealed book, which will be opened and 
 read before all at the end of tin>e. 
 
 There are men who love only themselves; and 
 these are men of hatred, for to love one's self alone, 
 is to hate others. 
 
 There are men of pride, who can endure no equals, 
 who always wish to command and domineer. 
 
 There are men of covetousness, who constantly 
 cry for gold, for honors, for pleasures, and are never 
 satisfied. 
 
 There are men of rapine, who lie in wait for the 
 feeble to despoil him by force or by cunning, and 
 who spy by night around the dwelling of the wid- 
 ow and of the orphan. 
 
 There are men of crime, who have only vicious 
 thoughts, who say: You are our brothers, and kill 
 those whom they call their brothers, as soon as they 
 suspect them to be opposed to their designs, and in 
 their blood write the law. 
 
 There are men of fear, who tremble before the
 
 80 
 
 wicked and kiss his hand, hoping thus to escape 
 from his oppression, and who when one innocent is 
 attacked on the public square, hasten to return 
 home, and make fast their door. 
 
 All those men have destroyed peace, safety and 
 liberty upon the earth. 
 
 You will then restore liberty, safety, peace, only 
 by struggling against them without ceasing. 
 
 The City which they have founded, is the City of 
 Satan; you have to rebuild the City of God. 
 
 In the City of God, each loves his brother as 
 himself, and that is why no one is forsaken, 
 no one suffers there, if there be a remedy for his 
 sufferings. 
 
 In the City of God, all are equal, no one dom- 
 ineers, for justice reigns alone there with love. 
 
 In the City of God, each possesses his own with- 
 out fear, and desires nothing more, because that 
 which each has, is for all, and because all possess 
 God, who unites in Himself all riches. 
 
 In the City of God, no one sacrifices others to 
 himself, but each stands ready to sacrifice himself 
 for others. 
 
 In the City of God, should a wicked person creep 
 in, all shun him and all unite to restrain him, or to
 
 THE SEVEN KINGS. 81 
 
 drive him out: for the wicked is the enemy of each, 
 and the enemy of each is the enemy of all. 
 
 When you shall have rebuilt the City of God, 
 the earth will bloom again, and the nations will 
 -flourish anew, because you will have overcome the 
 children of Satan, who oppress the nations and lay 
 waste the earth, the men of pride, the men of 
 rapine, the men of slaughter and the men of fear. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 THE SEVEN KINGS. 
 PART I. 
 
 IT was a dark night; a sky. without stars hung 
 above the earth, like a cover of black marble over a 
 tomb. 
 
 And nothing disturbed the stillness of that nighty 
 but a strange noise, like a feeble flapping of wings, 
 which from time to time was heard over the fields 
 and the cities; 
 
 And then the darkness grew thicker, and every one 
 felt his heart compressed, and a shivering run 
 through his veins. 
 
 And in a hall, draped in black, and illumined by 
 a reddish light, seven men, clothed in purple, their 
 6
 
 82 THE POOR MAN'S GOSPEL. 
 
 heads encircled with crowns, sat on seven seats of 
 iron. 
 
 And in the midst of the hall was erected a throne, 
 composed of dead men's bones, and at the foot of 
 the throne was an overthrown crucifix for a foot- 
 stool; before the throne stood a table of ebony, and 
 on the table a vase, filled with red, frothing blood, 
 and a human skull. 
 
 And the seven crowned men seemed pensive and 
 sad, and their eyes, from the bottom of their sunken 
 sockets, let now and then escape flashes of livid fire. 
 
 And one among them, having arisen, approached 
 the throne with tottering step, and placed his foot 
 on the crucifix. 
 
 In that moment, his limbs trembled, and he 
 seemed on the point of swooning. The others fixed 
 their gaze steadfastly upon him ; they moved not. 
 but I know not what passed over their brow, and a 
 smile, not human, contracted their lips. 
 
 And he who had seemed on the point of swooning, 
 stretched out his hand, seized the vase, filled with 
 blood, poured part of it into the skull, and drank. 
 
 And that draught seemed to strengthen him. 
 
 And throwing back his head, this cry issued from 
 his breast, like a death-rattle:
 
 THE SEVEN KINGS. 83 
 
 Accursed be Christ, who has brought back to 
 earth Liberty ! 
 
 And the six other crowned men arose together, 
 and together rent the air with the same cry: 
 
 Accursed be Christ, who has brought back to 
 earth Liberty ! 
 
 Whereupon, sitting down again upon their seats 
 of iron, the first said: 
 
 Brothers, what shall we do in order to extinguish 
 Liberty? For our reign is at an end, if His begins. 
 Our cause is the same: let each propose what he 
 deems fitting. 
 
 As for me, this is the advice which I give. Be- 
 fore Christ came, who stood erect before us? It is 
 His religion which has ruined us : let us abolish the 
 religion of Christ. 
 
 And all answered: It is true. Let us abolish the 
 religion of Christ. 
 
 And a second moved forward towards the throne, 
 took the human skull, poured blood into it, drank, 
 and thereupon spoke: 
 
 It is not religion only which we must abolish, 
 but science and thought also; for science seeks to 
 understand that, which is not good for us that man 
 should know, and thought is always ready to resist 
 authority.
 
 84: THE POOR MAN'S GOSPEL. 
 
 And all answered: It is true. Let us abolish 
 science and thought. 
 
 And having done as the two first, a third spoke: 
 
 When we shall have replunged men into brutish- 
 ness, by taking away from them religion, and sci- 
 ence, and thought, we shall have done a great deal, 
 but something more will remain to be done. 
 
 The brute has instincts and dangerous sympa- 
 thies. I will that no nation hear the voice of 
 another nation, lest if the one begins to complain 
 and grow restless, others be tempted to follow 
 its example. That no rumor from abroad pen- 
 etrate among us. 
 
 And all answered: It is true. That no rumor 
 from abroad penetrate among us. 
 
 And a fourth said: "We have our interest, and the 
 nations have their interest likewise, opposed to ours. 
 If they unite against us to defend that interest, how 
 shall we resist them? 
 
 Let us divide in order to reign. Let us create in 
 each province, in each town, in each hamlet, an 
 interest opposed to that of every other hamlet, 
 every other town, and every other province. 
 
 So, each shall hate the other, and they shall not 
 think of uniting against us.
 
 THE SEVEN KINGS. 85 
 
 And all answered: It is true. Let us divide in 
 order to reign: concord would kill us. 
 
 And a fifth having twice filled with blood, and 
 twice emptied the human skull, spoke: 
 
 I approve all these means, they are good, but 
 insufficient. Make brutes, that is well ; but frighten 
 those brutes, strike them with terror, by means of 
 an inexorable justice and atrocious penalties, if you 
 do not wish to be devoured by them sooner or later. 
 The executioner is the first minister of a good prince. 
 
 And all answered: It is true. The executioner 
 is the first minister of a good prince. 
 
 And a sixth said: 
 
 I admit the advantage of sudden, terrible, inevi- 
 table penalties. Yet, there exist strong minds and 
 desperate, who brave all penalties.' 
 
 Do you wish to govern men easily, enervate them 
 through voluptuousness. Yirtue does nothing for 
 us; it begets strength: let us rather exhaust it 
 through corruption. 
 
 And all answered: It is true. Let us exhaust 
 strength, and energy, and courage through corrup- 
 tion. 
 
 Then, the seventh, having like the others drunk 
 from the human skull, spoke in this manner, his 
 feet resting on the crucifix:
 
 Christ is abolished; there is war unto death, 
 eternal war between Him and us. 
 
 But how shall we detach from Him the people? 
 That is a vain attempt. What shall we do then? 
 Listen: we must buy the priests of Christ with 
 wealth, honors and power. 
 
 And they shall command the people, in the name 
 of Christ, to be entirely submissive to us, whatever 
 we may do, whatever we may prescribe; 
 
 And the people will believe them, and will obey 
 through conscience, and our authority shall be more 
 firmly established than before. 
 
 And all answered: It is true. Let us corrupt 
 the priests of Christ. 
 
 And suddenly the light, which illumined the 
 hall, went out, and the seven men separated in 
 darkness. 
 
 And to one righteous who, at that moment, 
 waked and prayed before the cross, these words 
 were spoken : My day approaches. Adore and fear 
 nothing.
 
 THE SEVEN KINGS. 87 
 
 XXII. 
 
 THE SEVEN KINGS. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 AND through a gray and dense fog, I saw, as is 
 seen on earth at the hour of twilight, a plain, naked, 
 desolate and cold. 
 
 In the midst arose a rock, from which trickled 
 down drop by drop blackish water, and the feeble 
 and dull noise of the drops as they fell, was the only 
 noise heard. 
 
 And seven foot-paths, after winding through the 
 plain, came to the foot of the rock, and near the 
 rock, at the entrance of each, was a stone, covered 
 with I know not what of slime and green, like the 
 slaver of a reptile. 
 
 And behold, in one of the paths, I perceived 
 something like a shade which moved forward slowly; 
 and gradually the shade coming nearer, I discerned, 
 not a man, but the resemblance of a man. 
 
 And in the region of the heart, this human form 
 had a stain of blood. 
 
 And it sat down upon the stone slimy and green, 
 and its limbs shivered, and inclining its head, it
 
 88 
 
 wrapped itself in its arms, as if to retain a remnant 
 of heat. 
 
 And by the six other paths, six other shades suc- 
 cessively arrived at the foot of the rock. 
 
 And each of them, shivering and wrapping itself in 
 its arms, sat down upon the stone slimy and green. 
 
 And they sat there, silent and oppressed under 
 the weight of some incomprehensible anguish. 
 
 And their silence lasted a long time, I know not 
 how long, for the sun never rises on that plain: it 
 knows neither evening nor morning. The drops of 
 black water there, in falling, alone measure a lapse 
 of time, monotonous, dismal, terrible, eternal. 
 
 And that was so horrible to see, that if God had 
 not strengthened me, I should not have been able to 
 endure the sight. 
 
 And, after a sort of convulsive shuddering, one of 
 the shades, raising its head, sent forth a sound, like 
 the hoarse, dry sound of the wind, whistling through 
 a skeleton. 
 
 And the rock echoed these words to my ear: 
 
 Christ has conquered: accursed be He! 
 
 And the six other shades shuddered, and all 
 at the same time raising their heads, the same 
 blasphemy issued from their breasts:
 
 THE SEVEN KINGS. 89 
 
 Christ has conquered : accursed be He ! 
 
 And immediately they were seized with a stronger 
 shuddering, the fog grew more dense, and for a 
 moment, the black water ceased to flow. 
 
 And the seven shades had bent down again under 
 the burden of their secret anguish, and there was a 
 second silence, longer than the first. 
 
 Thereupon one of them, without rising from its 
 seat, motionless and with its head inclined, said to 
 the others: 
 
 The same, then, which befell me, has befallen 
 you. Of what use to us have been all our counsels! 
 
 And another said: Faith and thought have 
 broken the chains of the people; faith and thought 
 have enfranchised the earth. 
 
 And another said: we wished to divide men, and 
 our oppression has united them against us. 
 
 And another: we have shed blood, and that blood 
 has risen up against us. 
 
 And another: "VYe have sown corruption, and it 
 has germinated in us, and it has consumed the mar- 
 row of our bones. 
 
 And another: We meant to extinguish Liberty, 
 and its breath has withered our power even to the 
 root.
 
 90 THE POOR MAN'S GOSPEL. 
 
 Then the seventh shade: 
 
 Christ has conquered: accursed be He! 
 
 And all, of one accord, exclaimed: 
 
 Christ has conquered: accursed be He! 
 
 And I saw a hand come forward; it dipped its 
 finger into the blackish water, whose drops, in fall- 
 ing, measure eternal time, marked with it the 
 foreheads of the seven shades, and this was forever. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 ALL ARE BORN EQUAL. 
 
 You have but one Father, who is God, and but 
 one Master, who is Christ. 
 
 "When, therefore, they shall tell you of those, who 
 possess on earth great power: Behold your masters, 
 believe it not. If they are just, they are your ser- 
 vants; if they are not, they are your tyrants. 
 
 All are born equal: no one, in coming into this 
 world, brings with him the right to command. 
 
 I have seen in a cradle a child, crying and dreul- 
 ing, and around it were old men, who called it: 
 LORD, and who, falling upon their knees, adored it. 
 And I have understood all the misery of man. 
 
 It is sin which has made princes; because, instead
 
 ALL AKE BOEN EQUAL. 91 
 
 of loving and aiding one another as brothers, men 
 began by injuring one another. 
 
 Then, from among themselves, they chose one or 
 several, whom they thought the most just, to pro- 
 tect the good from the wicked, and so that the feeble 
 might live in peace. 
 
 And the power they wielded, was a legitimate 
 power, for it was the power of God, who wills that 
 justice reign, and the power of the people who had 
 elected them. 
 
 And therefore every one was bound in conscience 
 to obey them. 
 
 But very soon there were also found men, who 
 wished to reign in their own right, as if they were 
 of a nature, loftier, than their brothers. 
 
 And the power of these is not legitimate, for it 
 is the power of Satan, and their domination is the 
 domination of pride and cupidity. 
 
 And this is the reason, that unless greater evil 
 will result, every one may and sometimes ought to, 
 in conscience, resist them. 
 
 In the balance of eternal justice, your will weighs 
 more than the will of kings; for it is the people 
 who make kings; and kings are made for the peo- 
 ple, and the people are not made for kings.
 
 92 THE POOK MAN'S GOSPEL. 
 
 The heavenly Father has not moulded the limbs 
 of His children to be bruised by fetters, nor their 
 soul to be crushed by servitude. 
 
 He has united them in families, and all families 
 are brothers; He has united them in nations, and 
 all nations are brothers ; and whosoever parts family 
 from family, nation from nation, divides what God 
 has united: he does the work of Satan. 
 
 And that which unites family to family, nation 
 to nation, is in the first place the law of God, the 
 law of justice and of fraternity, and then the law of 
 liberty, which is also the law of God. 
 
 For, without liberty, what union would exist 
 among men? They would be united as the horse is 
 united to his rider, as the rod of the master to the 
 skin of the slave. 
 
 If, therefore, any one comes and says: You are 
 mine; reply: No; we belong to God, who is our 
 Father, and to Christ, who is our only Master. 
 
 XXIY. 
 
 DUMB ANIMALS AND INTELLIGENT ANIMALS. 
 
 THE people are incapable of understanding their 
 interests; for their own welfare, they ought always
 
 DUMB ANIMALS AND INTELLIGENT ANIMALS. 93 
 
 to be kept in tutelage. Is it not the part of those 
 who have knowledge, to guide those who have no 
 knowledge'* 
 
 So say many hypocrites who wish to administer 
 the affairs of the people, to the end of growing fat 
 on the substance of the people. 
 
 You are incapable, they say, of understanding 
 your interests; and thereupon, they will not even 
 allow you to dispose of what is your own, for a 
 purpose you deem useful ; and they will dispose of 
 it, against your will, for another purpose which 
 displeases and is repugnant to you. 
 
 You are incapable of managing a petty property 
 in common, incapable of understanding what is 
 good or bad for you, of knowing your own needs 
 and providing for them; and thereupon, they will 
 send you men, well-paid at your expense, who will 
 govern your estate to their fancy, prevent you from 
 doing what you wish, and compel you to act against 
 your wishes. 
 
 You are incapable of discerning what education 
 is proper for your children; and in tenderness for 
 your children, they will cast them into sinks of im- 
 piety and bad morals, unless you should prefer to 
 deprive them of every kind of instruction.
 
 94 
 
 You are incapable of judging whether or not, you 
 and jour family can subsist on the salary they 
 allow you for your labor; and they will forbid you, 
 under severe penalties, from concerting together to 
 obtain an increase of that salary, that you may 
 live, you, your wives, and your children. 
 
 If what this race of greed and hypocrisy says, 
 were true, you would be far beneath the brute, 
 for the brute knows all they assert that you do not 
 know, and the brute knows it by instinct alone. 
 
 God has not made you to be the herd of a few 
 other men. He has made you to live free, in 
 society, as brothers. Now, a brother has no right 
 to command his brother. Brothers unite among 
 themselves by mutual consent, and that consent is 
 law, and law must be respected, and all should join 
 to prevent its violation, because it is the safeguard 
 of all, the will and the interest of all. 
 
 Be men: no one is powerful enough to bend you 
 to the yoke against your will; but you can offer 
 your neck to the bow yourselves, if you wish. 
 
 There are stupid animals who stand in the stall, 
 who are fed for labor, and then, when they grow 
 old, are fattened for food. 
 
 There are others that live at large on the plain,
 
 LIBERTY. 95 
 
 that cannot be bent to servitude, that do not suffer 
 themselves to be seduced by deceitful caresses, nor 
 to be subdued by threats and ill-usage. 
 
 The brave resemble the last: the cowardly are 
 like the first. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 LIBERTY. 
 
 LEARN then, how to make yourselves free. 
 
 To be free, it is above all necessary to love God, 
 for if you love God, you will do His will ; and the 
 will of God is justice and fraternity, without which 
 there is no liberty. 
 
 When, by violence or through craft, one takes 
 away what belongs to another; when one attacks 
 him in his person; when, in a lawful matter, one 
 prevents him from acting as he wishes, or when 
 one compels him to act contrary to his wish ; when 
 one violates his right in any manner soever, what 
 is that? An injustice. It is therefore injustice 
 which destroys liberty. 
 
 If each loved himself alone, and thought only of 
 himself, without aiding others, the poor man would 
 be obliged frequently to take away what belongs to
 
 96 
 
 another, that he may live and support his family ; 
 the feeble would be oppressed by one stronger, and 
 he by another still more strong; injustice would 
 reign everywhere. Fraternity, then, preserves lib- 
 erty. 
 
 Love God above all things, and thy neighbor as 
 thyself, and servitude will disappear from the earth. 
 
 Those, however, who profit by the servitude of 
 their brothers, will do all in their power to continue 
 it. To that end they will employ falsehood and 
 power. 
 
 They will tell you that the absolute authority of a 
 few and the slavery of all others is the established 
 order of God; and to maintain their tyranny, they 
 will not fear to blaspheme. Providence. 
 
 Reply to them: that such a God, their God, is 
 Satan, the enemy of the human race, and that your 
 God is He, who has vanquished Satan. 
 
 Thereupon, they will let loose upon you their sat- 
 ellites; they will construct prisons without number 
 to confine you in; they will persecute you with fire 
 and sword; they will torture you and shed your 
 blood as the water from the fountain. 
 
 If, therefore, you are not resolved to battle with- 
 out ceasing, to suffer all things without blenching,
 
 THE PBATEB OF THE PROLETARIANS. 97 
 
 to never grow weary, never to yield, remain in your 
 fetters, and renounce a liberty of which you are 
 not worthy. 
 
 Liberty is like the kingdom of God; it suffereth 
 violence, and the violent take it by force. 
 
 And the violence which puts you in possession 
 of liberty, is not the brutish violence of thieves and 
 robbers, injustice, vengeance, barbarity; but a will, 
 strong and inflexible, a courage, calm and generous. 
 
 The cause most holy changes into a cause, impi- 
 ous and execrable, when crime is employed to uphold 
 it. From a slave, the man of crime may become a 
 tyrant, but never will he become free. 
 
 XXYI. 
 
 THE PEAYER OF THE PROLETARIANS. 
 
 LORD, we cry unto Thee from the depths of our 
 misery. 
 
 Like animals, who are in want of food to give to 
 their young, 
 
 "We cry unto Thee, Lord. 
 
 Like the ewe, from whom her lamb is taken, 
 
 "We cry unto Thee, Lord. 
 
 Like the dove, seized by the vulture, 
 7
 
 98 
 
 We cry unto Thee, Lord. 
 
 Like the gazelle, under the claw of the tiger, 
 
 We cry unto Thee, Lord. 
 
 Like the Lull, exhausted with fatigue and scored 
 by the goad, 
 
 We cry unto Thee, Lord. 
 
 Like the wounded bird, pursued by the dog, 
 
 We cry unto Thee, Lord. 
 
 Like the swallow, fallen with weariness, in cross- 
 ing the sea, and struggling on the wave, 
 
 We cry unto Thee, Lord. 
 
 Like the traveler, lost in a desert, burning and 
 destitute of water, 
 
 We cry unto Thee, Lord. 
 
 Like those shipwrecked on a barren coast, 
 
 We cry unto Thee, Lord. 
 
 Like him, who, at nightfall, encounters, near a 
 church-yard, a hideous spectre, 
 
 We cry unto Thee, Lord. 
 
 Like the father, from whom is snatched the mor- 
 sel of bread, he was taking to his starving children, 
 
 We cry unto Thee, Lord. 
 
 Like the prisoner, whom unjust power has thrown 
 into a dungeon, damp and dark, 
 
 We cry unto Thee, Lord.
 
 THE PRAYER OF THE PROLETARIANS. 99 
 
 Like the slave, lacerated by the whip of his 
 master, 
 
 We cry unto Thee, Lord. 
 
 Like the innocent, who is led to execution, 
 
 "We cry unto Thee, Lord. 
 
 Like the people of Israel in the land of bondage, 
 
 "We cry unto Thee, Lord. 
 
 Like the descendants of Jacob, whose men-chil- 
 dren Egypt's king caused to be drowned in the Nile, 
 
 "We cry unto Thee, Lord. 
 
 Like the twelve tribes, whose labors were every 
 day increased by their oppressors, while each day 
 their food was diminished, 
 
 We cry unto Thee, Lord. 
 
 Like all nations of the earth, before deliverance 
 had dawned upon them, 
 
 We cry unto Thee, Lord. 
 
 Like Christ on the cross, when He cried : Father, 
 Father, why hast Thou forsaken me? 
 
 We cry unto Thee, Lord. 
 
 Oh Father! Thou hast not forsaken Thy Son, 
 Thy Christ, unless in appearance and for a moment 
 only; so Thou wilt not abandon for ever the broth- 
 ers of Christ. His divine blood, which has redeem- 
 ed them from the bondage of the Prince of this
 
 HISTORICAL 
 SOCIETY 
 
 100 
 
 world, will also redeem tliem from the bondage of 
 the ministers of the Prince of this world. Behold 
 their feet and their hands pierced, their side pierced, 
 their head covered with bloody wounds. In the 
 earth, which Thou hadst given for their heritage, a 
 vast sepulchre has been dug for them, and they have 
 been thrown therein, indiscriminately, and sealed 
 has been the stone which covers it, with a seal, on 
 which in mockery has been engraved Thy holy 
 name. J And thus, oh Lord, they lie there; but they 
 will not lie there eternally. Three days more, and the 
 sacrilegious seal will be broken, and the stone will 
 be dashed in pieces, and those who sleep, will 
 awake, and the reign of Christ, which is justice and 
 fraternity, and peace and joy in the Spirit of God, 
 will commence. So be it. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 CHEIST AND THE PEOPLE. 
 
 WHO thronged around Christ to hear His word? 
 The people. 
 
 "Who followed Him to the mountain and to the 
 desert places to listen to His teachings?:" The 
 people.
 
 CHRIST AND THE PEOPLE. 101 
 
 "Who wished to make choice of Him for king? 
 The people. 
 
 Who spread their garments and strewed palm- 
 branches in His way, crying Hosanna, when He 
 entered Jerusalem? The people. 
 
 Who were offended because of the sick whom He 
 healed on a sabbath-day? The scribes and the 
 Pharisees. 
 
 Who questioned Him with cunning, and laid 
 snares to destroy Him? The scribes and the Phar- 
 isees. 
 
 Who said of Him: He is possessed? Who called 
 Him a gluttonoiis man and a drinker of wine? 
 The scribes and the Pharisees. 
 
 Who styled Him: leader of sedition and a blas- 
 phemer? who conspired against Him to put Him to 
 death? who crucified Him on Calvary between two 
 thieves? 
 
 The scribes and the Pharisees, the doctors of 
 law, Herod the king and his courtiers, the Roman 
 governor and the chief priests. 
 
 Their craft, full of hypocrisy, deceived the peo- 
 ple themselves. They persuaded them to ask for 
 the death of Him, who had fed them in the desert 
 with seven loaves, restored health to the sick,
 
 102 
 
 sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and to the 
 lame the use of their limbs. 
 
 But Jesus, seeing that they had beguiled the 
 people, as the serpent beguiled the woman, prayed 
 His Father, saying: Father, forgive them: for they 
 know not what they do. 
 
 And yet, during eighteen centuries, the Father 
 has not forgiven them, and they bend under their 
 punishment over the whole earth, and in every 
 part of the earth, the slave is constrained to bow 
 his head to see them. 
 
 The mercy of Christ excludes no one. He came 
 into this world to save not a few men, but all men; 
 He has had for each of them a drop of blood. 
 
 But the small, the feeble, the meek, the poor, all 
 those who suffered, He loved with a special love. 
 
 His heart beat to the heart of the people, and the 
 heart of the people beat to His heart. 
 
 And it is there, on the heart of Christ, that the 
 nations sick revive, and the nations oppressed 
 receive strength to become free. 
 
 "Woe unto those who forsake Him, who deny 
 Him ! Their wretchedness is without remedy, and 
 their servitude without end.
 
 INTOLERANCE OF RELIGION. 103 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 INTOLERANCE OF RELIGION. 
 
 THE time has been, when man in cutting the 
 throat of his fellow, whose faith differed from his 
 own, believed that he offered a sacrifice, agreeable 
 to God. 
 
 Let those horrible murders be an abomination to 
 
 you. 
 
 How could the murder of man be pleasing to 
 God, who has said to man: Thou shalt not kill? 
 
 When the blood of man flows upon the earth, as 
 an offering to God, demons run to drink it, and 
 enter into him who has spilled it. 
 
 One commences to persecute only when he de- 
 spairs of convincing, and whoever despairs of con- 
 vincing, either thinks blasphemy against the power 
 of truth, or believes not in the truth of the doctrines 
 which he teaches. 
 
 What is more insane than to say to men: Believe 
 or die! 
 
 Faith is the daughter of the Word : she enters into 
 the heart with persuasion, and not with the dagger. 
 
 Jesus went about, doing good, attracting by His
 
 101 
 
 kindness, and touching with His sweetness souls 
 the most hardened. 
 
 His divine lips blessed and cursed not. unless may 
 be the hypocrites. He did not choose executioners 
 for apostles. 
 
 He said to His own: Let both grow together 
 until the harvest, the good and the bad seed; the 
 householder shall make the separation on the thrash- 
 ing-floor. 
 
 And to those who urged Him to cause fire from 
 heaven to descend upon a city of unbelievers: Ye 
 know not what manner of spirit ye are of. 
 
 The spirit of Jesus is a spirit of peace, of mercy 
 and of love. 
 
 Those who carry on persecution in His name, 
 who search conscience with the sword, who torture 
 the body to convert the soul, who cause tears to 
 flow, instead of wiping them away: such have not 
 the spirit of Jesus. 
 
 "Woe unto him who profanes the Gospel, making 
 it to men an object of terror! "Woe unto him who 
 writes the glad tidings on a page in blood! 
 
 Remember the catacombs. 
 
 In that time, they dragged you to the scaffold; 
 they gave you up to wild beasts in the amphitheatre
 
 INTOLERANCE OF RELIGION. 105 
 
 to amuse the rabble; they cast you by thousands 
 into deep mines and into prisons; they confiscated 
 your goods; they trod you under foot like the mire 
 of the streets; you had where to celebrate your 
 proscribed worship no other asylum than the bowels 
 of the earth. 
 
 What said your persecutors? They said that you 
 propagated dangerous teachings ; that your sect, as 
 they called it, disturbed order and public peace; that 
 you, violators of law and enemies of mankind, made 
 the empire totter, in shattering the religion of the 
 empire. 
 
 And in this distress, under this oppression, for 
 what did you ask? liberty. You claimed the right 
 of obeying only God, of serving Him, and of wor- 
 shipping Him, according to your conscience. 
 
 "When, although mistaken in their faith, others 
 shall claim of you this sacred right, respect it in 
 them, even as you demanded the heathens to respect 
 it in you. 
 
 Respect it, that you may not dishonor the mem- 
 ory of the early Christians, and may not defile the 
 ashes of your martyrs. 
 
 Persecution is two-edged: it wounds to the right 
 and to the left.
 
 106 
 
 If you are forgetful of Christ's teachings, remem- 
 ber the catacombs. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 THE LAW OF CHRIST. 
 
 TREASURE carefully within your souls justice and 
 fraternity; they will be your safeguard they will 
 destroy from among you discord and dissension. 
 
 That which creates discord and dissension, that 
 which causes the suits at law which scandalize 
 honest men, and ruin families, is before all niggardly 
 self-interest, the insatiable passion of acquiring and 
 of possessing. 
 
 Fight therefore without ceasing that passion 
 within you, which Satan constantly arouses there. 
 
 What can you carry away of all the riches, which 
 you shall have amassed by good and by bad means? 
 Little suffices man, who lives so short a time. 
 
 Another cause of endless dissension is bad laws. 
 
 Now, there are but few laws in the world, other 
 than bad. 
 
 "What other law is necessary for him, who has the 
 law of Christ? 
 
 The law of Christ is clear, it is holy, and there is
 
 THE LAW OF CHRIST. 107 
 
 no person, if he have that law in his heart, who 
 judges not himself easily. 
 
 Listen to what has been said to me: 
 
 The children of Christ, if they have among 
 themselves any difference, must not carry it before 
 the tribunals of those who oppress the earth and 
 who corrupt it. 
 
 Are there not aged men among them ? and are 
 not those aged men their fathers, knowing justice 
 and loving it? 
 
 Let them seek then one of those aged men, and 
 say to him : Father, we have not been able to agree, 
 my brother here and I; we beseech you, judge be- 
 tween us. 
 
 And the aged man will listen to the words of 
 each, and he will judge between them, and having 
 judged, he will bless them. 
 
 And if they submit to that judgment, the bless- 
 ing will abide with them: if not, it will return to 
 the aged man, who shall have pronounced the just 
 judgment. 
 
 There is nothing impossible to those who are 
 united, be it for good, be it for evil. The day, then, 
 when you shall be united, will be the day of your 
 deliverance.
 
 108 
 
 When the children of Israel were oppressed in the 
 land of Egypt, if each, forgetful of his brother, had 
 wished to leave alone, no one of them w r ould have 
 escaped; they all departed together, and nothing 
 could detain them. 
 
 You are also in the land of Egypt, bowed down 
 under the sceptre of Pharaoh and under the whip 
 of his taskmasters. Cry unto the Lord, your God, 
 and thereupon arise, and go out together. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 FATHER AND SON. 
 
 FATHER, labor is wearisome to ; day; the hoe re- 
 bounds from the parched earth; the sun darts rays 
 of fire; swept by the wind of the south, the dust 
 whirls over the plain. 
 
 My son, He who sends the burning blasts, sends 
 also the rain-clouds. Each day has its sorrow and 
 its hope, and after toil, rest. 
 
 Father, see those poor plants, how they languish, 
 how their fading leaves droop along the stalk, bend- 
 ing beneath its own weight. 
 
 They will revive, my son; not a blade of grass 
 is forgotten; there is always for it, among the treas-
 
 FATHER AND SON. 109 
 
 ures of heaven, fertilizing showers and refreshing 
 dews. 
 
 Father, the birds are silent in the trees ; the quail, 
 motionless in the up-turned furrow, does not even 
 call his mate; the heifer seeks the shade, and the 
 bull, his legs bending under his bulky body, his 
 neck extended, dilates his large nostrils to inhale 
 the air which he needs. 
 
 My son, God will restore to the birds their voice, 
 to the bulls and to the heifers their strength, ex- 
 hausted by this burning heat. Already, across the 
 waters, blows the breeze which will reanimate them. 
 
 Father, let us sit down upon the fern, at the edge 
 of the pond, beside that aged oak, whose hanging 
 branches touch lightly the surface of the water. 
 How calm and transparent it is! How merrily the 
 fishes sport there ! Some pursue their winged prey, 
 poor gnats that just commenced to live; others, 
 raising up their head, seem with their mouth half 
 open to give the air a light kiss. 
 
 My son, He who has made all things, has distrib- 
 uted everywhere His inexhaustible gifts, both ex- 
 istence and the joys of existence. Evil is but in 
 appearance, the dark side of love, one face of good, 
 its shadow.
 
 110 
 
 Yet, father, what toil, what hardships you suffer, 
 that you may provide for our wants ! Are you not 
 poor? Is mother not poor? It is in your sweat 
 that I have been nourished; and for a single day 
 have you been free from anxiety for the morrow? 
 
 Why think of the morrow, my son? To-morrow 
 is for God; let us put our trust in Him. He who 
 rises in the morning, knows not if he shall reach 
 the evening. Why then be troubled and uneasy 
 about a time which perhaps will never come? We 
 pass here below like the swallow, seeking each day 
 a daily subsistence, and like the swallow, when win- 
 ter comes, a mysterious power draws us to climes 
 more mild. 
 
 What is that, father? it seems like a dead body 
 wrapped in its shroud, or a babe rolled in its swad- 
 dling-clothes ? 
 
 My son, it was a creeping worm, it will soon be 
 a living flower, an airy form, which, spangled with 
 the most vivid hues, will mount toward the heavens. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 THE FKUIT OF SIN. 
 
 THE weather was sultry. A man perceived at the 
 base of a hill a vine loaded with grapes, and that
 
 THE FBIJIT OF SIN. Ill 
 
 man was thirsty, and the desire came upon him to 
 quench his thirst with the fruit of the vine. 
 
 But between it and him was spread out a muddy 
 swamp which must be passed to reach the hill, and 
 he lacked resolution. 
 
 Yet, his thirst urging, he said: It maybe that 
 the mire is not deep; who hinders me from at- 
 tempting what so many others have done? I shall 
 but soil my shoes, and the harm, after all, will not 
 be great. 
 
 Thereupon, he steps into the swamp, his foot 
 sinks into the foul mud, soon he sinks as far as his 
 knee. 
 
 He stops, he hesitates, he asks himself: were it 
 not better to return again? But the vine and its 
 grapes are before him there, and he feels his thirst 
 increase. 
 
 Since I have gone so far, why, says he, should I 
 retrace my steps? Wherefore should I lose my 
 labor? A little mud more or less, now, makes no 
 difference. Besides, I shall only be put to the trou- 
 ble of washing in the first brook. 
 
 That thought decides him ; he goes forward, he 
 advances farther, sinking always deeper and deeper 
 into the mire; he sinks as far as his breast, then to
 
 112 
 
 his neck, then to his lips; it passes finally above 
 his head. Smothering and gasping, a last effort 
 extricates him and carries him to the foot of the hill. 
 Covered over with black slime, which runs down 
 his limbs, he plucks the fruit so much coveted, he 
 devours it. After which, ill at ease, ashamed of 
 himself, he strips off his clothing, and searches on 
 all sides for clear water to cleanse himself. But all 
 in vain, the stench remains; the exhalation of the 
 swamp has penetrated his flesh and his bones, it 
 exudes from him continually and forms around him 
 a fetid atmosphere. If he approaches, others rush 
 away. People shun him. He has made himself a 
 reptile, let him go and live among reptiles. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 A LESSON FROM THE SWALLOWS. 
 
 ALL nature teaches us the indispensable need, 
 in which we stand the one of the other; the divine 
 precept, 'of mutual assistance, of self-sacrifice and 
 love is incessantly called to our minds by what we 
 observe around us: When the time has come for 
 them to go and look in other climates for the food, 
 which the Father in heaven has there prepared for
 
 MAN, HIS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 113 
 
 them, the swallows flock together. From that time, 
 never once separating, little mariners of the air, 
 they take their flight for the shore, where they will 
 rest in peace and abundance. Starting each for it- 
 self alone, what would become of them? Not one 
 would escape the perils of the road; united, they 
 resist the winds; the feeble or fatigued wing leans 
 against one that is stronger. Poor, sweet, little 
 creatures, which last spring saw come to light, the 
 youngest-born, protected by the elder ones, reach 
 under their guard the term of their voyage, and 
 on the far-distant shore, where Providence has 
 guided them beyond the sea, they dream of their 
 native nest and its first joys those mysterious, 
 inexpressible joys, which God, for all His beings, 
 has placed at the entrance of life. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 MAN, HIS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 
 
 And I had seen the evils which were on earth, 
 the feeble oppressed, the righteous begging his 
 bread, the wicked raised to honors and rolling in 
 wealth, the innocent condemned by iniquitous 
 judges, and their children wandering under the sun. 
 8
 
 114 
 
 And my soul was sad, and hope escaped from it 
 on all sides, as from a broken vase. 
 
 And God wrapped me in profound sleep. 
 
 And in my sleep, I saw like a luminous shape, 
 standing near me, a Spirit, whose sweet and pierc- 
 ing gaze penetrated even to the bottom of my most 
 secret thoughts. 
 
 And I trembled, not in fear, nor in joy, but from 
 a feeling which seemed, as it were, a strange mix- 
 ture of both. 
 
 And the Spirit said to me: "Why are you sad? 
 
 And weeping, I answered him: Oh! behold the 
 evils which are on the earth. 
 
 And the celestial form smiled with an ineffable 
 smile, and these words came to my ear: 
 
 Your eye sees nothing but through this deceitful 
 medium, which creatures call time. Time is only 
 for you: for God there is no time. 
 
 And I remained silent, for I understood not. 
 
 Look, said the Spirit suddenly. 
 
 And, without there existing thenceforth for me 
 either before or after, in the same instant, I saw at 
 once, what in their infirm and feeble language men 
 call time, past, present and future. 
 
 And they were all one, and yet, in telling what I
 
 MAN, HIS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 115 
 
 saw, it is necessary for me to descend again to the 
 limits of time, I must speak the infirm and feeble 
 language of men. 
 
 And the whole human race seemed to me as one 
 man. 
 
 And that man had done much evil, little good, 
 had known many sorrows, few joys. 
 
 And he was there, groveling in his wretchedness, 
 on a plain, now frozen, now burning hot, ema- 
 ciated, starving, suffering, oppressed by alternate 
 languor and convulsions, loaded with chains, forged 
 in the abode of demons. 
 
 His right hand had wrapped them around his 
 left hand, and the left hand had loaded the right, 
 and during his terrible dreams, he had so entangled 
 himself in his fetters, that his whole body was cov- 
 ered and distorted by them. 
 
 For whenever they simply touched him, they 
 clung to his skin like molten lead, they entered into 
 his flesh, and remained there. 
 
 And such was man ; I knew him. 
 
 And, behold! a ray of Light proceeded from the 
 East, and a ray of Love from the South, and a ray 
 of Strength from the North. 
 
 And these three rays, united, touched on the heart 
 of that man.
 
 116 
 
 And as the ray of Light came forth, a voice said: 
 Son of God, brother of Christ, know what thou 
 shouldst know. 
 
 And as the raj of Love came forth, a voice said : 
 Son of God, brother of Christ, love whom thou 
 shouldst love. 
 
 And as the ray of Strength came forth, a voice 
 said : Son of God, brother of Christ, do what should 
 be done. 
 
 And when the three rays were united, the three 
 voices were united also, and they formed a single 
 voice, which said: 
 
 Son of God, brother of Christ, serve God, and 
 serve Him alone. 
 
 And then, what had hitherto seemed to me as 
 one man, appeared to be a multitude of peoples 
 and of nations. 
 
 And my first look had not deceived me, nor did 
 my second deceive me. 
 
 And those peoples and nations, awaking on their 
 bed of agony, commenced to say among themselves: 
 
 Whence come our sufferings and our languor, 
 and the hunger and the thirst which torment us, 
 and the chains which weigh us down to the earth, 
 and enter into our flesh?
 
 MAN, HIS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 117 
 
 And their mind was enlightened, and they under- 
 stood that the sons of God, the brothers of Christ, 
 had not been condemned by their Father to slavery, 
 and that this slavery was the source of all their 
 evils. 
 
 Each then attempted to break his fetters, but no 
 one succeeded. 
 
 And they looked at one another with mutual 
 pity, and love working in them, they said to one 
 another: We have all the same thought, why should 
 we not all have the same heart? Are we not all 
 sons of the same God, and brothers of the same 
 Christ? Let us free one another, or die together. 
 
 And having thus spoken, they felt within them- 
 selves a strength divine, and I heard their fetters 
 crack, and they battled six days against those who 
 held them in chains, and the sixth day they were 
 victorious, and the seventh was a day of rest. 
 
 And the earth, which was dry, became green 
 again, and all could eat of its fruits, and go and 
 come, without any person saying to them: Whither 
 do you go? no one passes here. 
 
 And the little children culled flowers, and brought 
 them to their mothers, who smiled on them ten- 
 derly.
 
 118 
 
 And there were neither poor nor rich, but all 
 had in abundance the things, necessary to their 
 wants, because all loved and assisted one another 
 as brothers. 
 
 And a voice, like the voice of an angel, resounded 
 through the heavens: Glory to God, who has given 
 Intellect, Love and Strength to His children ! Glory 
 to Christ, who has restored to His brothers Liberty ! 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 THE EEIGN OF SATAN. 
 
 AND I was transported in spirit to ancient times, 
 and the earth was beautiful, and rich, and fertile; 
 and its inhabitants lived happy, because they lived 
 as brothers. 
 
 And I saw the Serpent, which crawled among 
 them: he fastened on many his potent gaze, and 
 their soul was troubled, and they approached him, 
 and the Serpent whispered in their ear. 
 
 And after having listened to the whisper of the 
 Serpent, they rose up and said: We are kings. 
 
 And the sun grew pale, and the earth took on a 
 funereal hue, like that of the shroud which enwraps 
 the dead.
 
 THE KEIGN OF SATAN. 119 
 
 And there was heard a dull murmuring, a long 
 lamentation, and the heart of each trembled. 
 
 Yerilj, I say unto you, it was like the day, when 
 the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and 
 when the deluge of the great waters spread itself 
 abroad. 
 
 Fear ran from hut to hut, for as yet there were 
 no palaces, and in secret it spoke to each things, 
 which made him shudder. 
 
 And those who had said: We are kings, seized 
 a sword, and followed Fear from hut to hut. 
 
 And strange mysteries took place there; and 
 there were chains, tears and blood. 
 
 The men, terrified, cried aloud: Murder has 
 appeared again on earth. And this was all, because 
 Fear had benumbed their courage and paralyzed 
 their arms. 
 
 And they suffered themselves to be loaded with 
 chains, themselves, and their wives, and their chil- 
 dren. And those who had said: We are kings, dug 
 out a pit, like a great cavern, and in it they confined 
 the whole human race, even as one shuts up animals 
 in a stable. 
 
 And the tempest swept the clouds onward, and 
 the thunder rolled, and I heard a voice which said:
 
 120 THE POOR MAN'S GOSPEL. 
 
 The Serpent has conquered a second time, but not 
 for always. 
 
 After that, I heard nothing more but confused 
 voices, laughter, groans and blasphemies. 
 
 And I knew that there must be a reign of Satan, 
 before the reign of God. And I wept, and I had 
 hope. 
 
 And the vision which I saw, was true, for the 
 reign of Satan is accomplished, and the reign of 
 God will be accomplished also, and those who have 
 said: "We are kings, will be in their turn confined 
 in the cavern with the Serpent, and the human 
 race will come forth from it, and it will be for them 
 like a new birth, like the passage from death to life. 
 So let it be. 
 
 XXXY. 
 
 THE WAR BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 EVERY thing that takes place in this world, is pre- 
 ceded by an omen. 
 
 When the sun is about to rise, the horizon is 
 tinged with a thousand shades, and the East appears 
 on fire. 
 
 When the tempest comes, a dull roar is heard on 
 the shore, and the waves are as if self-tossed.
 
 THE WAR BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR. 121 
 
 The thoughts numberless and diverse, which 
 meet and mingle at the horizon of the spiritual 
 world, are the omen which announces the rising of 
 the sun of intelligence. 
 
 The confused murmur and the internal workings 
 of the people in excitement are the omen, preceding 
 the tempest which will soon pass over the quaking 
 nations. 
 
 Be ye therefore ready, for the time is at hand. 
 
 In that day, there will be great terror, and cries 
 such as have not been heard since the days of the 
 deluge. 
 
 The kings will shriek upon their thrones; with 
 both hands they will seek to retain their crowns 
 from being blown away by the winds, and with 
 their crowns they themselves will be swept away. 
 
 The rich and the powerful will flee naked from 
 their palaces, for fear of being buried under the ruins. 
 
 They will be seen, wandering on the highways, 
 begging the passers-by for rags to cover their nak- 
 edness, and for a crust of bread to appease their 
 hunger, and I know not that they will obtain it. 
 
 And there will be men, who shall be seized with 
 thirst for blood, and who will worship death, and 
 who w T ill advocate its worship.
 
 122 THE POOR MAN'S GOSPEL. 
 
 And death will stretch forth his bony hand as if 
 to bless them, and that benediction will fall upon 
 their heart, and it will cease to beat. 
 
 And the wise will grow troubled in their wisdom, 
 and it will seem to them as a small spot of darkness, 
 when the sun of intelligence shall arise. 
 
 And in proportion as it ascends, its warmth will 
 melt away the clouds, heaped up by the tempest; 
 and they will be only as a thin vapor, which the 
 zephyrs chase toward the "West. 
 
 Never will the sky have been so serene, nor the 
 earth so green and so fertile. 
 
 And instead of the feeble twilight that we call 
 day, a light strong and pure will shine on high, like 
 a reflection from the face of God. 
 
 And in that light men will behold themselves, 
 and will say: We knew neither ourselves, nor our 
 neighbors ; we had no idea of man. Now, we know. 
 
 And each in his brother will love himself, and 
 find his happiness in serving him ; and there will 
 be neither small nor great, because of the love 
 which makes all equal, and all families will be as 
 one family, and all nations as one nation. 
 
 This is the reading of the mystic letters, which 
 the Jews in their blindness affixed to the cross of 
 Christ.
 
 THE SECOND COMING OF CHKIST. 123 
 
 XXXYI. 
 
 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 
 
 LISTEN attentively, and tell me whence comes 
 this confused sound, vague and strange, which is 
 heard on all sides. 
 
 Place your hand on the earth, and tell me why it 
 trembles. 
 
 Something, we know not what, moves in the 
 world: a travail of God is going on there. 
 
 Is every one not in expectation? Is there one 
 heart that does not beat? 
 
 Child of man, mount the heights, and tell what 
 you see. 
 
 I see in the horizon a livid cloud, and around it 
 a red light, like the reflection of a fire. 
 
 Child of man, what do you see more? 
 
 I see the ocean toss its waves, and the mountains 
 shake their peaks. 
 
 I see the rivers change their course, the hills tot- 
 ter, and in falling fill the valleys. 
 
 Every thing reels, every thing moves, every thing 
 takes on a new appearance. 
 
 Child of man, what more do you see?
 
 124: THE POOK MAN ? S GOSPEL. 
 
 I see whirlwinds of dust in the distance, and 
 they sweep in all directions, and they rush together, 
 and mingle, and are lost in each other. They pass 
 over the cities, and when they have passed, they 
 leave naught but a plain. 
 
 I see the nations rise in tumult, and the kings 
 grow pale 'neath their diadem. There is war 
 between them, a war unto death. 
 
 I see a throne, two thrones, broken in pieces, and 
 the nations scatter the fragments over the earth. 
 
 I see a nation battle, as the archangel Michael bat- 
 tled against Satan. Its blows are terrible, but it is 
 naked, and its enemy is covered with massive armor. 
 
 Oh God! it falls; it is stricken to death. No, it 
 is only wounded. Mary, the Virgin- Mother, wraps 
 it up in her cloak, smiles on it, and carries it away 
 for a time out of the battle. 
 
 I see another nation struggle without cessation, 
 and revive from time to time its strength in that 
 
 O 
 
 struggle. That nation has the sign of Christ on its 
 heart. 
 
 I see a third nation, on which six kings have 
 placed their foot, and every time it moves, six 
 poniards are plunged into its throat. 
 
 I see over a vast building, very high in the air,
 
 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 125 
 
 a cross which I can scarcely distinguish, because it 
 is covered with a black veil. 
 
 Child of man, what else do you see? . 
 
 I see the Orient, which is troubled in itself. It 
 sees its ancient palaces crumble, its old temples 
 fall to dust, and it raises its eyes as if in search of 
 other grandeurs and another God. 
 
 I see towards the Occident a woman with proud 
 eye, with serene brow; she traces with firm hand a 
 light furrow, and wherever the plowshare passes, I 
 see human generations spring up, who invoke her 
 in their prayers, and bless her in their songs. 
 
 I see in the North men who have nothing but a 
 remnant of warmth, concentrated in their brain, and 
 which intoxicates it; but Christ touches them with 
 His cross, and the heart commences to beat again. 
 
 I see in the South races, overwhelmed in I know 
 not what curse: a heavy yoke weighs them down, 
 they walk bent over; but Christ touches them with 
 His cross, and they rise erect. 
 
 Child of man, what more do you see? 
 
 He answers not; let us cry again. 
 
 Child of man, what do you see? 
 
 I see Satan who flees, and Christ, surrounded 
 with His angels, who comes to reign.
 
 126 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 THE MIGHTY OF EAETH. 
 
 I SAW a beech raise aloft its head to a wondrous 
 height. From its summit nearly to its root, it 
 threw out enormous branches, which so overshad- 
 owed the earth on all sides, that it was barren ; not 
 a single blade of grass would grow there. At the 
 foot of the forest-giant -sprang up an oak which, 
 after growing up a few feet, bent over, twisted 
 itself, grew out horizon tally, then rose again and 
 twisted itself anew ; and finally it was seen stretch- 
 ing forth its sickly and leafless head from beneath 
 the vigorous branches of the beech, in search of a 
 little air and a little light. 
 
 And to myself I thought: thus grow the small 
 in the shadow of the great. 
 
 Who 4 gather around the powerful of the world? 
 Who draw near them? not the poor man; they 
 drive him away : his appearance would oifend their 
 eyes. With care they banish him from their 
 presence and from their palaces ; they permit him 
 not even to pass through their parks, open to all, 
 except him, because his body, worn with toil, is clad 
 in the garments of poverty.
 
 THE PERSECUTION OF TRUTH. 127 
 
 Who then gather around the powerful of the 
 world? the rich and the flatterers who desire power, 
 the degraded women, the infamous panders of their 
 private pleasures, the ballet-dancers, the buffoons 
 who lull, and the false prophets who delude their 
 conscience. 
 
 Who besides? the violent, the crafty, the agents 
 of oppression, the nsnrers, all those who saj: De- 
 liver to us the people, and we will pour their gold 
 into your coffers and their substance into your veins. 
 
 Where lies the carcass, there the vultures will 
 gather. 
 
 The little birds build their nest in the grass, and 
 the birds of prey in lofty trees. 
 
 XXXYIII. 
 
 THE PERSECUTION OF TRUTH. 
 
 THEY have said among themselves: We will 
 destroy Good, we will smother its germ, even in 
 the depths of souls. And if any one soever dare 
 raise his voice to defend it, to recall to man the 
 memory of it, we will incarcerate him in our dun- 
 geons like a criminal, for we have the power, or we 
 will unchain upon him the famished pack which
 
 128 
 
 guard the portals of the temple of Evil, which, for 
 the morsel of bread, thrown before them in the 
 dirt, vomit outrage and falsehood. 
 
 Fools! and should you do to-day, what death 
 will do to-morrow, would you have thereby con- 
 quered? The Good, is it man? I am the Good, 
 says the Lord God. 
 
 When the Just One, nailed to the cross, expired 
 between two thieves, the powerful of that time, the 
 politicians, the hypocrites, those who devoured the. 
 people, as one devours a piece of bread, believed it 
 a triumph. The following day, the echoes, from 
 one extremity of the earth to the other, sent back 
 a cry of salvation, issuing from the tomb of the 
 
 Crucified One. 
 
 \ 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 THE EIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE AND WHAT HAS BECOME 
 OF THEM. 
 
 TELL me, oh People! what has become of thy 
 right in this world? fell me what thy wretched 
 life, so overcharged with labor, was in the days of 
 old, and still is? 
 
 Slave in former times, afterward serf during long
 
 PEOPLE'S EIGHTS, WHAT HAS BECOME OF THEM. 129 
 
 centuries, always oppressed, preyed upon always, 
 like unto the meadow which is cropped in spring, 
 and left a prey to another ravenous tooth in autumn, 
 what benefit hast thou reaped from what has mock- 
 ingly been called thy ENFRANCHISEMENT? 
 
 Wherefore draggest thou thyself along with so 
 much pain over this earth, devised to all men in 
 common, and over which all should have dominion ? 
 
 Wherefore in the midst of productions, which it 
 offers spontaneously, and which thy labor[rnultiplies, 
 dost thou so often groan in the anguish of hunger? 
 
 Wherefore hast thou no shelter, neither against 
 the frozen blasts of winter, nor against the scorch- 
 ing heat of the sun in summer? 
 
 Wherefore wantest thou clothing to cover thy 
 emaciated limbs, and a shroud to inwrap them, 
 when they are thrown into the Potter's field, to rest 
 for the first time? 
 
 When the rain falls from the clouds, it refreshes 
 and revives the humblest plant, hidden in the cor- 
 ner of the valley, as well as the tree on the moun- 
 tain-top, which raises its stately head toward heaven, 
 and stretches forth its powerful branches in defiance 
 to the storm. 
 
 Wherefore, uneasy about to-day, and anxious 
 9
 
 130 
 
 about to-morrow, do the domestic joys turn for tliee 
 into bitter cares? At the table, where it is the will 
 of the common Father that all His children should 
 sit down, why is thy cup never filled but with 
 muddy wine? 
 
 From tenderest infancy, absorbed in manual 
 labor, at the cost of how much sacrifice, dost thou 
 reap even a few feeble rays of the light which 
 nourishes the. mind? Why does not the star of 
 science appear above the horizon of the gloomy 
 world, whither thou art banished? 
 
 Our life on earth, undoubtedly, cannot be exempt 
 from pain. "Want, suffering even, as they stimu- 
 late our activity, are a condition of the common 
 progress. "Without question too, although equals 
 in right, all men do not possess equal faculties, are 
 not all born under circumstances equally favorable 
 to the development of those faculties, and that 
 inequality (whence result, with different inclina- 
 tions, particular aptitudes for the various functions, 
 implied by the existence of society) contributes to 
 the general welfare. 
 
 But in that welfare, all must have a share, and 
 we could not even call it the general welfare, if it 
 were not the well-being of the greater number, the
 
 PEOPLE'S EIGHTS, WHAT HAS BECOME OF THEM. 131 
 
 well-being of the people, and not of a few individ- 
 uals, or of a few classes only. In fact, if one man 
 rolled in riches, all the others remaining poor, 
 would you call his wealth the GENERAL wealth? 
 
 Now, almost universally, the possession of the 
 blessings, destined by nature to all, has been the 
 exclusive allotment of a few, who holding the peo- 
 ple under their subjection, and forgetful of the* 
 sentiment which brother owes to brother, have 
 treated them like animals, which during the day 
 are put to the plough, and into whose stable at 
 night is thrown a handful of straw. 
 
 But you should know and well consider this: 
 When the excess of suffering inspires you with the 
 resolution to recover the rights of which your 
 oppressors have robbed you, you are accused of dis- 
 turbing the order and treated like rebels. Rebels 
 against whom? There is no rebellion possible but 
 against the real sovereign, against the people, and 
 how is it possible that the people should rebel 
 against themselves? The rebels are those who cre- 
 ate themselves iniquitous privileges at their ex- 
 pense; those who, either by craft or strength, suc- 
 ceed in subjecting them to their domination; and 
 when the people shake off that domination, they
 
 132 
 
 do not disturb the order, but re-establish it, and 
 accomplish the work of God and His will, which 
 is always just. 
 
 XL. 
 
 THE LEGACY TO OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 You need much patience and a courage which 
 grows not weary: for you will not conquer in a day. 
 
 Liberty is the bread which the people must earn 
 in the sweat of their brow. 
 
 Many start with ardor, and then become dis- 
 heartened, before having reached the time of the 
 harvest. 
 
 They are like those men, weak and indolent, who 
 not being able to endure the toil of clearing from 
 their fields the weeds from time to time, as they 
 grow, sow and do not reap, because they have suf- 
 fered the good seed to be choked. 
 
 I say unto you, there is always great want in that 
 country. 
 
 Again, they are like those foolish men who, hav- 
 ing builded as far as the top a home in which to 
 dwell, neglect to roof it, because they are afraid of 
 a little more fatigue. 
 
 The winds and the rains come, and the house falls,
 
 THE LEGACY TO OUR CHILDREN. 133 
 
 and those who had erected it, are suddenly buried 
 beneath its ruins. 
 
 If even your expectations may have been disap- 
 pointed not only seven times, but seventy times 
 seven, never lose hope. 
 
 When a man has faith in it, the just cause always 
 triumphs, and that man succeeds who perseveres 
 even to the end. 
 
 Say not: The suffering is too great for blessings 
 which will come only late. 
 
 If those blessings come late, if you enjoy them 
 but a short time, or even if it be not given unto 
 you to enjoy them at all, your children will enjoy 
 them, and your children's children. 
 
 They will have only what you bequeath them: 
 consider then whether you wish to leave them 
 scourges and chains, and hunger for a heritage. 
 
 He who asks himself: of what value is justice? 
 denies justice in his heart; and he who calculates 
 the price of liberty, renounces liberty in his heart. 
 
 Liberty and justice will weigh you in the same 
 balance, wherein you shall weigh them. Learn 
 then to understand their worth. 
 
 There are nations who have known it not, and no 
 wretchedness ever equalled their wretchedness.
 
 134: 
 
 If there is on earth anything sublime, it is the 
 firm resolution of a people who march, under the 
 eye of God, without growing weary an instant, to 
 the conquest of the rights which they hold from 
 Him ; who number neither their wounds, nor their 
 days without rest, nor their nights without sleep, 
 and who to themselves say: Of what account are 
 these? Justice and liberty are well worth greater toil. 
 
 That people may suffer misfortunes, reverses, 
 treachery, they may be sold by some Judas. Let 
 nothing dishearten them. 
 
 For, verily, I say unto you, even should they 
 descend like Christ into the tomb, they like Christ 
 would arise on the third day, conquerors of death, 
 and of the Prince of the world, and of the minis- 
 ters of the Prince of the world. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 LIBERTY AND JUSTICE. 
 
 THE ploughman bears the burden of the day, 
 exposes himself to the rain, to the sun, to the winds, 
 to make ready by his labor for the harvest, which 
 will fill his granaries in autumn. 
 
 Justice is the harvest of nations.
 
 LIBERTY AND JUSTICE. 135 
 
 The artisan arises before the break of day, lights 
 his small lamp, and toils without ceasing to earn 
 the morsel of bread which sustains him and his 
 children. 
 
 Justice is the bread of nations. 
 
 The merchant hesitates at no labor, complains of 
 no fatigue; he wastes his body and forgets his sleep, 
 in amassing wealth. 
 
 Liberty is the wealth of nations. 
 
 The sailor ploughs the seas, risks himself on the 
 waves and in tempests, hazards himself amid shoals, 
 endures cold and heat, to secure for himself some 
 repose in his old age. 
 
 Liberty is the repose of nations. 
 
 The soldier submits to most cruel privations, he 
 keeps watch and fights, and sheds his blood for 
 what he calls glory. 
 
 Liberty is the glory of nations. 
 
 If there is a nation which esteems justice and 
 liberty less, than the ploughman his harvest, the 
 artisan his morsel of bread, the merchant his wealth, 
 the sailor his repose and the soldier his glory; raise 
 around that nation a high waU, that its breath may 
 not infect the rest of the earth. 
 
 When shall come to the nations the great day of
 
 136 
 
 their judgment, unto it will be said: What hast 
 thou done with thy soul? no sign nor trace of it has 
 been discovered. The pleasures of the brute only 
 have been thine. Thou hast loved the mire, go, 
 wallow in it. 
 
 And, on the contrary, the nation which, above all 
 material benefits, shall have given place in its heart 
 to the true blessings; which, to attain them, shall 
 have spared no toil, no fatigue, no sacrifice, will 
 hear these words: 
 
 To those who have a soul, be the soul's recom- 
 pense. Because thou hast loved, beyond all things, 
 liberty and justice, come and enjoy forever justice 
 and liberty. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 THE SLAVE AND THE FKEEMAN. 
 
 THIXKEST thou that the ox which is fed in the 
 stall to labor under the yoke, and which is fattened 
 for the shambles, is more to be envied than the bull 
 that seeks in freedom his food in the forest? 
 
 Thinkest thou that the horse which is saddled and 
 bridled, and which has always plenty of hay in his 
 rack, enjoys a lot, preferable to that of the stallion
 
 THE SLAVE AND THE FKEEMAN. 137 
 
 who, freed from all restraint, neighs and bounds 
 over the plain? 
 
 Thinkest thou that the fowl, to which is flung 
 grain in the poultry -yard, is more happy than the 
 wood-pigeon which at morn knows not where it 
 shall find its food for the day? 
 
 Thinkest thou that he who saunters at leisure 
 through one of those parks which are called em- 
 pires, leads a life more sweet than the exile who, 
 from forest to forest and from range to mountain- 
 range, sets out with his heart full of hope to create 
 a fatherland? 
 
 Thinkest thou that the stupid serf, sitting at the 
 table of his lord, relishes the exquisite dishes better, 
 than the soldier of liberty his crust of bread? 
 
 Thinkest thou that he who falls asleep with the 
 slave's collar around his neck, upon the straw which 
 his master has thrown down for him, enjoys sweeter 
 sleep than he who, after having fought during the day 
 to free himself from every master, rests a few hours 
 at night, on the earth, in the corner of an open field? 
 
 Thinkest thou that the poltroon, who everywhere 
 trails the chain of slavery, is less burdened than the 
 man of courage who bears the shackles of the pris- 
 oner?
 
 138 
 
 Thinkest thou that the timid man who expires 
 in his bed, suffocated by the impure air which sur- 
 rounds tyranny, dies a death more desirable than 
 the undaunted man who, upon the scaffold, renders 
 to God a soul, free, as he received it from Him? 
 
 Labor is everywhere and suffering everywhere: 
 yet, there are barren labors and fruitful labors, infa- 
 mous sufferings and glorious sufferings. 
 
 XLIIL 
 
 THE TWO IDOLS. 
 
 IF the oppressors of nations were abandoned to 
 th.emselves, without support, without assistance 
 from others, what could they accomplish against 
 them? 
 
 If, to keep them in servitude, they had no other 
 aid but from those who profit by servitude, what 
 would that petty number be, opposed to whole 
 nations? 
 
 And this is the wisdom of God, who has so dis- 
 posed things, that men may always be able to resist 
 tyranny; and tyranny would be impossible, if men 
 understood the wisdom of God. 
 
 But having turned their heart to other thoughts,
 
 THE TWO IDOLS. 139 
 
 the rulers of the world have opposed to the wisdom 
 of God, which men understood not, the wisdom of 
 the Prince of the world, Satan. 
 
 ~Now Satan, who is king of the oppressors of 
 nations, suggested to them an infernal scheme, to 
 confirm their tyranny. 
 
 He said to them: This is what you should do. 
 Take from each family the young men most robust, 
 and give arms to them, and instruct them in their 
 use, and they will fight for you again sttheir fathers 
 and their brothers; for I will persuade them that 
 it is a glorious deed. 
 
 I will make for them two idols, which shall be 
 named Honor and Loyalty, and a law which shall 
 be called passive Obedience. 
 
 And they shall worship those idols, and they 
 shall blindly submit to that law, because I will 
 delude their spirit, and you will have no more to fear. 
 
 And the oppressors of nations did what Satan 
 had advised, and Satan also accomplished what he 
 had promised to the oppressors of nations. 
 
 And the children of the people were seen to lift 
 up their arm against the people, slaughter their 
 brothers, bind in chains. their fathers, and forget 
 even the mothers who had borne them.
 
 140 
 
 "When it was said to them: In the name of all 
 that is sacred, think of the injustice, of the atrocity 
 of what you are ordered to do, they replied: We do 
 not think, we obey. 
 
 And when it was said to them : Is there no longer 
 within you any love for your fathers, your mothers, 
 your brothers and your sisters? they replied: "We do 
 not love, we obey. 
 
 And when they were shown the altars of the God 
 who created* man, and of Christ who saved him, 
 they exclaimed: Those are the Gods of the country; 
 the Gods whom we acknowledge, are the Gods of 
 her rulers, Loyalty and Honor. 
 
 Yerily, I say unto you, since the beguiling of the 
 first woman by the Serpent, there has been no lead- 
 ing astray more terrible than that. 
 
 But the end approaches. "When the evil spirit 
 bewitches upright souls, it is but for a time. They 
 pass as it were through a hideous dream, and at 
 their awakening, they bless God who has freed them 
 from that torture. 
 
 A few days more, and those who fought for the 
 oppressors, will battle for the oppressed ; those who 
 fought to retain in chains their fathers, their 
 mothers, their brothers and their sisters, will battle 
 to set them free.
 
 NOTHING WITHOUT GOD. 141 
 
 And Satan will flee to his caverns with the rulers 
 of nations. 
 
 XLIY. 
 
 NOTHING WITHOUT GOD. 
 
 WHY do you fatigue yourselves to no purpose in 
 your wretchedness? Your desire is good, but you 
 know not how to accomplish it. 
 
 Remember well this maxim: He alone is able to 
 restore life, who has bestowed life. 
 
 Without God, you will thrive in nothing. 
 
 You writhe upon your bed of anguish: what re- 
 lief have you found? 
 
 You have overthrown a few tyrants, and others 
 have arisen, worse than the first. 
 
 You have abolished laws of servitude, and you 
 have had laws of blood, and then laws of servitude 
 again. 
 
 Distrust therefore those who interpose between 
 God and you, so that their shadow conceals Him 
 from you. Those men have evil designs. 
 
 For from God emanates the power which gives 
 freedom, because from God comes the love which 
 gives union. 
 
 For you what can a man do, who has for a rule
 
 14:2 
 
 but his own thought, and for a law his own will? 
 
 Even if he is sincere and wishes only your good, 
 he is compelled to give you. his will for a law, and 
 his thought for a rule. 
 
 ISTow, all tyrants do this. 
 
 It avails not to overthrow all things, and to 
 expose one's self to all things, in order to substitute 
 for one tyranny another tyranny. 
 
 Liberty does not consist in the domination of 
 this one instead of that one, but in the domination 
 of no one. 
 
 Now, where God reigns not, it is necessary for 
 a man to rule, and that has always been so. 
 
 The reign of God, I say it to you again, is the 
 reign of justice in the mind and of fraternity in 
 the heart: and its foundation on earth is faith in 
 God and faith in Christ, who has proclaimed the 
 law of God, the law of fraternity and the law of 
 justice. 
 
 The law of justice teaches that all are equal 
 before their father, who is God, and before their 
 only master, who is Christ. 
 
 The law of fraternity tells them to love one 
 another and give mutual aid like sons of the same 
 father and disciples of the same master.
 
 OBSERVATION OF DUTY FULFILMENT OF LAW. 143 
 
 And then they are free, because no one reigns 
 over others, unless he has been chosen voluntarily 
 by all to rule: and their liberty cannot be torn 
 from them, because they are all united for its 
 defense. 
 
 But those who say unto you: Prior to us, no one 
 understood what justice was: justice proceeds not 
 from God, it comes from man: entrust yourselves 
 to us, and we will give you justice which will sat- 
 isfy you. 
 
 Such persons delude you, or, if they promise you 
 liberty in sincerity, they deceive themselves. 
 
 For they ask you to recognize them for masters, 
 and thus your liberty would be only obedience 
 to these new masters. 
 
 Tell them that your master is Christ, that you 
 wish for no other, and Christ will set you free. 
 
 XLY. 
 
 OBSERVATION OF DUTY THE FULFILMENT OF THE 
 
 LAW. 
 
 DUTY extends itself to all beings, for all have their 
 place in the Universe; all according to the views 
 of Supreme Wisdom fulfil functions, which it is
 
 144 
 
 forbidden to disturb; all enjoy the gift divine, and 
 have a right to enjoy it. To destroy a single one 
 among them from pure caprice, or inflict upon him 
 useless sufferings, is a wicked action, an action, op- 
 posed to the laws "of order. 
 
 [Respect God in His least works, and that your 
 love, like His, embrace everything that breathes 
 and lives. 
 
 If, in endowing man with intellect, He has made 
 him the king of nature, His will was not that man 
 should be the tyrant of nature. His eye, from 
 which nothing escapes, has a fatherly care also for 
 the poor sparrow, which quivers with fear under 
 your hand. 
 
 No society is possible without duty, for without 
 it, there can exist no tie among men. 
 
 Interrogate everywhere unprejudiced reason, and 
 the conscience which neither self-interest nor pas- 
 sion has corrupted, and they will answer you: that 
 man is sacred to man ; that to attack him in his 
 person, in his liberty or in his property, is to over- 
 throw the basis of order, is to violate the moral, 
 preservative laws of mankind, is to perpetrate one 
 of those acts, which in all centuries and among all 
 nations have received the terrible name of CKIME.
 
 OBSERVATION OF DTJTY FULFILMENT OF LAW. 145 
 
 There exists a voice without you, immutable, eter- 
 nal, and another voice within you; and both those 
 voices tell you: 
 
 Thou shalt do no murder; thou shalt not steal; 
 thou shalt dishonor neither the virtue of the wife, 
 nor the chastity of the young maiden ; thy thought 
 even shall be clean of those abominations. 
 
 "Whosoever spills the blood of his brother, is 
 accursed on earth and accursed in Heaven. 
 
 And accursed also is he, who through craft or 
 violence, takes away from his brother either his 
 liberty, or what portion soever of that which he 
 possesses legitimately; who carries into his family 
 disorder, with all the evils to which disorder gives 
 birth: shame, discord, the torments of mind, dis- 
 trust, hatred and oftentimes ruin. 
 
 The plants of the fields, grouped together, extend 
 their roots in the soil, which nourishes them all, and 
 all grow up in peace. Not one of them absorbs the 
 sap of another, causes its blossom to wither, or spoils 
 its fragrance. "Wherefore is man less kind to man? 
 
 Banish from your heart all wicked desires and 
 all wicked thoughts; for to take a delight in the 
 thought and in the desire of evil, is already to have 
 accomplished the evil. 
 10
 
 146 
 
 There are words which kill; be watchful there- 
 fore over jour tongue, and that it never be soiled 
 with evil-speaking and slander. 
 
 Envy, anger, vindictiveness, hatred, devour the 
 soul which conceals them, and that tormented soul is 
 perpetually as if in travail to give birth to murder. 
 
 Have you been offended? forgive, that you may 
 be forgiven. Who does not stand in need of for- 
 giveness? and who can say to himself: not one 
 could with justice complain of me? 
 
 Do not walk in tortuous paths, and let your 
 word be always true; that it never offend the ear 
 of chastity, nor wound the respect which man owes 
 to man, and owes to himself. 
 
 He also owes to himself that he should shun 
 everything which would degrade and debase him, 
 by bringing him nearer to the brute: all the 
 excesses of the senses, fatal habits which wear out 
 the body, stupefy the mind, and make beholders, no 
 longer recognizing in him an intelligent creature, 
 turn aside their eyes from him with disgust. 
 
 In us there exist two beings, the animal and 
 the angel, and our labor should be to combat the 
 one, in order that the other dominate alone, until 
 the moment, when liberated from his weighty en-
 
 OBSEBVATION OF DUTY FULFILMENT OF LAW. 147 
 
 velope, lie shall take his flight towards better and 
 higher regions. 
 
 Acting in this manner, you will injure no one, 
 you will be just; but other duties besides, grand 
 and sacred duties will remain for you to fulfill. 
 
 Has he, who has simply refrained from evil, who 
 has done to his fellow-creature neither the slight- 
 est wrong, nor the slightest good, has he fulfilled 
 his duties to him, and is he perfect before God? 
 In depositing at the bottom of our heart the germ 
 of love and of pity, of all sympathetic feeling, has 
 not the Father in heaven commanded us other vir- 
 tues, more elevated and more far-reaching? 
 
 Behold yonder poor human creature, lying at the 
 corner of the street, fainting from want, or whom 
 an accident has cast mangled there. A man looks 
 at him, pities him and passes by. Am I the cause, 
 says he to himself, that he is there in that condi- 
 tion, and who has made me his keeper? It is more 
 than enough that one must think of one's self. 
 Another looks upon him also, and his heart is moved. 
 He approaches, takes him in his arms, carries him 
 to his home, lays him on his bed, watches by him, 
 and takes care of him as a brother takes care of a 
 brother, and a friend of his friend.
 
 148 
 
 "Which of these two men has truly accomplished 
 his duty? 
 
 There will always be evils on earth, and those 
 evils must always be remedied. 
 
 Is your brother hungry: you owe him the nour- 
 ishment he is in want of; is he naked, without 
 roof, without refuge: you owe him clothing and a 
 place of shelter; sick, you owe him assistance. 
 He is your flesh, for you are all members of one 
 and the same body, which one and the same soul 
 must animate: treat him therefore as your own flesh. 
 
 There are many kinds of weakness and many 
 sorts of destitution; and each weakness has a claim 
 to protection, every destitution to relief. But for 
 that, I ask you, what would be human society? 
 what would be the world? What would become of 
 those whom infirmity, poverty, isolation, old age, 
 simplicity of mind and ignorance leave an easy 
 prey to the snares of the wicked? 
 
 Resent the injustice, done unto others, with the 
 same energy, the same resolution, as if it were done 
 unto yourself; stretch forth your hand between the 
 oppressor and the oppressed. Your brother is 
 yourself, and if he is oppressed, are you not op- 
 pressed likewise?
 
 OBSERVATION OF DUTY FULFILMENT OF LAW. 149 
 
 Let the orphan find in you a father; the widow 
 and the old man a staff of support; the stranger 
 a helpful host; be the eve of the blind man, and 
 the foot of the .cripple. 
 
 To the afflicted speak those words from the heart, 
 which soothe the bitterness of their tears. There 
 are no sufferings which sympathy does not alleviate. 
 The sorrows of life are dissipated by the rays of 
 fraternal love, even as the frosts in autumn melt 
 away before the morning-sun. 
 
 Whoever gives in season good advice, a wise 
 warning, or useful instruction, gives more than if 
 he gave gold ; and to impart that which one knows, 
 to spread science, is sowing the seed which will 
 nourish successive generations. 
 
 Do not think that you can do too much, in order 
 to obtain peace: peace, which is the foundation of 
 all happiness, is at the same time its crowning- 
 work. Bear with others, that they may bear with 
 you. Have we not all our foibles, our failings, our 
 disagreeable moments? patience gradually softens 
 the rudest asperities; let nothing then exhaust 
 your patience, neither irritating words, nor provok- 
 ing levity. Be like unto the vine, whose juice is 
 so much the sweeter, as it grows in a stonier soil.
 
 150 
 
 To respect the life, the liberty, and the property 
 of others; 
 
 To assist others in the preserving and the de- 
 veloping of their life, their liberty, and their prop- 
 erty; 
 
 These two precepts contain in substance the 
 duties of justice and fraternity. To detail them, 
 would be infinite, for they include all the thoughts, 
 all the feelings, all the actions of man, and one 
 single precept comprises them all, the divine precept 
 of love. Love, and do whatever you please, for 
 you shall wish for nothing but what is just and 
 good. Love, says the sovereign Master, and thou 
 shalt perfectly fulfil the law. 
 
 XLYI. 
 
 THE PROPHET. 
 
 WHEN fraternity had frozen up, and injustice had 
 commenced to nourish on the earth, God spoke to 
 one of His servants: Go unto that people from me, 
 and proclaim to them what thou shalt see; and that 
 which thou shalt see, will surely come to pass, un- 
 less, quitting their evil ways, they repent and return 
 unto me.
 
 THE PKOPHET. 151 
 
 And the servant of God obeyed His command, 
 and having clad himself in sackcloth, and having 
 sprinkled ashes upon his head, he went to that mul- 
 titude, and raising his voice, said : 
 
 "Wherefore do you kindle the anger of the Lord 
 to your own destruction? Quit your evil ways: 
 repent and return unto Him. 
 
 And some, hearing these words, were moved, and 
 others scoffed, saying: Who is he, and what comes 
 he to tell us? Who has given him the right to 
 reprimand us? He is a fool. 
 
 And behold, the Spirit of God came upon the 
 prophet, and time was opened to his eyes, and the 
 centuries passed before him. 
 
 And suddenly rending his clothes: Thus, said he, 
 will be dismembered the race of Adam. 
 
 The men of iniquity have measured the earth with 
 a cord: they have numbered its inhabitants, as one 
 numbers cattle, head by head. 
 
 They have said: Let us divide this among our- 
 selves, and let us make it valuable for our use. 
 
 And the division has been made; and each has 
 taken what fell to his lot, and the earth and its in- 
 habitants have become the possession of the men 
 of iniquity, and consulting together, they have
 
 152 
 
 asked one another: What is our possession worth? 
 and together they have answered: Thirty pieces of 
 silver. 
 
 And they have commenced to traffic among 
 themselves with those thirty pieces of silver. 
 
 There have been purchases, sales, exchanges; 
 men for land, land for men, and the balance in gold. 
 
 And each has coveted the share of the other, and 
 they have begun to butcher one another for the 
 purpose of mutually despoiling one another, and, in 
 the blood which flowed, they have written upon a 
 slip of paper: Right, and upon another: Glory. 
 
 Oh Lord! enough, enough! 
 
 There are two who cast their hooks of iron upon 
 a nation. Each bears away his fragment. 
 
 The sword is sharpened and sharpened again. 
 Do you hear those heart-rending cries? they are 
 the plaints of young wives and the wail ings of 
 mothers. 
 
 Two spectres glide through the shadows; they 
 haste over the plains and through the cities. The 
 one, fleshless as a skeleton, gnaws at the remains 
 of an unclean beast; the other has in his arm-pit a 
 black fester, and the jackals follow him howling. 
 
 Lord, Lord, shall Thy wrath be everlasting ? Shall
 
 THE PROPHET. 153 
 
 Thine arm never stretch forth but to strike? Spare 
 the fathers for the sake of the children. Suffer Thy- 
 self to be moved by the tears of those poor little 
 creatures, who are not yet able to distinguish their 
 left hand from their right. 
 
 The world grows broader, peace will be born 
 again, there will be room for all. 
 
 "Woe! woe! blood flows on: it encircles the 
 earth like a girdle of red. 
 
 "Who is that aged man, who talks of justice, hold- 
 ing in one hand a cup of poison, and caressing with 
 the other a prostitute, who calls him father? 
 
 He says: To me belongs the race of Adam. 
 Among you, who are the strongest? I will distrib- 
 ute that race! 
 
 And what he has said, he does, and from his 
 throne, without rising, he assigns to each his prey. 
 
 And all gorge, gorge; and their hunger grows 
 more clamorous, and they rush upon one another, 
 and the flesh quivers, and the bones crack in their 
 teeth. 
 
 A market-place is opened, the nations are driven 
 there with a cord around their neck; their muscles 
 are felt, they are weighed, they are made to run 
 and to walk: they are valued at so much. It is no
 
 154 
 
 longer the former tumult and confusion, it is com- 
 merce regularly conducted. 
 
 Happy the birds of the air and the animals of 
 the earth! no one restrains them, they go and come 
 as they please. 
 
 "What are those mill-stones which turn without 
 ceasing, and what do they grind? 
 
 Children of Adam, those mill-stones are the laws 
 of those who rule you, and you are the grist which 
 they grind. 
 
 And in proportion as the prophet cast upon the 
 future these ill-boding gleams, a strange terror 
 seized upon those who listened. 
 
 Suddenly his voice ceased to be heard, and he 
 seemed as if absorbed in profound thought. The 
 people waited in silence, their heart oppressed and 
 beating with anguish. 
 
 Then the prophet: Lord, Thou hast not abandoned 
 this people in its misery; Thou hast not delivered 
 it for ever to its oppressors. 
 
 And he took two twigs, and he stripped off their 
 leaves, and crossing them, he bound them together, 
 and raised them on high over the multitude, saying: 
 This shall be your salvation; you shall conquer by 
 this emblem.
 
 THE CONSPIRACY OF EVIL. 155 
 
 And night came on, and the prophet disappeared 
 as a shadow which passes, and the multitude dis- 
 persed on all sides in the darkness. 
 
 XLYII. 
 
 THE CONSPIRACY OF EVIL. 
 
 SATAN, one day, assembled his minions, and said 
 to them: It is vain to tempt men in a thousand 
 ways, to push them upon the decline, where they 
 slide so rapidly, our work advances little; what we 
 gain on the one hand, we lose on the other. Why 
 is this? 
 
 Each of the infernal powers extolling himself, 
 accused the others, until wrath and hatred being 
 kindled, nothing was longer heard but jarring 
 sounds, yells of anger, the hiss of burning breath, 
 mingled with words of phrensy, of threat, and of 
 blasphemy. In the black pit a horrible conflict was 
 impending, when the king of the fallen legions sud- 
 denly drawing himself to his full height, sent forth 
 his voice, formidable and awful as subterranean 
 thunder. 
 
 Silence! it said; and there was silence. 
 
 That which ye know not, continued Satan, I
 
 156 
 
 know. Our efforts have been in part futile, because 
 ill- concerted, they lacked unison. Each of you, ac- 
 cording to his fancy, has sown here and there at 
 random, without calculation and without foresight, 
 and this is why at harvest- time we have gathered 
 ears and not sheaves. 
 
 Should this continue, as well might I yield up 
 my empire. Think ye that Satan will so resolve? 
 "Nol to all eternity, no! 
 
 I will raise the city of evil, I will lay its founda- 
 tion upon this earth which a rival power contests 
 with me. 
 
 For that audacity is without doubt necessary; but 
 there is necessity also for prudence. Let us hasten 
 nothing. Let a centre fir^st be established, from 
 which our action shall spring, from which it shall 
 flow stream upon stream and insinuate itself, by a 
 thousand various ways, even to the extremities of 
 that great body, called society. Let us breathe into 
 its heart the fire with which we burn, that it may 
 unknowingly consume them. 
 
 Fierce acclamations greeted these words of Satan. 
 
 And the earth, seized with sudden fear, trembled; 
 and the sun was veiled, and the air became dark; 
 from the grave-yards arose slowly vapors, dense,
 
 THE CONSPIRACY OF EVIL. 157 
 
 livid, grey and reddish, and in the distance was 
 heard a tolling like funeral-bells. 
 
 And in the slums of a great city, in as it were a 
 sink, whence exhaled an odor of corruption, I saw a 
 crowd to which I can give no name. Their horrid 
 faces had the features of man, but not the expression. 
 Their retreating brows, their ghastly cheeks, here 
 and there streaked with red, or marked with pur- 
 ple spots, wore the hideous stamp of base crime and 
 brutish vice. There could be read in their eyes glow- 
 ing or glassy, in their sneaking gaze, all the nature of 
 the beast of prey, of vile wickedness, cunning, craft, 
 something of the serpent, something also of the 
 hyena. 
 
 There were of all kinds and of all aspects, from 
 the beggar clothed in rags to him who displays on 
 splendid robes the prostituted emblems of a false 
 glory and infamous honor. 
 
 From a high-raised seat, one of them, surrounded 
 by inferior chiefs, inured to the hardships of hell, 
 gave to the crowd his orders. He divided them 
 into two bands. The one was to show itself in 
 broad day, the other to creep unseen through the 
 public places and even into the privacy, everywhere 
 sacred, of the domestic hearth ; and they were com-
 
 158 . THE POOR MAN'S GOSPEL. 
 
 manded to act together, each to support and aid 
 the other. 
 
 Something, I know not what, revolting as the 
 sneer of evil, curled the lips of him who was sur- 
 rounded in silence by all these human spectres. 
 
 To those, appointed to skulk in the shadows, he 
 said: 
 
 These shall be your gods: falsehood, perjury, 
 hypocrisy, corruption. You shall spread every- 
 where suspicion, jealousies. At times also, you 
 shall lull to sleep credulous simplicity, that your 
 purposes may the better be served. You shall 
 beguile and you shall betray. You shall search 
 hearts, that you may discover the germs of vice, 
 which may there be concealed, and, at the agreed 
 price, you shall furnish to each his demands. 
 Proceed artfully, allure, seduce, veiling the conse- 
 quences, until return is no longer possible. And 
 want also, extreme want, shall be for you a power- 
 ful instrument. You shall say to famine: Sell me 
 this one, that one, and if there is hesitation, you 
 shall point out to the father the yawning tomb 
 which awaits his wife, his children, and you shall 
 ring in his ear their cries of anguish. You shall 
 spread your snares for the step of the unsuspecting
 
 THE CONSPIRACY OF EVIL. 159 
 
 man, you shall suggest to him things concerning 
 which he had not the least thought, you shall urge 
 him upon perilous paths, and if not successful, 
 understand this well, you shall create that which 
 is not. Go. And he flung to them pieces of gold, 
 upon which they threw themselves with avidity. 
 
 To the others he said: 
 
 As for you, your gods shall be violence and 
 menace. You shall threaten the feeble, the poor, 
 you shall make him desolate by your persecutions, 
 you shall snatch from him the crust of bread soaked 
 in his sweat, if he do not blindly comply with all 
 that you require of him. 
 
 Let all obey with the dumb docility of the beast 
 of burden. Let them think as we do, or not think 
 at all, or let them bear the penalty of thought in 
 rebellion. 
 
 I have chosen you for a work, conforming to 
 your nature. You shall have your banquets, where 
 shall be tears, wounds, blood, blood which shall 
 flow without danger to you, without resistance to 
 you, for such is our courage. 
 
 Having said this, all dispersed, and the great 
 city was like a tree, at whose foot has been poured 
 out fluid poison, which is absorbed through the
 
 160 
 
 roots, and which, mounting with the sap, withers 
 the blossoms, the fruit, the leaves, and rots the dead 
 branches. 
 
 And it seemed to me that I was the victim of a 
 horrible dream, when suddenly a confused noise 
 woke me from my stupor. It was voices of anger, 
 blended with snappings as of broken limbs, heart- 
 rending groans and savage laughter, and I beheld 
 a multitude of young men, of children, mangled, 
 blood-stained, who were crowded and heaped in 
 the sink, whence the drunken lands of the spirit of 
 Satan had issued, and the iron-bound gates opened 
 and closed of themselves, awful was the silence. 
 
 And 1 was transported to a dim hall. I recog- 
 nized him who ruled in that place; he was not alone: 
 near him pressed and thronged dark phantoms, 
 with whom he counseled in a low tone. 
 
 And after a short time, the dark phantoms with- 
 drew. I wished to follow them, but they disap- 
 peared in passages, gloomy and winding, where 
 the poisoned air suffocated me. 
 
 As I, overwhelmed with sadness and filled with 
 terror, was considering these things, lo! the same 
 crowd, which I had seen thrust into the sink, reap- 
 pears to my eyes, always displaying the same ghastly
 
 THE CONSPIRACY OF EVIL. 161 
 
 looks. They drove them forward, through a door- 
 way, narrow and low, into a sort of cavern, where 
 I perceived scowling faces, such as are seen on the 
 scaffold, around the doomed criminal, and I heard 
 sounds, shrill and hoarse, and savage jests, and 
 terrible curses, and I felt myself plunged into a 
 dense vapor of fetid odor, like that which rises from 
 the tomb, and I nearly swooned. 
 
 And those who had been cast there grew pale 
 hour by .hour, and feeble, and bent. The air refused 
 to enter their panting breast, and their bones rattled 
 together like the bones of a skeleton, and in the 
 morning was seen, without mourners, without 
 prayers, carried away in silence some fleeting 
 coffin. 
 
 And from my soul, filled with unspeakable agony, 
 this cry escaped: 
 
 Lord, can Satan have been the victor? 
 
 And a voice said to me: Behold! 
 
 And I raised my eyes, and saw in the divine 
 light the martyrs who smiled. 
 
 11
 
 16-2 
 
 XLYIII. 
 
 THE AGED MAN AND THE PILGRIM. 
 
 IN the time when the leaves grow yellow, an aged 
 man, loaded with a bundle of twigs, returned slowly 
 to his hut, situated on the declivity of a vale. 
 
 And at the opening of the vale, between a few 
 trees, scattered here and there, were seen the oblique 
 rays of the sun, already descended below the hori- 
 zon, sporting on the clouds of the west, and tinging 
 them with numberless hues, which faded away little 
 by little. 
 
 And the aged man, having arrived at his hut, his 
 only wealth, together with the small piece of ground 
 near by, which he cultivated, cast down his bundle 
 of twigs, seated himself upon a wooden bench, black 
 with smoke from the hearth, and dropped his head 
 upon his breast in profound reverie. 
 
 And from time to time his overcharged breast 
 allowed a convulsive sob to escape, and in a cracked 
 voice, he said: 
 
 I had but one son, they have taken him from me; 
 but one poor cow, they have taken her from me for 
 the tax of my little field.
 
 THE AGED MAN AND THE PILGRIM. 163 
 
 And then, with a voice more feeble, he repeated : 
 My son, ray son; and a teardrop moistened his 
 aged lashes, but it could not fall. 
 
 As he was thus grieving, he heard some one who 
 said: Father, may the blessing of God rest upon you 
 and yours! 
 
 Mine, said the aged man, I have no longer one to 
 call mine; I am alone. 
 
 And raising his eyes, he beheld a pilgrim, stand- 
 ing at the door, resting upon a long staff; and 
 knowing that the guest is sent of God, he said to 
 him: 
 
 May God requite your benediction ! Come in, my 
 son: what the poor hath, belongs to the poor. 
 
 And kindling upon the hearth his bundle of twigs, 
 he began to make ready a repast for the traveler. 
 
 But nothing was able to divert the thought which 
 oppressed him: it rested constantly upon his heart. 
 
 And the pilgrim, having learned what so sorely 
 distressed him, said: Father, God tries you at the 
 hand of men. Yet, there are calamities greater 
 than yours. It is not the oppressed that suffer 
 most, it is the oppressor. 
 
 The aged man shook his head, and answered not. 
 
 The pilgrim continued: What you now believe 
 not, you shortly will believe.
 
 164 
 
 And having caused him to sit down, with his 
 hands he touched his eyes, and the aged man sunk 
 into a slumber, heavy, dark and full of horrors, as 
 was the slumber which fell upon Abraham, when 
 God showed to him the coming misfortunes of his 
 race. 
 
 And it seemed to him as if he were transported 
 to a vast palace, beside a couch; near by the couch 
 was a crown, and on the couch a sleeping man, 
 whose thoughts the aged man could read as clearly 
 as, awake by day, we see that which passes before 
 our eyes. 
 
 And the man lying there, stretched upon the 
 couch of gold, seemed to hear the confused cries of 
 a multitude, asking for bread. It was a sound like 
 the roar of the surge which breaks against the 
 shore in the storm. And the tempest grew more 
 violent; and the roar increased; and the man who 
 slept, saw the waves moment by moment rise higher 
 and still more high, and beat even against the walls 
 of the palace, and he made most terrible efforts to 
 flee, but could not, and his agony was extreme. 
 
 Whilst he gazed in terror, the aged man was sud- 
 denly transported to another palace. He who lay 
 stretched out there, rather resembled a corpse than 
 one living.
 
 THE AGED MAN AND THE PILGRIM. 165 
 
 And in his sleep, he beheld before him severed 
 heads; and opening their mouths, those heads said: 
 
 We had devoted ourselves to thee, and this is the 
 reward which we have received. Sleep on, sleep 
 on, we sleep not. "We await the hour of vengeance: 
 it approaches. 
 
 And the blood curdled in the veins of the sleeper. 
 And to himself he said: If I might at least leave 
 my crown to this child: and his haggard eyes 
 turned upon a cradle, on which was placed a queen's 
 diadem. 
 
 But when he grew more tranquil, and drew a 
 little comfort from this thought, another, resembling 
 him in feature, seized the child and crushed it 
 against the wall. 
 
 And the aged man felt himself swooning with 
 horror. 
 
 And he was transported at the same moment into 
 two different places; and although far separated, 
 the places to him seemed but one. 
 
 And he beheld two men who, but for their age, 
 might have been mistaken the one for the other, 
 and he knew that they had been borne by the same 
 mother. 
 
 And their sleep was that of the condemned to be
 
 166 
 
 executed at his wakening. Shapes, wrapped in 
 bloody shrouds, passed before them, and each, in 
 passing by, touched them, and their limbs quivered 
 and contracted as if to escape that deathly touch. 
 
 Then they gazed upon each other with something 
 like a hideous smile, and their eyes flashed fire, and 
 their hand moved convulsively to the handle of a 
 dagger. 
 
 And the aged man next saw a man, wan and 
 emaciated. Suspicion glided in multitudes by 
 his bed, distilled their venom upon his face, whis- 
 pered in a low tone sinister words, and slowly sunk 
 their claws into his skull, which was moist with 
 cold perspiration. And a human form, white as a 
 winding-sheet, approached him, and without speak- 
 ing, pointed with its finger to a livid spot which it 
 had around its neck. And in the bed where he lay, 
 the knees of the pale man rattled together, and his 
 mouth fell open in terror, and his eyes dilated with 
 fear. 
 
 And the aged man, benumbed with fright, was 
 transported to a palace more vast. 
 
 And he who slumbered there, breathed only with 
 the greatest difficulty. A black spectre was squatted 
 upon his breast and grinned at him. And it chat-
 
 THE AGED MAN AND THE PILGRIM. 167 
 
 tered in his ear, and its words became visions to the 
 mind of the man whom it pressed down and lacer- 
 ated with its sharp bones. 
 
 And he saw himself surrounded with a number- 
 less multitude, who rent the air with fearful 
 cries : 
 
 Thou hast promised us liberty, and thou hast 
 given us servitude. 
 
 Thou hast promised us to reign by law, and the 
 laws are thy mere caprices. 
 
 Thou hast promised that thou would st spare the 
 bread of our wives and of our children, and thou 
 hast doubled our burdens to swell thine own treas- 
 ures. 
 
 Thou hast promised us glory, and hast given us 
 up to the scorn of nations and their just hatred. 
 
 Descend, descend, and sleep with perjurers and 
 tyrants. 
 
 And he felt himself hurled down, dragged by that 
 multitude, and he clung to his sacks of gold, and 
 the sacks burst, and the gold scattered and fell to 
 the earth. 
 
 And it seemed to him as if he wandered forlorn 
 through the world, and, thirsty, asked for a drink 
 in charity, and that a glass of dregs was offered
 
 168 THE POOR MAN'S GOSPEL. 
 
 him, and that all shunned him, all cursed him, be- 
 cause his brow was branded with the mark of 
 traitor. 
 
 And the aged man in disgust turned away his 
 eyes. 
 
 And in two other palaces, he saw two other men, 
 dreaming of executions. For, said they, where 
 shall we find security? The ground is sapped be- 
 neath our feet; the nations abhor us; the little 
 children even, in their prayers, ask God, night and 
 morn, that the earth may be delivered from us. 
 
 And the one condemned to HARSH IMPRISONMENT, 
 that is to say to all the tortures of body and soul, 
 and to death by hunger, the wretches whom he 
 suspected of having uttered the word fatherland; 
 and the other, after having seized upon their prop- 
 erty, ordered to be thrown into the 'depths of a 
 dungeon two young maidens, guilty of having 
 cared for their wounded brothers in a hospital. 
 
 And as they grew weary in the labor of execu- 
 tion, messengers came to them. 
 
 And one of the messengers said: Your southern 
 provinces have burst their chains, and with the 
 links they have driven away your rulers and your 
 soldiers.
 
 THE AGED MAN AND THE PILGKIM. 169 
 
 And the other: your eagles have been plucked 
 on the banks of the great river: its waves bear 
 away the debris. 
 
 And the two kings writhed upon their couch. 
 
 And the aged man saw a third. He had ban- 
 ished God from his heart, and in his heart, in place 
 of God, was a worm which gnawed him incessantly; 
 and when the torture became more intense, he mut- 
 tered indistinct blasphemies, and his lips were cov- 
 ered with bloody froth. 
 
 And he seemed to be in an immense plain, alone 
 with the worm which left him not. And that plain 
 was a grave-yard, the grave-yard of a slaughtered 
 people. 
 
 And behold, suddenly the earth trembles; the 
 tombs burst open, the dead arise and advance in 
 crowds: and he could neither move, nor cry out. 
 
 And all those dead, men, women, children, gazed 
 upon him in silence: and after a short time, in the 
 same silence, they raised the stones from the tombs, 
 and placed them around him. 
 
 First he was walled up to his knee, then to his 
 breast, then to his mouth, and with a powerful effort 
 he strained the muscles of his neck to breathe once 
 more; and the wall continually grew higher, and
 
 170 THE POOR MAN'S GOSPEL. 
 
 when it was finished, its top was lost in a dark cloud. 
 
 The strength of the aged man began to leave him ; 
 his soul was overcome with terror. 
 
 And behold, hjaving traversed several deserted 
 halls, in a small chamber, on a bed, dimly lightened 
 by a feeble lamp, he sees a man worn with age. 
 
 Around the bed were seven terrors, four on one 
 side, three on the other. 
 
 And one of the terrors laid his hand upon the 
 heart of the decrepit man, and he trembled, and his 
 limbs shook; and the hand rested there as long as 
 it felt any heat. 
 
 And after this one, another more cold did as the 
 first, and all laid their hand upon the heart of the 
 decrepit man. 
 
 And there passed within him things, impossible 
 to unveil. 
 
 He beheld in the distance, toward the pole, a 
 hideous phantom, which said to him : Yield thyself 
 up to me, and I will warm thee with my breath. 
 
 And with his frozen fingers, the terrified man 
 wrote down a pact, I know not what, but each 
 word was like a death-rattle. 
 
 And this was the last vision. And the aged 
 man having awaked, rendered thanks to Providence
 
 THE MILLENNIUM. 171 
 
 for the lot which it had given to him in the suffer- 
 ings of life. 
 
 And the pilgrim said to him: Hope and pray; 
 prayer obtains all. Your son is not lost; your eyes 
 shall behold him again before closing. Await in 
 peace the day of God. 
 
 And the aged man awaited in peace. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 THE MILLENNIUM. 
 
 WHEN, after a long drought, a gentle rain falls 
 upon the earth, it drinks up with avidity the water 
 from Heaven, which refreshes it and makes it fer- 
 tile. 
 
 Thus, the thirsting nations will drink in with 
 avidity the word of God, as it descends upon them 
 like a summer-shower. 
 
 And justice with love, and peace and liberty will 
 spring up in their breast. 
 
 And it will be as in the time when all were broth- 
 ers, and there will be heard no more the voice of 
 the master, nor the voice of the slave, the groans of 
 the poor, nor the sighs of the oppressed, only songs 
 of gladness and of thanksgiving.
 
 172 
 
 Fathers will say to their sons: Our early days 
 were troubled, full of tears and of anguish. Now 
 the sun rises and sets upon our joy. Praised be 
 God, who has shown us these mercies before death! 
 
 And mothers will say to their daughters: Behold 
 our brows, now so smooth ; formerly affliction, grief, 
 unrest traced there deep furrows. Yours are like 
 the surface of a lake in spring-time, agitated by no 
 breeze. Praised be God, who has shown us these 
 mercies before death! 
 
 And the young men will say to the youthful 
 maidens: You are beautiful as the flowers of the 
 field, pure as the dew which refreshes them, as the 
 light which gives them color. It is sweet to see 
 our fathers, sweet to be near our mothers; but 
 when we behold you and are near you, there moves 
 in our souls something unnamed but in Heaven. 
 Praised be God, who has shown us these mercies 
 before death! 
 
 And the youthful maidens will reply: The flow- 
 ers fade, they pass away; there comes a day, when 
 no more the dew refreshes them, nor the light 
 gives them color. There is upon the earth only 
 virtue, which never fades nor passes away. Our 
 fathers are like the ripened ear in autumn, and our
 
 LIFE AND DEATH. 173 
 
 mothers like the vine, loaded with fruit. It is 
 sweet to see our fathers; it is sweet to be at our 
 mothers' side: and the sons of our fathers and of 
 our mothers are also dear to us. Praised be God, 
 who has shown us these mercies before death! 
 
 LIFE AND DEATH. 
 
 THAT marvelous order, those beautiful and touch- 
 ing harmonies which charm us in nature, whence do 
 they come? From everything being in its place, 
 and maintaining itself there invariably. Each be- 
 ing, obeying with punctual regularity the general 
 laws and its particular laws, faithfully fulfils the 
 function which the Creator assigned to it. From 
 the sun, whence pour forth inexhaustible torrents 
 of light and of life, to the river-source which comes 
 down, drop by drop, from the rock everything is 
 regulated to one and the same design, and every- 
 thing contributes to it in an infinite variety of ways, 
 which our thought admires more and more, the 
 longer we contemplate them. There is not in the 
 Universe one action, one movement, which does not, 
 immediately one after another, co-operate in the
 
 174 
 
 growth of the moss-plant; and the different worlds, 
 after having gone like the moss-plant through all 
 the phases of development, are decomposed like it: 
 to furnish nourishment for other worlds. 
 
 There is not one creature whose existence does 
 not depend upon other creatures. In order that 
 they may subsist, a continual transfusion of their 
 entity must take place. What is life? To receive. 
 What is death? To give. Life, in its first condi- 
 tion, is a sacrifice, a perpetual and universal com- 
 munion. 
 
 That which inert bodies, plants, animals destitute 
 of reason, do blindly and necessarily, subjected as 
 they are to a fatal, irresistible impulse, man must 
 do freely; subordinating himself to the whole, of 
 which he is a member, he must love his brothers as 
 he loves himself, wish for their happiness as he 
 wishes for his own, rejoice in their joys, grieve over 
 their troubles, help them, serve them, identify him- 
 self with them, sacrifice himself for them, and in 
 this manner, through an evermore growing union 
 of individuals and nations, work at consummating 
 the Holy Unity of Mankind.
 
 THE TRUE END OF LIFE. 175 
 
 LI. 
 
 THE TKTJE END OF LIFE. 
 
 WHEREFORE run ye after shadows? Why do you 
 forget your true end? 
 
 Deceitful glimmerings, alluring voices invite you 
 to places, barren and desolate, where hope herself 
 dies away in never ending night. 
 
 The wants of the flesh, who will deny? must be 
 satisfied; it is the condition of existence. But the 
 wants, is that all? The appetites, is that all? 
 
 Are you then body only, that you seek in the 
 body the good, immense, without bounds, to which 
 you aspire? 
 
 To-morrow, what will that body be? A handful 
 of ashes. Each day it advances toward the grave. 
 Is that the pathway of your desires? 
 
 The brute even buries not itself wholly in its 
 senses and in the enjoyments of sense. It has 
 instincts more elevated, joys more intense. With- 
 out knowing, it shows you from afar the goal to- 
 ward which you should tend. 
 
 Do you wish to sink below the brute? and if you 
 so wish, of what do you complain? Does one
 
 176 
 
 stoop so low without distress? Can one struggle 
 against his nature, slaughter it without suffering? 
 
 That dark spectre, shapeless and without speech, 
 which stifles you in its embrace, know ye its name? 
 Its name is Matter. 
 
 Tell them this, for I pity that poor people: 
 
 The body is not man, but the covering of man. 
 
 Life is not eating and drinking, but intellectual 
 and loving. 
 
 The lowest beings of the Creation eat and drink, 
 and that suffices them; man thinks, loves, devotes, 
 gives himself up, that I may give Myself to him, 
 and that he may find in Me, in the True, in the 
 Good, in the Beautiful, the aliment for his soul, 
 that through which he really lives. 
 
 "What remains? Yery little. Seek first My jus- 
 tice, and you shall receive the little in addition. 
 
 Woe unto him who wanders in the bottom of the 
 valley, on the borders of the standing waters! The 
 corn, destined to appease your hunger, grows not in 
 the mire: I have sown on the high places the 
 grain which shall nourish you.
 
 WE WALK IN DAKKNESS. 177 
 
 III. 
 
 WE WALK IN DARKNESS. 
 
 THAT which thine eyes behold, that which thine 
 hands touch, are mere shadows, and the sound, 
 which strikes thine ear, is but a rough echo of the 
 voice internal and mysterious, which worships, and 
 prays, and groans in the womb of creation. 
 
 For every creature is groaning, every creature is 
 in the travail of childbed, and struggling for birth 
 into true life, for passage from darkness to light, 
 from the region of shadows to that of realities. 
 
 That sun, so brilliant, so beautiful, is but the 
 garment, the uncertain emblem of the true sun, 
 which illumines and warms the soul. 
 
 That earth, so rich, so green, is but the winding- 
 sheet of nature: for nature, fallen into decay also, 
 has gone down to the tomb like man, but like him 
 she will come forth. 
 
 In this heavy wrapping of 'flesh, you resemble a 
 traveler, who at night in his tent sees, or thinks he 
 sees phantoms pass. 
 
 The real world is veiled from you. He who 
 retires wholly within himself, catches a glimpse of 
 12
 
 178 
 
 it as from afar. Secret powers, which slumber in 
 him, awake for a moment, lift a corner of the veil 
 which time holds in his shriveled hand, and the eye 
 turned inward is ravished by the wonders it beholds. 
 
 You are sitting on the shore of the ocean of 
 being, but you cannot penetrate its depths. You 
 walk in the evening beside the sea, and you see but 
 a little foam, cast upon the strand by the surge. 
 
 With what shall I compare you further? 
 
 You are like the child in the womb of its mother, 
 awaiting the hour of birth; like the winged insect 
 in the worm that creeps, eager for the moment to 
 come out from this earthly prison to take wing for 
 Heaven. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 THE CHUKCH-YAKD. 
 
 AT the hour when the East commences to grow 
 dusky, when all sounds die away, he trod slowly, 
 beside the ripening fields, the solitary path. 
 
 The bee had returned to its hive, the bird to its 
 nightly perch; the leaves slumbered motionless 
 upon their stems; a sad, sweet silence enwrapped 
 the drowsy earth.
 
 THE CHUECH-YARD. 179 
 
 A single voice, the distant voice of the village 
 church- bell, vibrated through the calm air. 
 
 It said: Kemember the dead. 
 
 And, as if fascinated by his dreams, it seemed to 
 him that the voice of the dead, weak and uncertain, 
 mingled with that voice in the air. 
 
 Do you return to visit the places where your 
 rapid journey was completed, to seek there soiivenirs 
 of griefs and joys which so quickly passed? 
 
 Like the smoke, which rises from our thatched 
 roof and suddenly disappears, so you have vanished. 
 
 Your tombstones are becoming moss-grown be- 
 neath the yew-tree in yonder grave-yard. "When 
 the dewy zephyrs whisper in the high grass, one 
 might call it the sighing of spirits. Spouses of 
 death, is it you who tremble upon your mysterious 
 bed? 
 
 Now, you are at peace: no more cares, no more 
 tears; now for you shine stars more brilliant; a 
 sun more radiant floods with his splendors plains, 
 ethereal seas and boundless horizons. 
 
 Oh, tell me of the mysteries of that world which 
 my longings foreshadow, into the midst of which 
 my soul, wearied by the shadows of earth, yearns 
 to lose itself. Tell me of Him who made it and
 
 ISO 
 
 occupies it, and alone is able to fill the vast empti-. 
 ness which He has left in rue. 
 
 Brothers, after waiting, consoled by faith, your 
 hour is come. Mine also will come, and others, 
 in their turn, their day of labor finished, re-enter- 
 ing their wretched huts, will give ear to the voice 
 that says: Remember the dead. 
 
 LIT. 
 
 THE EXILE. 
 
 HE went about, wandering over the earth. Ee 
 Thou, oh God, the guide of the poor exile! 
 
 I have passed among the different nations, and 
 they have looked at me, and I have looked at them, 
 and we have not recognized one another. The exile 
 is everywhere alone. 
 
 "When, at the decline of day, I saw the smoke 
 arise from a hut in the depth of the valley, I said 
 to myself: Happy the man who, at night, returns 
 to the domestic fireside, and sits down there in the 
 midst of his family. The exile is everywhere alone. 
 
 Whither go those clouds, which the storm drives 
 onward? It drives me onward like them, and what 
 do I care whither? The exile is everywhere alone.
 
 THE EXILE. 181 
 
 These trees are beautiful, these flowers are beau- 
 tiful; but they are not the flowers and trees of my 
 country: they say nothing to me. The exile is 
 everywhere alone. 
 
 This brooklet runs smoothly through the plain; 
 but its purling is not that, to which the ear of my 
 childhood listened : it calls back to my soul not one 
 reminiscence. The exile is everywhere alone. 
 
 Those songs are sweet; but the melancholy and 
 the gladness which they awake, are neither my 
 melancholy, nor my gladness. The exile is every- 
 where alone. 
 
 They have asked me: Why do you weep? and 
 when I told them the reason, none has wept with 
 me, because none understood me. The exile is 
 everywhere alone. 
 
 I have seen aged men, surrounded with children, 
 like the olive-tree with its shoots ; but not one of those 
 aged men called me son, not one of those children 
 called me brother. The exile is everywhere alone. 
 
 I have seen young maidens smile with a smile, 
 as pure as the breeze of morning, on him, whom 
 their love had chosen for a spouse; but not one has 
 smiled on me. The exile is everywhere alone. 
 
 I have seen young men embrace breast to breast,
 
 182 
 
 as if of two lives they would make but one; but not 
 one has shaken hands with me. The exile is every- 
 where alone. 
 
 There are no friends, no wives, no fathers, no 
 brothers, but in one's native country. The exile is 
 everywhere alone. 
 
 Poor exile! cease thy lamentations; all are ban- 
 ished like thyself: all see pass away and vanish fa- 
 thers, brothers, wives and friends. 
 
 Our fatherland is not here below; man seeks it 
 here in vain; what he calls so, is only a resting- 
 place for the night. 
 
 He goes about, wandering over the earth. Be 
 Thou, oh God, the guide of the poor exile! 
 
 LY. 
 
 THE TKINTTY. 
 
 AND the fatherland was shown unto me. 
 
 I was borne away beyond the region of shadows, 
 and I saw time carry them off with indescribable 
 swiftness through the void, as one sees the breeze 
 from the South carry away the light vapors which 
 creep in the distance over the plain. 
 
 And I ascended, higher and still more high; and
 
 THE TRINITY. . 183 
 
 realities, invisible to the eye of flesh, became visible 
 to me, and in that world of phantoms I heard 
 sounds which have no echo. 
 
 And what I heard, what I beheld, was so real, 
 my soul laid hold of it with such vigor, that it 
 seemed to me as if all, I formerly thought I had 
 seen and heard, was but a vague dream of the night. 
 
 What shall I declare then unto the children of 
 night, and what are they able to understand ? And 
 from the heights of eternal day, am I not also 
 fallen back with them into the bosom of night, 
 into the region of time and of shadows? 
 
 I saw, as it were, an ocean, moveless, vast, infin- 
 ite; and within that ocean, three oceans: an ocean 
 of strength, an ocean of light, an ocean of life; 
 and these three oceans, penetrating one another 
 without mingling, formed but a single ocean, but 
 one unity, indivisible, absolute, eternal. 
 
 And that unity was He that is; and in the 
 midst of His being, a wondrous knot bound together 
 three Persons, who were named to me, and their 
 names ;were the Father, the Son, the Spirit; and 
 there was a generating mysterious, a breathing 
 mysterious, vigorous, fruitful; and the Father, the 
 Son, the Spirit, were He that is.
 
 184: 
 
 And the Father appeared to me as a Power which, 
 within the Being Infinite, one with it, has but a 
 single function, lasting, perfect, without limit, which 
 is the Infinite Being Himself. 
 
 And the Son appeared to me as a "Word, lasting, 
 perfect, without limit, which proclaims the works 
 of the power of the Father, that which He is, that 
 which is the Being Infinite. 
 
 And the Spirit appeared to me as the Love, the 
 effusion, the mutual aspiration of the Father and 
 of the Son, animating them with a common life, 
 animating with a life lasting, perfect, without limit, 
 the Infinite Being. 
 
 And these three were One, and these three were 
 God, and they embraced one another and were 
 united in the impenetrable sanctuary of the one 
 substance; and that union, that embrace, were, in 
 the bosom of immensity, the eternal joy, the eter- 
 nal felicity of Him that is. 
 
 And in the midst of that infinite ocean of being, 
 creation swum and floated and expanded itself; like 
 an island that should constantly expand its coasts 
 in a sea without shore. 
 
 It expanded like a flower which takes root in the 
 water, and extends its long stems and its petals on 
 the surface.
 
 THE TRINITY. 185 
 
 And I beheld the beings link themselves to other 
 beings, and reproduce and develop themselves in 
 their numberless variety, drinking in plentifully, 
 nourishing themselves with a sap which never dries 
 up, with the strength, with the light and with the 
 life of Him that is. 
 
 And all that had been hidden from me until then, 
 was unveiled to rny gaze, which was no longer 
 obstructed by the material envelope of existence. 
 
 Liberated from earthly clogs, I went from world 
 to world, as here below the mind flies from thought 
 to thought; and after having been plunged, lost in 
 those wonders of the Power, of the Wisdom and of 
 the love, I plunged, I lost myself in the very foun- 
 tain of Love, of "Wisdom and of Power. 
 
 And I understood what is the fatherland; and I 
 was intoxicated with light, and my soul, enraptured 
 with strains of harmony, sank to sleep on the celes- 
 tial waves, in an indescribable ecstasy. 
 
 And then I beheld Christ on the right hand of 
 His father, radiant with a glory immortal. 
 
 And I beheld Him also like a mystic lamb, sacri- 
 ficed upon an altar; myriads of angels and the men, 
 redeemed by His blood, surrounded Him, and sing- 
 ing His praises, they rendered thanks unto Him in 
 the language of heaven.
 
 186 
 
 And a drop of blood from the Lamb fell upon 
 nature faint and sick, and I saw her transfigured; 
 and all the creatures which she supports, throbbed 
 with new life, and all raised their voice, and that 
 voice said: 
 
 Holy, Holy, Holy, is He who hath destroyed 
 evil and conquered death. 
 
 And the Son rested in the bosom of the Father, 
 and the Spirit overspread them with His shadow, 
 and there was among them a mystery divine, and 
 the heavens in silence trembled. 
 
 THE DEAD. 
 
 They also have passed over this earth; they have 
 descended the river of time ; their voice was heard 
 on its banks, and then was heard no more. Where 
 are they? "Who can tell us? Happy the dead who 
 die in the Lord! 
 
 Whilst they were passing, a thousand vain 
 shadows presented themselves to their eyes; the
 
 THE DEAD. 187 
 
 world which Christ has accursed, displayed to them 
 its grandeurs, its riches, its pleasures; they beheld 
 it, and suddenly they beheld nothing but eternity. 
 Where are they? Who can tell us? Happy the 
 dead who die in the Lord! 
 
 Like a ray from on high, a cross, in the distance, 
 appeared to guide their course : but all did not look 
 upon it. Where are they? Who can tell us? 
 Happy the dead who die in the Lord! 
 
 Some among them said: What mean these waves 
 which bear us away? Is there anything after this 
 rapid voyage? We know not, no one knows. And 
 as they said this, the banks vanished. Where are 
 they? Who can tell us? Happy the dead who die 
 in the Lord! 
 
 Some also, in deep meditation, seemed to listen 
 to mysterious words; and then, with eye fixed .on 
 the west, they suddenly sang to an invisible aurora 
 and a day which never ends. Where are they? 
 Who can tell us? Happy the dead who die in the 
 Lord! *
 
 188 
 
 Carried away without distinction, young and old, 
 all disappeared as the ship, which the tempest drives 
 onward. It would be easier to count the sands of 
 the sea, than the number of those who hastened to 
 pass. "Where are they? Who can tell us? Happy 
 the dead who die in the Lord! 
 
 Those who saw them, have told that great sad- 
 ness was in their heart: agony heaved their chest, 
 and as if fatigued by the labor of living, raising 
 their eyes towards Heaven, they wept. Where are 
 they? Who can tell us? Happy the dead who die 
 in the Lord! 
 
 From the unknown places, where the river loses 
 itself, two voices arise incessantly: 
 
 The one says : From the depths I have cried unto 
 Thee, O Lord: Lord hear my voice. Let Thy 
 ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication. 
 If thou wilt observe iniquities, Lord: Lord, 
 who shall endure it? But with the Lord there is 
 mercy, and with Him plentiful redemption. 1 
 
 And the other: We 'praise Thee, God! We
 
 THE DEAD. 189 
 
 bless Thee: holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of 
 Hosts. Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory? 
 
 And we also, we shall go there, whence proceed 
 those lamentations or those songs of triumph. 
 Where shall we be? "Who can tell us? Happy 
 the dead who die in the Lord ! 
 
 (*) De profundis. 
 
 ( 2 ) Te Deum laudamus.
 
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