Temporal Power: A Study in Supremacy Part 38

"I could not love you less!" she replied slowly; "but I cannot think of you as quite the same!"

A shadow of pain darkened his face.

"Gloria," he said sadly; "If your love was as great as mine you would forgive!"

She stood a moment wavering and uncertain; their eyes were riveted on each other in a strange spiritual attraction--her soft lips were a little relaxed from their gravity as she steadfastly regarded him. She was embarra.s.sed, conscious, and very pale; but he drank in gratefully the wonder and shy wors.h.i.+p of those pure eyes,--and waited. Suddenly she sprang to him and closed her arms about his neck, kissing him with simple and loving tenderness.

"I do forgive! Oh, I do forgive!" she murmured; "Because I love you, my darling--because I love you! Whatever you wish I will do for your love's sake--believe me!--but I am frightened just now!--it is as if I did not know you--as if someone had taken you suddenly a long way off! Give me a little time to recover my courage!--and to know"--here a faint smile trembled on her beautiful curved mouth--"to know,--and to _feel_,--that you are still my own!--even though the world may try to part you from me!--still my very own!"

The warmth of pa.s.sionate feeling in her face flushed it into a rose-glow that spread from chin to brow,--and clasping her to his breast, he gave her the speechless answer that love inscribes on eyes and lips,--then, keeping his arm tenderly about her, he led her gently into the path through the pinewood, which wound down to their favourite haunt by the sea.

The moonlight had now increased in brilliancy, and illumined the landscape with all the opulence, splendour and superabundance of radiance common to the south,--the air was soft and balmy, and one great white cloud floating lazily under the silver orb, moved slowly to the centre of the heavens,--the violet-blue of night falling around it like an imperial robe of state. The two youthful figures pa.s.sed under the pine-boughs, which closed over them odorously in dark arches of shadow, and wended their slow way down to the seash.o.r.e, from whence they could see the Royal yacht lying at anchor, every tapering line of her fair proportions distinctly outlined against the sky, and all her masts s.h.i.+ning as if they had been washed with silver dew; and the Heir-Apparent to a throne was,--for once in the history of Heir-Apparents,--happy--happy in knowing that he was loved as princes seldom or never are loved,--not for his power, not for his rank, but simply for himself alone, by one of the most beautiful women in the world, who,--if she knew neither the ways of a Court, nor the wiles of fas.h.i.+on,--had something better than either of these,--the sanct.i.ty of truth and the strength of innocence.

Rene Ronsard, coming back from his pleasurable duties as host and chairman to his fishermen-friends, found the cottage deserted, and smiled, as he sat himself down in the porch to smoke, and to wait for the lover's return.

"What a thing it is to be young!" he sighed, as he gazed meditatively at the still beauty of the night around him;--"To be young,--and in love with the right person! Hours go like moments--the gra.s.s is never damp--the air is never cold--there is never time enough to give all the kisses that are waiting to be given; and life is so beautiful, that we are almost able to understand why G.o.d created the universe! The rapture pa.s.ses very quickly, unfortunately--with some people;--but if I ever prayed for anything--which I do not--I should pray that it might remain with Gloria! It surely cannot offend the Supreme Being who is responsible for our existence, to see one woman happy out of all the tortured millions of them! One exception to the universal rule would not make much difference! The law that the strong should prey on the weak, nearly always prevails,--but it is possible to hope and believe that on rare occasions the strong may be magnanimous!"

He smoked on placidly, considering various points of philosophic meditation, and by and by fell into a gentle doze. The doze deepened into a dream which grew sombre and terrible,--and in it he thought he saw himself standing bareheaded on a raised platform above surging millions of people who all shouted with one terrific uproar of unison--"Regicide! Regicide!" He looked down upon his hands, and saw them red with blood!--he looked up to the heavens, and they were flushed with the same ominous hue. Blood!--blood!--the blood of kings,--the dust of thrones!--and he, the cause! Choked and tormented with a parching thirst, it seemed in the dream that he tried to speak,--and with all his force he cried out--"For her sake I did it! For her sake!" But the clamour of the crowd drowned his voice,--and then it was as if the coldness of death crept slowly over him,--slowly and cruelly, as though his whole body were being enclosed within an iceberg,--and he saw Gloria, the child of his love and care, laid out before him dead,--but robed and crowned like a queen, and placed on a great golden bier of state, with purple velvet falling about her, and tall candles blazing at her head and feet. And voices sang in his ears--"Gloria! Gloria in excelsis Deo!"--mingling with the m.u.f.fled chanting of priests at some distant altar; and he thought he made an attempt to touch the royal velvet pall that draped her beautiful lifeless body, when he was roughly thrust back by armed men with swords and bayonets who asked him "What do you here? Are you not her murderer?"--and he cried out wildly "No, no!

Never could I have harmed the child of my love! Never could I hurt a hair of her head, or cause her an hour's sorrow! She is all I had in the world!--I loved her!--I loved her! Let me see her!--let me touch her!--let me kiss her once again!" And then the scene suddenly changed,--and it was found that Gloria was not dead at all, but walking peacefully alone in a garden of flowers, with lilies crowning her, and all the suns.h.i.+ne about her; and that the golden bier of state had changed into a s.h.i.+p at sea which was floating, floating westward bearing some great message to a far country, and that all was well for him and his darling. The troubled vision cleared from his brain, and his sleep grew calmer; he breathed more easily, and flitting glimpses of fair scenes pa.s.sed before his dreaming eyes,--scenes in some peaceful and beautiful world, where never a shadow of sorrow or trouble darkened the quiet contentment of happy and innocent lives. He smiled in his sleep, and heaved a deep sigh of pleasure,--and so, gently awoke, to feel a light touch on his shoulder, and to see Gloria standing before him. A smile was on her face,--the fragrance of the woodlands and the sea clung about her garments,--she held a few roses in her hand, and there was something in her whole appearance that struck him as new, commanding, and more than ever beautiful.

"You have returned alone?" he said wonderingly.

"Yes. I have returned alone! I have much to tell you, dear! Let us go in!"

CHAPTER XIX

OF THE CORRUPTION OF THE STATE

The large gaunt building, which was dignified by the name of the 'People's a.s.sembly Rooms,' stood in a dim unfas.h.i.+onable square of the city which had once been entirely devoted to warehouses and storage cellars. It had originally served a useful purpose in providing temporary shelter for foreign-made furniture, which was badly constructed and intrinsically worthless,--but which, being cheaply imported and showy in appearance, was patronized by some of the upper middle-cla.s.ses in preference to goods of their own home workmans.h.i.+p.

Lately, however, the foreign import had fallen to almost less than nothing; and whether or no this was due to the secret machinations of Sergius Thord and his Revolutionary Committee, no one would have had the hardihood to a.s.sert. Foreign tradesmen, however, and foreign workmen generally had certainly experienced a check in their inroads upon home manufactures, and some of the larger business firms had been so successfully intimidated as to set up prominent announcements outside their warehouses to the effect that "Only native workmen need apply."

Partly in consequence of the "slump" in foreign goods, the "a.s.sembly Rooms," as a mere building had for some time been shut up, and given over to dust and decay, till the owners of the property decided to let it out for popular concerts, meetings and dances, and so make some little money out of its bare whitewashed walls and comfortless ugliness.

The plan had succeeded fairly well, and the place was beginning to be known as a convenient centre where thousands were wont to congregate, to enjoy cheap music and cheap entertainment generally. It was a favourite vantage ground for the disaffected and radical cla.s.ses of the metropolis to hold forth on their wrongs, real or imaginary,--and the capacities of the largest room or hall in the building were put to their utmost extent to hold the enormous audiences that always a.s.sembled to hear the picturesque, pa.s.sionate and striking oratory of Sergius Thord.

But there were one or two rare occasions when even Sergius Thord's attractions as a speaker were thrown into the background, by the appearance of that mysterious personality known as Lotys,--concerning whom a thousand extravagant stories were rife, none of which were true.

It was rumoured among other things as wild and strange, that she was the illegitimate child of a certain great prince, whose amours were legion--that she had been thrown out into the street to perish, deserted as an infant, and that Sergius Thord had rescued her from that impending fate of starvation and death,--and that it was by way of vengeance for the treatment of her mother by the Exalted Personage involved, that she had thrown in her lot with the Revolutionary party, to aid their propaganda by her intellectual gifts, which were many. She was known to be very poor,--she lived in cheap rooms in a low quarter of the city; she was seldom or never seen in the public thoroughfares,--she appeared to have no women friends, and she certainly mixed in no form of social intercourse or entertainment. Yet her name was on the lips of the million, and her influence was felt far beyond the city's radius.

Even among some of the highest and wealthiest cla.s.ses of society this peculiar appellation of "Lotys," carrying no surname with it, and spoken at haphazard had the effect of causing a sudden silence, and the interchange of questioning looks among those who heard it, and who, without knowing who she was, or what her aims in life really were, voted her "dangerous." Those among the superior cla.s.ses who had by rare chance seen her, were unanimous in their verdict that she was not beautiful,--"but!"--and the "but" spoke volumes. She was known to possess something much less common, and far more potent than beauty,--and that was a fascinating, compelling spiritual force, which magnetised into strange submission all who came within its influence,--and many there were who admitted, though with bated breath that 'An' if she chose' she could easily become a very great personage indeed.

She herself was, or seemed to be, perfectly unconscious of the many discussions concerning her and her origin. She had her own secret sorrows,--her sad private history, which she shut close within her own breast,--but out of many griefs and poverty-stricken days of struggle and cruel environment, she had educated herself to a wonderful height of moral self-control and almost stoical rect.i.tude. Her nature was a broad and grand one, absolutely devoid of pettiness, and full of a strong, almost pa.s.sionate sympathy with the wrongs of others,--and she had formed herself on such firm, heroic lines of courage and truth and self-respect, that the meaner vices of her s.e.x were absolutely unknown to her. Neither vanity, nor envy, nor malice, nor spleen disturbed the calmly-flowing current of her blood,--her soul was absorbed in pity for human kind, and contemplation of its many woes,--and so living alone, and studiously apart from the more frivolous world, she had attained a finely tempered and deeply thoughtful disposition which gave her equally the courage of the hero and the resignation of the martyr. She had long put away out of her life all possibility of happiness for herself. She had, by her unwearying study of the ma.s.ses of working, suffering men and women, come to the sorrowful conclusion that real happiness could only be enjoyed by the extremely young, and the extremely thoughtless,--and that love was only another name for the selfish and often cruel and destructive instincts of animal desire. She did not resent these ugly facts, or pa.s.sionately proclaim against the gloomy results of life such as were daily displayed to her,--she was only filled with a profound and ceaseless compa.s.sion for the evils which were impossible to cure.

Her tireless love for the sick, the feeble, the despairing, the broken-hearted and the dying, had raised her to the height of an angel's quality among the very desperately poor and criminal cla.s.ses;--the fiercest ruffians of the slums were docile in her presence and obedient to her command;--and many a bold plan of robbery,--many a wicked scheme of murder had been altogether foregone and abandoned through the intervention of Lotys, whose intellectual ac.u.men, swift to perceive the savage instinct, or motive for crime, was equally swift to point out its uselessness as a means of satisfying vengeance. No preacher could persuade a thief of the practical ingloriousness of thieving, as Lotys could,--and a prison chaplain, remonstrating with an a.s.sa.s.sin after his crime, was not half as much use to the State as Lotys, who could induce such an one to resign his murderous intent altogether, before he had so much as possessed himself of the necessary weapon. Thousands of people were absolutely under her moral dominion,--and the power she exercised over them was so great, and yet so un.o.btrusive, that had she bidden the whole city rise in revolt, she would most surely have been obeyed by the larger and fiercer half of its population.

With the moneyed cla.s.ses she had nothing in common, though she viewed them with perhaps more pity than she did the very poor. An overplus of cash in any one person's possession that had not been rightfully earned by the work of brain or body, was to her an incongruity, and a defection from the laws of the universe;--show and ostentation she despised,--and though she loved beautiful things, she found them,--as she herself said,--much more in the everyday provisions of nature, than in the elaborate designs of art. When she pa.s.sed the gay shops in the princ.i.p.al thoroughfares she never paused to look in at the jewellers'

windows,--but she would linger for many minutes studying the beauty of the sprays of orchids and other delicate blossoms, arranged in baskets and vases by the leading florists; while,--best delight of all to her, was a solitary walk inland among the woods, where she could gather violets and narcissi, and, as she expressed it 'feel them growing about her feet.' She would have been an extraordinary personality as a man,--as a woman she was doubly remarkable, for to a woman's gentleness she added a force of will and brain which are not often found even in the stronger s.e.x.

Mysterious as she was in her life and surroundings, enough was known of her by the people at large, to bring a goodly concourse of them to the a.s.sembly Rooms on the night when she was announced to speak on a subject of which the very t.i.tle seemed questionable, namely, "On the Corruption of the State." The police had been notified of the impending meeting, and a few stalwart emissaries of the law in plain clothes mixed with the in-pouring throng. The crowd, however, was very orderly;--there was no pus.h.i.+ng, no roughness, and no coa.r.s.e language. All the members of Sergius Thord's Revolutionary Committee were present, but they came as stragglers, several and apart,--and among them Paul Zouche the poet, was perhaps the most noticeable. He had affected the picturesque in his appearance;--his hat was of the Rembrandt character, and he had donned a very much worn, short velveteen jacket, whose dusty brown was relieved by the vivid touch of a bright red tie. His hair was wild and bushy, and his eyes sparkled with unwonted brilliancy, as he nodded to one or two of his a.s.sociates, and gave a careless wave of the hand to Sergius Thord, who, entering slowly, and as if with reluctance, took a seat at the very furthest end of the hall, where his ma.s.sive figure showed least conspicuous among the surging throng. Keeping his head down in a pensive att.i.tude of thought, his eyes were, nevertheless, sharp to see every person entering who belonged to his own particular following,--and a ray of satisfaction lighted up his face, as he perceived his latest new a.s.sociate, Pasquin Leroy, quietly edge his way through the crowd, and secure a seat in one of the obscurest and darkest corners of the badly lighted hall. He was followed by his comrades, Max Graub and Axel Regor,--and Thord felt a warm glow of contentment in the consciousness that these lately enrolled members of the Revolutionary Committee were so far faithful to their bond. Signed and sealed in the blood of Lotys, they had responded to the magnetism of her name with the prompt obedience of waves rising to the influence of the moon,--and Sergius, full of a thousand wild schemes for the regeneration of the People, was more happy to know them as subjects to her power, than as adherents to his own cause. He was calmly cognisant of the presence of General Bernhoff, the well-known Chief of Police;--though he was rendered a trifle uneasy by observing that personage had seated himself as closely as possible to the bench occupied by Leroy and his companions. A faint wonder crossed his mind as to whether the three, in their zeal for the new Cause they had taken up, had by any means laid themselves open to suspicion; but he was not a man given to fears; and he felt convinced in his own mind, from the close personal observation he had taken of Leroy, and from the boldness of his speech on his enrolment as a member of the Revolutionary Committee, that, whatever else he might prove to be, he was certainly no coward.

The hall filled quickly, till by and by it would have been impossible to find standing room for a child. A student of human nature is never long in finding out the dominant characteristic of an audience,--whether its att.i.tude be profane or reverent, rowdy or attentive, and the bearing of the four or five thousand here a.s.sembled was remarkable chiefly for its seriousness and evident intensity of purpose. The extreme orderliness of the manner in which the people found and took their seats,--the entire absence of all fussy movement, fidgeting, staring, querulous changing of places, whispering or laughter, showed that the crowd were there for a deeper purpose than mere curiosity. The bulk of the a.s.semblage was composed of men; very few women were present, and these few were all of the poor and hard-working cla.s.ses. No female of even the lower middle ranks of life, with any faint pretence to 'fas.h.i.+on,' would have been seen listening to "that dreadful woman,"--as Lotys was very often called by her own s.e.x,--simply because of the extraordinary fascination she secretly exercised over men. Pasquin Leroy and his companions spoke now and then, guardedly, and in low whispers, concerning the appearance and demeanour of the crowd, Max Graub being particularly struck by the general physiognomy and type of the people present.

"Plenty of good heads!" he said cautiously. "There are thinkers here--and thinkers are a very dangerous cla.s.s!"

"There are many people who 'think' all their lives and 'do' nothing!"

said Axel Regor languidly.

"True, my friend! But their thought may lead, while, they themselves remain pa.s.sive," joined in Pasquin Leroy sotto-voce;--"It is not at all impossible that if Lotys bade these five thousand here a.s.sembled burn down the citadel, it would be done before daybreak!"

"I have no doubt at all of that," said Graub. "One cannot forget that the Bastille was taken while the poor King Louis XVI. was enjoying a supper-party and 'a little orange-flower-water refreshment' at Versailles!"

Leroy made an imperative sign of silence, for there was a faint stir and subdued hum of expectation in the crowd. Another moment,--and Lotys stepped quietly and alone on the bare platform. As she confronted her audience, a low pa.s.sionate sound, like the murmur of a rising storm, greeted her,--a sound that was not anything like the customary applause or encouragement offered to a public speaker, but that suggested extraordinary satisfaction and expectancy, which almost bordered on exultation. Pasquin Leroy, raising his eyes as she entered, was startled by an altogether new impression of her to that which he had received on the night he first saw her. Her personality was somehow different--her appearance more striking, brilliant and commanding. Attired in the same plain garment of dead white serge in which he had previously seen her, with the same deep blood-red scarf crossing her left shoulder and breast,--there was something to-night in this mere costume that seemed emblematic of a far deeper power than he had been at first inclined to give her. A curious sensation began to affect his nerves,--a sudden and overwhelming attraction, as though his very soul were being drawn out of him by the calm irresistible dominance of those slumbrous dark-blue iris-coloured eyes, which had the merit of appearing neither brilliant nor remarkable as eyes merely, but which held in their luminous depths that intellectual command which represents the active and pa.s.sionate life of the brain, beside which all other life is poor and colourless.

These eyes appeared to rest upon him now from under their drooping sleepy white eyelids with an inexpressible tenderness and fascination, and he was suddenly reminded of Heinrich Heine's quaint love-fancy; "Behind her dreaming eyelids the sun has gone to rest; when she opens her eyes it will be day, and the birds will be heard singing!" He began to realise depths in his own nature which he had till now been almost unconscious of; he knew himself to a certain extent, but by no means thoroughly; and awakening as he was to the fact that other lives around him presented strange riddles for consideration, he wondered whether after all, his own life might not perhaps prove one of the most complex among human conundrums? He had often meditated on the inaccessibility of ideal virtues, the uselessness of persuasion, the commonplace absurdity, as he had thought, of trying to embody any lofty spiritual dream,--yet he was himself a man in whom spiritual forces were so strong that he was personally unaware of their overflow, because they were as much a part of him as his breathing capacity. True, he had never consciously tested them, but they were existent in him nevertheless.

He watched Lotys now, with an irritable, restless attention,--there was a thrill of vague expectation in his soul as of new things to be done,--changes to be made in the complex machinery of human nature,--and a great wonder, as well as a great calm, fell upon him as the first clear steady tones of her voice chimed through the deep hush which had prepared the way for her first words. Her voice was a remarkable one, vibrant, yet gentle,--ringing out forcefully, yet perfectly sweet. She began very simply,--without any attempt at a majestic choice of words, or an impressive flow of oratory. She faced her audience quietly,--one bare rounded arm resting easily on a small uncovered deal table in front of her;--she had no 'notes' but her words were plainly the result of deliberate and careful thinking-out of certain problems needful to be brought before the notice of the people. Her face was colourless,--the dead gold hair rippling thickly away in loose cl.u.s.ters from the white brows, fell into their accustomed serpentine twisted knot at the nape of her neck; and the scarlet sash she wore, alone relieved the statuesque white folds of her draperies; but as she spoke, something altogether superphysical seemed to exhale from her as heat exhales from fire--a strange essence of overpowering and compelling sweetness stole into the heavy heated air, and gave to the commonplace surroundings and the poorly clothed crowd of people an atmosphere of sacredness and beauty.

This influence deepened steadily under the rhythmic cadence of her voice, till every agitated soul, every resentful and troubled heart in the throng was conscious of a sudden ingathering of force and calm, of self-respect and self-reliance. The gist of her intention was plainly to set people thinking for themselves, and in this there could be no manner of doubt but that she succeeded. Of the 'Corruption of the State' she spoke as a thing thoroughly recognised by the ma.s.ses.

"We know,--all of us,"--she said, in the concluding portion of her address, "that we have Ministers who personally care nothing for the prosperity or welfare of the country. We know--all of us,--that we have a bribed Press; whose business it is to say nothing that shall run counter to Ministerial views. We know,--all of us,--that it is this bribed Ministerial press which leads the ignorant, (who are not behind the scenes,) to wrong and false conclusions;--and that it is solely upon these wrong and false conclusions of the wilfully misled million, that the Ministry itself rests for support. On one side the Press is manipulated by the Jews; on the other by the Jesuits. There is no journal in this country that will, or dare, publish the true reflex of popular opinion. Therefore the word 'free' cannot be applied to that recording-force of nations which we call Journalism; inasmuch as it is now a merely purchased Chattle. We should remember, when we read 'opinions of the Press,'--on any great movement or important change in policy, that we are merely accepting the opinions of the bound and paid Slave of Capitalists;--and we should take care to form our judgment for ourselves, rather than from the Capitalist point of view. Were there a strong man to lead,--the s.h.i.+ftiness, treachery, and deliberate neglect practised on the million by those who are now in office, could not possibly last;--but where there is no strength, there must be weakness,--and where a long career of deceit has been followed, instead of a course of plain dealing, failure in the end is inevitable.

With failure comes disaster; and often something which augments disaster--Revolt. The people, weary of constant imposition,--of incessant delays of the justice due to them,--as well as the unscrupulous breaking of promises solemnly pledged,--will--in the long run, take their own way, as they have done before in history, of securing instant amelioration of those wrongs which their paid rulers fail to redress. Who will dare to say that, under such circ.u.mstances, it is ill for the people to act? Sometimes it is a greater Consciousness than their own that moves them; and the wronged and half-forgotten Cause of all worlds makes His command known through His creatures, who obey His impulse,--even as the atoms gathering in s.p.a.ce cl.u.s.ter at His will into solar systems, and bring forth their burden of life!"

She paused, and leaning forward a little, her eyes poured out their flas.h.i.+ng searchlight as it seemed into the very souls of her hearers.

"Dear friends!--dear children!" she said, and in her tone there was the tenderness of a great compa.s.sion, almost bordering on tears,--"What is it, think you all, that makes the age in which we live so sad, so colourless, so restless and devoid of hope and peace? It is not that we are the inhabitants of a less wonderful or less beautiful world,--it is not as if the sun had ceased to s.h.i.+ne, or the birds had forgotten how to sing! Triumphs of science,--triumphs of learning and discovery, these are all on the increase for our help and furtherance. With so much gain in evident advancement, what is it we have lost?--what is it we miss?--whence come the dreariness and emptiness and satiety,--the intolerable sense of the futility of life, even when life has most to offer? Dear children, you are all so sad!--many of you so broken-hearted!--why is it?--how is it? Poverty alone is not the cause,--for it is quite possible to be poor, yet happy! True enough it is that in these days you are ground down by the imposition of taxes, which try all the strength of your earnings to pay; but even this is an evil you could mitigate for yourselves, by strong and united public protest. How is it that you do not realise your own strength? You are not like the poor brutes of the field and forest, who lack the reason which would show them how superior in physical force alone they are to the insignificant biped who commands them. Could the ox understand his own strength, he would never be led to the slaughter-house;--he and his kind would become a terror instead of a provision. You are not oxen,--yet often you are as patient, as dull, as blind and reasonless as they! You form clubs, societies, and trades-unions;--but in how many cases do you not enter upon small and querulous differences which so weaken your unity that presently it falls to pieces and has no more power in it? This is what your tyrants in trade rely on and hope for; the constant recurrence of quarrels and dissensions among yourselves.

No Society lasts which tolerates conflicting argument or differing sentiments in itself. Why is it that the Jesuits,--whom you are all unanimous in hating,--are still the strongest political Brotherhood on the face of the earth? Because they are bound to maintain in every particular the tenets of their Order. No matter how vile, or how reprehensibly false their theories, they are compelled to carry on the work and propaganda of their Union, despite all loss and sacrifice to themselves. This is the secret of their force. Expelled from one land, they take root in another. Suppressed entirely by Pope Clement XIV., in 1773, they virtually ignored suppression, and took up their headquarters in Russia. The influence they exerted there still lies on the serf population, like one of the many chains fastened to a Siberian exile's body. Yet they were driven from Russia in 1820,--from Holland in 1816,--from Switzerland in 1847, and from Germany in 1872. Latterly they have been expelled from France. Nevertheless, in spite of these numerous expulsions, and the universal odium in which they are held,--they still flourish; still are they able to maintain their twenty-two generals and their four Vicars;--and still all countries have, in their turn, to deal with their impending or fulfilled invasion. Why is it that a Society so criminal in historic annals, should yet remain as a force in our advanced era of civilization? Simply, because it is of One Mind! Bent on evil, or good,--self-renunciation or self-aggrandis.e.m.e.nt,--it is still of One Mind! Friends,--were you like them, also of One Mind, your injuries, your oppressions, your taxations would not last long! The remedy for all is easy, and rests with yourselves,--only yourselves! But some of you have lost heart--and other some have lost patience. You look round upon the squalid corners of this great city--you shudder at the cruelty of the daily life with which you have to contend,--you enter poor rooms, which you are compelled to call 'home,' where the sick and dying, the newly-born and the dead are huddled all together,--ten, and sometimes fifteen in one small den of four whitewashed walls;--and sickened and tired, you cry out 'Is life worth no more than this? Is G.o.d's scheme for the human race no more than this? Then why were we born at all? Or, being born, why may we not die at once, self-slain?' Ah, yes, dear friends!--you often feel like this; we all of us often feel like this! But--it is not G.o.d who has made life thus hard for you,--it is yourselves! It is you who consent to be down-trodden,--it is you who resign your freewill, your thought, your originality of character, into the dominating power of others. True,--wealth controls affairs to a vast extent nowadays,--but there is a stronger power than wealth, and that is Soul! It is not the possession of gold that has given the greatest men their position. This is a commercial age, we own,--and certainly,--because of the base and degrading love of acc.u.mulation,--Intellectuality is for the moment often set aside as something valueless--but whenever Intellectuality truly a.s.serts itself, there is at once made visible an acting force of the Divine, which is practically limitless and irresistible. Think for yourselves, friends!--do not let a hired Press think for you! Think for yourselves--judge for yourselves, and act for yourselves! By your observation of a statesman's life, you shall know his capabilities. If he has once been a turncoat, he will be a turncoat again. If he has been known to speculate privately in a forthcoming political crisis, which he alone knows of in advance----"

Here the speaker was interrupted by what sounded more like a snarl than a shout. "Perousse! Perousse!"

The name was hissed out, and tossed from one rank to another of the audience, and one or two of the police present glanced enquiringly towards Bernhoff their chief,--but he sat with folded arms and inscrutable demeanour, making no sign. Lotys raised her small, beautifully-shaped white hand to enjoin silence. She was obeyed instantly.

"I speak of no one man," she said with deliberate emphasis; "I accuse no one man,--or any man! I say 'if' any man gambles with State policy, he is a traitor to the country! But such gambling is not a novelty in the history of nations. It has been practised over and over again. Only mark you all this one G.o.d's truth!--that whenever it _has_ occurred--whenever the rulers of a State _are_ corrupt,--whenever society sinks into such moral defilement that it sees nothing better, nothing higher than the love of money,--then comes the downfall!--then Ruin and Anarchy set up their dominion,--and Heaven's rage rolls out upon the offenders, till their offence be cleansed away in rivers of blood and tears!"

She waited a moment,--and changing her att.i.tude, seemed as it were, to project her thought into her audience, by the sudden pa.s.sion of her commanding gesture, and the flash of her deep luminous eyes.

"We have heard of the Great Renunciation!" she said; "How G.o.d Himself took human form, and came to this low little earth to prove how n.o.bly we should live and die! But in our day,--we with our preachers and teachers, our press and our parliamentary orators,--our atheistical statesmen on all hands, have come upon the Great Obliteration!--the Obliteration of G.o.d altogether in our ways of life! We push Him out, as if He were not. He is not in our Churches--He is not in our Laws--He is not in our Commerce. Only when we are brought low by pain and sickness--when we are confronted by death itself--then we call out 'G.o.d!

G.o.d!' like cowards, praying for help from the Power we have negatived all our lives! Here is the evil, O children all!--we have forgotten Our Father! We arrange all our affairs in life without giving Him a thought!

Our pleasures, our gains, our advantages,--are calculated without consulting His good pleasure. He is last, or not at all,--when He should be first, and in everything! The end of this is misery;--it must be so; it cannot by law be anything else. For what is G.o.d? Who is G.o.d? G.o.d is a name merely,--but we give it to that Unseen, but ever working Force which rules the Universe! The coldest atheist that ever breathed must own that somehow,--by some means or other,--the Universe _is_ ruled,--for if it were not, we should know nothing of it. Therefore, when we set aside, or leave out the consciousness and acknowledgment of the Ruler, the ruling of our affairs must, of necessity, go wrong!

"I cannot preach to you--I cannot out of my own conscience recommend to you one or the other form of faith as the way to peace and wisdom;--but I can and do Beseech you to remember the Note Dominant of this great Universe--the Note that sounds through high and low,--through small and great alike!--and that must and will in due course absorb all our discords into Everlasting Harmony! Try not to put this fact out of your lives,--that Justice and Order are the rule of the spheres; and that whenever we depart from these, even in the smallest contingency, confusion reigns. How hard it is to believe in Justice and Order, you will tell me,--when the poor are not treated with the same consideration as the rich,--and when money will buy place and position! True! It is hard to believe,--but it is believable nevertheless. As the lungs and the heart are the life of the human body, so are Justice and Order the life of the Universe,--and when these are pushed out of place, or become diseased in the composition of a human state or community, then the life of that state or community is threatened;--and unless remedies are quickly to hand, it must end. You all know the position of things among yourselves to-day;--you all know that there is no trust to be placed in Churches, Kings or Parliaments;--that the world is in a state of ferment and unrest,--moving towards Change;--change imminent--change, possibly, disastrous! And if it is You who know, it is likewise You who must seize the hour as it approaches!--seize it as you would seize a robber by the throat, and demand its business;--search its heart;--deprive it of its weapons;--and learn from it its message! A message it may be of wild alarm--of tearing up old conventions;--of thrusting forth old abuses; a message full of clamour and outcry--but whatever the uproar, doubt not that we shall hear the voice of the Forgotten G.o.d thundering in our ears at the close! We shall have found our way closer to Him--and with penitence and prayer, we shall ask to be forgiven for having wandered away from Him so long!

"And will He not pardon? Yes,--He will, because He must! To Him we owe our existence;--He alone is responsible for our life, our probation, our progress, our striving through many errors towards Perfection! He, who sees all, must needs have pity for His creature Man! Out of the evolutions of a blind Time, He has made the poor weak human being, who in the first days of his sojourn on earth had neither covering nor home.

Less protected than the beasts of the forest, he found himself compelled to Think!--to think out his own means of shelter,--to contrive his own weapons of defence. Slowly, and by painful degrees, from Savagery he has emerged to Civilization;--wherefore it is evident that his Maker meant Thought to be his first principle, and Action his second. He who does not work, shall not eat;--he who does not use all his faculties for improvement, shall by and by have none to use. Injustice and corruption are amongst us, merely because we ourselves have failed to resist their first inroads. Who is it that complains of wrong? Let him hasten to his own amending,--and he will find a thousand hands, a thousand hearts ready to work with him! All Nature is on the side of health in the body, as of health in the State. All Nature fights against disease,--physical and moral. Therefore do not,--dear friends and children!--sit idle and pa.s.sive, submitting yourselves to be deceived, as if you had no force to withstand deception! Show that you hate lies, and will have none of them,--show that you will not be imposed upon--and decline to be led or governed by party agents, who persuade you to your own and your country's destruction! The voice of the People can no longer be heard in a purchased Press;--let it echo forth then, in stronger form than ephemeral print, which to-day is glanced at, and to-morrow is forgotten;--wherever and whenever you are given the chance to meet, and to speak, let your authority as the workers, the ratepayers, and supporters of the State be heard; and do not You, without whom even the King could not keep his throne, consent to be set aside as the Unvalued Majority! Prove, by your own firm att.i.tude that without You, nothing can be done! It is time, oh people of my heart!--it is time you spoke clearly! G.o.d is moving His thought through your souls--G.o.d stirs in you the fear, the discontent, the suspicion that all is not well with your country;--and it is the Spirit of G.o.d which breathes in the warning note of the time--

"'Hark to the voice of the time!

The mult.i.tude think forthemselves, And weigh their condition each one; The drudge has a spirit sublime, And whether he hammers or delves, He reads when his labour is done; And learns, though he groan under poverty's ban, That freedom to Think, is the birthright of man!'

"Learn," she continued,--as a low deep murmur of agreement ran through the room; "Learn to what strange uses G.o.d puts even such men of this world, whose sole existence has been for the cause of ama.s.sing money! They have acted as the merest machines, gathering in the millions;--gathering, gathering them in! For what purpose? Lo, they are smitten down in the prime of their lives, and the gold they have piled up is at once scattered! Much of it becomes used for educational purposes;--and some of these dead millionaires have, as it were thrown Education at the heads of the people, and almost pauperised it. Far away in Great Britain, a millionaire has recently made the Scottish University education 'free' to all students,--instead of, as it used to be, hard to get, and well worth working to win. Now,--through the wealth of one man, it is turned into a pauper's allowance;--like offering the smallest silver coin to a reduced gentleman. The pride,--the skill,--the self-renunciation,--the strong determination to succeed, which form fine character, and which taught the struggling student to win his own University education, are all wiped out;--there is no longer any necessity for the practice of these manly and self-sustaining virtues.

The harm that will be done is probably not yet perceivable; but it will be incalculable. Education, turned into a kind of pauper's monopoly, will have widely different results to those just now imagined! But with all the contemptuous throwing out of the unneeded kitchen-waste of millionaires,--still Education is the thing to take at any price, and under any circ.u.mstances;--because it alone is capable of giving power!

It alone will 'put down the mighty from their seats, and exalt the humble and the meek.' It alone will give us the force to fight our taskmasters with their own weapons, and to place them where they should be, coequal with us, but not superior,--considerate of us, but not commanding us,--and above all things, bound to make their records of such work as they do for the State--clean!"

A hurricane of applause interrupted her,--she waited till it subsided, then went on quietly.