Yet in that forest brooded infinite races that were to spread over the
globe, and give a new impulse to its ancient life. It was decreed that,
when they burst from their wild woods, the Arabian principles should
meet them on the threshold of the old world to guide and to civilise
them. All had been prepared. The Caesars had conquered the world to place
the Laws of Sinai on the throne of the Capitol, and a Galilean Arab
advanced and traced on the front of the rude conquerors of the Caesars
the subduing symbol of the last development of Arabian principles.
'Yet again, and Europe is in the throes of a great birth. The multitudes
again are brooding; but they are not now in the forest; they are in the
cities and in the fertile plains. Since the first sun of this century
rose, the intellectual colony of Arabia, once called Christendom,
has been in a state of partial and blind revolt. Discontented, they
attributed their suffering to the principles to which they owed
all their happiness, and in receding from which they had become
proportionately miserable. They have hankered after other gods than the
God of Sinai and of Calvary, and they have achieved only desolation.
Now they despair. But the eternal principles that controlled barbarian
vigour can alone cope with morbid civilisation.
Pages:
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427