With Nations it is as with individuals: Can they rede the riddle
of Destiny? This English Nation, will it get to know the meaning
of _its_ strange new Today? Is there sense enough extant,
discoverable anywhere or anyhow, in our united twenty-seven
million heads to discern the same; valour enough in our
twenty-seven million hearts to dare and do the bidding thereof?
It will be seen!--

The secret of gold Midas, which he with his long ears never could
discover, was, That he had offended the Supreme Powers;--that he
had parted company with the eternal inner Facts of this Universe,
and followed the transient outer Appearances thereof; and so was
arrived _here._ Properly it is the secret of all unhappy men and
unhappy nations. Had they known Nature's right truth, Nature's
right truth would have made them free. They have become
enchanted; stagger spell-bound, reeling on the brink of huge
peril, because they were not wise enough. They have forgotten
the right Inner True, and taken up with the Outer Sham-true.
They answer the Sphinx's question wrong. Foolish men cannot
answer it aright! Foolish men mistake transitory semblance for
eternal fact, and go astray more and more.

Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is
delayed, there is no justice, but an accidental one, here below.
Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two,
some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death!
In the centre of the world-whirlwind, verily now as in the oldest
days, dwells and speaks a God. The great soul of the world is
_just._ O brother, can it be needful now, at this late epoch of
experience, after eighteen centuries of Christian preaching for