* * * * *

But meanwhile, as the hideous holocaust proceeds, the mills of God grind
slowly but mysteriously secure. The eternal law of equity is working
still; and from every evil there proceeds a good. Truth may be hidden in
the nether deeps, but some day the strained tension breaks, the balance
reversing brings it to the light. Its spirit works for ever, like a
ferment, hidden long, deep down in the Universal heart of things; for
with majestic, unimpressionable tread, sublimely the silent force of
human progress moves; slow and inevitably sure, the great indwelling
spirit of a vast eternal energy leading man ever upward to the True and
Best.

Against this axiom, alas, graceless and suicidal seems the unwisdom of
the world, in action against all who offer it salvation from its pain;
aye, though he be Christ or Commoner.

Rather be wrong in league with wealth and power than be right--and stand
alone. This is now the worldly wisdom of the sage.

Genius at grips with material and religious power, fares ill; as with
far-famed Copernicus, or "starry Galileo and his woes"; or, in a brave
woman's daring words:--"He, who dares to see a truth not recognized in
creeds, must die the death."

"A time of transition is a time of pain," is a truism well recognized by
all, and he who would press Regeneration upon the world--weak, weary and
unthinking as its people are--must run the gauntlet of the bitter
antagonism of the exploiting clans on this benighted sphere, though
later he may see, across the bourne that bounds life's earthly day, a