few months it was translated into every known European language,
inclusive even of modern Greek, and nowhere perhaps has it awakened
a wider interest than in India, where it is published in Hindustani,
Gujarati, and various other Eastern dialects. Its notable triumph
was achieved despite a hailstorm of abuse rattled down upon me by
the press,--a hailstorm which I, personally, found welcome and
refreshing, inasmuch as it cleared the air and cleaned the road for
my better wayfaring. It released me once and for all from the
trammels of such obligation as is incurred by praise, and set me
firmly on my feet in that complete independence which to me (and to
all who seek what I have found) is a paramount necessity. For, as
Thomas a Kempis writes: "Whosoever neither desires to please men nor
fears to displease them shall enjoy much peace." I took my freedom
gratefully, and ever since that time of unjust and ill-considered
attack from persons who were too malignantly minded to even read the
work they vainly endeavoured to destroy, have been happily
indifferent to all so-called 'criticism' and immune from all
attempts to interrupt my progress or turn me back upon my chosen
way. From henceforth I recognised that no one could hinder or oppose
me but myself--and that I had the making, tinder God, of my own
destiny. I followed up "Barabbas" as quickly as possible by "The
Sorrows of Satan," thus carrying out the preconceived intention I
had always had of depicting, first, the martyrdom which is always
the world's guerdon to Absolute Good,--and secondly, the awful,
unimaginable torture which must, by Divine Law, for ever be the lot
of Absolute Evil.

The two books carried their message far and wide with astonishing
success and swiftness, and I then drew some of my threads of former
argument together in "The Master Christian," wherein I depicted