The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

THE KEY OF THE MYSTERIES Whoever is not without reproach is the accomplice of all evil; and whoever is not absolutely perverse, may participate in all good. For this reason an agony is always an humanitarian expiation, and every head that falls upon the scaffold may be honoured and praised as the head of a martyr. For this reason also, the noblest and the holiest of martyrs could inquire of his own conscience, find himself deserving of the penalty that he was about to undergo, and say, saluting the sword that was ready to strike him, “Let justice be done!” Pure victims of the Roman Catacombs, Jews and Protes- tants massacred by unworthy Christians ! Priests of l’Abbaye and les Carmes,’ victims of the Reign of Terror, butchered royalists, revolutionaries sacrificed in your turn, soldiers of our great armies who have sown the world with your bones, all you who have suffered the penalty of death, workers, strivers, darers of every kind, brave children of Prometheus, who have feared neither the lightning nor the vulture, all honour to your scattered ashes! Peace and venera- tion to your memories! You are the heroes of progress, martyrs of humanity! XII THE NUMBER TWELVE TWELVE is the cyclic number; it is that of the universal Creed. 2 Monasteries in Paris which were used as prisons in the Reign of Terror—TRANS. 45