THE EQUINOX
Did Brutus save Roman liberty by killing Caesar? In
killing Caligula, Chaerea only made place for Claudius and
Nero. To protest against violence by violence, is to justify
it, and to force it to reproduce itself.
But to triumph over evil by good, over selfishness by self-
abnegation, over ferocity by pardon, that is the secret of
Christianity, and it is that of eternal victory.
I have seen the place where the earth still bledfrom the
murder of Abel, and on that place there ran a brook of
tears.
Under the guidance of the centuries, myriads of men
moved on, letting fall their tears into the brook.
And Eternity, crouching mournful, gazed upon the tears
which fell; she counted them one by one, and there were
never enough of them to wash away one stain of blood.
But between two multitudes and two ages came the
Christ, a pale and radiant figure.
And in the earth of blood and tears, He planted the vine
of fraternity; and the tears and the blood, sucked up by the
roots of the divine tree, became the delicious sap of the grape,
which is destined to intoxicate with love the children of the
future.
XIV
THE NUMBER FOURTEEN
FourTEEN is the number of fusion, of association, and of
universal unity, and it isin the name of what it represents
that we shall here make an appeal to the nations, beginning
with the most ancient and the most holy.
Children of Israel, why, in the midst of the movement of
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