The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

THE KEY OF THE MYSTERIES but the immortal writings which the century of Augustus brought forth. Thus, perhaps, Rome only shook the world with the convulsions of war, in order to bring forth Vergil. Christianity is the fruit of the meditations of all the sages of the East, who live again in Jesus Christ. Thus the light of the spirits has risen where the sun of the world rises; Christ conquered the West, and the soft rays of the sun of Asia have touched the icicles of the North. Stirred by this unknown heat, ant-heaps of new men have spread over a worn-out world; the souls of dead people have shone upon rejuvenated races, and enlarged in them the spirit of life. There is in the world a nation which calls itself frankness and freedom, for these two words are synonymous with the name of France. This nation has always been in some ways more Catholic than the Pope, and more Protestant than Luther. The France of the Crusades, the France of the Trouba- dours, the France of songs, the France of Rabelais and of Voltaire, the France of Bossuet and of Pascal, it is she who is the synthesis of all peoples; it is she who consecrates the alliance of reason and of faith, of revolution and of power, of the most tender belief and of the proudest human dignity. And, see how she marches, how she swings herself, how she struggles, how she grows great! Often deceived and wounded, never cast down, enthusi- astic. over her triumphs, daring in her adversities, she laughs, she sings, she dies, and she teaches the world faith in immortality. 57