Out of the pit of ignorance and despair we emerge
into the sunlight of knowledge, to take control of
a world, and to make it over, not according to the
will of any gods, but according to the law in our own
hearts. For that task we have need of all the
resources of our being; of courage and high devotion,
of faith in ourselves and our comrades, of clean,
straight thinking, of discipline both of body and mind.
We go to this task with a knowledge as old as the
first moral impulse of mankind—the knowledge
that our actions determine the future of life, not
merely for ourselves but for all the race. For
this is one of the laws of the ancient Hebrews which
modern science has not repealed, but on the contrary
has reinforced with a thousand confirmations—that
the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children
unto the third and fourth generations.
I get letters from the readers of my books; nearly
always they are young people, so I feel like the father
of a large family. I gather them now about my
knee, and pronounce upon them a benediction in the
ancient patriarchal style. Children and grandchildren
of my hopes, for ages men suffered and fought, so
that the world might be turned over to you. Now
the day is coming, the glad, new day which blinds us
with the shining of its wings; it is coming so swiftly
that I am afraid of it. I thought we should have
more time to get ready for the taking over of the
world! But the old managers of it went insane,
they took to tearing each other’s eyes out,
and now they lie dead about us. So, whether we
will or not, we have to take charge of the world; we
have to decide what to do with it, even while we are
doing it. Let us not fail, young comrades; let
us not write on the scroll of history that mankind
had to go through yet new generations of wars and tumults
and enslavements, because the youth of the international
revolution could not lift themselves above those ancient
personal vices which wrecked the fair hopes of their
fathers—bigotry and intolerance, vindictiveness
and vanity, envy, hatred and malice and all uncharitableness!
* * * *
*
INDEX
A
Abbott, Lyman 175-191
Abbott, L.F. 189
Adams 214
Adventists 237
Amberley 52
Anglican Church 47-88
Appeal to Reason 144
Archer 133
Assyria 32
Atkinson 267
Austria 155
Aztecs 32
