"My brothers: I am, as your chairman
says, a stranger to this world of yours. I do not understand your
vast machines and your complex arts. But I know the souls of men and
women; when I meet greed, and pride, and cruelty, the enslavements
of the flesh, they cannot lie to me. And I have walked about the
streets of your city, and I know myself in the presence of a people
wandering in a wilderness. My children!--broken-hearted, desolate,
and betrayed--poorest when you are rich, loneliest when you throng
together, proudest when you are most ignorant--my people, I call you
into the way of salvation!"
He stretched out his arms to them, and on his face and in his whole
look was such anguish, that I think there was no man in that whole
great throng so rooted in self-esteem that he was not shaken with
sudden awe. The prophet raised his hands in invocation: "Let us
pray!" He bowed his head, and many in the audience did the same.
Others stared at him in bewilderment, having long ago forgotten how
to pray. Here and there some one snickered.
Pages:
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162