nexpugnable consolation in looking at the
miseries of the world, is that this is altering. Here and there one
does now find a man who knows, as of old, that this world is a Truth,
and no Plausibility and Falsity; that he himself is alive, not dead or
paralytic; and that the world is alive, instinct with Godhood,
beautiful and awful, even as in the beginning of days! One man once
knowing this, many men, all men, must by and by come to know it. It
lies there clear, for whosoever will take the _spectacles_ off his
eyes and honestly look, to know! For such a man, the Unbelieving
Century, with its unblessed Products, is already past: a new century
is already come. The old unblessed Products and Performances, as solid
as they look, are Phantasms, preparing speedily to vanish. To this and
the other noisy, very great-looking Simulacrum with the whole world
huzzahing at its heels, he can say, composedly stepping aside: Thou
art not _true_; thou art not extant, only semblant; go thy way!--Yes,
hollow Formulism, gross Benthamism, and other unheroic atheistic
Insincerity is visibly and even rapidly declining. An unbelieving
Eighteenth Century is but an exception,--such as now and then occurs.
I prophesy that the world will once more become _sincere_; a believing
world: with _many_ Heroes in it, a heroic world! It will then be a
victorious world; never till then!

Or indeed what of the world and its victories? Men speak too much
about the world. Each one of us here, let the world go how it will,
and be victorious or not victorious, has he not a Life of his own to
lead? One Life; a little gleam of Time between two Eternities; no
second chance to us forevermore! It were well for _us_ to live not as
fools and simulacra, but as wise and realities. The world's being
saved will not save us; nor the world's being lost destroy us. We
should look to ourselves: there is great merit here in the 'duty of
staying at home'! And, on the whole, to say truth, I never heard of
'worlds' being 'saved' in any other way. That mania of saving worlds
is itself a piece of the Eighteenth Century with its windy
sentimentalism. Let us not follow it too far. For the saving of the
_world_ I will trust confidently to the Maker of the world; and look a
little to my own saving, which I am more competent to!--In brief, for
the world's sake, and for our own, we will rejoice greatly that
Scepticism, Insincerity, Mechanical Atheism, with all their
poison-dews, are goi