tions, is
inaccessible to me, but it does exist (as there must be a purpose in all
that exists), and my business is that of being its instrument--_i.e._ my
destiny, my vocation, is that of being a workman of God, of fulfilling
His work." And having understood this destiny, every man of our world and
time, from Emperor to soldier, cannot but regard differently those duties
which he has taken upon himself or other men have imposed upon him.

"Before I was crowned, recognized as Emperor," must the Emperor say to
himself: "before I undertook to fulfil the duties of the head of the
State, I, by the very fact that I live, have promised to fulfil that
which is demanded of me by the Higher Will that sent me into life. These
demands I not only know, but feel in my heart. They consist, as it is
expressed in the Christian law, which I profess, in that I should submit
to the will of God, and fulfil that which it requires of me, that I
should love my neighbor, serve him, and act towards him as I would wish
others to act towards me. Am I doing this?--ruling men, prescribing
violence, executions, and, the most dreadful of all,--wars. Men tell me
that I ought to do this. But God says that I ought to do something quite
different. And, therefore, however much I may be told that, as the head
of the State, I must direct acts of violence, the levying of taxes,
executions and, above all, war, that is, the slaughter of one's neighbor,
I do not wish to and cannot do these things."

So must say to himself the soldier, who is taught that he must kill men,
and the minister, who deemed it his duty to prepare for war, and the
journalist who incited to war, and every man, who puts to himself the
question, Who is he, what is his destination in life? And the moment the
head of the State will cease to direct war, the soldier to fight, the
minister to prepare means for war, the journalist to incite
thereto--then, without any new institutions, adaptations, balance of
power, tribunals, there will of itself be destroyed that hopeless
position in which men have placed themselves, not only in relation to
war, but also to all other calamities which they themselves inflict upon
themselves.

So that, however strange this may appear, the most effective and certain
deliverance of men from all the calamities which they inflict upon
themselves and from the most dreadful of all--war--is attainable, not by
any external general measures, but merely by that simple ap