the false
Self-centre as opposed to the true God-centre. Men lived for the day
because they doubted the morrow. Palaces and hovels, churches and
theatres, all were products of this feverish striving of the ants to
plumb the well of truth and scale the mountain of wisdom; to drain at a
draught the gourd of life which the gods had filled in the world's
morning. Thessaly began to speak again, standing at Paul's elbow, and
his deep rich voice carried power and authority.

"Look at London and you look at an epitome of humanity. The best that
man can do, and the worst, lie there beneath you. In that squat, grey,
irregular mound which from earth level we recognise to be the Houses of
Parliament, men are making laws. The laws which they are making are the
laws of necessity--the necessity of slaying Prussians. Many of the
larger buildings in the neighbourhood are occupied by temporary civil
servants engaged in promulgating those laws. Thus by the passing of an
Act having twenty clauses, twenty thousand clerks are created and five
more hotels sequestered for their accommodation. No laws which do not
bear directly or indirectly upon the slaying of Prussians have been made
in recent years. This is sometimes called government, but used to be
known as self-preservation when men dressed in yellow ochre and carried
stone clubs.

"Eastward over the Thames hangs a pall of smoke. It is the smoke of
Silvertown. Left, right, and all about are other palls. They are created
by the furnaces of works which once were making useful things and
beautiful things; paints and enamels and varnishes, pottery and metal
ware, toys for sport and instruments of science. To-day they make
instruments of death; high explosives to shatter flesh and bone to pulp
and powder, deadly gases to sear men's eyes, to choke out human life. It
is called work of national importance, but Christ would have wept to see
it. Squatting in Whitehall--look, the setting sun strikes venomous
sparks from its windows--is the War Office. Ponder well the name of
this imposing pile--the _War Office_. Nearly two thousand years have
elapsed since the last of the Initiates delivered His Sermon on the
Mount. See! the city bristles with the spires of His churches; they are
as thorns upon a briar-bush. Look north, the spire of a church
terminates the prospect; south, it is the same; east and west--spires,
spires, spires. And squatting grimly amid a thousand shrines of Jesus
Christ is the Wa