ways to the same one conclusion. Here at last was
a king and emperor for mankind for whom one need have neither contempt
nor resentment; here was an aim for which man might forge the steel
and wield the scalpel, write and paint and till and teach. Upon this
conception he must model all his life. Upon this basis he must found
friendships and co-operations. All the great religions, Christianity,
Islam, in the days of their power and honesty, had proclaimed the advent
of this kingdom of God. It had been their common inspiration. A religion
surrenders when it abandons the promise of its Millennium. He had
recovered that ancient and immortal hope. All men must achieve it, and
with their achievement the rule of God begins. He muttered his faith. It
made it more definite to put it into words and utter it. "It comes.
It surely comes. To-morrow I begin. I will do no work that goes not
Godward. Always now it shall be the truth as near as I can put it.
Always now it shall be the service of the commonweal as well as I can
do it. I will live for the ending of all false kingship and priestcraft,
for the eternal growth of the spirit of man...."

He was, he knew clearly, only one common soldier in a great army that
was finding its way to enlistment round and about the earth. He was not
alone. While the kings of this world fought for dominion these others
gathered and found themselves and one another, these others of the faith
that grows plain, these men who have resolved to end the bloodstained
chronicles of the Dynasts and the miseries of a world that trades in
life, for ever. They were many men, speaking divers tongues. He was
but one who obeyed the worldwide impulse. He could smile at the artless
vanity that had blinded him to the import of his earlier visions, that
had made him imagine himself a sole discoverer, a new Prophet, that had
brought him so near to founding a new sect. Every soldier in the new
host was a recruiting sergeant according to his opportunity.... And none
was leader. Only God was leader....

"The achievement of the Kingdom of God;" this was his calling.
Henceforth this was his business in life....

For a time he indulged in vague dreams of that kingdom of God on earth
of which he would be one of the makers; it was a dream of a shadowy
splendour of cities, of great scientific achievements, of a universal
beauty, of beautiful people living in the light of God, of a splendid
adventure, thrusting out at last amon