ng was a full one. After the usual ceremonies Pierre rose and began
his address.

"Dear Brothers," he began, blushing and stammering, with a written
speech in his hand, "it is not sufficient to observe our mysteries in
the seclusion of our lodge--we must act--act! We are drowsing, but we
must act." Pierre raised his notebook and began to read.

"For the dissemination of pure truth and to secure the triumph
of virtue," he read, "we must cleanse men from prejudice, diffuse
principles in harmony with the spirit of the times, undertake the
education of the young, unite ourselves in indissoluble bonds with the
wisest men, boldly yet prudently overcome superstitions, infidelity, and
folly, and form of those devoted to us a body linked together by unity
of purpose and possessed of authority and power.

"To attain this end we must secure a preponderance of virtue over vice
and must endeavor to secure that the honest man may, even in this world,
receive a lasting reward for his virtue. But in these great endeavors we
are gravely hampered by the political institutions of today. What is
to be done in these circumstances? To favor revolutions, overthrow
everything, repel force by force?... No! We are very far from that.
Every violent reform deserves censure, for it quite fails to remedy
evil while men remain what they are, and also because wisdom needs no
violence.

"The whole plan of our order should be based on the idea of preparing
men of firmness and virtue bound together by unity of conviction--aiming
at the punishment of vice and folly, and patronizing talent and virtue:
raising worthy men from the dust and attaching them to our Brotherhood.
Only then will our order have the power unobtrusively to bind the hands
of the protectors of disorder and to control them without their being
aware of it. In a word, we must found a form of government holding
universal sway, which should be diffused over the whole world without
destroying the bonds of citizenship, and beside which all other
governments can continue in their customary course and do everything
except what impedes the great aim of our order, which is to obtain for
virtue the victory over vice. This aim was that of Christianity itself.
It taught men to be wise and good and for their own benefit to follow
the example and instruction of the best and wisest men.

"At that time, when everything was plunged in darkness, preaching alone
was of course sufficient. The novelty of