destruction has done
its work, you say, O my esteemed Master? and there is nothing more to
destroy? The gods might say this of other worlds than ours. In Europe,
as in Asia, there is to be considered and remembered: if this mass of
things we call humanity and civilisation were as healthy as the
eternal powers would have them, the healthiest of the race would not
be constantly studying and dissecting our social and political ills.

"In a certain sense, we are healthier to-day than the Europeans; but
our health is that of the slave and not the master: it is of more
benefit to others than it is to ourselves. We are doomed to be the
drudges of neurasthenic, psychopathic, egoistic masters, if we do not
open our minds to the light of science and truth. 'Every age has its
Book,' says the Prophet. But every book, if it aspires to be a guide
to life, must contain of the eternal truth what was in the one that
preceded it. We can not afford to let aught of this die. Leave the
principal original altar in the Temple, and destroy all the others.
Light on that altar the torch of science, which the better mind and
cleaner hand of Europe are transmitting to us, and place your foot
upon its false and unspeakable divinities. The gods of wealth, of
egoism, of alcohol, of fornication, we must not acknowledge; nay, we
must resist unto death their malign influence and power. But alas,
what are we doing to-day? Instead of looking up to the pure and lofty
souls of Europe for guidance, we welter in the mud with the lowest and
most degenerate. We are beginning to know and appreciate English
whiskey, but not English freedom; we know the French grisettes, but
not the French sages; we guzzle German beer, but of German wisdom we
taste not a drop.

"O my Brothers, let us cease rejoicing in the Dastur; for at heart we
know no freedom, nor truth, nor order. We elect our representatives to
Parliament, but not unlike the Europeans; we borrow from France what
the deeper and higher mind of France no longer believes; we imitate
England in what England has long since discarded; but our Books of
Revelation, which made France and Germany and England what they are,
and in which is the divine essence of truth and right and freedom, we
do not rightly understand. A thousand falsehoods are cluttered around
the truth to conceal it from us. I call you back, O my Brothers, to
the good old virtues of our ancestors. Without these the Revolution
will miscarry and our D