e corporeal form given to Him by
religion, and as divulged in the history of the creation, lost at once
all His attributes, and being magnified to fill the infinite and being
absorbed into it, became so impalpable and subtle to the intellect as
to appear a phantasm.

Nothing remained to Gabriel of all his ancient beliefs. His mind was
like a bare field over which the whirlwind had passed, for his last
belief, which had remained standing like a monolith in the midst of
ruins, the belief in the history of creation, had now fallen.

But it was impossible to the former seminarist to remain inactive with
his cargo of new ideas. He felt obliged to believe in something, to
devote to the defence of some ideal all the faith in his character, to
make some use of that fervour of proselytising which had been so
much admired in the class of eloquence in the seminary, and so
revolutionary sociology took possession of him. First of all it was
Proudhon with his audacious writings, and afterwards the work was
completed by some "militantes" who were working in the same printing
office as himself--old soldiers of the Commune, who had lately
returned from their exile in the prisons of Oceania, and were renewing
their campaign against social organisation with an ardour increased
tenfold by their painful sufferings and their desire of vengeance.
With them he went to the anarchist meetings; there he heard Reclus
and Prince Kropotkine, and the words of the since deceased Miquel
Bakronhine came to him as the gospel of a Saint Paul of the future.

Gabriel had met with his new religion, and he gave himself over to
it entirely, dreaming of the regeneration of humanity through its
stomach. Believing in a future life, misfortunes gave the false
consolation of happiness after death; but all religion was a lie,
there was no other life but that of the present, and Luna rose in
anger against the social injustice that condemned millions of beings
to poverty and misery for the happiness of a few privileged thousands.
Authority, which was the fount of all evil, was to him the greatest
enemy; it must be destroyed, but men must be created who were capable
of living without masters, priests or soldiers. The natural gentleness
of his character, and the horror of violence with which his three
years' campaigning had filled him, caused him rather to draw back from
his new companions, who, dreaming of hecatombs from dynamite and the
dagger to reform the world,