The apostle cast away upon our
heathen coasts won us with the story of this first Christian republic, and
he established a commonwealth of peace and good-will among us in its
likeness. That commonwealth perished, just as its prototype perished, or
seemed to perish; and long ages of civic and economic warfare succeeded,
when every man's hand was against his neighbor, and might was the rule
that got itself called right. Religion ceased to be the hope of this
world, and became the vague promise of the next. We descended into the
valley of the shadow, and dwelt amid chaos for ages before we groped again
into the light.
"The first glimmerings were few and indistinct, but men formed themselves
about the luminous points here and there, and, when these broke and
dispersed into lesser gleams, still men formed themselves about each of
them. There arose a system of things better, indeed, than that darkness,
but full of war and lust and greed, in which the weak rendered homage to
the strong, and served them in the field and in the camp, and the strong
in turn gave the weak protection against the other strong. It was a juggle
in which the weak did not see that their safety was, after all, from
themselves; but it was an image of peace, however false and fitful, and it
endured for a time.
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