When men accepted that worship, the structure {+of centuries collapsed about them, the structure+} whose every beam had come from the thought of some one man, each in his day down the ages, from the depth of some one spirit, such [-spirit-] as {+spirit+} existed but for its own sake. Those men who [-survived-] {+survived-+} those eager to obey, eager to live for one another, since they had nothing else to vindicate [-them--those-] {+them- those+} men could neither carry on, nor preserve what they had received. Thus did all thought, all science, all wisdom perish on earth. Thus did [-men---] {+men-+} men with nothing to offer save their great [-number-- lost-] {+numbers- lose+} the steel towers, the flying ships, the power wires, all the things they had not created and could never keep. Perhaps, later, some men had been born with the mind and the courage to recover these things which were lost; perhaps these men came before the Councils of Scholars. They [-were-] answered as I have been [-answered---] {+answered-+} and for the same reasons. But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither they were going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice, to their fate. I wonder, for it is hard for me to conceive how men who knew the word [-"I"-] {+"I,"+} could give it up and not know what they {+had+} lost. But such has been the story, for I have lived in the City of the damned, and I know what horror men permitted to be brought upon them. Perhaps, in those days, there were a few among men, a few of clear sight and clean soul, who refused to surrender that word. What agony must have been theirs before that which they saw coming and could not stop! Perhaps they cried out in protest and in warning. But men paid no heed to their warning. And they, [-these-] {+those+} few, fought a hopeless battle, and they perished with their banners smeared by their own blood. And they chose to perish, for they knew. To them, I send my salute across the centuries, and my pity. [-Their-] {+Theirs+} is the banner in my hand. And I wish I had the power to tell them that the despair of their hearts was not to be final, and their night was not without hope. For the battle they lost can never be lost. For that which they died to save can never perish. Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through. And man will go on. Man, not men. [-Here-]