These are the words that fall from the lips of him you call "the merciful," "the just." These are the sounds that sink into the ears of those upon whose toil _you_ are dependent for your existence; judge you how they will be received. And now, you, the dwellers on the lifted heights, listen to the voice that follows him, for these are words that concern _you_, and if you listen to their warning you may yet save yourselves the desolation and the ruin that otherwise must come. This deep, bell-pealing voice that echoes through the corridors of thought till almost Death's chill sleepers might arise again, is the voice which called for centuries to the Empire, "Cease your oppressions or the people rise"; and to the Kingdom, "Curse not the new world with your tyrannies, it will rebel"; and to the Master, "Put not the lash upon your bonded slave, for the time will come when every stroke will rise like a warrior armed, to burn and waste and kill." The Empire laughed, the Kingdom ignored, the Planter sneered; but the time came when laugh and sneer died to white ashes. The time came when "France got drunk with blood, to vomit crime," when England "lost the brightest jewel in her coronal," when the South waded in blood and tears and knelt her pride before a conqueror. And now, she, the liberator, the destined conqueror of God, calls out to you, "Yield up your scepters ere they be torn from you; give back the stolen earth, the mine, the sea! Give back the source of life, give back the light! For a black, bitter hour is waiting you, an awful gulf unfathomed in its depth, if now you do not pause and render _justice_." Ah, thou, whatever be thy awful name, which like a serpent's trail hath marked the earth, whether Jehovah, Buddha, Joss, or Christ! Thou who hast done for _love_ what others do for most envenomed _hate_, how hast thou hated these the happy ones! Is this impartial justice then to these, to pour the golden treasures of the earth into their laps, that these may feast and toast and so forget thee and thy promised heaven? Truly thou hast been most unkind to them, since kindness means with thee a tearing out of e'en the heart and entrails of existence. Bah! how thou liest! To what most pitiable trick of speech hast thou been forced! Think'st thou the dwellers in the darkness longer take thy creed of crystalline deception! No! They laugh at thee, they spew thee out, they spit at thee.