“Help nothing on that is noble—nothing that is honest,—nothing that is of God, or for God,—print every lie, grudge every truth, and let your trumpet-note be that of blatant Atheism and Devilry to the end! Set trade against trade,—community against community,—nation against nation,—until with your windy bombast and senseless twaddle you fill your witches’ cauldron of mischief and contention to the full! Up and ride with me, ye Plotters against Peace!—ye whose hands are against every man!—there is no time to be lost—up and away with a rush and a roar!—for the Great Star has fallen from Heaven to Earth, and to Him is given the key of the bottomless pit! The pit is open—the gate stands wide—up, and speed on with Me!” [Illustration: By this light was seen a monstrous ridge of dense blackness jutting sharply over some vast incalculable depth of horror.] Like lightning now the great Car tore through space—its flaring lamps flashing, its wheels grinding with the sullen noise of a bursting volcano,—and amidst cries and shrieks indescribable, it leaped, as it were, from peak to peak of toppling clouds that towered above and around it like mighty mountains. And presently it seemed as if a thin, pale line of purple fire glimmered afar off, and by this light was seen a monstrous ridge of dense blackness jutting sharply over some vast incalculable depth of horror. On—still on—the Car rushed; and He of the sable robes and flaming crown urged apace its reckless speed with wild shouts of wilder laughter. “All the world in such haste to die!” he cried. “All the world gone mad with the craze of movement! Up in the air, down on the earth—all turned to whirling, flying, tossing atoms of dust in a storm, and lo, the End! Be patient now, for ye shall never wander again!—be silent now, for prayer and cursing, laughter and tears are done!—let the hoarded gold drop from your grasp—it can purchase nothing yonder! Was it worth while think you,—this rush headlong, to be cast into silence?” [Illustration: “Rejoice, O trees, that the axe of the destroyer shall no more cast ye down!”] “Was it worth while to leave the sunshine for this dark?—beauty for this decay?—sweet sounds of love and tenderness for this still glow of the eternal flame which is not quenched—this gnawing of the eternal worm whose appetite is never satisfied? Lo, ye have burnt up a world to light Hell with its flame!—but the world shall blossom again like a flower springing from the dust and ye whose soulless lives have been a curse and an outrage on its fairness, shall pace its pleasant paths no more!