of life for the healing of all nations.
Then she clean forgot the purpose for which she had come: she was
carried away: her heart beat--her cheek glowed. Oh! Lovely Vision! Oh!
Great and glorious Prophet! He made a Heaven, and placed it on this
earth. Now the mind of man can conceive of no other happiness but that
which humanity can make out of the actual materials found upon this
earthly ball. The Heaven, even of the most spiritual, is a glorified
world; the Hell, even of the most gentle, is a world of fleshly pain: no
other Heaven attracts: no other Hell terrifies: there is no promise, or
hope, or prospect, or inheritance that man desires or poet can feign or
visionary can preach but an earthly Heaven: it must be a Heaven
containing sunshine and shower, kindly fruits in due season, love and
joy and music and art, and men and women who love each other and labour
for each other. Such a world--such a New Jerusalem--the Master drew
every day; he loved it, and lingered over it; he painted over and over
again this splendid Vision. He was never tired of painting it, or his
hearers of gazing upon it. But to-day he spoke with greater fulness,
more clearly, more brilliantly, more joyously than ever. Was the Prophet
really a man of seventy years and more? For his mind was young--the
enthusiast, like the poet, never grows old. His voice might have been
the voice of a boy--a marvellous boy--a Shelley--preaching the glories
of the world when Property should be no more.
He ceased. And the Vision which he had raised quickly faded away. They
were back again in the dingy old Inn; they were among the solicitors and
the money-lenders and the young fellows who have their Chambers in the
place. The Inn is about as far from the New Jerusalem as any place under
the sun; it is made over bodily and belongs--every stair--every
chamber--to the interests of Property.
He ceased his prophecy, and began to argue, to reason, to chop logic,
which was not by any means so interesting. At last he stopped this as
well. 'You have now, dear child,' he said, 'heard quite as much as you
can profitably absorb. I have noticed for the last two or three minutes
your eyes wandering and your attention wearied. Let us stop--only
remember what I have just said about the diseases of the Body Politic.
They are akin to those that affect the human body. By comparing the two
we may learn not only cause, but also effect. We have our rheumatisms,
gouts, asthmas, neuralgias, colds and coughs, fevers and other ills. So
has the Body Politic. Whence come our diseases? From the ignorance, the
follies, the vices, the greed and gluttony of our forefathers. So those
of the Body Politic. Take away Property and you destroy greed. With
that, half the diseases vanish.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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