A FREE MAN S WORSHIP 55 



their birth a new life begins. To take into the inmost 

 shrine of the soul the irresistible forces whose puppets 

 we seem to be Death and change, the irrevocableness 

 of the past, and the powerlessness of man before 

 the blind hurry of the universe from vanity to vanity 

 to feel these things and know them is to conquer 

 them. 



This is the reason why the Past has such magical 

 power. The beauty of its motionless and silent pictures 

 is like the enchanted purity of late autumn, when the 

 leaves, though one breath would make them fall, still 

 glow against the sky in golden glory. The Past does not 

 change or strive ; like Duncan, after life s fitful fever it 

 sleeps well ; what was eager and grasping, what was 

 petty and transitory, has faded away, the things that 

 were beautiful and eternal shine out of it like stars in the 

 night. Its beauty, to a soul not worthy of it, is un 

 endurable ; but to a soul which has conquered Fate it is 

 the key of religion. 



The life of Man, viewed outwardly, is but a small 

 thing in comparison with the forces of Nature. The 

 slave is doomed to worship Time and Fate and Death, 

 because they are greater than anything he finds in him 

 self, and because all his thoughts are of things which 

 they devour. But, great as they are, to think of them 

 greatly, to feel their passionless splendour, is greater 

 still. And such thought makes us free men ; we no 

 longer bow before the inevitable in Oriental subjection, 

 but we absorb it, and make it a part of ourselves. To 

 abandon the struggle for private happiness, to expel all 

 eagerness of temporary desire, to burn with passion for 

 eternal things this is emancipation, and this is the free 

 man s worship. And this liberation is effected by a con 

 templation of Fate ; for Fate itself is subdued by the 



