THE WORLD REVOLUTION 11 



reading between the lines beholds in progress a 

 change far exceeding in significance any political 

 revolution which has ever taken place in the world. 

 The iron of conviction has passed from the mind 

 of authority. The doctrine of force has taken its 

 place. The ears of the present generation have 

 been glued to the ground, strained to catch the dis- 

 tant meaning of vast, formless, approaching causes, 

 speaking a language absolutely unknown to those 

 who occupied the seats of knowledge in the past. 



The full effect of the change long in progress in 

 civilization has come into view almost suddenly. 

 The significance of it was from the first perceived 

 by the Churches, those historic centres for centuries 

 of the idealisms of the West. It soon reached to 

 every centre of opinion. For a prolonged period 

 previously the Western nations, even in their darkest 

 hours of struggle, had ever placed before themselves 

 and regarded with unfaltering gaze an inward vision. 

 They had conceived our civilization as gradually 

 ripening, through the perfection of principles in- 

 herent in it, towards an age of universal peace and 

 balanced harmony among all the nations of the earth. 



The first startling effect in the West of th>* 

 recrudescence of the pagan doctrine of the omni- 

 potence of force was upon this ideal. For fifteen 

 centuries, since the full adoption of Christianity 



