538 THE SACRED CAUSE. 



tury will be classed with the gods of Olympus and the 

 Nile ; when surplices and sacramental plate will be 

 exhibited in museums ; when nurses will relate to 

 children the legends of the Christian mythology as 

 they now tell them fairy tales. A day will come when 

 the current belief in property after death (for is not 

 existence property, and the dearest property of all ?) 

 will be accounted a strange and selfish idea, just as we 

 smile at the savage chief who believes that his gentility 

 will be continued in the world beneath the ground, 

 and that he will there be attended by his concubines 

 and slaves. A day will come when mankind will be 

 as the Family of the Forest, which lived faithfully 

 within itself according to the golden rule in order that 

 it might not die. But Love not Fear will unite the 

 human race. The world will become a heavenly 

 Commune to which men will bring the inmost treasures 

 of their hearts, in which they will reserve for them- 

 selves not even a hope, not even the shadow of a joy, 

 but will give up all for all mankind. With one faith, 

 with one desire they will labour together in the 

 Sacred Cause — the extinction of disease, the extinction 

 of sin, the perfection of genius, the perfection of love, 

 the invention of immortality, the exploration of the 

 infinite, the conquest of creation. 



You blessed ones who shall inherit that future age 

 of which we can only dream ; you pure and radiant 

 beings who shall succeed us on the earth ; when you 

 turn back your eyes on us poor savages, grubbing in 

 the ground for our daily bread, eating flesh and blood, 

 dwelling in vile bodies which degrade us every day to a 

 level with the beasts, tortured by pains, and by animal 

 propensities, buried in gloomy superstitions, ignorant of 

 Nature which yet holds us in her bonds j when you 



