blood of their fellow-men. Emperors and bishops set the example; subjects
and churchmen follow it. The great, the leading men of the struggle are
copied by the small, by the peaceful candidates for spiritual benefices.
All that I saw as a man, in the open streets, I had already seen as a boy
both in the low and high schools. Every doctrine has its adherents; the
man who casts in his lot with Cneius is hated by Caius, who forthwith
speaks and writes to no other end than to vex and put down Cneius, and
give him pain. Each for his part strives his utmost to find out faults in
his neighbor and to put him in the pillory, particularly if his
antagonist is held the greater man, or is likely to overtop him. Listen
to the girls at the well, to the women at the spindle; no one is sure of
applause who cannot tell some evil of the other men or women. Who cares
to listen to his neighbor's praises? The man who hears that his brother
is happy at once envies him! Hatred, hatred everywhere! Everywhere the
will, the desire, the passion for bringing grief and ruin on others
rather than to help them, raise them and heal them!

"That is the spirit of my time; and everything within me revolted against
it with sacred wrath. I vowed in my heart that I would live and act
differently; that my sole aim should be to succor the unfortunate, to
help the wretched, to open my arms to those who had fallen into unmerited
contumely, to set the crooked straight for my neighbor, to mend what was
broken, to pour in balm, to heal and to save!

"And, thank God! it has been vouchsafed to me in some degree to keep this
vow; and though, later, some whims and a passionate curiosity got mixed
up with my zeal, still, never have I lost sight of the great task of
which I have spoken, since my father's death and since my uncle also left
me his large fortune. Then I had done with the Rhetor's art, and
travelled east and west to seek the land where love unites men's hearts
and where hatred is only a disease; but as sure as man is the standard of
all things, to this day all my endeavors to find it have been in vain.
Meanwhile I have kept my own house on such a footing that it has become a
stronghold of love; in its atmosphere hatred cannot grow, but is nipped
in the germ.

"In spite of this I am no saint. I have committed many a folly, many an
injustice; and much of my goods and gold, which I should perhaps have
done better to save for my family, has slipped through my