time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand; (/metanoeite/)
bethink yourselves and believe in the Gospel (Mark i. 15); and if you do
not bethink yourselves you will all perish (Luke xiii. 5).

But men did not listen to them, and the destruction they foretold is
already near at hand. And we men of our time cannot but see it. We are
already perishing, and, therefore, we cannot leave unheeded that--old in
time, but for us new--means of salvation. We cannot but see that, besides
all the other calamities which flow from our bad and irrational life,
military preparations alone and the wars inevitably growing from them
must infallibly destroy us. We cannot but see that all the means of
escape invented by men from these evils are found and must be found to be
ineffectual, and that the disastrous position of the nations arming
themselves against each other cannot but go on advancing continually. And
therefore the words of Jesus refer to us and our time more than to any
time or to any one.

Jesus said, "Bethink yourselves"--_i.e._ "Let every man interrupt the
work he has begun and ask himself: Who am I? From whence have I appeared,
and in what consists my destiny? And having answered these questions,
according to the answer decide whether that which thou doest is in
conformity with thy destiny." And every man of our world and time, that
is, being acquainted with the essence of the Christian teaching, needs
only for a minute to interrupt his activity, to forget the capacity in
which he is regarded by men, be it of Emperor, soldier, minister, or
journalist, and seriously ask himself who he is and what is his
destiny--in order to begin to doubt the utility, lawfulness, and
reasonableness of his actions. "Before I am Emperor, soldier, minister,
or journalist," must say to himself every man of our time and of the
Christian world, "before any of these, I am a man--_i.e._ an organic
being sent by the Higher Will into a universe infinite in time and space,
in order, after staying in it for an instant, to die--_i.e._ to disappear
from it. And, therefore, all those personal, social, and even universal
human aims which I may place before myself and which are placed before me
by men are all insignificant, owing to the shortness of my life as well
as to the infiniteness of the life of the universe, and should be
subordinated to that higher aim for the attainment of which I am sent
into the world. This ultimate aim, owing to my limita