blood, and has thrown France backward, and not forward as some
people suppose; for ever since that time she has had a cancer at the
heart of her, and no effort that has been made has borne due fruit.
Nay, it is even possible that that was her opportunity in which she
failed, and that the opportunity will have to pass to other peoples,
to be worked out by other hands.

Looking at the democracies of to-day, we see that both the great
powers are rejected, King and priest alike, royalty reduced to a mere
puppet, priesthood looked on with suspicion and with hatred; and in
both cases one is bound to admit that there is much justification, for
they are the result of the harm that unbridled power in Church and in
State alike have wrought to the people, who are now revolting against
both. But the revolt is only a passing thing. Humanity does not really
change; only passing manifestations of it change; and though the
passing manifestations be counted by centuries, what is that in the
length of a day counted by myriads of years, and to peoples who are
spiritual intelligences unfolding their powers in humanity? Kingship
and priesthood are mighty powers, and the need for them deep-rooted in
the nature of humanity. Only on the upward path they are different
from what they were on the path of descent, and the way in which those
are to be shaped and moulded and again made mighty, that will be the
answer of human experience after it has proved the rule of ignorance
to be a mistake and a failure. Gradually, in some way that as yet we
do not see, a way will be found of discovering the wise, who alone
have the right to rule. For there is no authority for the
intelligence, there is no authority for the free intellect of man,
save the authority of Wisdom, to which the intellect bows because it
is itself in flower. And those who develop the intelligence of men, as
humanity is beginning to evolve its intelligence, they will only find
their Kings and Priests where they see a wisdom greater than their
own, a knowledge which transcends theirs, but is the promise of what
they themselves in the future should become. And out of all the
birth-throes of the present, and the ugly shapes which humanity takes
on, will come the fairer birth of Wisdom, when again it shall sit on
the combined throne of King and Priest. For it is necessary that human
life should regain its unity, and that again the Spirit shall be known
to be master, and the body its instrum