sobbed up through the terror in her
soul and then sank abashed as she watched the flame rise. Suddenly
whirling into one great crimson column it shot to the top of the sky and
threw great arms athwart the gloom until above the world and behind the
roped and swaying form below hung quivering and burning a great crimson
cross.

She hid her dizzy, aching head in an agony of tears, and dared not look,
for she knew. Her dry lips moved:

"Despised and rejected of men."

She knew, and the very horror of it lifted her dull and shrinking
eyelids. There, heaven-tall, earth-wide, hung the stranger on the
crimson cross, riven and blood-stained, with thorn-crowned head and
pierced hands. She stretched her arms and shrieked.

He did not hear. He did not see. His calm dark eyes, all sorrowful, were
fastened on the writhing, twisting body of the thief, and a voice came
out of the winds of the night, saying:

"This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise!"

VI

OF THE RULING OF MEN

The ruling of men is the effort to direct the individual actions of many
persons toward some end. This end theoretically should be the greatest
good of all, but no human group has ever reached this ideal because of
ignorance and selfishness. The simplest object would be rule for the
Pleasure of One, namely the Ruler; or of the Few--his favorites; or of
many--the Rich, the Privileged, the Powerful. Democratic movements
inside groups and nations are always taking place and they are the
efforts to increase the number of beneficiaries of the ruling. In 18th
century Europe, the effort became so broad and sweeping that an attempt
was made at universal expression and the philosophy of the movement said
that if All ruled they would rule for All and thus Universal Good was
sought through Universal Suffrage.

The unrealized difficulty of this program lay in the widespread
ignorance. The mass of men, even of the more intelligent men, not only
knew little about each other but less about the action of men in groups
and the technique of industry in general. They could only apply
universal suffrage, therefore, to the things they knew or knew
partially: they knew personal and menial service, individual
craftsmanship, agriculture and barter, taxes or the taking of private
property for public ends and the rent of land. With these matters then
they attempted to deal. Under the cry of "Freedom" they greatly relaxed
the grip of selfish interests by restricting