cast eyes, piling mud and stones together, and
fancying the heap to be a very City of God.

Then, swift as grace itself, had come his answer.

He had seen men who had already all that the world could give,
men who, he had thought, lusted only for power, go to an unknown
and yet a certain death for the sake of a world over which he
had thought they cared only to reign--and go with smiles and
cheerfulness. And while he still hung in indecision, still
hesitated as to whether this or that were the Kingdom of
God--this shrinking dream of a world sufficient to itself, or
this brightening vision--then the last light had come, and he
had seen one to be victor by sheer self-abnegation, by contempt
of his own life, by the all but divine power of an ordinary man
walking in grace. There had been no rhetoric in that triumph, no
promises, no intoxication of phrases, no overwhelming
personality such as that which had faced him. There had been
nothing but a little quiet personage with a father's heart, who
by his very fidelity to his human type, by the absolute
simplicity of his presence had first climbed to the highest
point that man could reach, and then by that same fidelity and
simplicity, had cast himself down, and in the very hour that
followed the unconditional surrender which his enemies had made,
had granted them a measure of liberty such as they had never
dreamed of. In the name of the Powers, whose super-lord and
representative he was, he had abolished the death-penalty for
opinions subversive of society or faith, substituting in its
place deportation to the new American colonies; he had flung
open certain positions in Catholic states hitherto tenable only
on a profession of the Christian religion to all men alike; and
he had guaranteed to the new colonies in America a freedom from
external control and a place among civilized powers such as they
had never expected or asked.

This then was the new type of man who had at last conquered the
world. It was not a superman that had been waited for so long,
not a demigod armed with powers of light; not man raising
himself above his stature, building towers on earthly
foundations that should reach to heaven; but just man, utterly
true to himself and his instincts, walking humbly before his
God; looking for a city that has no foundations, coming down to
him out of heaven. It was supernature, not superman; grace and
truth transfiguring nature; not nature wrenching itself vainly