By Violence

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Trevena John. By Violence

INTRODUCTION

BY VIOLENCE

II

III

IV

BUSINESS IS BUSINESS

THE CHRISTENING OF THE FIFTEEN PRINCESSES. A MODERN FAIRY TALE

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Simon Searell read this short message as he tramped the streets of Stonehouse, which were full of fog, from the sea on one side and the river on the other. Vorse was an uneducated man; the mysticism of flowers was nothing to him, the time of spring was merely a change of season, and the most spiritual of blooms were only "wooden enemies." Searell frowned a little, not at the lack of education, which was rather a peace to be desired, but at the harshness of the words, and went on, wondering if the wood-anemones were to be his friends, or little cups of poison.

He climbed streets of poor houses, their unhappy windows curtained with mist, and came out near a small church made of iron, a cheap and gaudy thing, almost as squalid on the outside as the houses. The backslider looked at it with a shudder. It was his no longer; he had given it up; he was forgetting those toy-like altars, the cheap brass candlesticks, the artificial flowers, and all the images. They were wooden and stone enemies to him now. He was going deeper to find the throbbing heart of religion, putting aside dolls and tapers and the sham of sentimentality. Solitude and mysticism were to be his stars through the night, and he trusted, with their aid, to reach the dawn. He turned from the church, stopped at a house, and that was squalid too, knocked, then wiped his boots, as if certain of being admitted.

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"It is there for some, the minority. You will never realize how small that minority is. We cannot hasten the dawn with juggling. True religion is a thing of innocence, not a matter of spells and charms; and it is in the innocence of Nature that I will search for it. I believe it exists there, underneath the outward cruelty, and I shall find it among the flowers. The flower alone does not struggle with violence, it sheds no blood; the weed smothers, and the bindweed chokes; but without some fault upon the surface, perfection might be obtained, which cannot be. Look into the flower, and you will find a condition which is not approached by man or other animals. There is a purity which brings tears into your eyes. Eliminate violence, and you have innocence; obtain innocence, and you see the light. At the beginning of things we are told that the world was destroyed by water because the earth was filled with violence. At the beginning of the new era we learn that the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence. Will you say the Church does not rule by violence, by threats, suppressions, rubrics, and by vows?"

"I cannot understand you," said Damon.

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