themselves at present. The most varied explanations are brought forward; yet all the reasons can be reduced to one. Men have forgotten God, that is to say, they have forgotten their relations to the infinite Source of Life, forgotten the meaning of life which is the outcome of those relations, and which consists, first of all, in fulfilling, for one's own soul’s sake, the law given by this Divine Source. They have forgotten this, because some of them have assumed a right to rule over men by means of threats of murder; and others have consented to submit to these people, and to participate in their rule. By the very act of submitting, these men have denied God and exchanged His law for human law.
Forgetting their relation to the Infinite, the majority of men have descended, in spite of all the subtlety of their mental achievements, to the lowest grade of consciousness, where they are guided only by animal passions and by the hypnotism of the herd.
That is the cause of all their calamities.
Therefore there is but one escape from the miseries with which people torment themselves: it lies in re-establishing in themselves a consciousness of their dependence on God, and thereby regaining a reasonable and free relation towards themselves and towards their fellows.
And so it is just this conscious submission to God, and the consequent abandonment of the sin of power and of submission to it, that now stands before all nations that suffer from the consequence of this sin.
The possibility and necessity of ceasing to submit to human power and of returning to the laws of God, is dimly felt by all men, and especially vividly by the Russian people just now. And in this dim consciousness of the possibility and necessity of re-establishing their obedience to the law of God and ceasing to obey human power, lies the essence of the movement now taking place in Russia.
What is happening in Russia is—not, as many people suppose a rebellion of the people against their Government in order to
