You
are wafted upwards, with this lucid and just spirit by your side
upholding and instructing you. Beneath you are warring nations, the
clash of races, the rise and fall of dynasties, the conflict of
creeds. Serene you float above them all, and ever as the panorama
flows past, the weighty measured unemotional voice whispers the true
meaning of the scene into your ear.
It is a most mighty story that is told. You begin with a description
of the state of the Roman Empire when the early Caesars were on the
throne, and when it was undisputed mistress of the world. You pass
down the line of the Emperors with their strange alternations of
greatness and profligacy, descending occasionally to criminal
lunacy. When the Empire went rotten it began at the top, and it
took centuries to corrupt the man behind the spear. Neither did a
religion of peace affect him much, for, in spite of the adoption of
Christianity, Roman history was still written in blood. The new
creed had only added a fresh cause of quarrel and violence to the
many which already existed, and the wars of angry nations were mild
compared to those of excited sectaries.
Then came the mighty rushing wind from without, blowing from the
waste places of the world, destroying, confounding, whirling madly
through the old order, leaving broken chaos behind it, but finally
cleansing and purifying that which was stale and corrupt. A
storm-centre somewhere in the north of China did suddenly what it
may very well do again.
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