We often read and hear discussions as to the causes of the present excited, restless condition of all the Christian nations, threatened by all sorts of dangers, and of the terrible position in which the demented, and in part brutalized Russian people find 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, most men have descended, in spite of all the subtlety of their mental achievements, to the lowest level 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 a consciousness in themselves of their dependence on God, and thereby regaining a reasonable and free relation towards themselves and towards their fellows.  Thus, 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 replace one government by another; but a much greater and more important event.  What now moves the Russian people is a dim recognition of the wrongness and unreasonableness of all violence, and of the possibility and necessity of basing one’s life, not on coercive power, as has been the case hitherto among all nations, but on reasonable and free agreement.

The Russian nation may accomplish the great task now before it (the task of liberating men from human power substituted for the will of God), or it may follow the path of the Western nations, lose its opportunity, and leave the leadership of the great work that lies before humanity to some other happier Eastern race.  But there is no doubt that, at the present day, all nations are becoming more and more conscious of the possibility of changing this violent, insane, and wicked life for one that shall be free, rational and good.  And what already exists in men’s consciousness will inevitably accomplish itself in real life, for the will of God must be, and cannot fail to be, realized.