People are prone to believe in the realization of the most improbable events under the sun.  They believe in the possibility of flying to and communicating with the planets, in the possibility of arranging socialistic communes, in spiritualistic communications, and in many other palpably impossible things.  But they do not wish to believe that the conception of life, in which they and all who surround them live, can ever be altered.  And yet such changes, even the most extraordinary, are continually taking place in ourselves, among those around us, and among whole communities and nations.  It is these changes that constitute the essence of human life.

Not to mention changes that have happened in historic times in the social consciousness of nations.  At present in Russia, before our very eyes, an apparently astonishing change is taking place with incredible rapidity in the consciousness of the whole Russian nation, of which we had no external indication two or three years ago.

The change only seems to us to have taken place suddenly, because the preparation for it, which went on in the spiritual region, was not visible.  A similar change is still going on in the spiritual region inaccessible to our observations.  The Russian people, who two years ago thought it impossible to disobey or even to criticize the existing power, now not only criticize, but are even preparing to disobey it and to replace it by a new one.  Why should we not suppose that another change in the consciousness of the Russian people’s relationship toward power, one more natural to them, is now being prepared, a change which will consist in their moral and religious emancipation from power?

Why may not such a change be possible among any people, and why not at present among the Russians?  Why, instead of that irritated, egotistical mood of mutual strife, fear, and hatred, which has now seized all nations; why, instead of all this preaching of lies, immorality, and violence now so strenuously circulated among all nations by newspapers, books, speeches, and actions; why should not a religious, humane, reasonable, loving mood seize the minds of all nations, and of the Russian nation in particular, after all the sins, sufferings, and terrors they have lived through – a state of mind which would make them see all the horror of submitting to the power under which they live, and feel the joyful possibility of a reasonable, loving life without violence and without power?  Why should not the consciousness of the possibility and necessity of emancipating themselves from the sin of power, and of establishing unity among men based on mutual agreement and on respect and love between men, be ripening now, just as the movement is now manifesting itself in a revolution prepared by decades of influence tending in one particular direction?

Some ten or fifteen years ago the gifted French writer, Dumas, wrote a letter to Zola in which he, a talented and intelligent man chiefly occupied with aesthetic and social questions, when already old, uttered some strikingly prophetic words.  Truly the spirit of God “blows wherever it pleases”! This is what he wrote:

The soul, too, is incessantly at work, ever evolving toward light and truth.  And so long as it has not reached full light and conquered the whole truth, it will continue to torment man.

Well!  The soul never so harassed man, never so dominated him, as is does today.  It is as though it were in the air we all breathe.  The few isolated souls that had separately desired the regeneration of society have, little by little, sought one another out, beckoned one another, drawn nearer, united, comprehended one another, and formed a group, a centre of attraction, toward which others now fly from the four quarters of the globe, like larks toward a mirror.  They have, as it were, formed one collective soul, so that men in future may realize together, consciously and irresistibly, the approaching union and steady progress of nations that were but recently hostile one to another.  This new soul I find and recognize in events seemingly most calculated to deny it.

These armaments of all nations, these threats their representatives address to one another, this revival of race persecutions, and these hostilities among compatriots are all things of evil aspect, but not of evil augury.  They are the last convulsions of that which is about to disappear.  The social body is like the human body.  Disease, in this case, is but a violent effort of the organism to throw off a morbid and harmful element.

Those who have profited, and expect for long or forever to continue to profit by the mistakes of the past, are uniting to prevent any modification of existing conditions.  Hence these armaments and threats and persecutions.  But look carefully and you will see that all this is quite superficial.  It is colossal, but hollow.  There is no longer any soul in it; the soul has gone elsewhere.  These millions of armed men, who are daily drilled to prepare for a general war of extermination, no longer hate the men they are expected to fight, and none of their leaders dares to proclaim this war.  As for the appeals and even the threatening claims that rise from the suffering and the oppressed – a great and sincere pity, recognizing their justice, begins at last to respond from above.

Agreement is inevitable.  It will come at an appointed time, and is nearer than is expected.  I know not if this is because I shall soon leave this earth, and because the rays that are already reaching me from below the horizon have disturbed my sight, but I believe our world is about to begin to realize the words, “Love one another," without, however, being concerned whether a man or a God uttered them.

The spiritual movement one recognizes on all sides, and which so many naive and ambitious men expect to be able to direct, will be absolutely humanitarian.  Mankind, which does nothing moderately, is about to be seized with a frenzy, a madness, of love.  This will not, of course, happen smoothly or all at once.  It will involve misunderstandings – even sanguinary ones perchance – so trained and so accustomed have we been to hatred, even by those, sometimes, whose mission it was to teach us to love one another.  But it is evident that this great law of brotherhood must be accomplished someday, and I am convinced that the time is commencing when our desire for its accomplishment will become irresistible.

I believe that this thought, however strange the expression “seized with a frenzy of love” may seem, is perfectly true, and is felt more or less dimly by all men of our day.  A time must come when love, which forms the fundamental essence of the soul, will take the place natural to it in the life of mankind, and will become the chief basis of the relations between men.  That time is coming; it is at hand.  Lamennais wrote:

We are living in the times predicted by Christ.  From one end of the earth to the other, everything is tottering.  In all institutions, whatever they may be, in all the different systems on which the social life of men is founded, nothing stands firm.  Everyone feels that soon it must all fall to ruins, and that in this temple too, not one stone will be left on another.  But as the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, from whence the living God had departed, foreboded and prepared the erection of a new city and a new temple, whither the people of all races and of all nations would come together at their own free will; so on the ruins of the temples and towns of today, a new city and a new temple will be erected, predestined to become the universal temple and the common fatherland of the human race, disunited until now by teachings that are hostile to one another, that make brothers into strangers, and that sow godless hatred and revolting warfare among them.  When that hour, known to God alone, arrives – the hour of union of the nations into one temple and one city – then indeed will the Kingdom of Christ come the complete fulfillment of his divine mission.  Did he not come with the one object of teaching men that they must be united by the law of love?

Channing said the same:

Mighty powers are at work in the world.  Who can stay them?  God’s word has gone forth, and “it cannot return to him void.”  A new comprehension of the Christian spirit, a new reverence for humanity, a new feeling of brotherhood and of all men’s relation to the common Father – these are among the signs of our times.  We see it; do we not feel it?  Before this, all oppressions are to fall.  Society, silently pervaded by this, is to change its aspect of universal warfare for peace.  The power of selfishness, all-grasping and seemingly invincible, is to yield to this diviner energy…  ‘Peace on earth” will not always sound as fiction.