“Give me, ye mighty nations of the West, the material comforts of life; and thou, my East, let me partake of thy spiritual heritage. Give me, America, thy hand; and thou, too, Asia. Thou land of origination, where Light and Spirit first arose, disdain not the gifts which the nations of the West bring thee; and thou land of organisation and power, where Science and Freedom reign supreme, disdain not the bounties of the sunrise.
“If the discoveries and attainments of Science will make the body of man cleaner, healthier, stronger, happier, the inexhaustible Oriental source of romantic and spiritual beauty will never cease to give the soul of man the restfulness and solacement it is ever craving. And remember, Europa, remember, Asia, that foreign culture is as necessary to the spirit of a nation as is foreign commerce to its industries. Elsewise, thy materialism, Europa, or thy spiritualism, Asia, no matter how trenchant and impregnable, no matter how deep the foundation, how broad the superstructure thereof, is vulgar, narrow, mean––is nothing, in a word, but parochialism.
“I swear that neither religious nor industrial slavery 247 shall forever hold the world in political servitude. No; the world shall be free of the authority, absolute, blind, tyrannical, of both the Captains of Industry and the High Priests of the Temple. And who shall help to free it? Science alone can not do it; Science and Faith must do it.
“I say with thee, O Goethe, ‘Light, more light!’ I say with thee, O Tolstoi, ‘Love, more love!’ I say with thee, O Ibsen, ‘Will, more will!’ Light, Love, and Will––the one is as necessary as the other; the one is dangerous without the others. Light, Love, and Will, are the three eternal, vital sources of the higher, truer, purer cosmic life.
“Light, Love, and Will––with corals and pearls from their seas would I crown thee, O my City. In these streams would I baptise thy children, O my City. The mind, and the heart, and the soul of man I would baptise in this mountain lake, this high Jordan of Truth, on the flourishing and odoriferous banks of Science and Religion, under the sacred sidr of Reason and Faith.
“Ay, in the Lakes of Light, Love, and Will, I would baptise all mankind. For in this alone is power and glory, O my European Brothers; in this alone is faith and joy, O my Brothers of Asia.
“The Hudson, the Mississippi, the Amazon, the Thames, the Seine, the Rhine, the Danube, the Euphrates, the Ganges––every one of these great streams shall be such a Jordan in the future. In every one of them shall flow the confluent Rivers of 248 Light, Love, and Will. In every one of them shall sail the barks of the higher aspirations and hopes of mankind.
“I come now to be baptised, O my City. I come to slake my thirst in thy Jordan. I come to launch my little skiff, to do my little work, to pay my little debt.
“In thy public-squares, O my City, I would raise monuments to Nature; in thy theatres to Poesy and Thought; in thy bazaars to Art; in thy homes, to Health; in thy temples of worship, to universal Goodwill; in thy courts, to Power and Mercy; in thy schools, to Simplicity; in thy hospitals, to Faith; and in thy public-halls to Freedom and Culture. And all these, without Light, Love, and Will, are but hollow affairs, high-sounding inanities. Without Light, Love, and Will, even thy Nabobs in the end shall curse thee; and with these, thy hammals under their burdens shall thank the heavens under which thy domes and turrets and minarets arise.”