Charles Lemonnier
Président de la Ligue de la paix et de la liberté à Genève
Berlin, November 12, 1891
Your name is mentioned among the promoters of a movement which is to lead humanity “upward,” Christianity toward its fulfillment.
I regard it as my duty to approach you respectfully and to beg you to regard me as one of those who join in the loftiest efforts with all their might. Every fiber of my being belongs to the “upbuilding of a kingdom of God on earth,” to the “coming of Christianity.” This comprehends all the efforts of good men. I am all on fire with idealism, and yet I am no fancymonger. You have to do with “a man among men.” Undismayed, but also unbefooled, I shall go on in the paths that are marked out for me. The more comprehensive our action is, the more effective; the more resolute, the more beneficent; the more simultaneous along the whole line, the more thorough the success.
“Now, then, something must come.” I live in the firm conviction (to me the word “belief” would not be enough for this) that we stand before the gate that at once parts us from and admits us to the age of completion. To grasp the latch with a vigorous hand seems to me the duty of all those to whom God has granted the ability to do so.
M. v. Egidy, Oberstleutnant a. D.
Kilchberg near Zürich
... From the inmost conviction I declare myself in accord with the aims of every peace union, in obedient veneration of our sublime Master from Nazareth. Here his disciple, our dear Leo Tolstoi, is incontrovertibly in the right.
Only I believe that we of our profession can accomplish even more for the good and great cause through our slowly but certainly infiltrating books than through associated activities—of this you yourself have given a shining example—though of course the latter also have their value.