The immediate picture looked black and hopeless to his far-seeing eyes.
But his place must be in Petrograd now, until the end. His activities, which had obliged him to be away from Russia, were finished, and new ones had begun which he must direct, there in the heart of things.
"The world is aching for freedom, God," his stormy thoughts ran, "but we cannot hope to receive it until we have paid the price of the æons of greed and self-seeking which have held us, the ignorance, the low material gain. We must now reap that sowing. The divine Christ—one man—was enough as a sacrifice in that old period of the world's day—but now there must be a holocaust of the bravest and best for our purification."
He threw himself into his chair and gazed into the glowing embers. What pictures were forming themselves there? Nations arising glorified by a new religion of common sense, education universally enjoyed, the great forces studied, and Nature's fundamental principles reckoned with and understood.
To hunt his food.
To recreate his species.
And to kill his enemy.
A bright blade sheathed but ready, a clear judgment trained and used, ideals nobly striven for, and Wisdom the High Priest of God.
These were the visions he saw in the fire, and he started to his feet and stretched out his arms.
"Strength, God! Strength!" that was his prayer.