Ah, yes, what then? Then it is you cry out to the Master whose loving admonition you have ignored so often, and you entreat him to save you from the doom you so persistently have invited.
You cry for help, but what is the motive that prompts your cry? Is it humility? No. Is it love? No. Is it any motive which could possibly inspire an honest prayer? Alas, no. It is, instead, the lowest and meanest impulse that ever moves the springs of human action—the impulse of Fear. And fear of what? Fear of Justice. Fear of the inevitable penalties which you so deliberately and persistently have invited; penalties which your own conscience recognizes and your reason approves. Fear of the operation of nature’s most beneficent law, the Law of Compensation.
Oh, selfish lover! false friend! unworthy student! obdurate sinner! unconscionable outlaw and indefensible miscreant! Where now is all your boasted power? Why do you cringe and writhe in an agony of fear? Why are you here, the helpless plaything of forces under the control of this witless child of earth?
Listen, and I will tell you: The Law of Retributive Justice is but a single phase of the great Law of Compensation. That Law is immutable, irrevocable and inexorable. Whosoever invites its judgments must suffer its penalties. Under its inevitable and relentless decree you stand a guilty and condemned Soul.
You have violated the most sacred law of your being—the Law of Love. Neither time, place, circumstance, duty nor responsibility has deterred you from your unholy purpose to wreck the happiness and fortunes of a defenseless home.
You have betrayed the trust of a faithful friend. You have abused his generous hospitality, and violated the sanctity of his household.
You have permitted your own degenerate and selfish desires and passions to override every principle of Equity, Justice and Right.
To accomplish an ignoble purpose you have employed all your little knowledge of our noble science in conscious and deliberate violation of a most sacred and binding obligation; and I am come to behold you now, a blackened and perjured Soul, expiating your crimes and suffering a self-invoked and righteous penalty.
Nay, more: It is you and such as you who have made it possible for offended ignorance to travesty our noble science, misinterpret our exalted philosophy, bring our ancient and honored Order into ignominy and shame, and all our beneficent instructions under the blighting and humiliating ridicule of this Occidental world.
It is you and such as you who have made it necessary for us once more to shut the doors of our sacred Temple of Light against all who shall come to us from your western shores.