“You would have to speak often,” Tacita said dryly.
“Should I not!”
Iona began walking to and fro. “I have had visions of what might be done,” she said, her manner warming as she proceeded. “The time is past when San Salvador can be long hidden, when it should hold itself only a refuge for a few, and a nursery for a few. I think that the time is come when it should prepare, prudently, yet with energy, to practice a Christian aggressiveness. We have our little circles in every part of the world. They are silent and true, and they are not poor. We have no weak hearts. The children of San Salvador are baptized with fire. The tests of our virtue and fidelity are severe. Our people have never occupied public office, because we hold officials responsible; and by the world they are not so held.
“We have capital. It might be spent in acquiring territory. Concentrated, we should be a power in the world. It is possible. I have the whole plan in my mind. I have studied over it for years. I have settled where our outposts should be, and how they might be strengthened. I would deprive no ruler of his realm; but he should call himself viceroy, and sit on the footstool of an inviolate throne. I would mock at no faith of person, or society; but I would show the whole truth of which each belief is a fragment, and I would surround worship with such a splendor as should satisfy any lover of pageantry; and I would attack all organized wickedness.
“In the early days of our faith Christians did not fear persecution; for above the head of threatening king, or pontiff, they saw the face of an approving God. Only the spirit of Christ himself, simple and literal, can reawaken that faith. The first Dylar said that when he abolished preaching, and set the words of the King in letters of gold before the people.
“Tell me what to do!” said Tacita, leaning to kiss Iona’s hand as she passed her by.
Iona paused. “See what I have thought,” she said in a softened voice. “San Salvador is in danger, and the danger increases every day. How long, with explorers and mountain-climbers everywhere, can we hope to escape? Already, more than once, we have escaped but by a hair’s-breadth. We hide by a miracle. Once discovered, what rights have we? A vulgar, if not malignant, curiosity follows you everywhere in the world. Every kind of science and astuteness would be employed to invade and subdue us. Every sophistical argument on the subject of sovereign rights, and even of human rights, would be quoted against us. Fancy a man educated in the tricks of diplomacy and the falsehoods of official life coming here and claiming the right to investigate and command, and bringing his subordinates to enforce submission!
“Our people are sent out into the world with every precaution. All are placed above want; but no one is made rich enough to win the world’s blinding flatteries. Depending solely on their intrinsic worth for respect, they are seldom deceived. But, known as we are, even if force did not invade, what flatteries! What imitations of our ways without the spirit! Our realities made theatrical by their paraphrases—it might be worse than war. Ordinary society can see no difference between its own fire of straw and stubble and that primal fire which, now and then, bursts through some human soul.
“I have thought, then, to acquire all the land possible about the Olives, planting the plain and peopling the hills. A mile or two distant there is a group of hills much like those on which Rome was built. Our people could come, not as one people, but as if they were strangers to each other. Those who would, might even come at first as laborers. We all know how to labor. For wealth, if we had workmen and engines, the mountains would be an immense storehouse. There are beautiful marbles, and there must be more gold. Then what refuges we could have, not hidden and crowded, but open!”
“Did you think to go out into the world in order to stir up the people to this movement?” Tacita asked, when she paused.