This I pray

This year, I pray for an end to the false dream of Universalism. An end to the arrogance that arrogates Godhood to man. A piercing of the fever dreams of equality and human brotherhood, which have murdered more brave men in supposed defense of the innocent, more brilliant men in presumed defense of the simple, and more great men in the self-justified defense of thieves and brutes, than any fear or greed or religious quibble was ever able. Let the virtues of the revolution- ruthlessness, brutality, slavish devotion to the good of the many- burn out in their fiery eyes, break in their sharp and brittle fingers, collapse in their heavy hearts. Let men, once again, call the noble Good, call the beautiful Holy, call Sacred the refined. Let them call no more the weak, the stupid, the violent, by those undeserved names. Let them stand, not in ranks and rows, as the corn grows; but alone, as dark pines in the service of the wild Earth, with only their secret hearts for Holy Writ, only their delicate dignity to serve as cutting blades, and only their love, enraged, to light their difficult ways. Alone, yes; alone. Lonely they must stand, lonely they must consider: only alone, and they alone, will lift the terrible curse that has settled down, like a black cat's fat, flowing flanks, and filled tor and vale of their beloved earth. Only in lonely service and unacknowledged sacrifice will the pure fires flow, the flawless fires burn, and the great refiner draw the gold from mottled, sickly ore.
This I pray.