Explore "The National Being" by George William Russell on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Whenever in Ireland there has been a revolt of labor it too often finds arrayed against it the press, the law, and the police. All the great powers are in entente. The press, without inquiry, begins a detestable cant about labor agitators misleading ignorant men. Every wild phrase uttered by an exasperated worker is quoted against the cause of labor, and its grievances are suppressed. We are told nothing about how the worker lives: what homes, what food, his wage will provide. The journalist holds up a moral umbrella, protecting society from the fiery hail of conscience.
The baser sort of clergyman will take up the parable and begin advocating a servile peace, glibly misinterpreting the divine teaching of love to prove that the lamb should lie down inside the lion, and only so can it be saved soul and body, forgetful that the peace which was Christ's gift to humanity was the peace of God which passes all understanding, and that it was a spiritual quietude, and that on earth -- the underworld -- the gospel in realization was to bring not peace but a sword.