Religion and rank, whether content or not
with the subsidiary place they now occupy, are most often courtiers of
Mammon and support him on his throne. For all the talk about democracy
our social order is truly little more democratic than Rome was under the
Caesars, and our new rulers have not, with all their wealth, created a
beauty which we could imagine after-generations brooding over with
uplifted heart.
The people in theocratic States like Egypt or Chaldea, ruled in the name
of gods, saw rising out of the plains in which they lived an
architecture so mysterious and awe-inspiring that they might well
believe the master-minds who designed the temples were inspired from the
Oversoul. The aristocratic States reflected the love of beauty which is
associated with aristocracies. The oligarchies of wealth in our time,
who have no divine sanction to give dignity to their rule nor traditions
of lordly life like the aristocracies, have not in our day created
beauty in the world. But whatever of worth the ancient systems produced
was not good enough to make permanent their social order.
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