Conclusion

We have now concluded our inquiry into the cause of world unrest, and it is for our readers to judge how far it provides an explanation of the revolutionary movements which are disturbing alike the faith of Christian men and women and the whole system of government on which Western civilization has been built up.

The famous protocols may or may not be genuine, but even the most sceptical must admit that they are the abstract of a philosophy which may be devilidh, but which is certainly coherent, and that in many important points they not only anticipate, but explain, some of the ills from which the world is at present suffering.

It is the element of time which is inclined to prejudice the Western, particularly the English, reader against them. Can it be possible that any body of men can seriously commit themselves to a plot which is to be worked out not in years but in centuries, and the fruits of which they themselves can never gather? But it must be remembered that the whole idea is Eastern, and in the East they still think in centuries. A child with difficulty can span the period of a week, the ordinary Englishman that of a decade. But an Englishman who has lived long in the East has quite a different conception of time, and would not find the long roll of years between the prophecy and its fruition a ban to belief. Therefore, let the scoffers remember that all periods of time are relative, and that to some a thousand years may be as a day.

In the first part of this book, the doctrines and programme of revolutionary Freemasonry were described and the liaison between them and the protocols examined. In later chapters, modern revolutionary phenomena were considered in the light of the plot revealed earlier. Can we trace a connection between the two? Our readers must decide for themselves on the evidence submitted to them.

It has been shown that the Continental Freemasons were primarily responsible for the revolutions in Turkey and Portugal, and that in the former at least, the Jews had a prominent share in this Masonic conspiracy. When the Bolsheviks seized power in Moscow—and we gave a table showing that the vast majority of them were Jews — the propaganda of Litvinov, Radek, and company took the place to a considerable extent of the subterranean Masonic activities and the threads of the plot were therefore easier to trace. For example, we showed how this Bolshevist-Jewish gang tried to take control of the Governments of Prussia, Bavaria, and Hungary.

We also drew attention to the secret influences working in Paris during the Peace Conference, to the curious fact that the principle of self-determination, so dangerous at present to the authority of the British Empire, was common to both Wilsonism and Leninism, and that Poland, which both Jews and Germans fear, was left economically and strategically weak by the Conference and, along with Hungary, has been malevolently attacked by the forces of International Labour working under Bolshevist direction. Finally, we sought to trace a link between the conspiracy and some of the agitations which are at present gravely threatening the security of the British Empire.

Throughout this book we have referred to the menace which this conspiracy constitutes not only to civilized government but to the Christian faith. It is indeed clear that never in its history has that faith had to undergo so organized and sustained an attack. Men's thoughts are continually being concentrated on things material, on the inequalities of wealth, on mean and trivial pleasures, and are being told that the cure for all their ills lies not in themselves but in a peculiar form of government.

The Bolsheviks know perfectly well that their cause can make no lasting progress unless it first gets rid of Christianity with its superb indifference to the things on which the world sets such store. Therefore it may be taken as certain that these attacks will be redoubled. And therein perhaps lies the surest proof of the ultimate failure of Bolshevism. For to the peoples of Western Europe, whether they are conscious of it or not, Christianity is still the beacon that will guide them out of the slough of despond in which they now groan.

If that light were extinguished, they might well say of the world what Montaigne thought of it when he lost his friend: "Ce n'est que fumee, ce n'est qu'une nuit obscure et ennuyeuse" (All is nothing but smoke, nothing but a dark and tedious night.) Do the Bolsheviks honestly believe that they can conquer two worlds?