Through Rudolph Critical Criticism has twice saved the
world from ruin, but only that it may now itself decree the
end of the world.
And I saw and heard a mighty angel, Herr Hirzel, flying
down from Zurich across the heavens. And he had in his
hand a little book open like the fifth number of Allgemeine
Literatur-Zeitung; and he set his right foot upon the Mass
and his left foot upon Charlottenburg; and he cried with a
loud voice as when a lion roareth, and his words rose like
a dove—Chirp! Chirp!—to the regions of pathos and the
thunder-like aspects of the Critical Last Judgement.
"When, in the end, all is united against Criticism and
verily, verily I say unto you,'''—the time is not far off when
all the world in dissolution
—
to it it was given to fight
against the Holy—will group around Criticism for the last
onslaught; then will the courage of Criticism and its significance
have the greatest recognition. We can have no fear
for the issue. It will all end by our settling accounts with the
various groups
—
and we shall separate them as the shepherd
separateth the sheep from the goats; and we shall set the
sheep on our right hand and the goats on our left—and give
a general testimony to the misery of the hostile knights
—
they are spirits of the devil, they go out into the breadth of
the world and they gather to fight on the great day of God,
the Almighty—and all on the earth will wonder.'