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on the barricade
21
It passed from hand to hand among the rebels,
until one of them, bending forward to look at the
crown, happened to see the words engraved there:
" My kingdom is only of this world."
Immediately the man proclaimed this in a loud
voice, whereupon all cried that the little image should
be their emblem. They carried it to the top of the
barricade and placed it there as a standard.
Among those who defended the barricade was a
man, who was not a poor laborer but a scholar whose
whole life had been spent in study. He knew
the troubles and distress which tortured the people,
and his heart overflowed with compassion, so that
he was constantly seeking after means for bettering
their lot. For thirty years he had written and
brooded, without finding any help. On hearing the
tocsin, he obeyed it and rushed out on the street.
He had seized a weapon and gone with the
combatants, thinking that the mystery, which he had
been unable to explain, might be solved by main
force and power, and that the poor might through
combat be able to better their condition.
All day he stood there fighting, and the people
fell round about him, blood spattered him in the
face, and life’s wretchedness seemed to him greater
and more deplorable than ever before.
But as often as the smoke drifted away, there
glittered before his eyes the little image which,
during the tumult, stood undisturbed on top of the
barricade.
And every time he saw the image, the words : " My
kingdom is only of this world," crossed his brain. At
last it seemed to him as though the words wrote
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