Welcome to Episode Thirty of our nightly audio adventure - a most prescient novel from 1907 by Robert Hugh Benson, Lord of the World.
In tonight's episode, the "universal peace" inaugurated by the charismatic young American senator who has become "President of the World" is ...evolving. President Felsenburgh has "declared the extermination of the Supernaturalists" - the remaining believing Christians - "to be a possible necessity":
With the arrival of the universal community of interests the whole situation was changed. The single personality of the human race had succeeded to the incoherence of divided units, and with that consummation—which might be compared to a coming of age, an entirely new set of rights had come into being. The human race was now a single entity with a supreme responsibility towards itself; there were no longer any private rights at all, such as had certainly existed, in the period previous to this.
There's a lot of that about. If you're a member of The Mark Steyn Club you can hear Part Thirty of our serialisation of Lord of the World simply by clicking here and logging-in. All previous episodes can be found here.
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And please join me tomorrow for Part Thirty-One of Lord of the World.
