Part 12

In regard to America, did I not tell you some time ago that there was “an American on guard to-night,” old Abraham Lincoln, who renounced heaven that he might watch over and guard the land he died for? Rest in confidence on that assurance.

The other countries that you love are watched over also. And another country which you do not love is watched over, lest it wander so far that it cannot find its way back into the fold of human brotherhood. There are souls in that country who are keenly aware that she has gone as far as she safely may without becoming an outlaw among the nations. There are even Germans in America who know it. If I named a few of them, you might be surprised.

It is well that Germans in America should _feel_ the American repudiation of this latest piracy on the high seas. Let them feel it to the quick. They can learn in no other way.

Do you fancy that in writing through your hand this book to be published after the war, I am impressing my thought only upon you? I am impressing others besides you.

A few days after I wrote you that Abraham Lincoln was on guard, a newspaper cartoonist published a drawing of the ghost of the great Lincoln standing behind President Wilson. Did you think it was a mere coincidence? It was not a mere coincidence. I impress my thought, and the thought of the Masters behind me, on other minds than yours. I am a _worker_ in the astral world. To impress the minds of men is one of the duties assigned me. I go here and there where I am needed; but I have not written anywhere else as I have written through you. I have tried to, but with very indifferent success. An accurate amanuensis between the worlds is rare. They have to be trained to distinguish between the thoughts of the dictator and the thoughts of their own minds, objective and subjective, also between these and the thoughts of irresponsible entities who like to have a finger in the earthly pie.

You wonder why I do not tell you more stories? I will tell you a story on my next visit.

_May 11._

LETTER XXXIX

ONE OF THESE LITTLE ONES

THE story I have to tell you is a sad one, but we are writing of war.

It was three days after the _Lusitania_ went down. Leaving the plains and hills of war-harried France, I had come out across the waters to serve where service was most needed at the moment.

Drawing near to the scene of the disaster, I met a child-soul who wandered up and down looking for something which it could not find--a girl-child of maybe a dozen years, with troubled and bewildered eyes.

“Can I help you?” I asked, taking her by the hand, so that she ceased her restless moving to and fro and paused with me.

“I have lost my mother,” she said. “Where is my mother?”

“I do not know,” I answered, “but we will look for her.”

It is not always easy for a bewildered soul to find in the astral world another soul whom it seeks, though it is sometimes very easy for a calm soul to find another. As on earth, the one we look for with turmoil in our hearts seems to be held away from us by invisible hands.

Passing along with the child, I met many others equally bewildered. All were looking for someone or for something.

“Why are we here?” asked the child. “I thought we were going to London.”

“Do you not know that you have been drowned?” I asked.

“Did I really drown when I was in the water?”

“Yes.”

“I thought it was a dream, for I have been asleep.”

“Yes, you have been asleep, but the drowning was no dream.”

“Then where am I?”

“You are in the other world.”

“The other world! But I thought the other world was heaven.”

“Heaven is also in the other world.”

“You do not mean that I have gone to the bad place?”

“No, you have not gone to the darkest place,” I said, “and you will find your way to heaven by and by.”

“But why was I drowned? Why did the ship go down? It was such a beautiful ship, and we were so happy playing about the decks!”

“You were drowned because Germany is at war with England.”

“But why should they drown me?”

“In an attempt to prove that England does not hold the seas.”

“But what has that to do with me?”

“Nothing, my child. It has nothing to do with you. You are only a helpless victim.”

“But _who_ drowned us?”

“The commander of a submarine.”

“Is he a very bad man?”

“I cannot imagine a good man doing it.”

“And why can’t I find my mother? Was she drowned, too?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Then you don’t know everything?”

“No, I don’t know everything.”

“Are you an angel?”

“No, I am not an angel.”

“What are you, then?”

“A man.”

“And were you drowned, also?”

“No, I came to the other world more than three years ago.”

The child began to cry. Did you suppose that children never cried after death? Dead children often cry. Would you not cry at the thought of being drowned, if you woke and could not find your mother?

I too could have cried with the child, for I have had children of my own, and one of them died young.

“Have I been very bad without knowing it, that I should be drowned like this?” asked the little girl.

“No, I do not think that you have been very bad.”

As we passed across the rough waters we saw the corpse of a woman floating face upwards in the pale light. The child could see it dimly, though not so well as I.

Have you ever seen a living child weeping over the soulless corpse of its mother? If that seemed sad to you, would it not seem sadder to see the living _soul_ of a child weeping over the corpse of a mother whose soul was absent? To me it was the most pitiful of all sad sights.

“Come away, little one,” I said, “your mother is not here.”

A little farther on we saw the body of a child also floating face upwards in the pale light. I knew whose body it was, and so did the child.

“Why, it isn’t pretty any more!” she said.

“Come away, little one,” I repeated, “come and look for the mother.”

But she seemed held fast near the floating thing in the water. No, it was not pretty; but the soul beside me was very beautiful for all its sadness.

“What will become of _it_?” she asked, awestruck.

“I do not know.”

“Do you think they will bury it somewhere?”

“If they find it they will bury it.”

“Could you not tell them where it is?”

“If we wait to look for them, we may not find the mother.”

We met many women passing to and fro over the water, mothers looking for their children, wives seeking their husbands, some seeking their own lost forms, others merely passing to and fro in bewilderment and grief.

“It is very sad to die,” said the child.

“It is not always sad to die,” I answered. “It is sometimes beautiful to die.”

“Where is the man who drowned us?”

“Why, do you want to see him?”

“I want him to see me.”

“He will see you his life-long in dreams,” I said, “whether he lives to be old, or dies tomorrow.”

Coming toward us across the sea was the form of a woman wringing vapory hands.

“Where is my child? Where is my child?” she was saying over and over.

“Mother, I am here!” cried the little girl, and the two forms melted in a close embrace.

“I have found you! I have found you!” the mother and child repeated over and over, as they clung together.

I remained near them a little while, for I wanted to help them to free themselves from the sadness of their fate.

“Will you not come with me?” I asked them, when they could listen.

“But where shall we go?”

“Away from here.”

“I want to go home,” said the child.

“We are homeless now,” the mother answered; “we are in the other world.”

“Then you also know what has happened?” I asked her.

“Oh, yes, I know, I know!”

“Will you not come away with me?” I repeated.

“Are you an angel?” asked the mother, even as the child had asked.

I told her who I was and what I was doing there.

“Is there no help for us?” she asked.

“It is to help you that I have come.”

“But where shall we go?”

“Anywhere, away from here.”

As we stood talking together, another woman came toward us looking for a lost child; another child--not hers--came toward us looking for a lost mother.

I am willing to tell you that I did not well know what to do with all these stricken souls. Where _could_ I take them for rest or comfort?

The whole astral region around the earth is full of sadness and crying. Only the strongest and most resolute souls can get far enough away to escape the gloom and the horror. And these newly arrived ones have not the strength; for you must know that in this world we go where our desires and our thoughts go, and we go with our fears and our griefs.

I led the mother and child to another part of the world, and left them with others in the care of two ministering older souls who have given themselves to this sad work. But as one cannot teach a child the differential calculus, so we cannot take to the lofty regions of peace those beings in whose hearts there is no peace.

I shall ask the advice of the Teacher as to how much I should tell the world of the awful conditions around us.

Even the restoration of peace on earth will not immediately purge the astral world of the sores of war. You think that you suffer--and I know better than anyone else how much; but you can escape into the material world, you can walk on the green hills in the sunshine, you can rise occasionally to the place of spiritual calm above the conflict astral and material. These millions of grieving ones cannot go back to the physical, and few of them can yet rise to the spiritual. Their immediate future is a problem for the greatest of the Masters, a problem that taxes the wisdom of the Masters of wisdom.

Hold steady, you for whom there is another day of anxiety not far off. Hold steady; for though you may not realize it, I to whom you look for strength find also strength in you. That is a mystery which I may or may not explain by and by. You are a solid platform from which I can spring, when I need the force of a material base. I shall not over-use it.

If you are unable to stand the strain, alone as you are now, you may communicate with my son; but do that only as a last resort. You must learn to stand alone.

In my other writing the strain on you was far less, the demand on you far less, the need of your strength far less. You could not have done then what you are doing now, nor could I have done then what I am doing now.

Again I say, hold steady.

The wounds, the tortured faces which you see at night, the pitiful appeals for help which you try to answer, are only typical of what we see and try to help, nightly, daily and hourly.

I have used the actual substance of your etheric body to build myself an optical instrument, through which I can see into the sun-lighted world--your world. You will suffer no injury in the long run for this loan that you have made me. Have you not pledged yourself to the service of mankind? Mankind are out here as well as in there, and the eyes I have built of your substance have enabled me to do service which otherwise I could not have done.

Count that with your good karma.

_May 13._

LETTER XL

THE HEIGHT AND THE DEPTH

DO not lose faith in the future of the world.

Have you not studied the Law of Rhythm? Do you not know that the height is equal to the depth, and that when things are at their worst they are getting ready to improve?

Life moves rapidly in these Twentieth Century days. A thousand years ago it would have taken a decade to accomplish the horrors of the last ten months. Perhaps the reconstruction will be equally rapid.

Do not lose faith in the future of the world.

There are even Germans who repudiate the sinking of the _Lusitania_! All is not well in that Empire, from the standpoint of the Empire.

Be poised, and await the issue.

_May 14._

LETTER XLI

A CONCLAVE OF MASTERS

SOME day the races of men will return to the love which they have now forgotten. Some day German and English, Italian and Austrian, French and Turkish, will all sit together at the banquet table of life and drink to the health, not to the death, of one another.

And that day is not so far distant as the present hate and slaughter would indicate.

There is peace after strife, and love after hate, and sunshine after the storm.

Love and hate! To know the one you must have seen the other. Surely I need not tell _you_ this! What did you know of love till you had been hated?

Love and hate are the twin-born children of emotion.

Some day men will look for their enemies _within themselves_; some day men will fight the evil in themselves, and then they will not need to slay their brothers. Some day love will re-establish itself upon the pedestal of the world, and hate will return to the shades.

I have told you of the evil beings who brought about this war. There are also loving beings who long to do away with war between brother and brother.

To-night in the spaces above the world there is a strange quiet. Is it the quiet before the storm, or the quiet after the storm? It is all rhythmic. Be poised and wait, trusting in God.

Some storms clear the air. The present thunder and lightning will clear the air. Yes, the world has been too sultry, and the atmosphere had to be broken.

Do not cry out, do not weep, do not laugh. Be quiet, and trust in God.

What do I mean by God? Look deep in your heart and see I AM THAT I AM.

In the childhood of the world men believed in a Power beyond themselves. Now in the maturity of the world men believe in a Power _within_ and beyond themselves. That is God, I AM THAT I AM!

Seek the high place of the Spirit and prepare yourself for the service of the world. The Spirit is crucified on the cross of the world. Christ clothes himself in matter that he may raise it. Love wears the garment of hate, that love and hate may become one.

What do I mean? Do you not know that love and hate are One Thing--the eternal opposites that complete each other?

When hate rests, love comes into its own. When love rested, hate came into its own. This night do hate and love unite. Find out my meaning if you can. Look in the glass of visions and find the picture there.

The uniting of love and hate! There is a _neutral_ point where the two join hands.

There is a council held this night among those who serve the world--a conclave of Masters. At what hour, you ask? Go to sleep, and learn the hour. If you are still enough, you may listen at the keyhole. If you are not still enough, you will hear nothing.

Do I seem to write strangely to-night? All things are strange to-night, if by strange you mean unusual.

Be still, and know that God dwells in the hearts of all men, though in some He lies asleep. For the God in you will sleep until you awake Him.

“This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.”

Love your enemies, even when they smite you; for the God is asleep in those who smite with hate.

You will never understand your enemy by hating him. You will never understand the Masters until the love and hate in you unite.

On the declaration of peace your love will flow out again to your enemy. Can you not anticipate the event, and love your enemy to-night? The enemy needs love when he shows least of it. Be still, and know that the world is the footstool of the Spirit.

Hate will not serve you. Hate never serves willingly. Remember the words of the Man-God, “Forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

Go to sleep now, and listen at the keyhole of the Masters’ council-room. You may hear things that you cannot tell the world.

_May 14._

LETTER XLII

A LESSON IN THE KABALA

SHALL I repeat to you what you saw in your vision of last night--the races of earth as the Sephiroth on the Kabalistic Tree of Life?

You know more of the Kabala than I do; but you would never have known the Kabalistic correspondences of the nations had they not been pointed out to you by the Teacher.

It is true that Germany (_Geburah_, _Mars_, _Severity_, _Pachad_) has become so extremely severe and Martian that the welfare of the whole Tree is threatened, the balance is upset; and it is through the strength of the United States, shown by a certain Yetziratic Path, and through the prudence of the United States in relation to another Sephira which represents the British Empire, that justice may be reestablished between Britain and Germany.

The Teacher has been instructing me in the Kabala.

And you also see by that vision the part which the United States has to take in the future of the world--that of _Chesed_, Mercy. That is the keynote of the Sixth Race, and Germany thought to establish it--the Sixth Race--in herself by blood and iron! What folly and short-sightedness!

You need not tell the world where the other races were on the Tree of Life in your vision, save that the Three Supernals are not represented by races on this material plane. That much you may state, on my authority, lest some German Kabalist should claim for the Teutonic race the place of _Kether_. No, the Three Supernals are not represented on the material plane.

Watch and pray that America may be guided aright. So far, she has been so guided. The great soul of Abraham Lincoln was with President Wilson during those days of retirement. Did I not tell you that he had renounced rest that he might watch over the land he died for, _when the day of her own great trial came_?

I shall tell you no more than my judgment dictates, day by day.

It is well that you were able to rise to the plane of that vision, lest you should become too warlike.

Now pray that the hands of the President may be upheld, and that his soul may be strengthened by the living soul of America’s greatest son, Abraham Lincoln.

The future is on the laps of the gods.

_May 15._

LETTER XLIII

THE SECOND COMING

TO those who have suffered in this war, either from wounds of the body or wounds of the soul, it has sometimes seemed that the Christ of the Christian world had turned His back and gone away, perhaps to some other star where His teaching could be understood and His law of love become a real influence in the lives and hearts of men.

But the Christ who died to teach men how to live has not left the world in this its hour of trial.

He is the same Christ of love and compassion; and whoever attempts to put in His place a Christ of hate and pitilessness, blasphemes His sacred name, and will one day pay the awful penalty of that blasphemy.

I have seen face to face the Christ who walked the world in Galilee. Are you startled, you Christians who hope to see Christ when _you_ die? Why should I not see Him? Have I not served, in life and in death? Am I not serving now, to the best of my individual power? Yes, I have seen the Christ.

Look for Him to come again “in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory,” though He may not walk the earth again in material form. What need is there for Him to walk the earth now in a mortal body, when more and more men and women are opening their spiritual sight, so that they can see Him while still held in their robes of flesh?

I have told you of the Beautiful Being on the battlefields, and now I want to tell you of the Christ on the Battlefields.

He was never afraid of pain, that son of Light, who showed the way of pain to the shrinking souls of men. The cross of Christ is a living thing, and its power will be felt more and more as the tired world recovers itself after its baptism of blood.

When the half-gods go the gods arrive. When Mars, the half-god, the war-god, is sent back to his place, the god of love and pity can make Himself seen in the hearts of men and women.

They are wise who hope for the Christian faith a renaissance of life. It had grown old and indifferent. Thinking itself saved, it had forgotten to save the world. Feeling itself secure, it let its security be surprised by Mars, the war-god.

Many a soul in its last hour of agony has seen the Christ; many a soul in France, in Belgium, in Poland, and on the war-rocked sea has recognized the Friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

Many a mother has seen in true vision her dying son held up by the Christ. Catholic, Protestant, “free-thinker,” they all have called on the Son of Mary to comfort their sons in the last dread moment and beyond.

From the shrieking hell in Belgium I yesterday saw a man, a common soldier, go straight from death into the high place beyond even astral turmoil, because in dying he called on the Christ of his mother’s faith to take him away from strife to the heaven of peace above the world. Many have gone that way since this trial by fire began, but more have remained below. Few have faith enough for the great flight.

Whatever religion you work with, let it include the Christ and the cross of Christ! What other comfort is there for the soul that _feels_ its pain and feels the awful sum of the world’s pain at this time? Philosophy is good, I have called myself a philosopher; but love is the highest reach of philosophy, and Christ is the highest reach of love.

They talk of a new religion, as if the love of Christ were an old and worn-out love. The love of Christ is reborn whenever a soul in a flash of illumination beholds that mystery in his heart.