Theoretical Socialism has declared that religion is the private affair of the individual. Now that it has got past the stage of theory and has entered that of bloodthirsty reality religion has ceased to be a private affair, for not even the soul must possess private property. Private property has been abolished and common property has been substituted. Religion is no longer a private affair, it is public business. And public business in Hungary is now controlled in the name of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat by twenty-six Jewish People’s Commissaries, who this day crucify the Word with the same panting hatred with which they crucified Him two thousand years ago. And the people stand now as before, unimpressed, at the foot of the Cross, again not understanding what is being crucified above its head with laughter, contempt and hatred. It is easier to drive cattle on than human beings; this the Communists realise. By taking from the people its religion they take everything from them but the couch, the platter and the cup; they deprive them at a stroke of morals, philosophy and beauty. The people knelt round the coffin and prayed, because someone was there to tell them to pray; they turned to their inner selves, above the cup and the platter, because there was someone who told them that there was a God above. Then the funeral procession wended its way out of the little farmyard. Four men lifted the coffin, one of them the dead woman’s husband. His head leant against the boards as though leaning on her shoulder. The weeping crowd followed them up the hill-side. The bell tolled in the steeple above the roofs. And the bell was still ringing for the dead when, the funeral over, the mood of the people had changed. The girls, gay in their finery, displayed their charms. Two farmers bargained over the purchase of a cow. A young man pinched the arm of a grinning maid.... * * * * * _April 7th._ News reached us to-day. After driving the King from Schönbrunn, Vienna has driven him from Eckartsau too. An escort of British officers protected him and his family. Henceforth he is to live in Prangins. Thus the little mountainous region whence long ago Rudolph, Count of Habsburg, set out towards the Imperial Crown, bearing in his hand his great destiny, has now, after eight hundred years, received his heir, holding nothing in his hand but the past. But there is as much force in an historical past as in an historical future.