Have you not known people who were always being deceived by their “friends”? They are generally those who have left deceiving pictures behind themselves. There are people who cannot discriminate between the false and the true. They deceive and are deceived. Those who deceive are always deceived, whatever their supposed intellect may be. And I would say to those to whom I now suggest experiments with clairvoyance and telepathy, that if they have planted the seeds of falsehood they will reap a harvest of deceptive appearances. Test yourselves in that way, you who believe yourselves to be sincere. You may learn something of value regarding your own karma. (Yes, I will use Theosophic or Indian terms when they express my meaning. Those who re-write the Oriental philosophies in western terms can pass for original only with the ignorant.) What the new race needs most of all is truth. Modern science is preparing the world for the fearless facing of truth. The man who toils over a microscope that he may observe and record some _fact_ in nature, is more the servant of God than the man who with sanctimonious face tells his fellow creatures what they must _not_ do; for his work at least is positive in its results. There are too many “thou shalt nots”; too few “I shalls.” The new race will develop a wide tolerance. It will discourage undesirable things more by ignoring them than by attacking them. By attacking a thing we give it power. Work more and more in the world of mind. The results in the physical will be immense. LETTER IX AMERICA’S GOOD FRIDAY _April 6, 1917._ IT is past midnight. It is Good Friday. Momentous decisions for the world and for all time are heavy in the souls of men. On the day that this day stands for, in the long ago, a man (who was also a god) stood forth alone for the ideas of love and human brotherhood. At last, after all these years, the thing for which he died may be realized. But there was a crucifixion on that Friday, centuries ago. I have brought you from a far-away shore that you might witness a great struggle in the souls of men. You have arrived at a centre.[1] To-day, in thousands of churches throughout Christendom, prayers will be offered to the god-man who died that the god in man might live. To-day in millions of hearts the cross will be set up. It is so still here at midnight, at a few minutes past midnight on this day of days. Christianity has arisen, and presses forward to Golgotha to witness an event. Pray! Prayer is the affirmation by the soul of its unity with the One. War is the affirmation of the soul of its separateness from many. Love your enemies. It is the only way that you can conquer them. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: I had arrived in New York a few hours before after a long sojourn in California.] LETTER X