The best way to make an enemy harmless is to understand his peculiar qualities, to learn something from the frankness of his enmity, to turn away evil by letting it go off at a tangent. But the Indian souls are not famous for their frankness. Even with me they sometimes conceal their resentment--deep, fundamental--at the “theft,” as they feel it, of the land where they once roamed in freedom. I advise America to cultivate the free life of the open. I have advised you in a former book that the old woodcraft should be resuscitated and taught to the children. There may come a time when the rudiments of this knowledge will be useful to many of you. Great changes are coming in the world, a period of adjustment to new conditions. There is a restless element in all adjustment, and national restlessness is like that of puberty; it needs to be minimized by healthful outdoor play, or by work which masquerades as play. The future will take from the present those elements that are most important for survival. Do not fear that we shall return to the Dark Ages. Oh, no. We are going into a Light Age. It is only twilight now. LETTER XVIII ORDER AND PROGRESS _July 18, 1917._ OUR purpose is to make the changes that must come, come gradually. We want to avoid sudden changes. You in the world have no faint idea of the influence and power we can wield on our side. We can speak to the minds of men without their knowing whence the ideas come. They think, when a sudden idea comes into their minds, that they have evolved it; but _sudden_ ideas generally come from outside. (I put one in your mind this morning, then ran away before you could recognize me. Why did I run away? Because I wanted you to use your own judgment.) Just at present we are trying to encourage America as to her future--_her orderly and peaceful future_, after peace is declared in Europe. You may as well know that there are many out here who are anxious about the future of the world. All men do not cease to worry when they have left their bodies. There are many here who think the world is going to smash. They always had that fear in life whenever things seemed to go wrong; and now they are no less inclined to accept every perplexity as an omen of failure and confusion. All over America there are men and women--and many of them are in pulpits and on platforms--who are croaking away about the destruction of society following this war. Bless your troubled hearts! Society is not going to be destroyed. Some elements in society will be gradually done away with, and good riddance to them! But society has made too great advance, in mechanical and intellectual ways, to permit its structure to be pulled from beneath its feet.