Yes, I too have seen your soul. But I need not describe its face to you, who see it better than I. Cling to it. The failure of mortal friendship has no power to shatter the faith of one who can reach to his own Silent Watcher. And the soul of the faithless friend is pure as his own, and understands all things. Friendships, like loves, are made in heaven, and true friendship cannot die. Its roots are deep in waters of eternity. It is deathless as the Ygdrasil, and its roots are also above and its branches below. But it is better to fail in business than to fail in friendship. If a man is great and strong enough, he may draw down his soul to dwell with him wherever he may be. Then the man is a whole man, he is an adept. Lincoln is such a man, such a soul. He has become one with his Higher Watcher, and the two that are one can work even in the regions of the astral. But such a marriage of heaven and earth is uncommon, as adepts are uncommon. Your father in heaven is one with the Father, and if you are really one with your father in heaven he can dwell with you even on earth. The higher souls of men are closer to men now than they have been for ages. The doors have been opened. Grief and terror and pain and devotion to ideals of duty have raised the race of men in three and a half years as it could not have been raised in a hundred years of peace. If the race falls back now, it will be a lost opportunity. But the race will not fall back. LETTER XXVIII A RITUAL OF FELLOWSHIP _February 8, 1918._ I HAVE been waiting for you half an hour, as you sat sewing a seam and thinking of your friends in France. It warms the heart now to think of France. The tie between the two great republics is being drawn closer and closer. Shall I tell you an occult secret? The French mixed their blood with ours long ago, and we have loved them ever since. We are now mixing our blood with the blood of France, and France will love us in the days that are to come. It is a ritual of fellowship, that mixing of blood. English and French and Americans and Italians, Irish, Scotch, and all the others. Is there not a foundation for brotherhood? The blended blood cries from the ground for love. I see in the eyes of the French their feeling for our men as they march by, or help in the little ways to which American boys are accustomed. Never again will they look upon us as queer people from beyond the sea. We have travelled in their country and spent our money and swaggered and talked through our noses; but now we are living and dying with them, and we are brothers of mixed blood. Yes, go back to France when you can. They always loved you because you loved them, but now you will see that they also love your native land. LETTER XXIX RECRUITING AGENTS