“The root of the trouble,” Hierons went on, “is that it is still in the power of certain people, of one man if you like, to unchain forces more terrible than the earth has yet known. This unlucky planet of ours is entering upon a new phase. Unless steps, drastic and immediate, are taken to bring under control those who now govern it, the human race may soon be faced with a catastrophe beside which all its other catastrophes--and Heaven knows what they have been in the immemorial past!--may appear of small account.” The grim intensity of her countryman’s earnestness kept Helen silent. He paused a few seconds that she might say something, but she chose not to speak. “I intend to take you fully into my confidence,” said Hierons with the childlike simplicity of a great mind. “Our Society which we believe to include the flower of the world’s creative wisdom takes no narrow or partial view. It sees the human race now at the mercy of a particular type of brain and that type is peculiarly ignoble. It sees other and finer types, developed on lines less grossly material, with but little chance against this archetype whose gospel is the cynical application of brute force. The weaker or more delicate types--so far as our Society can read world tendencies--are fighting a losing battle with their backs against the wall. In other words, so far as this unhappy time is concerned, Evil is stronger than Good.” “Hasn’t it always been so?” said Helen. “More or less, I agree. But human ingenuity has now entered a phase which is a direct menace to evolution itself. Never has it been so imperative that those who do evil for the love of evil should be brought under control.” “Surely,” said Helen, “that control can only be acquired by invoking the spirit of Right.” “True. And our Society, odd as the fact may seem to the uninitiate, exists for that very purpose.” Helen’s face showed a frank incredulity. “You would have one believe,” she said, with a thrill of horror in her voice, “that people are murdered secretly in the name of the Most High?” “Murder is a harsh word. But as you say,” Hierons went on in a stern, solemn tone, “the Society’s every act is dictated by the aim it has in view. ‘God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.’” “To me,” said Helen with a little gasp of horror, “that sounds very like blasphemy.” “No, no!” said Hierons. “Consider the problem the world has now to face. It is all very well to say that faith will move mountains, but when Good is being done inevitably to death by the massed forces of Evil, it is for those of us who dare to believe that the world may yet be saved for mankind to use to the best of our skill what weapons the stronger power may have left us.”