There was, that night, neither moon nor stars. Black clouds hung over the mountains, which were dimly discernible, precipitous, close upon either side of us. The darkness was complete, and all night long the guns thundered ceaselessly against the mountain sides. (At home, canaries were singing in their cages.) Death was near for many; it might also be near for us. At any moment annihilation of our columns was possible; the scene of what might happen, in this narrow gorge, if the enemies overtook us--from both ends--was easily imagined. We both knew the peril of the situation, but we did not talk about that. And perhaps it was because, in the physical world, there was no light visible, that we sought light in the realm of thought, and discussed the problems of death, and of life beyond. He was one of those few who can discuss without argument; we both knew that we knew nothing; but we listened with eager interest to each other's guesses concerning the great truths which are still so dramatically withheld from our conscious intelligence. Why are they withheld? Is the God who withholds them--is the God who is now permitting our European holocaust--is He, in fact, all-powerful? Can anyone be all-powerful unless he exists without conditions? But why crave an all-powerful God? May not all-powerfulness have to go the way of jealousy, anger, and all the other human attributes with which primitive man endowed his deity? May not the germs of human evolution be within the human soul, for us to develop or to neglect at will? Eve was free to take, or to reject, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge--material knowledge; are not we, perhaps, also free to take, or to reject, the fruit of the Tree of Life--spiritual life? It is largely because we are taught that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves, that we tumble into crimes of militarism. To leave ourselves in God's hands, is often an excuse for idleness, and the result is that we find ourselves in the hands of a war-lord. Autocratic government is giving place to democratic government, on earth; may not our view of an autocratic God also be doomed to disappear? If the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, the King of Heaven must be there too, reigning not in solitary glory, in empty space, but within each one of us. The souls of men are the prism which should refract the radiant Spirit of God, and we must not be disappointed when, in times of trouble, the human spectrum shows the dark lines only. If we knew more about the laws of Nature, we should know that the dark lines are due to local conditions, which give invaluable proof of the Universal Law of Light. My constant ejaculations--"Chovai! Stoi! Terrai! Napred!" ("Get out of the way! Stop! Go on! Forward!") were like tugs at the tether, which tied us to the material world, reminding us that we still had small material parts to play.