Now I draw from my coat pocket a tiny duplicate of the book, such as is now in the hands of practically every Springfield citizen, printed by Josephine Windom and Horace Andrews. As we three loaf in the pavilion: St. Friend, Avanel and myself, and look at the leaden lotus pond, St. Friend reads aloud the familiar opening sentences of St. Scribe of the Shrines, who wrote the book in Heaven:— “I have been long in the jungles of the Celestial Zion, speculating on how the ruined mansions here, and how the earth itself, might be rebuilt. Yet the true Heaven lies in a single flower, and more and more my speculations turn on how my own city, Springfield, may be rebuilt.” Then St. Friend, the Giver of Bread, at our urging, reads on and on. The volume tells, for instance, how Heaven became a jungle within the lifetime of an ordinary man. The book contains a sermon, which our saint reads to us, on: “Your great great grandson’s neighbors.” It is a volume no more consecutive than the Koran. Each dream is written down once for all as it came to the tranced soul of St. Scribe, as he bent over the page, with his terrible pen in his hand. With endless reiteration the book denounces the diabolical works of the Singaporian sect and their conspiring against world peace. It pronounces a blessing on the predestined victorious armies of the World Government and prophecies the triumph of their splendid flag. Moreover, St. Friend reads, not only many of these things, but the sermon on “The Rhythm of the Heart,” and the homily upon “The Good and Evil of Beauty.” He reads the exhortation for “The Young Musician who has not learned to Pray,” and the one for “The Young Politician who has not learned to Pray,” and like discourses for many other occupations. And then Avanel and I take turns reading on and on to him through the specific directions for the founding of the schools of the Young Prophets, and the discourse on the horror of the angels at all the World Wars, and the tale of how the angels went out to redeem the stars from war by surrendering themselves to crucifixion on millions of crosses on millions of suns and stars and planets, and thus within the lifetime of the generation now on earth, Heaven was left a jungle. This is followed by an exhortation to make Springfield a city “worthy of the blood of the crucified poured down upon it.” But its powers are not directly in its interminable discourses. Always it seems to be a person, not a book, and so, on this afternoon. April 10, 2025:—Again it is a goodly afternoon, and we are still hopeful for these precocious buds. As we sit in the sun in the Washington Park Pavilion, Saint Friend, the Giver of Bread, tells us of the visions that came seven years ago.