At that, she said it was like him, after all, because he had always talked eagerly to the family about his “job,” whatever it might be, adding: “Is it ‘imperative’ because of the war and the sorrow? Or because the time is ripe?” “It’s because there’s the very devil of a fight coming, and we’ve got to gather every force we have, and unite it.” “Is beating the Germans helping the constructive force? Or is the war merely the awakening through suffering?” “Germany has been united in purpose as a destructive force for many years. They gave themselves deliberately, not as individuals, but as a people, to what parsons call the powers of darkness. We know them to be forces of disintegration, which found in Germany their strongest ally in the civilized world. We’ve been fighting Germany and her purposes here for years, I find. Suffering makes people readier to listen to truth, but beating Germany was as necessary to the world’s health as sanitation to a hospital.” “That’s a clear and explicit statement,” some one said. “We are perfectly definite and explicit about questions of eternal purpose. The difficulty with most people is that they want to know how much U. S. Steel will go up next Tuesday, or whether to give the baby soothing-syrup.” After some interchange concerning his father and younger sister, he said, “I want to write them an Easter greeting.” So we got a fresh roll of paper, and he wrote a brief but tender letter, which was sent to them that night. “Which one of us will be best able to do this?” Mrs. Wylie asked. “... The time will come when this sort of thing is unnecessary. We can talk without material aid.... We never know when the power is going to develop. It’s much like an electric current. You never know it’s there until you feel it—until your signal comes over the wire.... Try it out, all of you. We know no more about who can do it than you do, except in cases of extraordinary power.” Some time afterward, however, he warned them of the dangers of attempting to handle this force, intimating that great conservation of energy in other directions should accompany the endeavor. His mother spoke of his being happy, and he returned: “Perfectly happy now, thank you. It’s the eternal thing, really started. I hate to have this party break up, but anyhow it isn’t for long. I’ve been away longer, when I lived there, than I shall be now, and we are all of us as sure of the next meeting, and the next good time, as we were then.” “He knows it is ending, and we must go to our trains,” Mrs. Gaylord said. “Not ending at all. Beginning! _Hooray!_”