We went to call on a girl. I often went courting in my youth, but never did I feel more interest in such a visit than when I went with this soldier to see _his_ girl. The fact that she could not see us made no difference. I am used to that now. She was combing her hair when we arrived, beautiful long hair, and on the mantel before her and under the mirror was a photograph of my friend. As her eyes rested on it lovingly, suddenly he passed between her and the photograph, and she cried out: “Why, the eyes are alive!” and dropped the comb on the floor. Then, as the truth flashed through her mind, she said, very solemnly: “My dear, if it is really you, and if you have come to me in this strange way, know that I love you and shall always love you, and that I will meet you in heaven.” Then she sat down in a little chair and began to cry. I left him with her; but I shall return occasionally to see how my charge is getting along, and by and by I shall teach him some of the lessons on which his future welfare depends. I do not wish him to return to the neighborhood of the battlefields. Why should he? He has served, and has earned his reward. Perhaps later I may tell you something more about the man who died with your name--and mine--in his thoughts. _April 24._ LETTER XXX THE ROSE AND THE CROSS MORE and more I am charmed and amazed by that one whom we call the Beautiful Being. I shall never understand it, for its ways are not our ways. Yesterday it passed over the battlefield again, and I should have written when I came to you a few hours afterward had I not pitied your weariness. Do not be discouraged. Sometimes the Masters of Compassion may seem to their servants to have no compassion; but they know, as the servants cannot know, that the hardest road leads up the highest mountain, and that there is rest at the top. The Beautiful Being passed over the battlefield. Imagine a rose in a cannon’s mouth, a bird singing in the heart of an earthquake, a pearl in a landslide, an angel in hell. You know not the meaning of the word battlefield. Yesterday thousands died in the awful uproar. Noise! noise! noise!--till the nerves shrieked with pain and despair seized the soul. To go out of life in that seething maelstrom is generally to pass into another seething maelstrom, hotter and noisier than the one left behind. How can I write of war so as to spare your feelings? The great Teachers are not trying to spare your feelings. They want you to feel and feel, till the very force of the wave of feeling carries you high on the shore of Adeptship. And they want you to think and think, till the irresistible cold of logic freezes _self_ out of you. Ice and fire! If you shrink from knowing what the soldiers of the nations have suffered that you may be free, you are unworthy of that freedom. Do not shrink from suffering. The husk of the seed must be broken before the sprout can appear.