I hear every day the shrieks of those who are making the vicarious atonement for the race. When they lie mangled on the battlefield, the arms of the cross are being driven through their quivering flesh, and the petals of the rose are unfolding in their hearts. They are dying for love at the hands of hate, for love and hate are opposite and omnipresent. Their love for their country is their call to the atonement, their at-one-ment with the God who established the law of the East and the West, the Height and the Depth, the opposing forces of Love and Hate. They have accepted the sacrifice. For them shall be the resurrection and the life, after their sojourn among the dead, their sojourn in hell. They shall appear to the Magdalen at the door of the sepulchre, the one whose sins were forgiven because she loved much, and who shall call the disciples to give them the tidings of great joy. The soul of the world is the risen Christ, and the disciples rejoice at the tidings. How can I withhold from you the great event which Time has ushered in? For thirty pieces of silver the soul of the world was sold, and the Judas of the world has given the kiss of betrayal with the name of God on his lips, and the Roman soldiers are already dividing the garments. Pontius Pilate has washed his hands of the issue, and his wife weeps in her chamber at the disregarding of her dream. The priests of the Sanhedrim are wagging their heads with satisfaction, but the veil of the Temple of Humanity is rent from top to bottom. How could you receive the message if you had not suffered, O listener at the door of Time? Who would believe you, had you not grasped the truth of the atonement? Until the wood of the cross had been driven through your limbs, the rose could not blossom, O world in travail at this hour! Be still, and know that God is God. In the stillness of perception the petals begin to open, and joy steals over the heart, and the heart swells with the expanding joy, till every fibre of the cross is alive and tingling with the joy at the heart of the rose, and the fragrance sweetens the world. And the Beautiful Being, a ray of the Holy Spirit, hovers over the Calvary of the battlefield. _April 25._ LETTER XXXI A SERBIAN MAGICIAN IT is a long road from the sacrifice of the Rose-Cross to plague-stricken Serbia, but that is the road you take with me this morning. There is a reason why that country has been most susceptible to the astral germs of disease, that a loathesome being of which I wrote you in a former letter spewed forth into the upper world.