Fear not, when your blood relations are slain by thousands, and when you feel yourself also slain by spiritual participation, _the good must triumph in the end_, because the race is on its upward journey. Its blood is not spilled in vain. Did the human race not know, when it gave the sop to Germany in the last conclave, that it was Germany who would betray it? The race knew. And in that awful July the subconscious selves of men knew in their sleep that the terrible trial was at hand. Do you remember? In many a sensitive soul that drama was pre-enacted, before it was enacted on this Calvary of the nations. That Germany would betray the world was written in the soul of Germany; but if the world should hate her with a continuing hate for that betrayal, it would be a sore in the heart of the human race which would ache for a thousand years. “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” To admit the necessity of evil in the cosmic scheme is not to condone evil. To forgive the sinner is not to minimize the sin. It is because of the inability of the undeveloped mind to grasp the awful law of the _balance of forces_ that the Guardians of the sacred knowledge have been so reticent in their public utterances. “It must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh,” has been repeated in thousands of churches; but the latter half of the sentence has been understood far better than the first half, “It _must_ needs be that offenses come.” Being what she is, Germany could not help betraying the race to this crucifixion. It was written that the human race would be betrayed, and no nation could have done it but Germany. Typhon was obliged to slay Osiris, by the very law of his being. And now Isis, the great Mother, the Womanhood of the world, wanders wailing up and down seeking for the fragments of the body of her husband. On the battle line for a thousand miles those fragments are scattered. Isis is indeed widowed. And as man is the type of the great Archetype, so one man stands this day as the type of the Betrayer, and that man is _Wilhelm of Germany_. The disease which long has eaten at his brain, a contributory cause of his ego-mania, was the vulnerable spot, the spot unguarded between the lamps of the magic circle of Europe, where the evil forces found entrance. Verily, it shall be woe to him by whom this offense has come! And in saying that the world must not hate the nation which Evil has used as its servant, I am not advising sentimental weakness in the final closing of this account. The world for its own protection must make it impossible that Germany should ever repeat this betrayal. The details I leave to the specialists, being a modest ghost, and speaking from my safe retreat behind the veil of the invisible. _April 27._ LETTER XXXIII CROWNS OF STRAW