The Great Peace 
 
 A Mosaic of Unrhymed Song 
 
 Composed by 
 
 JAMES LEITH MACBETH BAIN 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 https://archive.org/details/greatpeacebeingnOOmacb 
 
Gbe (Sreat peace 
 
3 am 
 
 Hlpba 
 
THE GREAT PEACE 
 
 Being 1 
 
 A New Year's Greeting- to our Motherland 
 and the nations at present in conflict 
 and 
 
 A Welcome to them all to the Feast 
 of the Great Peace 
 
 Composed by 
 Your Brother and Comrade in the Good Fight 
 
 of 
 
 Brotherhood 
 JAMES LEITH MACBETH BAIN 
 
 and 
 
 Published by the 
 
 Theosophical Publishing Society 
 161 New Bond Street 
 London W 
 
 This New Year 1915 
 
 Third Edition 
 
 [Revised and Enlarged] 
 
This Work I Offer in Love to my many 
 Comrades in the Great Service of Peace, 
 and I Inscribe it to the Memory 
 of 
 
 JOHN ANDERSON. 
 
 Surely never had writer of books a printer such as 
 I had in my friend of beloved and revered memory, 
 John Anderson. 
 
 Thus, when in " The Lady Sheila " I would honour 
 this gentle, pure, saintly man by speaking of him as a 
 true mystic and a spiritual soul, he took it on himself 
 quietly to delete the expression from my copy ; in doing 
 which he was, by the way, acting far more wisely than I. 
 
 For, out of very love for my works, he himself was 
 wont to set the type, ay, with his own aged fingers, long 
 after he had ceased from such work. And when he 
 wanted more copy his request was : " Send me on some 
 more of the words of Life." 
 
 And now our beloved brother has gone into the fuller 
 life : He has entered the joy. He has tasted the new- 
 Wine. He has eaten of the Bread that satisfies. He 
 dwells in the Love of God. His abiding is in the 
 Great Peace. 
 
 We greet you, dear John, in the great Love : we 
 salute you, comrade well - beloved, in the name of the 
 Holy One who is for us the very near Presence of God, 
 
and who is to you now the power of the same Great 
 Peace you possessed and lived even while setting your 
 type in Eamsay Lane, Edinburgh. 
 
 Many great and fine souls have I known even during 
 this life but no one do I love and esteem more than my 
 still ever-active, ever-living friend and fellow in the most 
 holy service of Life, John Anderson. 
 
 Freely have ye received, freely give. 
 
 There is no copyright on any of my writings, for they 
 belong to every soul who needs them and who can use them 
 for its blessing. Only unto this end have they been given me. 
 
 Therefore no one who uses them in any way for the service 
 of the neighbour need ask my permission for so doing. And 
 any one can use them in translation or reproduce them in any 
 way without even naming me. 
 
 Now I mean just what I say here. And I am greatly 
 gladdened to find that in this I am taken at my word by 
 comrades beyond the sea, who have translated my writings 
 into their tongue, and that without even troubling me to give 
 my consent. This is just as I would have it be, and these 
 comrades do understand me. For I know that in the exer- 
 cise of this communal principle no one could be found so base 
 as to use these writings for any personal gain. 
 
 For they are no more mine than they are thine, human 
 soid, dear to thy Christ, in whose name and in whose Will 
 of Blessing they are now sent forth even for the service of 
 thy need. 
 
 ii 
 
The very Practical Wisdom of Life. 
 
 One of the most esteemed of my many comrades in the 
 world of spiritual aspiration and practice is a Russian 
 lady of high social rank. 
 
 She told me lately that, when in St Petersburg, she one 
 day received a letter warning lier that her palace, which 
 contained many valuable objects of vertu, of which her 
 husband is an ardent lover and keen connoisseur, was to be 
 burgled on such and such a night. 
 
 ' All right,' said she to her own soul, ' we shall aivait 
 the burglars, and I shall not inform the police! So she sat 
 up during that night awaiting the burglars. 
 
 Sure enough they came, two or three men in masks. 
 
 She allowed them to enter the house, and went to meet 
 them by opening the door of her own apartment. She 
 asked them if they were hungry or needed shelter, and told 
 them to take away anything they found in the house that 
 they needed. 
 
 The men were so unnerved by her dignified offer, of 
 which doubtless they felt the sincerity, for she really meant 
 what she said, that they quietly withdrew from her presence 
 and fled the house. But one of them returned, and, kneel- 
 ing before her, asked her to hand him over to the police. 
 ' No, my dear friend,' she replied, ' but if you are in need 
 of a home, abide with me.' And this burglar actually 
 stayed in her house, night and day, for some weeks ; and, 
 when he left, it was because he was now a true saint, and 
 would serve his comrades as he had been served. This 
 happened some years ago, and his sainthood has proved 
 itself to be true, and therefore abiding, ever since. 
 
 «y, -A/. AA. 
 
 Tv -7r Tv 
 
 1 
 
I passed some weeks this summer in Kelmscott, the 
 Vegetarian Home for destitute children in Wallasey. 
 Never is a door or cupboard in this house of God locked, 
 There is no fear of thieves in the heart of these good people, 
 therefore no thieves are attracted to their home. And yet 
 it is in the near neighbourhood of Liverpool ! 
 
 # # * 
 It has been my rule, for years now, to ask neither 
 estimate nor account from my printers, publishers and 
 others, and 1 know well that I am in no way the loser 
 by thus simply trusting these good friends. 
 
 These are facts as plain and true as the fact that I now 
 tell you of them. They need no comment on my part to 
 speak to you their lesson of the most practical wisdom of 
 life. For it is an equally simple fact that the powers of 
 God, the servants of Good, do encamp around those who are 
 strong enough in God to be able to trust in the essential 
 goodness of Life. 
 
 And the day is surely coming when Great Britain shall 
 be great enough and strong enough in God to stand clothed 
 only in the armour of her own essential goodness, which is 
 the very panoply of God. 
 
 # * # 
 
 KB. — Before we can fulfil the service of the peace of God 
 for our world-soul in her present need, we must see well to 
 it that love and only love for every smd possesses our whole 
 nature ; for then, and only then, will it be possible for the 
 Great Peace so to dwell in us that we shall become a centre 
 of peace ; and then, and not till then, will it be possible for 
 us to give the peace of God to others. Thus let us love. 
 
 2 
 
The Oblation of Our Strength. 
 
 Christ of the Ages of our Eace, Mother of the 
 Great Compassion, Father of the Great Peace of God for 
 the heart of mankind, unto Thee we now offer all our 
 strength, all our nature, all, all we are in the virtues of 
 our mind, our soul and our body. 
 
 To Thee now we offer it unreservedly, asking Thee to 
 use it, as Thou seest fit, for the service of the present 
 need of the soul of our native land and for the need of 
 the soul of all the peoples of our mother-earth. 
 
 We are willing that all our strengths be thus used in 
 Thy power, Thou Who art the wisdom and the love of 
 God, for Thou knowest better than we how this service 
 may be well fulfilled. 
 
 Between the Trenches. 
 
 Ut is at least worthy of note that these fraternizing* between British and Gernmn, 
 
 Between the trenches we stand, in the company of Thine 
 unseen servants, Christ, clothed as they in Thy strength, 
 and armed as they with Thy will of Blessing, and we call 
 aloud in the speech known to both camps : Britons, these 
 are your own brothers whom ye would slay; Germans, these 
 are your very own kindred whom ye would annihilate. 
 
 Men, ye have even now the invincible power of 
 comradeship; men, ye have the inassailable might of 
 brotherhood in your hands. How long, how long will 
 ye that the power to use it be withheld from you ? 
 
 Come brothers, come to me ; be men, not slaves ; be 
 men, and embrace one another. Ye were born lovers, 
 not murderers of one another. Come, let us be lovers. 
 
 3 
 
Foreword. 
 
 " Now is the judgment of this world : now is the Prince 
 of this world cast out. And I, if I be lifted up, will draw 
 all men unto Me." 
 
 (The Christ of the Ages of our Race through Jesus.) 
 
 Assuredly we are witnesses of the judgment of the 
 present world-order in its social system and general 
 dispensation of the means and ways and issues of the 
 elements of our human life. Verily in these days we see 
 its dethronement; and they who live long enough will 
 witness, even in this body, the utter ejection of its power 
 from our modern civilisation. 
 
 Long time now has our present social order been 
 judged and condemned as effete by the sons of God, both 
 in the invisible and visible degrees of our humanity, and 
 their cry : How long ? How long ? is now being answered 
 in very fact. 
 
 We know that, sure as the rising of the sun, so sure 
 for us is the coming of the new regime wherein dwelleth 
 the great righteousness of Life. 
 
 For, out of her present agony, the new order, the holy 
 Brotherhood of mankind, even the Christly ideal of the 
 seers of the ages shall emerge, sane, strong, and beautiful 
 for the blessedness of the human soul. 
 
 ' And I, even I, the Christ of the Ages of our Eace, 
 shall at length be exalted in our world-consciousness. 
 And, when I am so lifted up, all souls in the realms 
 physical and superphysical will be drawn unto the Holy 
 Light of the new Day.' 
 
 # * # 
 4 
 
Come ye then with me, ye who live in the conscious- 
 ness of the power of prayer; come with me into the 
 Holy Place of the Power of God, where, even now, as 
 truly as in the past ages, we can speak to God even 
 face to face as friend speaketh to friend. 
 
 * # # 
 
 Now, when we pray for the Peace of God we pray for 
 all good. 
 
 But the Peace of God may not in these present days 
 actually bring the cessation of wars. Ultimately it 
 assuredly will, but not of necessity in these days. 
 
 Indeed, its coming might even intensify the forces at 
 work in this war, and so hasten the maturing of the 
 fruitage thereof, which we know cannot but be good. 
 
 For God alone is, and God is good. And we know 
 that in God war is, even as peace is. Yea, hell, as truly 
 as heaven, is in God, Who is the all and in all of our 
 whole mundane and cosmic being and existence. But we 
 also know that out of the labour and agony and tribula- 
 tion of these elements of the human soul is being born 
 even now the new thing of Life, the holier light, the 
 fairer day, the serener sky, the sweeter air. 
 
 In this is the doctrine of the Cross, and all our teach- 
 ings go to support the truth, that always out of the storm 
 is°born the melody, that out of the anguish of our soul 
 ever comes forth the child of the greater Love. 
 
 Peace and war are as the day and the night, the calm 
 and the tempest of our earthly existence in the present 
 degree of its unfoldment. And inasmuch as greed still 
 prevails in this degree, death too prevails, and the powers 
 of hell prevail. For, only in the state that we call hell 
 is war possible. Here it is in order, here it is right 
 Here is its place, and here we still are. 
 
 5 
 
But when we, as a human family, have entered our 
 heavenly estate, there shall be no more war, neither 
 sorrow nor sighing: for God, even the Holy Lover, shall 
 have wiped away all tears from the eyes of the soul of 
 our mother-earth, and the Brotherhood of the nations 
 shall be a realised fact in her consciousness. 
 
 This is the Day we see as nigh at hand, even though 
 by the reckoning of years it may appear to be afar off. 
 This is the only Day we all hymn of in God. For m it is 
 the fulfilment of all our desire. Therefore it is that we 
 say nothing here even of the efforts of the friends of peace 
 that are surely making for a general disarmament, and 
 which have our whole sympathy and fullest service. 
 
 # # * 
 
 I have had these MSS. by me for some eight weeks, 
 and I now print them because I am assured, by the help 
 they have been to all who have read them, that they will 
 be a source of cheer, or at the very least, of comfort 
 to you, my reader. 
 
 During these two months of our great labour and 
 anguish I have sought to induce and maintain, in my 
 own self and in those I am privileged to influence 
 spiritually, the state of utter quiet or peace of soul. 
 To gain this end I have not neglected any lawful 
 physical means that suggested itself to me. Thus, e.g., 
 I have confined my diet to the most quieting foods/ using 
 vegetables and fruits freely, and abstaining from tea and 
 even cocoa, it being also a stimulant. 
 
 This regime I have found to serve well the end m 
 view, and I commend it to you, my comrade and my 
 fellow in the labours of life. 
 
 For to you who read this, I am certain, that, as to me, 
 
 6 
 
there is no post wherein you are so well fitted to serve 
 the present need of our world-soul as in this, the most 
 holy place of power open to our humanity, even the 
 secret place of the Most High. I know it is so with 
 you, otherwise you would not be reading this word. 
 
 And your work it is now, even in these days of 
 worldly conflict, to fight the fight of the Good, to oppose 
 your will of great brotherhood and all that that implies, 
 to the will of the Adversary of our world's good. Does 
 this will manifest, e.g., in bitterness and hate or resent- 
 ment, clamouring around you for revenge? Then you 
 must combat it by the will of blessing, and slay it by the 
 sword of Love. And no better word of power can you 
 use for this end than the word which is m itself the 
 perfect panoply both of defence and offence in this most 
 holy warfare : " God bless every soul." 
 J # # * 
 
 Now, the secret place of God is in the great Silence 
 ie the silence of the ordinary mundane selfhood— the 
 mentality who thinks and discusses and criticises and 
 the soul who loves and hates and fears and hopes 
 despairs and desires, even the silence of the selfhood 
 who is fed on the ephemeral, whose existence depends 
 on this passing show, and is as unreal as the vanities 
 and dreams that sustain it. 
 
 And when this clamouring, anxious, care-laden sell is 
 stilled there is silence within you; and into this silence 
 comes'the Holy Presence, even the power of the One Spirit. 
 And in this coming is the conscious quiet, the realised 
 calm, the peace felt and tasted, and which is at once recog- 
 nised by the soul and known to be the very Peace of God 
 Now this is anything but mere passivity (See lhe 
 Christ of the Healing Hand," pp. HI and 124). It is, 
 
in fact, a mode of the highest, inost potent and most 
 intense activity possible as yet to our humanity. 
 
 During this deep quiet, the superconscious soul, or the 
 power of the Higher Self is liberated and so allowed to 
 do its work, just as the subconscious soul is during sleep, 
 and this is why the state I now speak of is so essential to 
 our health of mind, soul and body. For it is the Christ- 
 soul in you who is set free, and who now works, and this 
 is the very Soul of your soul, the Strength of your life, 
 even the mighty God in your midst. 
 
 To induce this deep quiet it is good for the "two or 
 three " to sit together, thus fulfilling the law of our 
 fellowship in co-operation, and to hold a common thought 
 or word of power, such as " the Peace of God," " Christ, 
 Thou art the Peace of God," or simply the one word 
 " God." Sitting thus in utter quiet of body, uttering no 
 sound, the quiet of mind and soul is soon induced, and in 
 due time the fellow ministrants are introduced into the 
 banqueting chamber of the little children, where flows 
 ever freely the new wine of the kingdom of the Great 
 Peace, even the Lifestrearn of the Holy One of our 
 Blessedness, the Christ of the ages of our race. 
 # # # 
 Come now with me to the Feast Chamber, all ye who 
 who are worthy, and therefore able, to enter into the 
 dwelling of the Most High, even the secret place of the 
 Power of the Great Love. There shall we see the 
 Mother, exalted and glorified by the flame of all our 
 divine passion and selfless anguish, and she holds in her 
 arms the Holy Child, born out of the suffering of the 
 soul of Humanity, even the Christ who is to be. 
 
 25th October 1914. 
 
 8 
 
A little Word on the Rightness and 
 Wrongness of War. 
 
 Whether a man should fight for home and country or 
 not, is a problem so very fine and so very far-reaching 
 in its issues that it would be well for us to talk it over 
 quietly together for a little time. 
 
 Its solution, and it can, like all other problems of Life, 
 be solved with perfect consistency and satisfaction to all 
 concerned, really depends on the great principle of Eela- 
 tivity, the relativity of good and evil, as of all else in our 
 mundane existence. 
 
 For it is a fact that, as things now are, what is an evil 
 to me may not be an evil to you, and vice versa, and is so 
 while we are living together in the same social body 
 wherein we must conform our life to the same code of 
 ethics, even we who are in our severally true, real, or 
 innermost natures dwellers in two totally different worlds 
 or orders of things. 
 
 Now, according to the world or order to which we in 
 this our real or innermost individual nature belong, so is 
 the law of Life to which we must conform. From this 
 fact there is no possible escape or appeal. To this fact 
 there is no possible exception. 
 
 And there is a law for the animal man and a law for 
 the spiritual man, just as there is here a law for the 
 artist and a law for the man of business, a law for the 
 lover and a law for the hater, a law for the wise and a 
 law for the foolish. 
 
 Even so there is a law of this present world-order, and 
 there is a law of the Christ-degree of being. 
 
 9 
 
And if we are still under the law of this present world- 
 order, in which self-preservation is the first ana funda- 
 mental principle of its essential being, we must fulfil this 
 law, one item of whose righteousness certainly is to fight 
 for self-preservation, i.e., to fight for home and country, 
 to protect our defenceless, even to the slaying of the body 
 of the agressor if need be. 
 
 And the men who feel themselves called or impelled 
 so to fight are yet under the law of this present world- 
 order, and they would certainly be doing a serious and 
 great wrong, both to their own soul or real nature, and 
 to their country, by shirking their responsibility in refus- 
 ing so to fight. 
 
 For theirs, too, is an inner or divine urge or inspiring 
 force, but it is not the Christly urge. It is yet of the 
 Genius of the world-soul or present order. 
 
 But if we are in the Christ-degree we are under the 
 law of Christ, and the righteousness of the Christ-order, 
 and that alone, can we fulfil. 
 
 Aud the ethics of Christ do not allow us to slay or 
 hurt any body or any soul willingly, or wilfully, or con- 
 sciously. 
 
 Now we shall soon know when we have come to be 
 under this law of the Great Lover, for we shall not be 
 able to wound, to slay, or to destroy any sentient creature 
 willingly, or wilfully, or consciously. Our very hand 
 will, as it were, automatically refuse to do the deed. 
 
 And, were it necessary, we would even be able to stand 
 by and see our dear ones slaughtered by the barbarian 
 without even raising a hand or using any carnal power 
 for their defence. This would be the supreme test in us. 
 
 This assuredly is a supreme power to possess, and it 
 only comes of the real, deep knowledge and consciousness 
 
 10 
 
of God, and the holy, sane faith in God that is the sure 
 fruit of this knowledge and consciousness of the Presence. 
 
 For you then know that only once again in the woful 
 history of our earth's hell-degree are you offering these 
 your very own, your dearest flesh and blood, as the most 
 precious offering you can offer unto the sacrificial service 
 of the Holy Lamb of God, whose blood, sweet and pre- 
 cious beyond valuing, in its inborn innocency, is being 
 shed throughout the ages, perennially and through an 
 unnumbered host of victims, for the consuming away, 
 through a transmuting process, of the dark karma, or as 
 the Christian mystic would express the same truth, for 
 the bearing away of the sin of the world. 
 
 And the strength of soul needful to make this oblation 
 is of far higher calibre than that required to face the 
 bayonet or to stand quietly at the post of duty amid 
 showers of shrapnel. 
 
 Yes, this is the Great Fight in which we fight. And 
 I say most advisedly that the powers we, as soldiers in 
 this conflict with the dark forces of the unseen worlds, 
 manipulate, are of a far higher potency and effectivity 
 even in this external realm of things than that of either 
 dynamite or melanite. 
 
 And so it is that we neither condemn nor rebuke our 
 brother because of the intense nationalism and patriotic 
 zeal that sends him now to the front, eager, ay, panting, 
 to meet the aggressor and slay his body. 
 
 Nay, rather do we understand him. And to under- 
 stand him is only to love him all the more, and to give 
 him his true place in the wondrously fine and beautiful 
 economy of this our cosmos. 
 
 And that there will be as many such valiant and self- 
 eivina heroes as are needed to fulfil this service of blood 
 
 11 
 
while the present world-order lasts we may not doubt, so 
 exact is the balance of nature, so fine is the ordering of 
 all things, both mundane and universal. 
 
 Few, few yet among us are the friends of God, the 
 white-robed, the blameless, the harmless, the brothers and 
 sisters of Jesus and Buddha, the lambs of God, the holy 
 children of the Great Love, whose hands may not be 
 stained with the blood of any creature.* 
 
 And while this present world-order lasts they must be 
 few and scarce, even as the salt of the earth. 
 
 And they must be allowed to do that good fighting in 
 their own way and with weapons that are not of this 
 world. Thus indeed it will be well. 
 
 For, if so allowed to fulfil their own righteousness, 
 they will be found to be far more effective for the over- 
 throw of evil than are they who must shed blood in order 
 to protect or enforce the right. 
 
 Every soul in her own degree, fulfilling the law of her 
 own degree; that is the principle of Life; that is the 
 holy law of God for you and for me, my brother, my sister. 
 
 But let me not dictate to you what is right for you, 
 nor may you tell me what is right for me. 
 
 In this, the sphere of our inviolable conscience, every 
 sane soul must be her own interpreter of the law of God, 
 and by this interpretation must she abide. Thus is a 
 perfect consistency formed and maintained ; and the world 
 is seen, ay, even in these days, to belong to one great 
 Cosmos, whose soul is God, whose life is good. 
 
 *I do not say that I know that all the strengths of my nature have 
 yet been transmuted into this supreme strength, but I do know that I am 
 Jar on the way towards it. And there both you and I shall assuredly 
 come in good time. 
 
 12 
 
The Great Peace. 
 
 That the Great Peace, even the Peace of God, may, in 
 these present days, be brought forth into actual manifest- 
 ation on the outermost plane of our human activity, is 
 surely the one great desire and labour of every soul who 
 has come into any degree, how feeble soever that degree 
 may be, of the consciousness of the Healing Christ as an 
 ever-present, never-failing Power of Blessing in the soul 
 and body of the human kind. 
 
 And we who do profess to belong to the Great Brother- 
 hood of Healers who work the good works of the Will of 
 compassion, mercy and love in the realms invisible and 
 visible of our human cosmos, are conscious of nothing 
 aworking and energising more persistently and more 
 potently in our whole nature during these days than this 
 same desire. 
 
 Howsoever we are occupied physically or mentally it 
 matters not. This one labour of our soul is incessant, 
 urgent, never passing from us night nor day. And we 
 cannot otherwise. 
 
 And why cannot we, who do belong to the Body effec- 
 tive of the Great Healing Christ, do otherwise ? 
 
 Because, if we are in the Christ-consciousness, we do 
 love every creature with our whole heart, soul and mind. 
 
 And it follows from this that we must love all these 
 warring peoples equally and well. We feel that they all 
 belong in their true or essential nature to the great 
 Christ-body of Humanity, and that in very reality they 
 are of our own substance, bone of our bone, flesh of our 
 flesh, soul of our soul, life of our life. 
 
 13 
 
And inasmuch as we truly feel this to be so, in so 
 much shall we suffer equally in the sufferings of " the 
 aliens " and in the sufferings of " our own " nation. 
 
 And again I repeat it, we cannot otherwise. This is 
 our place, and our only place. True, the narrower, and 
 what is understood to be the patriotic, which we verily 
 laud and commend as utterly beautiful in those who are 
 still bound by the national feeling, will seek to press our 
 powers into its service, but in this it must fail. This we 
 say even while we gladly, ay, thankfully, recognise that, 
 speaking as man to man, so far as our vision and judg- 
 ment carry us, we do feel that if ever Great Britain found 
 herself engaged in a righteous war, she certainly is so 
 now, it being understood that this righteousness is not 
 the righteousness of Christ, but of self ; nor of Heaven, 
 but of Hell, or the human realm and degree of greed, 
 and therefore, strife. 
 
 For our only place of abiding is in that realm wherein 
 the personal or national is entirely transcended. No 
 more can we function spiritually in the degree of the 
 limited affections. For us to serve is to serve all. 
 
 "We do not say that this narrower service is impossible, 
 nor do we in any way criticise it. We simply say we 
 are not there, and never more can be there. 
 
 Therefore it is that in our daily meetings for silent 
 concentration towards the coming peace of the world, we 
 can only will the good things, and as much for our 
 German as for our French brothers and sisters in life. 
 
 And therefore it is that even at the risk of being con- 
 sidered disloyal, we cannot join in the prayers of the 
 churches for the dead and wounded of our Army and 
 Navy, in preference to those of Germany. 
 
 Also, in so far as we are in the Wisdom of Christ, we 
 
 14 
 
know that they are all our brothers in life, and that all our 
 interests are one. We know that what is loss to them is 
 loss to us, and what is gain to us is gain to them. We 
 know that the present law of possession, being all a 
 delusion and in the falsity of greed, is the cause of this 
 strife. 
 
 This knowledge is a sure fruit of the wisdom of God 
 in every soul who has been so enlightened, and they can 
 never deny it. It stands in their deepest nature, firm, 
 sure and steadfast, an abiding consciousness, sane and 
 sanctifying, however much in their superficialities other 
 thoughts or feelings may at times arise to appearance. 
 
 Now, the mission of Great Britain — and I speak of 
 Great Britain because she is the mother of the many 
 peoples, American and other, who are equally called to 
 this great world-service — is to be the bearer and forth- 
 bringer of this Holy Thing to the peoples of the earth. 
 
 And that she has been called of Heaven, and set apart 
 for this great world-service, is evident from many facts 
 of her existence as an Empire, among which we name 
 these few : 
 
 (How conscious we are of her falling short, of this 
 great trust we cannot tell. Surely we are not blind to 
 her failings, nor is it in us to compare invidiously or 
 boastfully our people with these other peoples. 
 
 Yet the fact remains with us that she is ordained so 
 to serve.) 
 
 (1) . Through her sympathy with the natives, her tact, 
 her perseverance, her righteous legislation, she is the 
 most successful coloniser of all nations. 
 
 (2) . She responds before all the old nations of Europe 
 to the more generous impulses of humanity, and has been 
 
 15 
 
looked to as the defender of the rights of the feeble and 
 the champion of liberty, even as, to her honour be it 
 said, she is openly avowing herself now. 
 
 (3). She has enshrined and kept alive in her national 
 genius the Christ-doctrine of self-sacrifice, and to-day 
 among the Anglo-Saxon peoples, the most erudite and 
 advanced minds and souls, are, at least, students of the 
 doctrines of the great Christ, who is the Love of God for 
 all mankind. And in this is her cosmopolitan genius. 
 
 And if only she will be true and faithful to this, the 
 best genius of her soul, doing the Will of God in denying 
 all greed, by freely sharing her world-wide dominions 
 with these brother peoples, who also need, and have a 
 right to, a share of these lands, she will live to do her 
 great work for the redemption of the whole earth. 
 
 Yes, if only she will do the will of Love, and so fulfil 
 the holy law of her true being, she will become in very 
 truth the leader of the peoples, the honoured of heaven 
 and earth, the Queen Mother of the nations. 
 
 But there is the great risk that the virus of greed may 
 even yet, notwithstanding her hard lessons of its baneful 
 fruit in the past, so poison her mind and soul that she 
 shall again fail of her heavenly mission. 
 
 This we can say with the understanding of unbiassed 
 judgment. 
 
 For we have not failed, when there was need, to speak 
 and to write in as public a mode as was possible to us, a 
 rebuke of her iniquities. [See, Song of the Cross (Chant 
 of the Labour of Satan), p. 22]. 
 
 And we affirm that, if through any psychic infirmity, 
 she fails now from her God-ordained mission, assuredly 
 she shall fall as a nation, she shall not stand as the 
 leader of the peoples in God. 
 
 1G 
 
Again we say, and we would that this word could be 
 heard throughout our beloved Empire : only by fulfilling 
 her Divine mission, only by doing now what to her is the 
 will of God, can she stand firm and strong, can she 
 long endure as a power of righteousness on this earth. 
 
 That she shall thus stand I doubt not. That even 
 now the true national genius of the enduring, spiritual 
 kernel of our people is Christly in tone and in hidden 
 potentiality, I am glad, glad to recognise. And it is well 
 that we should so recognise it, for even in the recognition 
 there is an uplift to the national soul. 
 
 For in these days, as has been my wont for years, I 
 have gone much among various groups and societies of 
 working men, and I have noticed that, sure as the note 
 of Brotherhood has been clearly and well sounded by the 
 speaker, so surely have these men responded with a 
 hearty cheer. And in that hearty British cheer my heart 
 has leapt for very joy, for I have heard in it the sound 
 of the voice of the new Humanity, the note we have so 
 long listened for, agonised for, yearned for, even the very 
 forth-uttering of the Word of the Christ who is coming. 
 From the same groups, that only twelve years ago arose 
 thi cries of hate and the yells of vengeance, now arise 
 the willing recognition of their fellowship with their 
 German brothers, and even a hearty response to the 
 call for their outstretched hand towards these their 
 comrades in life. 
 
 Surely, surely this is the coming of the Christ of God 
 in new power among us ; and surely, surely it means to 
 all who can read the future, that it is well, well, well 
 with our beloved land, and well with our Mother-earth. 
 
 17 
 
To the Many Who Suffer. 
 
 (Because of the sorrow of the many little children of Christ, 
 we arc moved to give this sure word of comfort.) 
 
 Ye mothers and fathers, wives and children, sisters 
 and brothers, lovers and friends of these men, whether 
 ye be German or British, we would take this opportunity 
 of offering you a very sure word of comfort. 
 
 We have looked at these faces, and we feel sure, 
 whether these men know it or not, they, in their esprit 
 de corps, are enthused of the self-giving Spirit of the 
 Lamb of God, Who gives His Life for the salvation of 
 the world, shedding it ever freely, fully, willingly. 
 
 Even as a consistent peacemaker, I can say that we 
 utter a most sacred truth in this startling assertion. For 
 we know that only by the shedding of innocent blood 
 can the dark, karmic stains of the past on the soul of 
 Europe be washed out ; and these youths are innocent. 
 
 Surely, then, ye mothers and wives, ye fathers and 
 brothers, ye lovers of the heroic, Belgian and Prussian, 
 French and German, Austrian and Bussian, ye will find in 
 this word the sure comfort of Christ, and ye will give it 
 to all ye can thus help. 
 
 Sweet, sweet indeed it is to die for the fatherland; 
 but sweeter far it is to give one's life for the world. 
 And even through your present suffering ye will come in 
 good time to know that it is so. 
 
 18 
 
Fight the Good Fight of Brotherhood. 
 
 " Thou wilt keep him m perfect peace whose mind is 
 stayed cm Thee, because he trusteth m Thee" — Isaiah. 
 
 1. 
 
 Even now we can trust in our living God; yea we 
 can, we can; and we shall continue to fight the good 
 fight of our faith in the good in our own heart. 
 
 We shall continue to declare the Peace of God to be 
 the only real abiding state of the soul of man. We shall 
 not cease to affirm it now, even while our streets are 
 flooded with these great and many new-formed armies 
 of war. 
 
 Surely then ours is a great and a hard fight to fight, 
 yet even now we can stay ourselves upon our living God. 
 
 2. 
 
 Bonnie lads, brave boys, honest fellows, well-born 
 youths, are there any among those cheering crowds who 
 love you more truly than we do ? Are there any who 
 appreciate your patriotism more truly than we, are there 
 any who can discern, even in this voluntary gift of your 
 young bodies, the hand of God aworking more clearly 
 than we ? I trow not, I trow not : for we love you well. 
 
 3. 
 
 We know the beauty and the virtue, and because of 
 the present evil the need of this sacrifice ; and yet we 
 
 19 
 
know that your warm human flesh was not born of 
 woman to be the food of the machine gun ; we know 
 that your generous blood was not quickened in the 
 warmth of Mother-earth to quench the insatiable thirst 
 of the hot-throated mitrailleuse. This we say, this we 
 declare; and who knows better than we, that he who 
 slays the body slays not the soul, and he who rends the 
 flesh touches not the man ? Ay, who knows better than 
 we that the dissolution of this body dissolves not the 
 individuality, touches not the personal essence ? 
 
 We also know that none of us, more willingly than you, 
 when you are possessed of your sane human genius, even 
 you, artizans, clerks, shopmen, labourers by hammer, 
 spade and loom, toilers by hand and brain, would rush 
 to the holy embrace of your brothers in Berlin. Yes, we 
 know, we know it well, and we see you drilled for their 
 swifter destruction, sharpened like the fine-bladed bayonet 
 for their surer massacre. (Ah, the pain, the pain of it 
 all ! Surely it is our human heart that is speaking, and 
 not the wisdom of God). 
 
 5. 
 
 Therefore it is that we shall continue to fight the fight 
 of God, even the good fight of Peace. And I trow, it is a 
 greater and a harder fight than any that may come to 
 your eager hands, even in these days. 
 
 6. 
 
 Bonnie lads, bonnie lads, ye ween not that ye are 
 offering your sweet, young life for the sins of the self- 
 seeking, self-loving, brute soul of this world. Yet, in the 
 
 20 
 
name of Truth, it is so. Verily a great uplift is awaiting 
 thee, youth, strong enough in the selfless Love to throw 
 thy life into the cause, that, even though unrighteous, yet 
 appeareth good to thee. Verily, thou shalt awake a finer 
 and stronger soul, a clearer light illumining thy face, 
 because of thy gift of thy self unto the other. 
 
 7. 
 
 Bonnie lads, bonnie lads, God blesses you all; God 
 blesses you all. Beautiful and dear in the eyes of the 
 Great Love is the oblation of your warm blood. There- 
 fore we shall now sing to you of the Redemption of our 
 world-soul through the power of the Great Love. 
 
 The Song of the Redemption of the 
 World=Soul from her Iniquities through 
 the Power of the Great Love. 
 
 " When you see these things come upon the earth, then 
 lift up your heads and rejoice, for your redemption draweth 
 nigh." 
 
 " For I will overthrow, overthrow, overthrow ; and behold 
 I make all things new." 
 
 (The Christ of the Ages of our Eace.) 
 
 We cannot do otherwise than sing the Song of Salva- 
 tion, because in God we do love all these combating 
 peoples equally and well, and we knew that through all 
 this tribulation their redemption surely is coming. 
 
 21 
 
In great times, verily, we are living ; and right glad 
 are we to be incarnate on this earth now, even though it 
 be in these bodies and souls of sore suffering. 
 
 So glad are we, in the innermost deep of our bein« 
 even while the heart of the outer nature is hourly 
 pierced with sorrow, and well nigh torn unto death in 
 the pains of our world-anguish, that we cannot but sing 
 once more, as we sang in our early youth, the Song of 
 our Great Redemption from the powers of death : 
 
 " In Thee she labours groaning deep 
 And silent for the coming morn : 
 And Thou the tears of love dost weep 
 Over the ages newly born. 
 
 " For lo ! the force, the immortal force 
 Of justice, brotherhood and right, 
 Is swelling, swelling in its course, 
 Is bearing off the gloom of night. 
 
 "And Thou, great Love, all conquering Power, 
 Art born to-day to rule the world ; 
 And o'er the land blood-stained an hour 
 Thine ageless banner is unfurled. 
 
 "And men the strong are gathering round 
 From every land, from far and near; 
 And Mother Earth awakes to sound 
 The opening of the Holy Year." 
 
 So sang we thirty-three years ago in " The Opening of 
 the Gates, and so sing we now ; and the note of our 
 vision ls to us, at least, even more clear and sure than it 
 was then. 
 
 22 
 
For these days are great with the burden of the 
 coming Day, — our times are heavy with the child of 
 the future. And to this child, even the new Humanity, 
 the Son of man, the fruit of the love of the universal 
 good, the brotherhood of men will be as natural a fact of 
 its most ordinary existence as will be its simple joy in 
 the breaths of the holy sun and the sweet airs of its new 
 heaven. 
 
 * * # 
 
 And here parenthetically we affirm that, strange though 
 it may be for us to say so, yet do we know well that the 
 world-wide struggle of our womanhood for the liberation 
 of her untold wealth in the powers of the very services 
 we most need in these times, and the present terrible 
 conflict of Europe for her emancipation from the bondage 
 of materialism, manifest to us most poignantly in these 
 days as militarism (and in this bondage, I trow no nation 
 is free to point the finger of rebuke at another), arise 
 from the same daimionic urge of the great Genius of our 
 race, and are essentially one in aim, in labour, in power, 
 and in sure, triumphant issue. 
 
 By the emancipation of our womanhood I mean not 
 merely her political enfranchisement — that is a trifle in 
 itself, and is only of the external sphere of her existence, 
 but the liberation of all her forces for the service of 
 the race. 
 
 We may not give our steeds rein on this field, other- 
 wise they would carry us a long, long way ; so great, so 
 manifold, so far reaching, so satisfying, ay, so beautiful in 
 Life are, to our seeing, the forthgoings and forthbring- 
 ino-s of the free and full exercise of the powers of 
 
 O 
 
 our womanhood. 
 
 23 
 
But, were we to allow ourselves to indulge in the 
 utterance of "ifs," we might say here and now, as well 
 apropos, that, if only woman had occupied in these days 
 her rightful place in the deliberations of our parliament, 
 we do believe that this war might not have been. This 
 we can see while yet affirming that, as things are, verily 
 it had to be. 
 
 For woman, through her wisdom, is the saviour of 
 man, through her finer intuition she is his true guide 
 and control. And this is so because she is the creator- 
 mother. In her are enshrined, par excellence, the powers 
 of our whole economic genius, and man as man alone, is 
 utterly inefficient, and fruitless are his works of mind or 
 soul or body apart from her. 
 
 Therefore it is that we have, from the time of the first 
 uttering of the call unto this holy war of sex-liberation, 
 declared it to be the supreme Christly movement of our 
 day, and the one which, far beyond any comparison, is 
 the most pregnant with vital import for the future well- 
 being of our race, of all the movements that can, and do 
 claim, our services for their speedy triumph. How long 
 shall our legislators halt between two opinions ? When 
 will they see clearly, truly, wisely ? Thus having spoken 
 our word, we now can take up the Hymn of Eedemption. 
 
 # # # 
 
 For even while we sing our Song of the Ages, She, the 
 Holy Christ-Mother, labours in the travail of God for the 
 birth of the era of Peace, even She, the soul of the Divine 
 Compassion, She, the Love of God, the strong Saviour, 
 the Eedeemer of our world-soul from hoary death and 
 the powers of hell. 
 
 24 
 
For Divine though She be, yet is She also human, 
 being incarnate as our Earth-Mother in God. 
 
 And we know She labours in God, we know She weeps 
 the tears of the agony of the Great Love over the age 
 now being born into our world-consciousness. 
 
 For we, even we, her little children, have ceased not, 
 ay, ceased not day nor night, to labour in her travail, to 
 agonise in the throes of her struggle, to weep in her 
 weeping the tears of the hidden soul. 
 
 Yes, long years have we wept with her these tears, 
 seen of no man, seen only of the All-seeing Eye. 
 
 And so we know that we weep with Her, and so we 
 know that we shall soon, even before many days, rejoice 
 with Her for that a beautiful One has been born into our 
 degree, and unto our need. 
 
 Yes, One beautiful in God, One great in the ageless 
 Divinity of the future, One strong in the new Love, 
 mighty to bear the burden of man, on whom is already 
 laid the load of our infirmity, even the One, as sang our 
 well-beloved in the past ages, " the One mighty to save." 
 
 # # # 
 
 And you, my sister in Life, and you, my brother in 
 God, can even now help the Christ-Mother of our Earth 
 to bring forth the Beautiful One. 
 
 Yes, I tell you, my fellow in service, my comrade in 
 the tribulation of the soul of the Great Compassionate, 
 you can help in this present deliverance of the ages. 
 
 And now we will tell you how you can thus work 
 with God. 
 
 (1). By jealously guarding the great Peace in your 
 heart-centre, and willing ever, and evermore willing 
 peace, peace, peace to every soul. 
 
 25 
 
(2) . By carefully guarding the holy Love of God in 
 your deepest heart, and so, persisting in loving all souls 
 equally and well — even German as Briton, black skin as 
 white skin, alien as your nearest kindred. 
 
 (3) . By fighting in the silent deep of your own hidden 
 nature, daily, hourly, ay, it may be of need, momentarily, 
 this good fight of a true faith in the unlimited blessed- 
 ness of the God-love, even at this time when it seems to 
 be the last thing our human soul could produce, or our 
 earth-nature realise. 
 
 For this is none other than the fight of God, and thus 
 do we fight with God in the good fight of Life ; and thus 
 do you actually aid in the great work of the Good Mother 
 of our Days ; and you do so now. 
 
 I tell you I know this is so ; and further, I do not 
 believe it is too much for our faith to say, that, by so 
 possessing your God-Peace in your soul now, you do your 
 part to advance the realisation of the great work of the 
 Holy Love. You, in a way, hasten the coming of the 
 Christ who is to be, by thus keeping open the way of 
 Life the Blessed in your own heart. 
 
 And, even as we all work together for this end, you in 
 me, and I in you, and the Christ of the Ages of our Bace 
 in us all, and we all in the Holy One of our Blessedness ; 
 so are we crying continually out of the soundless deep of 
 our humanity : even so come quickly ; even so come, O 
 Lord, our Christ, our God. We await Thy coming. 
 
 26 
 
Ye who Love can Understand. 
 
 l. 
 
 To understand aright is to know, to know aright is 
 either to pity or to sympathise with ; to do all this aright 
 is to love in God. 
 
 And Love alone can see aright, Love alone can know 
 aright, Love alone can feel aright. 
 
 For they who love have the vision of God, who loveth 
 all creatures equally and well. 
 
 And ye men and women who love, are the eyes of 
 God, for your brothers who, having eyes to see, yet see 
 not aright for lack of love. 
 
 And to you there is no alien ; and ye can understand 
 the word of all men and of all creatures. 
 
 Ye can understand all creeds and all parties — national, 
 political, social ; and ye can belong to no party. 
 
 2. 
 
 Ye can understand Bernhardi, and ye can understand 
 Tolstoi. 
 
 Ye can understand the power and use of the Czar, 
 and ye can understand the inassailable might of the 
 Doukoboor. 
 
 Ye can understand the consistent follower of Jesus 
 Christ, who would not hesitate to be slain by, rather 
 than to slay his brother, and ye can understand these 
 ministers of the Christian church who offer themselves 
 right heartily for any service they can fulfil at the front. 
 
 27 
 
Ye can understand the fierce Uhlan, and ye can understand 
 the gentle J acob Boehme. Ye can understand the word of 
 Beethoven, and ye can understand the voice of the Kaiser. 
 Yes, ye can understand the Kaiser, and I trow there is no 
 man alive whom we so pity to-day because of the work 
 given him to do. 
 
 We understand them all and their uses in the great 
 economy of our day. And to understand aright is to 
 know, and to know aright is to compassionate or pity, 
 and to compassionate aright is to love in God. 
 
 And to love in God is to love all equally and well. 
 
 3. 
 
 And you I understand in your great and strong hymn 
 
 of Hate, my brother poet, , and I salute 
 
 you now in the will of brotherhood ; and when we meet 
 in the body carnate or decarnate ' we shall know each 
 other better,' for the mists will have passed away, and 
 the Sun of Love will be shining within us both. 
 
 28 
 
The Song of My Love to Germany. 
 
 (This Eeply to the Hymn of Hate is Inscribed to thi 
 Singer of the Hymn, whose Name, for very Love': 
 
 SAKE, I WITHHOLD FROM THE GAZE OF MY EEADERS.) 
 
 1. 
 
 Thou hast sung to me thy hymn of Hate, my brother, 
 now shall I chant to thee my song of Love. 
 
 And my song of Love shall prevail over thy hymn ot 
 Hate ; and the worlds of men and gods shall proclaim me 
 to be the master-singer, inasmuch as in my song is a 
 truer and sweeter human note than in thine, 
 
 2. 
 
 And by the power of my song I shall subdue thee 
 unto the dominion of my King of Eighteousness ; and 
 thou shalt become the most willing and most obedient 
 subject of my Prince of Peace ; and thou shalt yet serve 
 him more faithfully than I have served him. 
 
 3. 
 
 By Love I shall heal thy soul of its frenzy. By Love 
 I shall deliver thy mind from thy self-created madness. 
 
 For it is not really my brother who sings this hymn of 
 Hate, but an evil thing who obsesses thy fair soul. 
 
 Therefore thy hymn of Hate hurts me not. Nay, but 
 I find in it a certain comfort ; for to me it is a sure sign 
 that thy madness is passing from thee. 
 
 Por a hate, such as this, only comes to the soul or 
 conscious state of man or society when it is about to pass 
 away. It is the shriek of its death agony ; it is the sore 
 crying of its last struggle. 
 
 29 
 
4. 
 
 My brother, my own brother, son of my own Father, 
 son of my own Mother, I will to thee now the best that 
 can be given thee of Heaven. And thou knowest, sure 
 as I chant to thee my love, so sure would I serve thee in 
 the best way I can. 
 
 And no better way can I see to serve thee well and 
 for thy good, even now in this the hour of thy dire need, 
 than to seek to save thee from thyself. 
 
 For thou hast generated a false self, thou hast created 
 a hideous thing, a monster of death, a phantom of hell, — 
 an image who is verily a masquerade of thy true Self, a 
 a fiction of thy lower nature, a creation of all thy un- 
 worthinesses. 
 
 Unreal, yea, a lie is the very existence of this eidolon, 
 yet hath it the power to destroy thee. 
 
 Strong hath the monster grown, and already it is 
 strangling thee, yes, even thee, my brother. 
 
 Yet is thy virtue, yet is thy virility, yet is thy 
 strength, and thy strength alone, in its clutch. 
 
 For thou hast long time nourished it well and right 
 willingly on the finest elements of thy human soul and 
 body. 
 
 5 
 
 Brother, know that this self-engendered, self 
 nourished monstrosity obsesses thy fair manhood, deludes 
 with foolish imaginings thy true, thy native mentality, 
 puffs up with vanity thy soul, possesses with an insane 
 pride thy whole nature. 
 
 Know that its will is, and can only be, to destroy thee. 
 Its desire is, and can only be, to lure thee into its hell, 
 to win thee for its devouring. 
 
 30 
 
6 
 
 Brother, my own Brother, child of the one Mother, 
 son of the one Father, during these woeful months I have 
 sent thee Love, ay, the best Love that one human soul 
 can send to another. 
 
 And I know that this Love shall find thee, I know 
 that it shall save thee, I know that it shall slay thy 
 destroyer, I know that it shall set thee free. 
 
 7. 
 
 Hear my chant, my Brother; for if thou wilt only 
 listen to it for a little time thou will perceive in its 
 harmony the note of the Christ-melody, and then thy 
 malady will pass from thee, and thou shalt be healed. 
 
 Hear my song, my Brother. It is the song of thy 
 lover. 
 
 Surely, surely, thou canst now feel how great and true 
 is my love of thee. 
 
 31 
 
Hymn of the Deliverance of Germany. 
 
 [Inscribed to the true and only Genius of the great 
 German people, whose virtue has so forcibly manifested 
 itself, even in these dark days, in the wondrous valour 
 of her sons, whose warm blood is staining, ay, while I am 
 writing these words, the snow-clad plains of Flanders.] 
 
 1. 
 
 Land of the rich human genius, we are thy debtors 
 in Life, and we owe thee much, and so now, for very love 
 of the grateful heart, we weep for thee. 
 
 Germany, the mother-soil of the intellect of the 
 western world, rich in the seed of saints, mystics, poets, 
 musicians, philosophers, artists and scientists of mind and 
 matter, Germany, the fatherland of the home-loving, wife- 
 loving, child-loving, labour-loving, peace-loving peasant, 
 thou art now the victim of the powers of hell and the 
 grave ; for even thy fine intelligence has been captured by 
 a false philosophy and warped by vain sophistry ; and in 
 it thou art maddened with the lust for the power to 
 dominate, and the greed to possess the earth ; ana the 
 despotism of force and the tyranny of fear, (0 folly of 
 the uttermost degree !) have seized on thy vitals. 
 
 2. 
 
 Germany, thou well-favoured of Heaven, how thou 
 art befooled of the infernal magician ! How thou art 
 enslaved by her enchantments ! 
 
 32 
 
Land of the rich human genius, we weep for thee 
 now, for thou hast sold thy high birthright of a godlike 
 mission for the pottage of a dark and subtle witchery. 
 Thou hast denied the Christ of thy wisdom, and a crude 
 materialism is on His throne; the delusions of the 
 Destroyer possess thy soul, and thou hast given thy 
 strength to the god of war. 
 
 Behold, now, he whom thou servest. Behold him in 
 his works. For he is thy god, and well worshipped by 
 thy children. 
 
 3. 
 
 Yet art thou not utterly lost in these fogs of infatua- 
 tion. Yet hath not Heaven given thee over to the powers 
 of obsession. For still thou hast understanding, and thou 
 shalt learn the wisdom of the one God. And through 
 the god whom thou dost now serve, thou must suffer thy 
 great tribulation, ere soundness of mind and thy new soul 
 can come to thee. 
 
 Yea, out of thy sore tribulation thou shalt learn the 
 lesson of Life. 
 
 Ay, methinks no other lesson than the present one 
 will be needed by thee for the healing of thy mind and 
 the renewing of thy soul. 
 
 For thou hast eyes, and thou canst see. 
 
 And thou wilt see that an ignis fatuus hath led thee 
 even unto the brink of the abyss of death. 
 
 Ay, even now, through thy great tribulation, thou art 
 being freed from the iron hand of the ancient oppressor, 
 and Heaven is using the allied powers of the world for 
 thy deliverance unto a higher and larger life. 
 
 And whether we, thy nearest kindred on earth, be so 
 honoured as to be used of Heaven to show thee the way 
 
 33 
 
4. 
 
 or not, yet thou shalt surely see the way of Life the 
 blessed. 
 
 Thou shalt awake from thy nightmare dream ; thou 
 shalt yet overcome the powers of vanity that have duped 
 thy good sense, and intoxicated thy whole nature, and 
 thou shalt arise out of thy drunken stupor. 
 
 In the fulness of time thou shalt hear the call of Thy 
 Christ ; for thou hast ears, and thou canst hear. Yea, 
 thou shalt hear the word of thy Holy One, thy Saviour, 
 thy Good Angel, thy living and only true God. 
 
 5. 
 
 And the spells of the infernal magician shall fade 
 away, and, one by one, the delusions of thy hell shall 
 pass from thee. 
 
 And thou shalt yet stand as thou hast never before 
 stood, strong in Life, beautiful in Love, sane in God ; 
 great, great, great in the powers of blessing. 
 
 For all the richnesses of thy genius will have become 
 the richness of the Holy One of thy blessedness, and all 
 thy kingdoms will have become the kingdom of thy 
 Christ. 
 
 6. 
 
 Germany, land of the rich human genius, lift up thy 
 head and be glad even now, for thou shalt yet walk in the 
 way of Life the blessed, and thy redemption draweth nigh. 
 
 Thou shalt yet shine, a star of great glory in the firma- 
 ment of the new Humanity, and Heaven hath given to 
 thy hand the hymn of her new-born life, and the utter- 
 ance of the wisdom thereof. 
 
 Germany, thou shalt sing with us the song of the 
 34 
 
federation of Europe, and thine own Holy One shall be the 
 composer of the Song. 
 
 7 
 
 This, the hymn of thy liberation from the powers of 
 thy hell, sings for thy present cheer, thy brother, thy 
 friend, thy lover, thy fellow in tribulation, who thus right 
 willingly pours forth, and will continue to pour forth, 
 even unto the day of thy deliverance, his best for the 
 transmutation of the richnesses of thy human genius into 
 the richness of the genius of the Christ of thy wisdom. 
 
 A Prayer for the Allies at this Time. 
 
 Christ, who art the Love and the Wisdom and the 
 Power of God for our peace, we ask Thee now to give the 
 power of Thy Love and Wisdom to those in authority in 
 our land and these other lands, so that in the time of the 
 triumph of their arms over their foe, they may see that 
 Thou hast given them the great opportunity of serving 
 the need of the soul of our world as she has never hereto- 
 fore been served by her children. 
 
 We ask that these nations may be great enough in 
 Thy Wisdom and strong enough in Thy Love, to be able 
 to stretch out the hand of a true, generous brotherhood to 
 a beaten opponent. We ask that Thy Love and Wisdom 
 may keep them from the vile ignominy of humiliating 
 low down, even to the dark abyss of an implacable hate, 
 a fallen antagonist. 
 
 Keep, we pray Thee, keep at this time, their hearts 
 strong, their vision clear, their hands clean in Thy high 
 and noble honour, Christ of the Ages of our Eace. 
 
 35 
 
A Prayer for Our Motherland at 
 this Time. 
 
 Now, Beloved, we would breathe into Thee the will 
 of our heart's love for our Motherland. Face to face do 
 we speak to Thee ; soul to soul do we commune with 
 Thee, the Innermost One of our Being. 
 
 Art Thou not our Beloved, and are we not Thy lovers ? 
 
 Therefore, as lovers we are to whisper into Thee the 
 most secret desire of our nature, and we are to ask Thee, 
 even as lovers ask of the beloved, a gift of love. 
 
 And the boon we ask of Thee now is that our Mother- 
 land may be made worthy to be Thy servant unto the 
 nations of this world, even the servant of Thy Goodness, 
 Thy Grace and Thy Beauty, for their deliverance from all 
 their bonds, and to save them from their bills. 
 
 Make her, we ask Thee, the generate and bearer of 
 Thy peace unto the ends of the earth. Make her Thy 
 Peacemaker. 
 
 Behold our desire is ever before Thee, written on our 
 heart, and our prayer has been spoken even into the 
 heart of our best Beloved. 
 
 Great, great is the gift we ask of Thee, Yet surely 
 Thou hast heard the cry of our love. Yes, great is the 
 gift, but then, art not Thou the Great Lover ? 
 
 The Call of Great Britain. 
 
 I have called thee, Britannia ; I have called thee to 
 be My servant unto the nations of the world. 
 
 36 
 
For, notwithstanding the many feeblenesses of thy 
 youthful nature, yet have I found thy soul to be worthy 
 of my service. Therefore have I given unto thee both 
 the opportunity and the power to serve Me unto the ends 
 of the earth. 
 
 For thou hast a good heart and a generous will and an 
 open hand, and thou art ready to do what appears to 
 thee to be right. 
 
 Art thou, then willing to be My servant ? Is thy 
 love of thy neighbour great enough to give thee the 
 strength of will to fulfil My service unto all mankind ? 
 For if only thou art strong enough in love, I shall endow 
 thee with My wisdom ; and this will surely make thee the 
 invulnerable, ay, the unassailable one among the nations. 
 
 Art thou willing to give all to thy brother ? Art thou 
 willing to receive him into the wide-open arms of thy com- 
 passion ? Art thou ready to hold out thy hand unto the 
 alien, whosoever he may be, and say unto him : " Come to 
 me, my brother, come, and we shall eat the bread of 
 human kindliness together." 
 
 If thou art thus strong in thy true and only goodness 
 I shall surely make of thee My beacon-hght unto the 
 world. And thou shalt stand unto the ages of ages, 
 strong in thy strength, stable, sure, founded on Me, the 
 Eock of the unchanging love. And thou shalt radiate per- 
 petually, and throughout the ages, My light, even the 
 holy light of all My blessedness. For I, even I, am the 
 fulness of God ; and I, if I be lifted up, will draw all 
 unto My shining. 
 
 Behold now thy destiny, Land of My nurture. 
 Hear now My call, people of My care. Art thon 
 yet able to rise and follow Me ? Art thou yet grown 
 strong enough in love to fulfil thy great destiny ? 
 
 37 
 
Hymn to Demeter. 
 
 l. 
 
 Sing, Demeter; sing, Mother-earth; thy little 
 child now sings to thee. 
 
 Sing, Demeter, the song of thy new life ; thy little 
 one would sing with thee. 
 
 2. 
 
 Surely we have felt thine agony, surely we have 
 tasted thy pain, surely we have travailed in birth with 
 thee, the good mother of our flesh, the nourisher of our 
 animal soul. 
 
 3. 
 
 Thou knowest, Demeter the beautiful, how we love 
 thee. Thy fair body is sweet to our touch, thy holy 
 breath is sweet to our taste ; thy soul, ah, we are of it, 
 the great, the generous, the bountiful soul. Ay, we are 
 substance of thy substance, element of thine elements, 
 bone of thy bone, and flesh of thy flesh. We are in thy 
 very essence ; we are thy very children. 
 
 Therefore we love thee with the devotion of a good 
 son to a good mother ; and we would, and we cannot do 
 otherwise than pour forth for thy comfort all the virtue 
 and all the strength of our nature. 
 
 4. 
 
 We know thine agony, Demeter, but we know that 
 it is well with thee. 
 
 Surely, surely thou art neither fallen, nor defiled, nor 
 lost, nor straying. 
 
 38 
 
Surely thy path is unto the ages of ages, well guided 
 by the Hand of thy Lover. 
 
 Surely, surely thou art in the way of the Great Sun ; 
 surely thy course is ever towards thy high-born kindred, 
 the sweet Brotherhood of the Pleiades. 
 
 Surely, surely thy Holy One keepeth thee well. 
 
 Surely thou art in the way of Life. 
 
 Surely, surely the Eye who slumbereth not nor sleepeth 
 holds thee and guides thee now. 
 
 5. 
 
 Awake, then, to song, Demeter, thy little child sings 
 in thy song. 
 
 Awake thy hymn of new-found joy, good Mother of 
 our days, thine own little one joys in thy joy. 
 
 6. 
 
 Chant we together, good Mother of the children of 
 our earth, the solemn requiem of thy sons, in whose blood, 
 wild yet generous, is the seed, shed into thy body, of the 
 race of a gentler and stronger beauty. 
 
 7. 
 
 Chant we together the solemn requiem of these braves, 
 who, in self-immolating hecatombs, have given, and are 
 giving in these days, little though they ween it so, their 
 rich virility for the fertilizing of the Womb of the ages 
 of our race. 
 
 8. 
 
 Ever have the sacrifices of love, Demeter, been the 
 way of thy life. Ever yet, for thee and thy children, is 
 
 39 
 
the way of the Cross the way of Life, and the song f the 
 Cross the song of thy new Day. ° 
 
 9. 
 
 Ever beautiful, ay, and of a wondrous beauty to the 
 eyes of thy child, is thy body, Mother-earth; beautiful 
 is the light of thy soul, of a wondrous beauty to the eye 
 of thy lover is the radiance of thy life. 
 
 10. 
 
 Yet a higher life and a fairer radiance, and children of 
 a gentler and stronger beauty await thee, Demeter, as 
 the gift of the love of thy Great Lover, the Holy Sun of 
 thy blessedness. Sing, therefore, yea, sing, sing with me 
 now the joy of thy coming Day. 
 
 11. 
 
 Surely dawns thy Day even now. Surely the dark 
 night of thy sorrow is passing away with these present 
 hours. Surely comes thy Day of holy radiance, when no 
 more shall thy great soul be torn in the anguish of thy 
 children, when no more shall thy fair bosom be rent and 
 harrowed by the infernal instruments of their fratricidal 
 strife. 
 
 12. 
 
 0, my Mother, my own Mother, beautiful is the fruit 
 of thy pain ; ay, of a gentler and stronger beauty than 
 heretofore seen of men shall be our new humanity, thy 
 child of the ages, even thine own ageless child. 
 
 Sing, Demeter, sing now with me, thy little one. 
 
 For very joy in thy joy, thy lover sings with thee. 
 
 40 
 
The following books by James L. Macbeth Bain are to be had through all 
 Booksellers, from the Publishers, 
 The Theosophical Publishing Society, 161 New Bond Street, London, W. 
 
 The Brotherhood of Healers. (Out of print at present). 
 
 Price, Cloth and Gold, 1/6; Paper, //-. Crown 8uo. pp. 60. 
 
 The Song- of the Cross and the Chant of the Labour 
 of Satan. 
 
 Price 8/6. Crown 8uo. pp. 324. Cloth and Gold. 
 
 The Opening 1 of the Gates. 
 
 Price 316. pp. 330. Cloth and Gold. 
 
 Breathings of the Angel's Love and Stories of Angel 
 Life. 
 
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 Breaths of the Great Love's Song. 
 
 Price 3/-. pp. 200. Cloth and Gold. 
 
 The Christ of the Holy Grail. 
 
 Price 216. pp. 115. Cloth and Gold. Paper Cover, //-. 
 
 In the Heart of the Holy Grail. 
 
 Price 3/6. pp. 200. Cloth and Gold. 
 
 Corpus Meum. 
 
 Price 2/6. pp. 104. Cloth and Gold. 
 
 The Lady Sheila and other Celtic Memorabilia. 
 
 Price 2/-. Cloth and Gold, pp.76. Post free, 2/3. 
 
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 Just published, 3/-. Cloth and Gold, pp.173. Post free, 3/8. 
 
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 The Barefoot League. 
 
 pp. 45. Post free, 7d. 
 
 My publishers have already printed abundant Press reviews and other 
 appreciations of those works. But 1 do not reprint these notices, as I now 
 prefer to allow the word in these books to speak for itself. The best witness to 
 the power they hold is in the confidential testimony of many, many all over 
 the world who have written me of the blessing tlvtse writings have borne into 
 their lives. 
 
 To print excerpts from such letters would seem, and might be to some, the 
 proper thing to do. And I have been often advised to do so, but I cannot. 
 _ Up to the present my refusal to use any of the ordinary methods of adver- 
 tising— for I have never advertised by my own cost or initiative in any journal 
 —has been a protest against our commercial system of self-advertisement, 
 which, alas ! controls the spiritual Press to a painful extent. 
 
 But as it has been represented to me that many who would wish to knmo of 
 my new work would not otherwise so readily hear of it, I send this book forth 
 
through these publishers, allowing them to use some simple method for its pub- 
 lication apart from that of general reviewal. And tlnis, as I have said in the 
 Foreword, I am freed from much labour and freed for the expression of much 
 that is pressing within for its utterance. And every word oj Life will utter 
 itself in God's own way and time. 
 
 The foregoing is a reprint taken from the addenda to the Christ of 
 the Holy Grail, and now in this the third edition of this Chant of the 
 Great Peace, let us vow anew, even as Lillie and I vowed on our knees this 
 New Year's morning, to love one another, to love every sotd, ay, to love and 
 ever to love at all times and in all conditions. Thus, thus shall we keep the 
 Great Peace of God deep in our own soul for the sustaining, the controlling, 
 the guiding and the general comforting of those little children of Christ among 
 whom we now dwell. Love, be Thou my Guide. Love, lead Thou me on. 
 
 3 am 
 
 This Book is printed by David Brown, 
 
 AT 
 
 Ramsay Lane, 
 on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh. 
 
 in December 1914. 
 
 ( The Design for the Cover is by Agnes Leitli ). 
 
i