War Letters from the Living Dead Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

was a fortuitous concourse of atoms? Did you think the British Empire merely happened? And now the British Empire may be used further. She may be used in Belgium. And I do not mean the mere presence of her army in Belgium.
    It is said that the Masters, the world’s teachers, hold back the awful karma of the world. I am trying to do a little of holding back the awful karma of Germany. She has disgraced the human race in Belgium. Everything that has been believed about German outrages in Belgium is true except one thing. So far as I know, and I have enquired of those who know more than I, German soldiers have not cut off the hands of living Belgian children. But they have murdered women, and outraged women, and mocked and insulted pregnant women, and maltreated the new-made mothers of babes that they have murdered. They have burned men alive, and they have buried men still alive. I say that Germans have done these things. Should I say that the forces of evil, the beings of evil, the superhuman and the once human forces of evil, have done these things, using as their instruments the forms of German soldiers from which they had thrust for the moment the moral soul?
    Take it whichever way you may please, for both ways are true. The men who ravaged and destroyed Belgium were not all obsessed, save that evil may be always an obsession. Help to hold back the awful karma that Germany has made in Belgium. “Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven.”
    March 27

Letter 9 
    Unseen Guardians
    In the devastated region of Belgium—and most of Belgium is devastated—there stands a little house unharmed and tranquil as before the war. Round about it are ruined walls, standing black with smoke or grey with the powder of shellfire. Two women live there, middle-aged women. They did not flee their home when the war-tide washed over them. They were frightened—yes, but they did not flee. They saw neighboring houses in flames, they heard the detonation of shells bursting; but they remained between their four thin walls, and waited and prayed. Four gods they prayed to, God the Father and God the Son, and two others—their father and mother, who had passed on some years before into the other world, their Belgian father and their German mother! So great was their faith that they believed they would be unharmed, and they were not harmed. Incredible as it may seem, that little house stands there secure in the midst of desolation.
    Love is a protective force. The father and mother of those two middle-aged women had loved each other tenderly. Race was no barrier to their love. The German woman and the Belgian man had taught their children that Germany was their mother and Belgium was their father. Their bones lie together in the village churchyard, and their souls kept watch when the armies passed over. They guarded the children they loved. Does this seem an impossible story? I know it to be a fact. I have spoken with that father and mother, and I shall speak with them again. Their faith is rare, and their love is rare, and their reward has been rare. It is easier to guard a little house than to move a mountain, and it has been said that faith like a grain of mustard-seed could move a mountain. Those two souls had not yet passed away from the neighborhood of the earth; they waited for their children. When the war-tide rolled over, they stood guard at the door stone of their home. The spirits of the peaceful dead do not like the sound of shells, but these two did not fly away. Had they been frightened from their vigil, the little house might now be like its neighbors.
    Am I over-credulous? Do you remember me telling you one day years ago that you were not credulous enough? I see that