Beloved Friends:

THE INNER LIFE for May just received, and reading “The Return to the Waters” recalled to my mind a vision I had in May 1931, while meditating one evening, in an effort to dispel an overwhelming sense of depression.

There stood in the foreground, a man of great stature, with bronzed legs and arms, girt with a leather apron. He stood with feet apart, swinging his arm above his head, striking an immense gong, which sounded and resounded. As I listened to the ominous booming and roaring of the gong, I heard the reverberations going round and round the earth. He would pause, and then renew the powerful striking of the gong.

I sensed the beseeching of unseen persons begging that the hour of fate should not strike, but again and again he struck that gong. Then I saw the land laid out below me, like a map, mountains, plains, cities, continents and seas. And on the edge of the scene below me an awesome figure stood, poised and whirling—a great whirling cone of intricate design, and it seemed to be an instrument of vengeance, created to destroy the works of men’s hands, created by their own hands, and awaiting the hour of fate.

It stood spinning swiftly on its pointed base; then slowly it began to move forward. As I looked I saw drawn across the map, the threads of the links of civilization, the activities of man,—banking, commerce, relations—personal, national, international. The spinning whirler advanced on its fierce cutting edge. Through these threads it cut relentlessly. And the threads sprang back. Myriads of tiny figures rushed to join up the ends, but they could no longer be rejoined.

The Avenger sped on across continent and ocean, and behind it the surface of the land curled back, and slowly there arose a smoke, thick and acrid. The Instrument of Wrath disappeared in the distance, and the whole land was covered with smoke which rolled and moved across. Drifting before the wind I saw lost souls floating blindly with bowed heads draped in grey.

For long the earth was wrapped in silence. Then afar off I saw the Instrument returning, and as I looked I saw it was a great Angel in glistening robes, and as it came it gathered in its arms the few white-clad souls. Soon its arms were full as with sheaves of lilies.

I praise our Father that you have been raised up to help, direct and guide the Children of the Kingdom to the Secret Place of the Most High within, in this most momentous time. God bless you, uphold you, strengthen, guide and keep you, and give you day by day, His Light, Power and Love to pursue your appointed work.—M. W.

THE ABOVE vision is a very remarkable illustration of how the Law works—inexorably, relentlessly, but always impersonally.

The man of great stature symbolizes Fate, which when the hour of exact justice arrives, strikes the gong. Then the awesome whirling figure, like a ruthless cyclone, symbolizing the Law, acts swiftly, and cuts down and destroys everyone and everything in its path—none escaping it.

Oh, that all men might see this picture and understand its portent! The Law is indeed a great and mighty Angel of Justice. Think you those who are disobeying the Law or are using it to further their own selfish ends will not have to pay for so doing, that they can escape the Angel when He comes? No, this vision shows what will be their inevitable punishment.

But there are the few whom He will not destroy or harm; instead when He finds any who fear Him not, for they have been working with and have been serving Him, He will gather them in His arms and carry them with Him into the new world of Brotherhood and selfless Love they had glimpsed awaiting them.

Dear ones, begin now to work with the Law, by waiting upon the Lord every moment of the day—for the Lord and the Law are one and the same Angel, doing everything solely to please Him, concerned not at all about results but only that it is the best you are capable of doing; so that when He comes He will find you waiting and unafraid, and you will know that He will take care of all results, no matter how hard it seems to do His Will and be denied what the world offers if you would follow its way.

Only those who do this will be saved, when the cyclone comes, will be taken into His arms, and will abide with Him ever afterwards.—The EDITOR.