THE VITAL MESSAGE




CHAPTER I

THE TWO NEEDFUL READJUSTMENTS

It has been our fate, among all the innumerable generations
of mankind, to face the most frightful calamity that has ever
befallen the world. There is a basic fact which cannot be
denied, and should not be overlooked. For a most important
deduction must immediately follow from it. That deduction is
that we, who have borne the pains, shall also learn the lesson
which they were intended to convey. If we do not learn it and
proclaim it, then when can it ever be learned and proclaimed,
since there can never again be such a spiritual ploughing and
harrowing and preparation for the seed? If our souls, wearied
and tortured during these dreadful five years of self-
sacrifice and suspense, can show no radical changes, then what
souls will ever respond to a fresh influx of heavenly
inspiration? In that case the state of the human race would
indeed be hopeless, and never in all the coming centuries would
there be any prospect of improvement.