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NOTE BY THE AUTHOR

Friends, thirteen years have become past time since the words of this book were dictated; purposely hath publication been delayed unto the end that statements then made might acquire weight through the coming to pass of many of the predictions to be found within these covers; predictions which at that time were wholly unverified, and were, moreover, regarded by science as chimerical. Prophecy would be impossible in a Godless universe; and were it not that vibration is the law of laws, no mind could come into unison with the Creator or any of His ministers; each living being is minister to the creature immediately inferior. To-day witnesseth the faith of those who have believed in my words swallowed up in knowledge: the predictions have numerously been realized; all will be. So it is that to-day, in the middle of the final year of the century I add

THE MIGHTY CAP-STONE:

The Division of the Way Hath Come; the Midnight Hour of the Cycle Which, More Than Any Other, Formed Life's Great Divide, Hath Struck. When first I dictated for this book there lacked, as it were, yet a few seconds to the closing of the Sixth Day. But now for some seconds hath been fulfilled the initiation of that saying of Him who sitteth upon the throne: "Behold! I make all things new." The Hour hath struck. And now presently "the one overcoming shall inherit all things and I will he his God, and he shall be my son." This is for those who did set their hands to the Plow and their feet to Furrow, and looked not back, while yet the Sixth Cycle was. "But as for the cowards (a halt between two opinions) and the unbelievers (in aught above earthly, finite things) and the abominable, and takers of life, and passion and lust-servers, sorcerers, idolaters and swervers from truth, their portion is the (Great Karma of the World) second death." While the foolish ones were gone to buy oil, the bridegroom came, and they who were prepared entered in with him to the feast,

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and the door was shut. When the foolish returned the door was not opened unto then. Beloved, remember these words which were spoken by the apostles of the Christ; that they said that in the Last Time before the end of the Age "there will be mockers walking after their own impious lusts (10). These indeed blaspheme what things they do not understand; but that which they know naturally, as do the irrational animals, in these things they are corrupt (19). These are they who separate at the Dividing of the Way, going in the finite direction, not having the Spirit (7), and are placed as an example, to endure the retributive justice of an age-ending fire."

Many have been my references to America as being Atlantis come again; much hath in a general way been said of the beginning, rise, growth and destruction of that ancient prototype; a hint hath been here and there given, rather by inference than by specific statement, that while America should be peer and even more than Atl, just because she is Atl returned on a higher plane, she must endure the woes as well as retrace her precarnate glories. The penalty visited upon Poseid was the crowning sentence of that Age. Century after century in the majestic march of Time hath passed since the sun looked down upon a wild waste of ocean waters where but a few days before had been the regal Island-Continent. Another cycle hath reached its end, and its last hour hath chimed. All that which is imperfect in the now-closed Sixth Day is come, in stately, measured but inexorable way to face judgment by the standard, Truth. Spot nor blemish can not hope to stand nor continue before it. Neither can aught be amended so as now to escape its karmic penalty, for the seal of its full time is set upon it. "The one acting unjustly, let him be unjust still; and the filthy one, let him be filthy still; and the righteous one, let him righteousness do still, and the holy one, let him be holy still. Lo, I come speedily, and the reward of me is with me, to give back unto each one as the work of him shall be found." The Great Karma unfailingly setteth each evildoer back to the point attained ere the animal forces in riot obtained control over the human. Wherefore those who in the Sixth Cycle

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lost supremacy over their lower selves won no place in the Seventh. In the closing years of the spent cycle one deserted his helpless wife; verily, he really deserted his birthright in the New Age. Another sought, being weak-willed, to drown worries in wine; be but drowned his soul's advanced merits. A wife was faithless to her wedding vows; the Door of the New Time is fast against her. A thief stole, what? His own life's rewards. One there was who deprived another of physical life; he also erased his own name from TO-DAY'S roll-call. One swore to keep a vow, but broke it often; in this New Day, after the grave shall claim his physical being, be shall not again awaken, having lacked will to live. A man was buried with high honors who at merciless cost to his fellowmen enriched his bank account; a gravestone near as costly as pure gold rears above his mortal, aye, and under it is also the dead hopes of resurrection. She sold her body; purchased and purchaser form an unhallowed company in Yesterday's catacombs, whence they shall not emerge to see the light of To-day until, cycles afar hence "death and hell give up" their inhabitants. Such is a brief glimpse into a Closed Record. Turn the page. Another did deeds of love; love and doers thereof live through all the days, forever. One smiled when a smile was heroic and cheered faint souls; one visited the sick and prisoners; one clothed a naked stranger; and one gave half of her last crust, though only to a starving dog. Verily, all these shall receive their reward in the Day now dawning. The bad are not all bad, neither the good wholly good. She who lived a life of shame, yet ever kept hope of better things burning in her inmost heart, and longed for death to release her, since man would not:

Verily, she shall be chastened, and made new, in the glory of To-day; but the chastening is a weary ordeal, and slow. As the Great Karma handles her, so handleth it all others, for it is Christ's mercy, which healeth every soul's-hurt.

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During many, many centuries prophecy hath looked forward to. the end of the Age as a time of awful woe, and has pictured dread scenes of terminal horror. Am I come to say that all these predictions shall fail? Is the book of the Apocalypse, mere allegory? Would it were! But as the Poseid age was stricken, this one must also be which has just passed. Shall

America, the Glorious, together with the rest of the world, meet similar woe? Alas, worse, though not by water but by fire. Shall all be wiped out of existence, leaving a planet in ruins? Unto the end of full obedience and the coming into harmony with divine law shall the lash be applied; words may not portray the scenes. This is the Message of the End of the Age:

"The day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come nigh"-Isaiah. "Behold, the day . . . that burneth as an oven."--Malachi.

The Hour hath struck. And yet in all of this there is no mystery, no supernatural penalty, no capricious infliction by an offended personal God, and nothing of "man's necessity, God's opportunity." It is all of Man's own doing. He hath wandered from the Way, and hath for the God-nature in him, which he should have revered and nourished, substituted worship of Self and of Mammon; hath cast out Love, and placed violence, lust, greed and all the riotous animalism in him in command of his life. Man is his own judge and executioner. Man is the type and the universe is the print; Nature patterns after Man, not Man after Nature. He, a being, of free-will, hath brought all coming woes of judgment to be inevitable; he must endure; as he hath sown, so must he reap. O Man, forgetter of Love, of Mercy, of Right; breeder of Hate, of Cruelty, and of the inhumanity that hath and still doth make countless millions mourn, is it possible that thou hast been blind to the handwriting on the wall? Alas, yes, thou hast! Rampant is the Spirit of selfishness, of greed, of merciless gain; its hand guides the trains and steamers, clicks the telegraph keys, operates the telephone and cables, makes a mockery of free speech, shackles the press so that it dares to

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utter only that which cannot offend its master; every human enterprise, all national policies and international comities, all things, even the churches, are willing vassals to this fiend, SELF. What then? Ruin is on all sides, the human race and all lower creatures its victims. Masons at work on a high wan shout as a brick falls: "Stand from under!"

Aye, stand from under! A world is falling! Pile no higher the racial and individual misdeeds now biding expiation; weary enough the awful reckoning of the Great Karma without additions to its terrible length that even now stretches ahead, a seeming eternity. Frenzied millions of men and women, boys and girls, no longer free save in name, are menaced with starvation. Hungry, cold, half-clad, shelterless only too often, denied the chance to work, however willing they may be, corporation-owned machinery their competitor; monopoly and trust-ridden, sleeping or waking. This inhuman picture is the rule, not the exception. Thou knowest this full well. I state nothing new in this regard, and the awful facts are under drawn instead of exaggerated. All of this, although in far, far less degree, has been so at the ending of every age, was so in Poseid and is therefore now repeated. But it can never be so again after this, for HERE THE WAY DIVIDES. Poseid survived; so also shall they of the Sixth Age. In the full time by fire the Reaper shall reap, and no place be found for physical safety by the unchanged of heart. But the time of it shall be foreshortened, else no flesh could remain alive. Stand from under! The roar of armed hosts must succeed the thunderous mutterings of the times. No more is there any chance to prevent the coming retribution (albeit it may seem unduly deferred), for the causes have had their way. Too late is it to even modify the result of the misguidance of that Spirit whose hand sways the helm. A short but sharp conflict, Sanguinary past belief, even now reddens on the horizon. The trained armies, millions of men active or in reserve, that are now engaged in conquest, fevered with war, will but little longer, comparatively, submit to having themselves and loved ones ground under the heel and strangled by the hand of that organized

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thing, Capital, which, itself merely the natural fruit of selfishness, none the less is a riotous animal principle, compelling the few to be masters of the many, denying the God-born declaration that all men are created free and equal, and warping it to seem a giant lie. Soon millions of trained soldiers will turn upon the visible representatives, the wealthy and worldly prosperous, who in reality are not more responsible than will be their assailants, of that Relentless Force behind all human enterprise. Later they will break up into lawless bands bent on satisfying Ishmaelitish tendencies, each self-server's hand weaponed against his fellow creatures. Then will the pentup hate, the savagery and selfishness begotten by ages of selfishness ruled by unbridled animalism break in a storm such as the world hath never yet seen, no, not during all the ages I scan, ages forgotten for untold thousands of years. That loveless conflict will initiate that which, Nature completing, will leave living but one where now are many. Hard and fast after the human conflict will come pestilences unparalleled, sweeping the wide earth over, for in that day none will pause to bury the slain until the evil is wrought, nor then, for the dead of the plagues will be as thousands for every one by violence. And all this because the love that should grace and soften men's hearts, each for all and all for each, dried up and became a mockery in the close of the ended cycle, leaving but scattered oases, few and far between. Nature follows Man. Wherefore the waters of Earth will dry out, rains be withheld, cyclones sweep, and an earthquake come such as was not since a man was on the earth; aye, I am mindful of Poseid! But all of this will occur only through natural causes, and in consonance with the selfishness, lust, greed, anger and general depravity of the Type. As these blaze in the human breast, so shall the air, dry and vaporless under brazen skies, develop solar heats more fierce than history ever knew. A parched earth, furnace-like, Piling all flesh mountains high; pestilences stalking unchecked. O ye! Blind to the Handwriting on the wall, which flickers Still, though writ for a spent cycle. Turn now and read, while yet the last midnight stroke reverberates.

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The disciples asked the Great Master, saying: "Teacher, when will these things be?" And He said: ". . . When you see surrounded by encampments the Jerusalem, then you may know that has come near the desolation . . . For days of vengeance these axe, to be fulfilled of all the judgments."

Friends, know ye the meaning of the name Jerusalem? That it meaneth "Vision of Peace?" Verily, so it doth. One by one during the years all the signs of the end of the Age but one were fulfilled; but these were "only the beginning of sorrows," for still the Spirit of Liberty abode here and there in the breasts of lovers of their fellowmen. That Spirit wrapped itself in the glorious folds of the Stars and Stripes and proclaimed the imperishable declaration, of human equality, granting unto all that freedom which Americans for themselves demanded. But now the "Vision of Peace" is finally encompassed by armies, the last gap being filled with blue-coated soldiers forcing Mammon's commercial shackles upon alien peoples in tropical islands. Ah, the Starry Flag droops mourn fully low above the freedom-birthright sold for a mess of pottage. My People, O my People! As ye have sown, so must ye reap. The Vision of Spiritual Peace is wholly clouded by the dust of armed camps, and no gap is left unobscured. "Then shall the end come." A Son hath continually called from on High:

In all the expiatory time must indeed those who thought no wrong suffer? Ah, thought no wrong. In every life, whether theist's, atheist's or merely one ignorant of any doctrine of belief, there comes a time when the inward Spirit beseeches the soul to go up higher. It pleads again and again and yet again so -long as faintest hope remains. Omission too, hath its penalty: "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" echoed throughout the past Age. Fire burns a babe's fingers as badly as it does an adult's. There were and are those who lived and live the Cross. These shall not suffer,

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not even though bodily death overtake them; they have no Karma to expiate.

What is the Cross? What is Christ? I have said, long ago, but I will re-state it: the Divine stream of Life, the Indefinable God, that is, the long arm of the Living Cross. Directed, purposed Human Will is the short arm. This will power is our call upon His Name that is never denied. Jesus, the Man of Nazareth, gave us pattern. He sacrificed self for us. He said: "Follow me." Also: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me." This self is the lower self; it is the animal. All animals are in man concreted. No hyena is so treacherous, no tiger so ferocious, no hog so brutish, no weasel so destructive; no animal creature of any sort is so perfect in its own peculiar nature as is the man who suffers any or all of these animal characteristics within him to run riot; and this is because his human soul is enslaved to the animal. Animal is only force undirected, whether it exist in a body or not. Directed, guided by will, it ceaseth to be animal. But in yielding to that guidance it must give up its free lawlessness, something never pleasant and often painful. It is sacrifice, always. Its symbol is the Cross. He sacrificed self for us on this same cross of the Causeless, Divine Stream which containeth all things and floweth no man knoweth whence nor whither. I would not minimize Calvary; it is very, very real and the one great fact forever! "Follow me." On that same Cross, day by day, aye, moment by moment, employing our wills, as He directed, that we may grow unto His likeness, we also, following, must sacrifice self, sacrifice the animal in us, that is, in God's service we must never cease to direct those vagrant forces which in running riot turn Earth into a veritable hell and supplant Love with Self. It is written that "a little child shall lead them." Verily the "little child" of the Spirit in the New Time shall be ruler over the menagerie within the man, and that man shall therefore be able, even as Quong, the Tchin, to rule any animal outside of himself. A vast power, this. And because of it in the New Time no longer shall any beast, whether in human form, or in

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lower animal body, or merely apparent as a raging tempest or a disease, be free to do evil.

When the Spirit in Man cometh fully to its own, "he shall rule them as with a rod of iron,", this riotous throng. Rule them to their own good; cut them off suddenly, even as Quong cut off the puma from furthering its own will. He shall destroy that theretofore unbridled animal, by the Cross converting it. into a servitor to the Father. All things must become new TO-DAY, because conditions will soon so differ that they who would hold fast to the old will, find nothing either in Nature or elsewhere that will longer yield to the old powers.

And now here, of all places, I would indeed not be vague in expression. The Seventh Cycle is that of the Spirit. TO-DAY existence will demand a spiritual eye, and ear, and that every sense be raised to the Heights. The very means of dealing with Nature will be no longer gross, but become as in Hesperus, manageable only by those who, using the Cross in their every life-act, swerve never to either side of the way, never, either in least or greatest deed doing. error, even that good may come, knowing it can not bring aught but pain and penalty. Not one can be lost, finally, of the evildoers, for God wastes nothing. He converts all things from lower into higher, inexorably, surely. Some must endure the retributive justice of the Great Karma, aye., the majority must experience more or less of this fire of transfiguration; the wrath of God is Love's severity.

Then will be those times when "all things are made new." What now, think ye? Shall not America, and the rest of the world, be mote glorious than ever thou hast dreamt. Aye, truly. She shall not indeed have the great population census-takers imagine. There shall be few where were many; tens replacing thousands. But not in numbers is there greatness or magnificence; remember the Saldans and Rai Ernon; which was greater, he or that ill-fated host? Yet never shall a soul be lost; God hath place for everyone.

It is written that after a thousand years Satan shall be loosed for a little season. That is well. For the Race possessing

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such amazing powers, though few, will be the people, yet will there be some who will have attained these powers through mere intellect; they will abuse their privileges, having not the Spirit, and these sinful ones will the Perfect in Evil assail, that karma shall overtake them. Having had much given unto them, of them shall much be demanded, wherefore their karmic atonement will be more intense than words can depict.

The wrath of God is love's severity. All shall be converted from lower into higher.