“The idea underlying that, I take it, is that as the athlete whose body is thoroughly trained and co-ordinated dares to jump an abyss, without fear of falling, so the man whose mind and spirit are disciplined can jump an intellectual abyss, without losing balance or sanity.”
“Yes. And as a man trained to carry great weights on his shoulders must be trained to it from youth, so the man who would carry government and freedom of thought must train his mind to carry its weight—not alone to hold it briefly, but to carry it on.”
“Is it true, then,” he asked, “that safe freedom and constructive freedom are only possible after prior discipline and self-control?”
“How can undisciplined freedom be safe or constructive? It makes the wilderness. It makes the jungle. It makes the uncharted and devouring sea.”
One day, about the middle of May, discussing these manifestations over a luncheon table, a man who described himself as “a sympathetic agnostic” mentioned that while all those on the next plane reported that they were busy, none to his knowledge had told just what they were doing.
At that time, we had received several statements concerning their activities. Frederick had spoken of his efforts in connection with “a pro-German newspaper editor.” Maynard Holt’s mother had told us that she worked “with undeveloped purposes, here before their time.” It had been said of a famous editor: “He is for Justice.... He is one of the forces determining the grouping of the newly arrived.” Anne Lowe had said: “I handle children. Some of them thought they were grown up when they left you.” And the work of the healers, in receiving and soothing “war-stricken forces,” had been repeatedly mentioned.
However, with the comment of the “sympathetic agnostic” in mind, we asked Mary Kendal, apropos of some allusion to the healers on her plane, whether she could tell us of their work in detail.
“You have already seen that our ability to be specific, even about things here, is dependent on your ability to understand conditions of our plane,” she reminded us. “As fast as we can, we give it to you. But as well explain the operation of wireless telegraphy to an illiterate ‘cracker,’ as to try to explain healing, as we understand and practise it, to the person unprepared by thought and study of these truths.”