Diary of a Drug Fiend

368 The Diary of a Drug Fiend We no longer looked back with remorse on our folly. We could see the events of the past year in perspective, and we saw that we had been led through that ghoulish ghastliness. We had followed the devil through the dance of death, but there could be no doubt in our minds that the power of evil was permitted for a purpose. We obtained the ineffable assurance of the existence of a spiritual energy that worked its wondrous will in ways too strange for the heart of man to understand until the time should be ripe. The pestilence of the past had immunised us against its poison. The devil had defeated himself. We had attained a higher stage of evolution. And this under- standing of the past filled us with absolute faith in the future. The chaos of crumbled civilisations whose monuments were on the rock before us, had left that rock un- marred. Our experience had fortified us. We had reached one more pinnacle on the serrated ridge that rises from the first screes of self-consciousness to a summit so sublime that we did not even dare to dream how far it soared above us. Our business was to climb from crag to crag, with caution and courage, day after day, life after life. Not ours to speculate about the goal of our Going. Enough for us to Go. We knew our way, having found our will, and for the means, had we not love? ‘“‘ Love is the law, love under will.” The words were neither on our lips nor in our hearts. They were implicit in every idea, and in every impression. We went from the court up the steps, through the open glass doors, into the vaulted room with its fantastic frescoes that was the strangers’ room of the Abbey of Thelema ; and we laughed softly, as we thought that we should never more be strangers. GLASGOW: W. COLLINS SONS AND CO. LTD.