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LETTER XVI
THE SIXTH RACE
Have you thought about the United
States after this war? A new race is being prepared for in the United
States. That is why you had to be born there—you through whom I write. That
is why I am trying to use you in my work for Universal Brotherhood.
No, you need not remain in the United States. It is better that
you should continue to mingle with other races in their old habitations.
The Theosophical Society could not have been born anywhere else.
Spiritualism could not have been born anywhere else. In the United States is
a readiness for new things, a reaching out for the untried, a welcome for
things because they are new.
Of course this tendency may be and is abused. Almost any faker
can find followers in the United States; but without that hospitable spirit
towards the New, the great new race could not come into existence there.
This race is not made of new souls, but of
the oldest and most experienced souls, experienced in other lives of the
past. The ingenuousness and the childlike quality of Americans are the
results of spiritual maturity. The race, as a race, is in its youth; but the
souls are old as time.
After they have taken a much needed rest, many or most of the
souls that go out by death in this war will find rebirth in the United
States. Oh, that land will be a very wonderful place in seventy-five or a
hundred years!
You will not be here then, unless you discover the fountain of
immortal youth, or unless you come back soon, renouncing the rest in heaven.
Ponce de Leon was inspired when he sought the fountain in the
New World. It is there if anywhere; but Australia and Russia will run you a
keen race for the future.
No, I shall not tell you about the Seventh Race. It will come in
good time; but now I want to talk to you about the Sixth, one of whose
pioneers you are.
Do not cut this out of my book because an
enemy once said that you were egotistical. Our enemies always see and hate
their own qualities in us. Develop some quality an enemy has not, and he (or
she) will love you for it. The horseman is not jealous of the musician in
his quality as musician. It is the musician who is jealous of the musician,
the egotist who sees and hates another’s egotism. If Germany were a weak
nation she could not so hate England for her greater power.
When the Sixth Race is fully incarnate, all men and women of
real development will be able to see in the astral world, and to hear
unspoken words, and to read the thoughts of others. Of course there will be
people of all grades of development in that new race. Equality of
development is a pretty dream, you Socialists. Have you not also your
superior ones, your leaders? The less developed souls who come into
incarnation with the Sixth race are those who have earned in the past the
right to be open to the quickening influences of that race. How have they
earned that right? By their willingness to change and to grow.
Go out on the hillside and watch the
growing things. Take a leaf from the book of Nature.
You wonder about the future of England. Old England is provided
for. Has she not given birth to the civilization you enjoy? Other races were
present, of course; but language tells the story.
As I said before, England has been an instrument in the hands of
these Great Ones who wished to make possible the fraternity of races. She
has carried the torch round the world. She has tied continents together, and
woven the chain which will bind men to each other in days that are to come.
Honor her, for she deserves honor.
Honor all nations, as aggregates of souls, your brother-souls;
but honor most those nations that have worked with the Law and not against
it.
Those who aspired to see Germany the cradle of the new race
should have made less noise in the birth-chamber. They have scared the angel
visitor away.
There are four races in Europe that are
cruel races. They cannot rock the cradle of the divine infant. They would
not remove the pin that stuck in its back, lest if it did not suffer and cry
its lungs would lack air. I need not name these races.
The Sixth Race is a sensitive infant and learns more through
love than through discipline. The Sixth Race will apply the discipline to
itself when it feels the need of it. Its schoolmaster will be curiosity, and
its play will be the sciences and arts of peace. Its cradle-song will be a
chant of Brotherhood. No, it could not be rocked in a German cradle; but
many a German-American will help to rock it. They make lovely cradle-songs,
the Germans, when they forget the superiority of being grown-ups and go back
to the fancies of childhood, the myth-making fancies.
We want to see more and more Frenchmen in the United States, for
France has more to teach the new race than has any other nation—France, the
inspired prophet, and most of all France the critic. Americans are not
critical enough, not analytical enough, not subtle enough. America needs
France, and the men and women of France. You have heard the old saying,
“Every man has two countries, his own and France.” I may be misquoting, but
the idea is there.
You wonder how anyone born to the glory and
charm of France should ever come to the New World? But many will come, and
more will follow, both by the path of the ocean and by the path of rebirth.
You came that way yourself, if you but knew it.
Recover the memory of past births, you pioneers of the Sixth
Race! You can do it. It is part of the heritage of that race.
America, the “melting-pot” of nations! You were not made to rule
an outside empire. When the time comes make over the Philippine Islands to a
nation that can be trusted with them. Your empire is within your own body,
you race of a score of races, you inheritor of a score of fathers, you
mother of the one new race!
Increase your army and navy so long as you are nervous. Put
lightning-rods on your house and burglar-alarms on the doors and windows.
Feel secure. Then dream about brotherhood—when you can trust in it.
Sit by the fire of your own coal dug from the ground by
Dutchmen, as it burns in a chimney of your own bricks made by the hands of
Irishmen, read your own newspaper printed in the language of Englishmen, by
the light of your own lamp made by a German, on your own hearth-rug made by
a Turk or an Armenian, enjoy the feel of your own muscles trained by a
Swede, in your own linen washed by a Chinaman, listen to your daughter
playing on your own piano the music of a Russian, an Italian, a Pole or a
Frenchman, see all over your own room things made by the sons of a dozen
other races, your neighbors, your fellow-citizens, your fellow-Americans,
then tell me whether you dare not to believe in Universal
Brotherhood, and in the new race, the synthesis of all races!
April 8.
Letter XVII.
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