This Month's Installment
I've been under the weather lately and fell behind a bit, so this may be shorter than usual.
"In this difficult time I think everyone must---195---serve his fatherland with the gifts that God has given him. What one does and how he does it he must settle with his conscience. But no one is superfluous who is inspired by the serious will to help in this holy need. That is my comfort and my foothold when the old inclination to brooding and hesitating comes over me. And then when I see what a sincere word means to the people, when I may thus stand up, just as before, and speak to these homeless refugees, when I see the quiet lighting up of their eyes and the security slowly returning to their distraught faces, then it also becomes calmer and more secure in me; I no longer quarrel with the feeling of my superfluousness and try to be content with the post that is conferred to me for this time, even if it may be only small and insignificant. No, pardon me that I repeat it, but it is become a firm conviction for me: You were wrong when you crushed the staff over us poor knights of the Spirit.""It was a different time then," she said now for the first time."Certainly it was. And to-day, I still place the simple musketeer who surrenders his life to the enemy every day higher than the most profound man who gives the most enthusiastic speeches or sermons.
