And in this world-wide Hunt for Happiness, where scrambling millions followed the trail of Heart’s Desire, she saw the mad huntsman, Folly, leading, and Black Care, the whipper-in; and, at the bitter end, only the bones of the world’s woe; and a Horseman seated on his Pale Horse.
But the problem that still remained was how to swerve the headlong hunt to the true trail toward the 140 only goal where the world’s quarry, happiness, lies asleep.
How to make service the Universal Heart’s Desire? How to transfigure self-love into Love?
To preach her faith from the street corners––to cry it aloud in the wilderness where no ear heeded––violence, aggression, the campaign militant, had never appealed to the girl.
Like her nation, only when cornered did she blaze out and strike. But to harangue, threaten, demand of the world that it accept the Law of Service and of Love, seemed to her a mockery of the faith she had embraced, which, unless irrevocably in liaison with freedom, was no faith at all.
So, for Palla, the solution lay in loyalty to the faith she professed; in living it; in swaying ignorance by example; in overcoming incredulity by service, scepticism by love.
Love and Service? Why, all around her among these teeming millions were examples––volunteers in khaki, their sisters in the garments of mercy! Why must the world stop there? This was the right scent. Why should the hunt swerve for the devil’s herring drawn across the trail?
One for all; all for one! She had read it on one of the war-posters. Somebody had taken the splendid Guardsman’s creed and had made it the slogan for this war against darkness.
And that was her creed––the true faith––the Law of Love. Then, was it good only in war? Why not make it the nation’s creed? Why not emblazon it on the wall of every city on earth?––one for all; all for one; Love, Service, Freedom!
Before such a faith, autocracy and tyranny die. 141 Under such a law every evil withers, every question is unravelled. There are no more problems of poverty and riches, none of greed and oppression.