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 carefully to the places which the liberality of the Absolute had despoiled. Unhappily this plan was not followed. The personnel of each of the Ministries were the victims of grace in unusual power, and spent their office hours in joyful prayer. In the Ministry of Supply a lady clerk named Sarova controlled the situation, preaching on the subject of the Seven Degrees; in the Ministry of Commerce the head of a department, Mr. Winkler, proclaimed a severe asceticism which resembled the teachings of the Hindu Yoga. True, this excessive zeal lasted only a fortnight, being succeeded (doubtless through special inspiration from the Absolute) by a period of extraordinary devotion to duty. The departments responsible worked feverishly day and night to avert a breakdown of food supplies, but apparently it was even then too late. The only result was that each department produced daily from fifteen to fifty-three thousand bills and enactments, which by decree of the Inter-Ministerial Commission were carted away daily on motor lorries to the Vltava River.

The food situation assuredly offered the most terrible problem. Luckily, however, there remained (I am, of course, describing conditions only in our own country). And here, gentlemen, you must learn that from time immemorial we have had the saying: "With all due