The doctrine they taught above all others was the _solidarity of the race_. This was ever repeated. It was their religion that the human race was one creation, bound together by indissoluble ties, links stronger than iron and unbreakable. It was one body. It should be of one heart, one brain, one purpose. Whenever one of its members suffered all suffered. When there was a criminal all had part in his crime; when there was a debauchee, all partook in his debasement; when there was one diseased all were affected by it; when one was poor, all bore some of the sting of his poverty. If any one took shelter behind his possessions, wretchedness, poverty and disease found him out. Ever is Lazarus at the king's gate haunting him, and he cannot avoid it. At his banquets the ghosts of the wronged appear to him. Hollow-eyed women and children point the finger of scorn at him, and phantoms in his dreams shriek out at him, "Where is thy brother?" And he has no excuse but the cowardly question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" His children inherit the emanations from his cowardly soul and will not rise up to call him blessed. His mind is not at ease, because the atmosphere of envy is all around him; he knows _he_ is the cause of evil thoughts, and that he holds his position by keeping comfort away from many around him, and his fine surroundings become to him as tinsel and dross. Dyspepsia, _ennui_ and weariness of spirit claim him. He is a poverty-haunted coward, ashamed that he is so; and, saddest of all, he is not a Christian. He does not believe that if he seeks the kingdom of God, which means only to do aright, all things of material beauty will be added to him, purifying, comforting, sustaining him, strengthening him, glorifying him beyond his present power to dream of. But the Brook Farmers did. They believed that the Infinite Power ordained social laws so universal and equitable that the fulfilment of them would make all unqualifiedly happy, and that it is the mission of this race of beings to be attached to this earth, to this universe, until their happy human destiny is accomplished, which destiny must be for _all_, otherwise the Infinite would be partially and not wholly good and just. I do not say that all men are conscious of this as I have pictured it; but the burdens are lying heavily on their souls and bodies, and they can be truly happy only when they are taken off from them. Human nature is too buoyant, too elastic, to be conscious of their pressure all of the time; but often, in every soul, is the keen perception that there must be an accounting somewhere, sometime, for all the injustice and wrong done to any one and to every one, and it brings the "dread hereafter" uncomfortably close to their daily lives.