And all the while the shrewd, the rosy, sleek and full-fed world, with title deeds in pocket and scrip and stock in hand, thinks of its factories on rapid streams; its warehouses of three thousand dollars' rent; its dividends at seven per cent half yearly; its iron-limbed and tireless steeds, hurrying with the spoils of myriads of acres; its carpeted, curtained, glowing, shining, pictured, sculptured, perfumed homes. The victorious world, so confident and easy and jocular, so beautiful in its own right, so wrapped about in kingly purple--how strangely is it metamorphosed to the eyes of the child of God! Its factories change into brothels; its rents to distress warrants; its railroads to mighty fetters, binding industry in an inextricable net of feudalism; from under the showy robes of its success, flutter the unseemly rags of an ever-growing beggary; from garret and cellar of its luxurious habitations, stare out the gaunt forms of haggard want; the lash of the jailer, the gleam of swords, the glitter of bayonets, are its garters and stars of nobility. If Association has been elated by the thought of its miraculous power, or meditated to use it for selfish ends, it deserves the taunt of the yet more selfish world. And it is reason for great rejoicing, that the difficulties of transition from the isolated to the harmonic mode of life are so great. God thus _sifts_ his people. None are worthy to enter upon this work who are not _dusted_. We need to hunger. We need to feel dependence, in order that we may judge competition in contrast. We need to know actually how pinching is necessity; how deep it ploughs its furrows into brow and brain; how tight it knots up the muscles and cramps back and limbs, by exhausting toil. Association must be in its very essence disinterested; holding power as something given from above, to be used not for self alone, or chiefly, but for universal good; consecrating itself as a servant. And its answer to the boasting world is, "Man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." We are learning, in these trial times, the beauty of reciprocation, the wealth of sharing all; we are studying experimentally the law of cooperation; we are estimating the value of justice by its practical application; above all, are we opening our hearts to the glad conviction that it is possible, ay, easy, for men to grow more kindly by adversity, and to love each other better for each other's wants. The word which is proceeding out of the mouth of God to Associationists now, to all the true-hearted and brave and devoted and hopeful of them is, "Union with fellow beings by usefulness is the very life of life." Let patience have its perfect work. Let no man be so mean as to emphasize the "If thou be," etc. Let no doubt enter from present humiliation. Association is the divine form of humanity. So ends in piety the first temptation.