Make up your mind that in some part of your nature somewhere there is that which desires to be of use to the world. Intellectually realise that that world is not too well off and probably wants a helping hand. Recognise mentally that you should try to work for it sooner or later. Admit to yourself that another part of your nature--and if possible see that it is the lower part--does not care in the least about the world or its future, but that such care and interest should be cultivated. This cultivation will of course take time: all cultivation does. Begin by degrees. Assert constantly to yourself that you intend to work and that you will do so. Keep that up all the time. Do not put any time limit to it, but take up the attitude that you are working towards that end. Begin by doing ten minutes' work every day of any sort, study, or the addressing of envelopes, or anything, so long as it be done deliberately and with that object in view. If a day comes when this is too irksome, knock it off for that day. Give yourself three or four days' rest and do it deliberately. Then go back to your ten minutes' work. At the end of six or seven weeks you will know what to add to that practice: but go slowly, do nothing in a hurry, be deliberate. Don't try to feel more friendly to this or that person--more actively friendly I should have said. Such things must spring up of their own accord and will do so in time. But do not feel surprised that you feel _all_ compassion die out of you in some ways. That too is an old story. It is all right because it does not last. Do not be too anxious to get results from the practice I have outlined above. Do not look for any: you have no concern with them if you do all that as a duty. And finally, do not forget, my dear fellow, that the dead do come to life and that the coldest thing in the world may be made hot by gentle friction. So I wish you luck, and wish I could do more for you. But I will do what I can. XIV. Now this is, as I said, an era. I called it that of Western Occultism, but you may give it any name you like. But it is western. The symbol is the well-intended American Republic, which was seen by Tom Paine beforehand "as a new era in the affairs of the world." It was meant as near as possible to be a brotherhood of nations, and that is the drift of its declaration and constitution. The T.S. is meant to be the same, but has for many years been in a state of friction. It has now, if possible, to come out of that. It cannot be a brotherhood unless each, or some, of its units becomes a brother in truth. And _brother_ was the noble name given in 1875 to the Masters. Hence you and I and all of us must cultivate that. We must forgive our enemies and those who assail us, for only thus can the great brothers properly help by working through us. There seems to be a good deal to forgive, but it is easily done inasmuch as in fifty years we'll all be gone and forgot.