“This is, in every family, a period of great rejoicing; each licensed child being then honored by visits and gifts from all relatives and friends; and, if he or she happens to have merited special recognition from the city or State, by any act of peculiar heroism or self-sacrifice, the Officials add a generous tribute. “In some notable cases, the bride or groom must build a house in which to store the Ante-wedding presents.” “You make as much of the license-granting as of the wedding?” “The public is not expected to take cognizance of the wedding day. It would be regarded on Reinstern, as grossly immodest and cruel, to call general attention to the exact hour wherein the young couple are legally empowered to exercise the marital privileges. It is the culmination of the most sacred desires of the human heart.” As with curtained eyes, they bowed modestly before us, we felt unaccountably ashamed of our crude practices, though but dimly comprehending the mystic purity of which we were thus vouchsafed a brief glimpse. “Shall we tell you more of the fielding system?” “Is there more?” “You have heard but the beginning. While the mothers and applicants are thus busied, the fathers are caring for the three-year-olds, the Buds, in the Elm-valley,—” “—and the two-year-olds are at home with the servants?” “We have no servants; there is no dominating or servile class; all try to serve the same Divine Will, as interpreted by the Higher Self. “Our oldest citizens are advisers in time of doubt; being more highly developed and able to read the Truth more clearly through the delicate material veil they will soon discard.” “Death can have no terrors for them?” “What you term ‘Death’, the change to the next higher plane of materiality, is, with us, but the passing of night-time; we anticipate the glories of the approaching dawn. “You are to see this change before you leave us. You asked of the two-year-olds, or, as we know them, the Restless. They are in the charge of the recently married women, who thus acquire a practical knowledge of the motherhood to which they aspire. “They, also have field and garden duties, not so absorbing or laborious as those of the parents, for two reasons: The Restless need rather more attention than the Yearlings; and the young wives themselves require more leisure for study and preparation.” “But who earns the living for the family?” Again the waltzing whirl of suppressed amusement, before they said gravely: “Parents are the highest priced laborers in the land; mothers and fathers receiving equal honors, salaries and privileges.” “It is all very beautiful—very—too beautiful to be true.” “It is true; and its simplicity brings its realization within the reach of all. It must be realized by Earth: You have the conditions, everything, except the will to accomplish the change. All blessings are yours to take. You are only self-blinded; and by your bigotry, are in danger of blood-poisoning.