To become a member of the Order there is no qualification of property necessary. The aged and infirm are accepted in charity. Indeed, at one time they threatened to swamp the family altogether, for the brethren seemed to have set out with a dead-weight upon them heavier than they could bear. But this has righted itself. The working members have got the ship round again, and in one way or another a place and a use has been found for every one. Speaking generally, however, membership meant the holding of stock in the corporation. If a man wished to join the Order, he gave in to the Bishop a statement of his effects. It was left to his conscience that this statement should be complete and exhaustive; that there should be no private reservations. These effects--whatever they might be, from a farm in another part of the Territory to the clothes in his trunk--were appraised by the regular staff, and the equivalent amount in stock, at $10 a share, was issued to them. From that time his ownership in his property ceased. His books would perhaps go into the school-house library, his extra blankets next door, his horse into a neighbour's team. According to his capacities, also, he himself fell at once into his place among the workers, going to the woollen factory or the carpenter's shop, the blacksmith's forge or the dairy, the saw-mills or the garden, the grist-mill or the farm, according as his particular abilities gave promise of his being most useful. His work here would result, as far as he was personally concerned, in no profits. But he was assured of a comfortable house, abundant food, good clothes. The main responsibilities of life were therefore taken off his shoulders. The wolf could never come to his door. He and his were secured against hunger and cold. But beyond this? There was only the approbation of his companions, the reward of his conscience. With the proceeds of his labour, or by the actual work of his own hands, he saw new buildings going up, new acres coming under cultivation. But none of them belonged to him. He never became a proprietor, an owner, a master. While therefore he was spared the worst responsibilities of life, he was deprived of its noblest ambitions. He lived without apprehensions, but without hopes too. If his wife was ill or his children sickly, there were plenty of kind neighbours to advise and nurse and look after them. No anxieties on such matters need trouble him. But if he had any particular taste--music, botany, anything--he was unable to gratify it, unless these same kindly neighbours agreed to spend from the common fund in order to buy him a violin or a flower-press--and they could hardly be expected to do so. Quite apart from the fact that a man learning to play a new instrument is an enemy of his kind, you could not expect a community of graziers, farmers, and artisans to be unanimously enthusiastic about the musical whims of one of their number, still less for his "crank"