departments of Nature's vast domain. After much deliberation she had undertaken this work to enable her to wisely prepare and plan for a life work in harmony with her lofty ideas on the subject--ideas which had been slowly ripening in her mind for many months. Having passed the ordeal of this severe post graduate course of general study, she felt herself prepared to commence the work contemplated by her general plan, which embraced a skillful use of the great educational and social advantages of Fenwick Hall, in her endeavors to bring to the leading minds of the political and social circles of Washington a clear conception of the importance and significance of the real purpose of human life; with a view to reforming ethical, social, industrial and political organizations on the true basis of the unselfishness of the individual for the advancement of the race; thus bringing these organizations into exact and co-operative harmony with the object and purpose of the existence of the planet. Systems so organized, would then be in line with a true conception of the functions of an ideal republic--a government for the people, of the people and by the people; conducted for the benefit, protection and development of all the people. With the world organized into families of such republics, the advent of the millennium could be predicted, and the advancement of the race to the point of perfection would be insured. CHAPTER XX. THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA. From a careful review of her historical studies, Fern Fenwick came to the conclusion that the competitive system was responsible for a majority of the evils which had so retarded the world's progress. She discovered that this same system was the father of a conscienceless commercial spirit which had existed for many centuries as the basis of all social organization. That as such, it was a constant menace to all good society; the embodiment of a cruel selfishness of a savage type, which insisted that might makes right--that the strong should thrive by preying upon the weak. In this position it boldly denied the immortality of the soul, so far as the weaker workers were concerned. Therefore the cheap lives of these poor people had no claim to be considered as sacred, because they represented so many human souls. In the absence of any practical or effective protest from the religions of the world, this monstrous system of selfishness had in all these years, grown unchecked and unmolested in its methods of cruel greed. From the shadows and gloom of these threatening conditions, existing so manifestly in direct violation of all progressive law, came a demand that the negative belief in the immortality of the soul, be speedily replaced by a positive knowledge of it. A knowledge sustained and supported by practical demonstrations, through the action of natural law, whose manifestations and demonstrations should be so direct and indisputable as to appeal