In the pages that follow we will try to show this great thread, the spiritual thread, the thread of living fire that winds in and out through all religions and binds them together with a mutual ideal and mutual needs. In the story of the Grail and the Legends of King Arthur we find that thread wound around the Table of the King and the Temple of Mount Salvart. This same thread of life that passes through the roses of the Rosicrucians, winds among the pedals of the Lotus, and among the temple pillars of Luxor. THERE IS BUT ONE RELIGION IN ALL THE WORLD, and that is the worship of God, the spiritual Flame of the universe. Under many names He is known in all lands, but as Iswari or Ammon or God, He is the same, the Creator of the universe, and fire is His universal symbol. We are the Flame-Born Sons of God, thrown out as sparks from the wheels of the infinite. Around this Flame we have built forms which have hidden our light, but as students we are increasing this light by love and service, until it shall again proclaim us Suns of the Eternal. Within us burns that Flame, and before Its altar the lower man must bow, a faithful servant of the Higher. When he serves the Flame he grows, and the light grows until he takes his place with the true Initiates of the universe, those who have given all to the Infinite, in the name of the Flame within. Let us find this Flame and also serve it, realizing that it is in all created things, that all are one because all are part of that eternal Flame, the fire of spirit, the life and power of the universe. Upon the altar of this Flame, to the true creator of this book, the writer offers it, and dedicates it to the one Fire which blazes forth from God, and is now hidden within each living thing. [Illustration] FOREWORD _THE GREATEST OF MYSTERY SCHOOLS_ _The World is the schoolroom of God. Our being in school does not make us learn, but within that school is the opportunity for all learning. It has its grades and its classes, its sciences and its arts, and admission to it is the birthright of man. Its graduates are its teachers, its pupils are all created things. Its examples are Nature, and its rules are God’s laws. Those who would go into the greater colleges and universities must first, day by day, and year by year, work through the common school of life, and present to their new teachers the diplomas they have won, upon which is written the name that none may read save those who have received it._ _The hours may seem long, and the teachers cruel, but each of us must walk that path, and the only ones ready to go onward are those who have passed through the gateway of experience_, _GOD’S GREAT SCHOOL FOR MAN_. [Illustration: The Cube Altar: Of the elements of the earth is this altar composed. It is the great cube of matter. On or in this altar burns a Flame. It is this Flame that is the spirit of all created things. =Man, know thyself.= Thou art the Flame, and thy bodies are the living altar.]