The great majority of such persons, interested in the welfare of humanity, live isolated although they may be residing in crowded cities; for they find few who share their mode of feeling and thought and who have identical objects in view. They are often living in communities where little more but selfishness, the greed for money-making or perhaps bigotry and superstition are found. They are isolated and without the support of those who sympathize with their ideas; for although one universal principle unites all those who have the same object in view; still their persons are unknown to each other and they seldom find means for mutual intercourse and exchange of thought. Now let us suppose that in each country a centre of communication were to be established, by means of which such persons could come into contact with each other, and that at each such centre a journal or newspaper were to be established, by means of which such persons could exchange their thoughts;—not a centre from which supreme wisdom was to be dispensed and from whence dogmas were to be doled out for the unthinking believers; but a centre through which the thought of the members of the society could freely flow; and we could then have an ideal “Theosophical Society.” Such a centre would resemble a central telephone station to which all the different wires extend, and it would require a trustworthy servant at the office to connect the wires and to attend to the _external_ affairs connected with the affairs of the office; but if such a “telephone operator” would attempt to interfere with the messages running over the wires, and to assume an authority to say what kinds of opinions should be wired and what messages should be suppressed; if he were to assume the role of a dictator and permit only such messages to pass over the wires as would be in harmony with his own ideas; then the object of the centre of communication would come to nought; we would again have papal dictates and presidential orders in the place of liberty of thought and speech, and there would be an end of the object and purpose of the society. But on the other hand, if every unripe mind were to be permitted to have his effusions printed at the expense of the society, and to teach things, which perhaps a few months afterwards, having learned to know better, he would be sorry to think that they had ever seen the light, such a proceeding would throw discredit upon the society and be moreover altogether impracticable. Our “telephone operator” should therefore be a man possessed of the greatest circumspection and discrimination, and while he should never interfere with the expression of any opinion, no matter how much opposed the latter may be to his own opinion, he should at the same time be permitted to cut down the messages sent over his wires to certain limits and to present them, if necessary, in a more suitable form.