fashion, politics and business; and realize strongly the consciousness of the Unseen World of Truth, Love and Beauty ❦ The first emotion on coming into the Brotherhood is one of loneliness and isolation. You pray for comradeship, and empty arms reach out into the darkness. But gradually you awaken to the thought that you are one of many who hope and pray alike; and that slowly this oneness of thought and feeling is making its impress felt. Then occasionally you meet one of your own. This one may be socially high or low, rich or poor, young or old, man or woman—but you recognize each other on sight and hold sweet converse ❦ Then you part, mayhap, never to meet again, but you are each better, stronger, nobler for the meeting. ¶ Consecrated Lives! You meet and you part, but you each feel a firmer impulse to keep the light burning—the altar light to Truth, Simplicity and Beauty. No other bond is required than that of devotion to Truth, the passion of listening in the Silence, the prayer for Wholeness and Harmony, the earnest desire to have your life reflect the Good. All man-made organization would be fatal to the sweet, subtle and spiritual qualities of the Brotherhood ❦ For organization means officers, judicial robes, livery, arbitrary differentiation, and all the vile and foolish claptrap of place and power. It means the wish to dictate, select and exclude, and this means jealousy, prejudice and bitterness—fifteen candidates for a vacant bishopric with heartaches to match! ❦ No organization ever contained within its ranks the best. Organization is arbitrary and artificial; it is born of selfishness; and at the best is a mere matter of expediency. The Brotherhood of Consecrated Lives admits all who are worthy, and all who are excluded, exclude themselves. ¶ If your Life is to be a genuine consecration, you must be free. Only the free man is truthful; only the heart that is free is pure. How many compose this Brotherhood—who shall say? There are no braggart statisticians, no paid proselytes with their noisy boastings. Two constitute a congregation, and where they commune is a temple. Many belong who do not know it; others there be who think they belong, and are so sure of it that they do not. ¶ But the Brotherhood is extending its lines; and what think you the earth will be like when the majority of men and women in it learn that to be simple and honest and true is the part of wisdom, and that to work for Love and Beauty is the highest good? ❦ [Illustration] Marriage and Divorce