Nevertheless, although women have never been admitted into the ranks of the hierarchy, and presumably never will be, yet they possess a species of council of their own sex in the college of the priestesses of the Sun, who inhabit a large block of buildings contiguous to the great temple. This institution is based on rules somewhat similar to those which prevail in the Council of the Seventy, but it is worked and administered on broader lines, and the age limit is not so strictly drawn as in the case of the hierarchy. Girls who have no desire or vocation for matrimony may enter the portals of this convent (if I may so term it) as novices; nor is the acceptance of applicants confined to one social class, as is the rule concerning the probationers of the hierarchy. On the contrary, a fair proportion of the inmates of this convent are drawn from the middle and lower classes, and thus the atmosphere of the convent is of a distinctly democratic type. Even the highest office of all, that of Domina, or lady abbess, is occasionally attained by a plebeian, for the rules of election here are carefully compiled so as to secure the choice of the most popular and capable of the candidates. The senior ladies of the convent are kept in constant touch with the members of the council, who frequently apply to the priestesses of the Sun for advice in various matters of a social and remedial nature, which may be deemed expedient. Thus all regulations concerning the welfare of women and children have been carefully scrutinised and approved by the Domina and her assessors before ever they are enforced by the officials of the council. But how closely and on what lines the temple and the convent work together is of course beyond my knowledge, though it is evident that the two institutions are conducted in apparent harmony with one another. XI It is scarcely fair to offer any comparison between the moral progress as shown in Meleager and that prevailing on the Earth, and in any case such a comparison would prove impossible, seeing how varied and how complex are the many moral systems of the greater planet. With our numerous nationalities it is only logical there should result great diversities of opinion on ethics, and we are made to realise our difficulty in estimating any average sum-total of earthly morals to bring into the field of comparison. Has not one writer of note averred that the views of sexual morality held by the phallic worshippers of old and by the extreme Puritans of to-day rest equally on a common religious foundation? And has not our British poet of empire somewhere written that "The wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandù, And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban"?