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343 Here we may pause to consider some of the com- monest among the foolish criticisms that have been aimed at the state and methods of activity of the Adepts, since something has been promulgated in refer- ence to them in modern Theosophic literature. It has been suggested that in living very secluded lives (as far as their existence on the physical plane is concerned) they are selfishly neglecting the poignant sufferings of unhappy humanity, which they might do much to soften if they came down from their lofty towers to mingle with the human race. ‘To have power over material nature and disease and not at once devote that power to the relief of poverty and sickness seems to some of our shortsighted moralists to imply a want of sympathy with suffering, and a “‘selfish’’ neglect of opportunities for doing good. The criticism springs from a comprehensive ignorance of Nature and the whole design of the world—from a curiously complete disregard of the hypothesis that, in spite of appear- ances, the progress of the world may be going on, under the law of justice, and that very much more important ends may really be in view than those which have to do with the alleviation of the painful conse- quences which, in the progress of their successive lives, most human beings may have brought upon themselves. Let me not be misunderstood. To the true Masters of Wisdom the spectacle of human suffering, however completely that suffering may have been earned by the sufferer’s own action in the past, is one evoking acute and tender-hearted sympathy. But this sympathy cannot but, in their case, be associated with and quali- 344 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. fied by the lofty powers of yision which may look back to the causes in the past, by which the suffering has been brought on, and forward to the results that may be hoped for as regards the future by the exhaustion of those causes. To us, who see merely the suffering, it is perfectly clear that we have only one simple duty in regard to it—to relieve it if we can, by the exercise of such very limited powers in that direction as we may possess. If we succeed in doing this we are not upsetting the design of Nature. We are in all probability merely playing a part unconsciously in that design, and the Karma of the sufferer whom we relieve, may be regarded as having been to that extent already fulfilled when the pressure of destiny brought us into contact with him. But the Adept, who has come already into conscious relations with the design of Nature, who is no longer drifted blindly about by that pressure of destiny just referred to, is very differently situated. He is not wanted as an instrument of Karma. The great law finds its own instruments ready to its hand among the humanity still on the saine level of existence to which the sufferer belongs. If he intervenes, with a power and a knowledge on a level, so to speak, with that on which the design originates, he is distinctly upsetting the contemplated scheme of things. Such a violation of the appointed progress of events would quite possibly do no more than protract the suffering it might seem to relieve, for the unfulfilled law of Karma would exact -its own measure of justice later on,—in another life, perhaps, which might have been clear of the old debt if things had been allowed to take their normal course. THE EIL.DER BRETHREN OF HUMANITY. 345 Then again, while philanthropists of the lowlier type may fitly enough concern themselves with pallia- tives in dealing with human suffering, their justifica- tion for doing this is to be sought rather in the imper- fection of their insight than in the merits of palliatives as such compared with remedies for evil which should go deeper than the surface, and attempt to grapple with fundamental causes. While the worldly philan- thropist of the ordinary type seeks for the causes of misery and suffering in the external negect of econo- mical laws, and would endeavour to circumvent these evils by teaching thrift, temperance, and industry as habits dictated by an enlightened selfishness, we can readily appreciate the idea that a fuller comprehension of the laws of Karma may enable Adept vision to realise that even the practise of economical virtues would not sufice to root out from human society the suffering which in one shape or another must overtake Re-incar- nating human creatures who have lived before for merely selfish objects, and have done evil, as judged by the spiritual standard, however enlightened, in the mere worldly sense, their selfishness may have been at the time. The Karmic retribution for sins against humanity, for cruelty to others, and hardness of heart in presence of sorrow, can never be circumvented, and the cunning- est devices for warding off poverty and crime will never be successful in guarding future generations from these calamities until the people, who in the present time are creating the conditions in which they will live again, are taught to live with an eye to that inevitable destiny, and to starve out the forces that 346 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. make for wretchedness and disease, so that there shal] be no Karmic necessity for such penalites operative in the progress of the world any more. The end, therefore, to which the Adept must primarily devote himself will always be the cultivation of spiritual knowledge and aspiration, which by weaning people from their supreme devotion to the objects of physical existence, will guide them into those paths of endeavour which will necessarily render them less likely to sacrifice the higher dtates of humanity on the altars of their individual worldly interests. Of course, I am not professing to explain and account for the whole policy of the Adept Brotherhood in their dealings with uninitiated mankind. I am merely showing how, with the limited knowledge of their functions in Nature which we possess, it is easy to put aside the manifestly inapplicable criticisins suggested by an entire ignorance on that subject. It is with the Spiritual interests of humanity almost exclusively that the Adepts must deal. And in dealing even with these it 1s obvious that at some periods of the world’s history their influence may be much more restricted than at others. Human affairs advance through a great series of interlinked cycles, and each of these has its periods of spiritual and material ascendancy. Some- times the exoteric religious ideas in vogue may favour, sometimes they may oppose the spread of true spiritual knowledge. Sometimes it may be possible for those who have outrun their contemporaries, and have attained to the power and beatitude of the Divine Kingdom, to do little more than concern themselves THE ELDER BRETHREN OF HUMANITY. 347 with the few who are toiling along after them across the dangers and ordeals of the upward path. Sometimes they may find it practicable to attempt the reform of popular religions, so as to bring these more into harmony with the eternal natural laws that govern spiritual evolution. But whether at any given moment they can do much or little, there is one thing they can always do, and do always accordingly, they can—to fall into the symbolical language that the subject suggests— keep the sacred flame alight. They van take care that there shall always be an Adept community on earth, ready to instruct and bring forward increasing numbers of those who, as the cyclic law grows more favourable in the future, may be prepared to undertake the task of self-development, and thus to co-operate with Nature in working out her grandest design—to which all preliminary stages of evolution are, indeed, but subservient. To those who have'long attained the exaltation of the Divine Kingdom, it may be that some mysterious condition of supreme rest and beatitude beckons them onward, and without knowing much on that subject, we may reasonably conjecture that one by one, as the aspect of the great duty that presses upon them all permits, they do pass on, but never, we may be assured, until their places are fully supplied by other victors in the great struggle. In this way the Adept Brotherhood is much more than a mere organisation of immensely advanced and Spiritualised men. It is that of course, but it is a brotherhood so far advanced that it has grown up into being a part of the great hierarchy of superior beings 348 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. constituting the spiritual government of the world. Some of those who become Adepts are, in turn, drawn up into this hierarchy, and may then be said to guide and direct the Will lving behind them again in its detailed manifestations. Rightly apprehended this idea is no more in conflict with the vague religious conception that assigns the “‘creation’’ of the world to God, than the fact that human devices may direct electricity to specific purposes, is in conflict with the profound truth that electricity itself is a mighty and ever-present force of Nature. The deeply impressive truth that the Will of God works through agencies of a character intermediate between God and man, is the scientific interpretation of Nature, not the deposition of vaguer beliefs which only seem more reverential to the uninstructed mind because that mind has never even sought to work out its beliefs with precision. That from the beginning of humanity on earth in this great World Period through which we are passing, there has been a Being consciously presiding over its evolution is, as I say, a perfectly reasonable idea, in harmony with the loftiest religious conceptions. That it is not merely an idea, but a fact, is ascertained by those who are themselves, in turn, intermediate between that Being and humanity at large.