tion to begin with. Presuming this to be the case, then, and that it is not necessary to deplete the bodily powers for the subdual of desire, or the acquisition of spiritual clairvoyance, it will be found that the neophyte will have use for all the vitality he can possibly absorb, and his greatest difficulty will be the maintenance of a proper balance between income and outgo, supply and demand. As whatever path he tread to infinite life he must keep himself under "a settled and continued strain "-which means intense mental concentration to the exclusion of THOUGHTS, the rapid and ceaseless drain upon brain and nerve tissue-and the nervous force must be adequately replenished. With the reservations above stated, we do not think that the eligible candidate for Oneness with the Infinite need worry himself greatly about reducing his food supply to a minimum, as directed by the first quoted authority. Let him rather take all he can comfortably consume or burn. His tastes, and later his intuitions will be reliable guides. Hereschel wrote in this connexion :

"The brain and nervous system seem to bear a somewhat close resemblance to a galvanic battery in constant motion, whose duty it is to provide a certain and continuous supply of its special fluid for consumption within a given time. As long as supply and demand are fairly balanced, the functions which owe their regular and correct working to the fluid are carried on with precision; but when, by excessive demands carried far beyond the means of supply, the balance is not only lost but the machine itself is over-strained and injured, disorder first and disease after are the result."

Nervousness and impaired mental powers are the surest signs of overstrain, and their warning should be promptly heeded.

(To be concluded.)

CECIL. W. WATSON.

ECHOES FROM THE PAST.

LETTER FROM COLONEL OLCOTT TO MR. H-X

This interesting letter appeared in Hints on Esoteric Philosophy, long out of print.]

DEAR MR. X.,

COLOMBO, CEYLON,

30th September 1881.

The enclosed card, to the Spiritualist, I had written and put under cover to-as early as the 27th instant-post-dating, so as to correspond with the P. and O. Mail day-and meant it to go straight to London by this post. But on the night of that day I was awakened from sleep by my Chohan (or Guru, the Brother whose immediate pupil I am) and ordered to send it via Simla, so that you might read it. He said that it would serve a useful purpose in helping to settle your mind about the objective reality of the Brothers, as you had confidence in my veracity, and, next to seeing them yourself, would as soon take my word as any other man's to the fact. I have to ask the favor, therefore, of your sending the letter on by the next succeeding post, readdressed to

I can well understand the difficulty of your position-far better, I think than H. P. B., who, womanlike, hates to reason. I have only to go back to the point where I was in 1874, when I first met her, to feel what you require to satisfy you. And so going back, I know that as I would never have taken anybody's evidence to so astounding a claim as the existence of the Brothers, but required personal experience before I would head the new movement, so must you, a person far more cautious and able than myself, feel now.

I got that proof in due time; but for months I was being gradually led out of my spiritualistic fool's paradise, and forced to abandon my delusions one by one. My mind was not prepared to give up ideas that had been the growth of 22 years' experiences, with mediums and circles. I had a hundred questions to ask and difficulties to be solved. It was not until a full year had passed by, that I had dug out of the bed-rock of common sense the Rosetta stone that showed me how to read the riddle of direct intercourse with the Brothers. Until then I had been provoked and exasperated by theas I thought--selfish and cruel indifference of H.P.B. to my yearnings after the truth, and the failure of the Brothers to come and instruct me.

But now it was all made clear. I had got just as much as I deserved, for I had been ignorantly looking for extraneous help to achieve that which no man ever did achieve except by his own self-development.

So as the sweetness of common life had all gone out from me, as I was neither hungry for fame nor money, nor love, and as the gaining of this knowledge and the doing good to my fellow-men appeared the highest of all aims to which I could devote my remaining years of life, I adopted those habits and encouraged those thoughts that were conducive to the attainment of my ends.

After that, I had all the proofs I needed, alike of the existence of the Brothers, and their unselfish devotion to humanity. For six years have I been blessed with this experience, and I am telling you the exact truth in saying that all this time I have known perfect happiness. It has seemed to you" the saddest thing of all" to see me giving up this world and everything that makes the happiness of those living in the world, and yet, after all these years, not only not made an adept, but hardly having achieved one step towards adeptship. These were your words to me and others last year; but if you will only reflect for one moment what it is to transform a worldly man, such as I was in 1874-a man of clubs, drinking parties, mistresses, a man absorbed in all sorts of worldly public and private undertakings and speculations— into that purest, wisest, noblest and most spiritual of human beings, a Brother, you will cease to wonder; or rather you will wonder, how I could ever have struggled out of the swamp at all, and how I could ever have succeeded in gaining the firm straight road.

No one knows, until he really tries it, how awful a task it is to subdue all his evil passions and animal instincts, and develop his higher nature. Talk of conquering intemperance or a habit of opiumeating this self-conquest is a far harder task.

I have seen, been taught by, been allowed to visit, and have received visits from, the Brothers; but there have been periods when, relapsing into a lower moral state (interiorly) as the result of most unfavorable external conditions, I have for long neither seen them nor received a line from them. From time to time one or another Brother who had been on friendly terms with me (I am acquainted with about a dozen in all) has become disgusted with me and left me to others, who kindly took their places. Most of all, I regret, a certain Magyar philosopher, who had begun to give me a course of

instruction in occult dynamics, but was repelled by an outbreak of my old earthly nature.

But I shall win him back and the others also, for I have so determined; and whatever a man really WILLS, that he has. No power in the universe but one can prevent our seeing whomsoever we will, or knowing whatsoever we desire, and that power is-SELF!

Throughout my studies I have tried to obtain my proofs in a valid form, I have known mesmerism for a quarter of a century or more, and make every allowance for self-deception and external mental impressions. What I have seen and experienced is, therefore, very satisfactory to myself, though mainly valueless to others.

Let me give you one instance:

One evening, at New York, after bidding H. P. B. good-night, I sat in my bed-room, finishing a cigar and thinking. Suddenly there stood my Chohan beside me. The door had made no noise in opening, if it had been opened, but at any rate there he was. He sat down and conversed with me in subdued tones for some time, and as he seemed in an excellent humor towards me, I asked him a favor. I said I wanted some tangible proof that he had actually been there, and that I had not been seeing a mere illusion, or māyā, conjured up by H. P. B. He laughed, unwound the embroidered Indian cotton fehta he wore on his head, flung it to me, andwas gone. That cloth I still possess, and it bears in one corner the initials of my Chohan in thread-work.

This at least was no hallucination, and so of several other instances I might relate.

This same Brother once visited me in the flesh at Bombay, coming in full day-light, and on horse-back. He had me called by a servant into the front room of H.P.B.'s bangalow (she being at the time in the other bangalow talking with those who were there). He came to scold me roundly for something I had done in T.S. matters, and as H.P.B. was also to blame, he telegraphed to her to come, that is to say, he turned his face and extended his finger in the direction of the place she was in. She came over at once with a rush, and seeing him dropped on her knees and paid him reverence. My voice and his had been heard by those in the other bangalow, but only H.P.B. and I and the servant saw him.

Another time, two, if not three, persons, sitting in the verandah

of my bungalow in the Girgaum compound, saw a Hindu gentleman ride in, dismount under H.P.B.'s portico, and enter her study. They called me, and I went and watched the horse until the visitor came out, remounted and rode off. That also was a Brother, in flesh and bones; but what proof is there of it to offer even to a friend like yourself? There are many Hinḍūs and many horses.

You will find in an old number of the N. Y. World a long account of a reporter's experiences at our headquarters in 47th Street. Among the marvels witnessed by the eight or ten persons present was the apparition of a Brother who passed by the window and returned. The room was on the second story of the house, and there was no balcony to walk on.

But this it may be said, was all an illusion; that is the trouble of the whole matter; everything of the kind seen by one person is a delusion, if not a lie, to those who did not see it. Each must see for himself, and can alone convince himself,

Feeling this, while obeying my Chohan, as I try to do in little as well as great things, and sending you these writings, I do so in the hope, though by no means in the certainty, that your present reliance on my veracity will survive their perusal.

I have never, I should mention, kept a diary of my experiences with the Brothers, or even of the phenomena I witnessed in connexion with them. There were two reasons for this-first, I have been taught to maintain the closest secrecy in regard to all I saw and heard, except when especially authorised to speak about any particular thing; second, never expecting to be allowed to publish my experiences, I have felt that the less I put on paper the safer.

You may possibly glean, if not from personal observation, at any rate from the printed record of my American services of one kind or another, that I am not the sort of man to give up everything, come out as I did, and keep working on as I have done, without having obtained a superabundance of good proofs of the truth of the cause in which I am embarked. And you may possibly say to yourself: "Why should not I, who am more capable of doing good to this cause than a dozen Olcotts, be also favored with proofs?" The answer you must seek from another quarter; but if my experience is worth anything, I should say that that answer would be in substance that, however great a man may be at this side of the