and reaping them afterwards with tears and groans. She had seen the prince become the beggar and outcast, proud and icy virtue grovel in the meshes of passionate and debased vice. Thus they came and went, and came again to nil their different classes, and learn the lessons of immortality, until they grew to be all-wise and all-pitiful as she was now.
Philip spoke to her about the vision which he had seen on the daïs on the night of his eternal marriage, and she replied,—
You are Christians; therefore the Founder of your creed came to give you His benediction, as you are under His generalship. Listen to me, my friends. We are all sons and daughters of God, yet some, in the course of ages, reach to the perfection of wisdom and purity, and become virgin mothers and Christs, and these are our teachers and guides, as I have been chosen to be yours for a time. The perfect soul is dual, as I have said before, and may become creative through cycles of progression and knowledge. Thus a virgin conceives and a Christ is born, sinless and complete, yet before this can be, that mother and that child must have passed through all phases and earth experiences. They have been kings and outcasts, pure and degraded by stages, and lifting themselves up, as the flower does from the soil, they have reached planes and distances of purity and wisdom far beyond our present knowing.
"The Infinite Source is encircled by those mothers and sons, and communicates through them to those not yet advanced to that stage of knowledge, and they are our teachers, as we are yours—masters who come down to us on such occasions as they are required, and give to us the needed instruction; yet we are at liberty, as
