keynote of the Churches
everywhere: those outside are not children of God. And you must
remember that it is that Fatherhood of God which connotes the
Brotherhood of man. Only by the rooting in the Father-Life is the
Brother-Life intelligible. And because the Theosophical Society knows
no limit of creed, no limit of religion, and declares that every human
being is, in his own essential nature, one with the Supreme Life and
the Supreme God, because of that its Brotherhood is universal, and
knows none as outside its pale. Every man, no matter what he is, is
recognised as brother. He comes not into the Brotherhood, nor can he
be cast out from it. His Spirit, his Life, places him in it: it is a
fact beyond us, above us. We have no power either to create it or to
destroy. We recognise the great fact, and we do not call ourselves the
Universal Brotherhood, but only a nucleus in it--a very different
thing; the Brotherhood is as universal as humanity, that is our
fundamental doctrine, and it implies that Brotherhood is as universal
as Life. So also with Masonry, where it is rightly seen and
understood--no barriers of creed, all men equally welcome within the
Masonic Lodge. I say "where rightly understood," for there are lands
where Masonry has spread, where the Lodge has become exclusive as the
creed has become exclusive; and among American Masons, I believe, the
negro, as negro, is not admitted into the Masonic Lodge. But that is
the denial of Masonry, a disgrace to it, and not a triumph. And
although it be true that Masonry has lost widely its knowledge, it
still for the most part remains a Brotherhood, and in that it has in
it the link of a life that will not die, and that has every
possibility of revival throughout the earth.

Quite outside these two, limited brotherhoods are proclaimed in every
direction now. The Church asserts it within its own limits. All
religions assert it within their respective limitations. Outside
religions and churches the same cry is heard. Socialism declares it,
and tries to build its policy upon it. Everywhere this cry of
Brotherhood is heard, although it has not yet been lived, and that is
one of the signs of the coming birth of the sub-race, in which
Brotherhood shall be the dominant note of its every civilisation, and
in which a civilisation that is not brotherly, in which there are
ignorant people, and poor people, and starving people, and diseased
people, will be looked at as barbarous, and