or, in the middle
of the fourth root-race.

These august Beings have been called the Lords of the Flame and the
Children of the Fire-mist, and They have produced a wonderful effect upon
our evolution. The intellect of which we are so proud is almost entirely
due to Their presence, for in the natural course of events the next round,
the fifth, should be that of intellectual advancement, and in this our
present fourth round we should be devoting ourselves chiefly to the
cultivation of the emotions. We are therefore in reality a long way in
advance of the programme marked out for us; and such advance is entirely
due to the assistance given by these great Lords of the Flame. Most of Them
stayed with us only through that critical period of our history; a few
still remain to hold the highest offices of the Great White Brotherhood
until the time when men of our own evolution shall have risen to such a
height as to be capable of relieving their august Visitors.

The evolution lying before us is both of the life and of the form; for in
future rounds, while the egos will be steadily growing in power, wisdom and
love, the physical forms also will be more beautiful and more perfect than
they have ever yet been. We have in this world at the present time men at
widely differing stages of evolution, and it is clear that there are vast
hosts of savages who are far behind the great civilized races of the
world--so far behind that it is quite impossible that they can overtake
them. Later on in the course of our evolution a point will be reached at
which it is no longer possible for those undeveloped souls to advance side
by side with the others, so that it will be necessary that a division
should be made.

The proceeding is exactly analogous to the sorting out by a schoolmaster of
the boys in his class. During the school year he has to prepare his boys
for a certain examination, and by perhaps the middle of that school year he
knows quite well which of them will pass it. If he should have in his class
some who are hopelessly behind the rest, he might reasonably say to them
when the middle period was reached:

"It is quite useless for you to continue with your fellows, for the more
difficult lessons which I shall now have to give will be entirely
unintelligible to you. It is impossible that you can learn enough in the
time to pass the examination, so that the effort would only be a useless
strain for you, and meantime you would be a hi