We hare known those who were orphans in the midst of their parents and a whole house full of brothers and sisters, so far as the earthly tie was concerned. The story of Cinderella is not a fable: rejected by earthly kindred, the Fairy is the Soul who works wonders out of meanest material things and brings each Cinderella to her own inheritance where her Prince is sure to be found.

We have known those who had wealth of kindred in Soul who had no human relatives. To those who feel the orphaned state which seems full of desolation and wandering weariness; that which sometimes takes possession of lives at birth; that which causes them to feel as aliens upon the earth; that which comes to each one, oftentimes in crowded cities, or even in the midst of friends, of family and of the household, that there in no one who understands, no one who can appreciate the feelings and thoughts that are within, we will say: do not believe it; there are those who do understand, those who appreciate; and the time will come when yon will meet, when you will recognise one another, when the longing for the brother or the sister will be fulfilled; when the Soul-tie is accomplished.

These periods of recognition come only at some great height: when the Soul has had expressions of sorrow, when the heart has had its tears, and the days of weariness have been full of trials, they have quickened the perceptions and made the Soul rush through and claim its own. This recognition does not come to those who have not need of it: to those in the outward conditions of life, who are satisfied with worldly things and treasures; nor is it always true that they come to those who are dissatisfied. Sometimes there are members of the same family who are Soul-kindred. Two brothers will be more attached to one another than to the others, two sisters will seem to be nearer and closer to each other than to the other members of the family. Sometimes the adopted child is the heart-child of the mother, is nearer to her in spirit than those of her own flesh and blood. She puts it aside in outward conviction, or it is veiled from her consciousness by the soft light of tender pity, but in spirit she knows it Even those who have no children oftentimes may recognize in the ones about them those who are children in a dearer and nearer sense than if they were their own in mortal tie. So what is denied in material life the spirit always provides. Sometimes, like a prophecy of the divine family, the whole household are kin. This is the ideal household on earth; there is no jarring or discord; all are pervaded by deep spiritual love.

There are those who say, concerning these teachings of embodiments: "They divide the mother from her child." We answer: the tie that is real can not be divided either by mortal birth or death. Can any one tell us what tie it is that binds the mother to her child unless it is the Soul-tie? There is no Soul-tie, and sometimes no human love, accompanying some states of physical parentage. Can any other teaching explain why the harsh parent sometimes casts aside the child, disinheriting from love, estates, home or crown? No teachings can separate the mother from her child; the world and its selfishness divide, but the Soul reunites, and the true parent and the real kindred find every tie perfect in the kingdom of the Soul.

All Souls having expression at one time upon earth, being in groups, those in the groups of any twelve Souls (twenty-four embodied human lives) express themselves in similar states at the same time. The twelve groups composing the one hundred and forty-four are also, as groups, passing through similar experiences. But there are divergences among the one hundred and forty-four thousand, some groups passing through an experience or series of experiences a little in advance or in slightly diverging lines from the others; but when the culminating period is reached all groups belonging to one Dispensation will have had similar experiences.

As all Souls in these groups of twelve, and one hundred and forty-four, and, at last, in the whole one hundred and forty-four thousand, have similar expressions and experiences within one of the cyclic periods of the earth, their ripening (or perfection in expression on earth) forms one of the smaller Messianic periods, or Dispensations, hereafter to be explained.

The foregoing will explain why in great crises, like that of the Information, there were those who were ready, those who rallied to the cause of the Reformation. All who thus answered were kindred in Soul, belonging to the same or kindred group, had reached the same altitude of perception, through expression and experience, at the same time. If upon the earth to-day the highest subject that enchains the human thought could be presented simultaneously to the whole world, as one might fire something from a cannon's mouth without warning, there would be one hundred and forty-four thousand ready to receive it. Soul-groups of twelve and one hundred and forty-four would receive the new truth together, and the ones who are ready are in those numbers.

All religious societies, brotherhoods, and sacred recluses who hare united for an exalted purpose are illustrations of this idea. Associations, or communities like the Shakers, Quakers, and some of those smaller bodies who hare retired from the world to establish the millennium, are prophecies: the ideal of Socialism, (not its degenerate namesake,) the ideal human brotherhood, of which Fourier might have been the prophet, and Shelley the poet.

Kindred Souls, as said before, do not recognize each other, except in momentary glimpses and prophecies, until a certain line of embodiments are being completed, or in culminations of genius. They recognize each other in great crises of nations, and, finally, in periods of great spiritual change, like the birth of a new religion. Every Dispensation appears simultaneously to those who are ready among all nations. The truth which is the heralder of the New Dispensation is not given to you alone in this far western land, hut to all the nations where human lives are found ready to receive it: the light from beyond death, and the troth which is now being expressed to you, finds also its expression in almost every language beneath the sun.