T is evident that no Ideal of a Community can be anything more than an individual conception. These sketches -make no other pretension. Yet the writer may fairly claim to have had large opportunity for the study of his subject, having been for nearly half a century a close observer of all that relates to the Society, a diligent reader of its literature, and during the greater part of that time a deeply interested partici petor in its affairs. I was born in the reign of Quietism, the period which is often referred to as that of lifeless formality. I have no desire, however, to forget the deep, calm, soul nursing in?uence of that time; of this, more hereafter.