The whole Society was regarded as a spiritual movement; and if you go back to those early days, and read the earliest statements, you will find it said that this Society existed in what then were called three Sections: First, Second, and Third.

The First Section was the Brotherhood, the Elder Brothers of Humanity; the Second, those who were striving to lead the higher, the more spiritual life, and were in training for the purpose; and the Third Section made up the bulk of the Society.

Those three Sections were the Theosophical Society.

So that it began on a very lofty level; and its First Section, the Elder Brothers, Those whom we speak of as Masters, They were regarded as forming the First Section of the Society, and as part of it; and the Society has linked closely the Second and Third Sections under the First, as in the days when the Gods walked with men, in the early story of humanity.

And They came and went far more freely then than later, and mingled more with the Society, taking a more active part in this work; and it is wonderful to read some of the old letters of the time, and the close and intimate knowledge shown by those great Teachers of the details of the work of the Society, even of what was written about it in an Indian newspaper, and what ought to be answered, and so on.