child wail in the palace. I hear all cries."

Peter looked intently at him. "Why, who are you?" he said; then, bending
nearer to the stranger and looking up, he added, "What is it that you are
doing here?"

"I belong," said the stranger, "to the strongest company on earth."

"Oh," said Peter, sitting up, the look of wonder passing from his face.
"So that's it, is it? Is it diamonds, or gold, or lands?"

"We are the most vast of all companies on the earth," said the stranger;
"and we are always growing. We have among us men of every race and from
every land; the Esquimo, the Chinaman, the Turk, and the Englishman, we
have of them all. We have men of every religion, Buddhists, Mahomedans,
Confucians, Freethinkers, Atheists, Christians, Jews. It matters to us
nothing by what name the man is named, so he be one of us."

And Peter said, "It must be hard for you all to understand one another, if
you are of so many different kinds?"

The stranger answered, "There is a sign by which we all know one another,
and by which all the world may know us." (By this shall all men know that
ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.)

And Peter said, "What is that sign?"

But the stranger was silent.

"Oh, a kind of freemasonry!" said Peter, leaning on his elbow towards the