the world for respectable persons. Externally, they were fairly
eligible as candidates for Chelaship, as appearances go; but "within
all was rottenness and dead men's bones." The world's varnish was so
thick as to hide the absence of the true gold underneath; and the
"resolvent" doing its work, the candidate proved in each instance but a
gilded figure of moral dross, from circumference to core.

In what precedes we have, of course, dealt but with the failures among
Lay Chelas; there have been partial successes too, and these are
passing gradually through the first stages of their probation. Some are
making themselves useful to the Society and to the world in general by
good example and precept. If they persist, well for them, well for us
all: the odds are fearfully against them, but still "there is no
impossibility to him who Wills." The difficulties in Chelaship will
never be less until human nature changes and a new order is evolved.
St. Paul (Rom. vii. 18,19) might have had a Chela in mind when he said
"to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I
find not. For the good I would I do not; but the evil which I would
not, that I do." And in the wise Kiratarjuniyam of Bharavi it is
written:--

The enemies which rise within the body,
Hard to be overcome--the evil passions--
Should manfully be fought; who conquers these
Is equal to the conqueror of worlds. (XI. 32.)

(--H.P. Blavatsky)