All were refused at first, Col.  Olcott the President himself, to begin with:  and he was not formally accepted as a Chela until he had proved by more than a year’s devoted labours and by a determination which brooked no denial, that he might safely be tested.  Then from all sides came complaints—­from Hindus, who ought to have known better, as well as from Europeans who, of course, were not in a condition to know anything at all about the rules.  The cry was that unless at least a few Theosophists were given the chance to try, the Society could not endure.  Every other noble and unselfish feature of our programme was ignored—­a man’s duty to his neighbour, to his country, his duty to help, enlighten, encourage and elevate those weaker and less favoured than he; all were trampled out of sight in the insane rush for adeptship.  The call for phenomena, phenomena, phenomena, resounded in every quarter, and the Founders were impeded in their real work and teased importunately to intercede with the Mahatmas, against whom the real grievance lay, though their poor agents had to take all the buffets.  At last, the word came from the higher authorities that a few of the most urgent candidates should be taken at their word.  The result of the experiment would perhaps show better than any amount of preaching what Chelaship meant, and what are the consequences of selfishness and temerity.  Each candidate was warned that be must wait for year in any event, before his fitness could be established, and that he must pass through a series of tests that would bring out all there was in him, whether bad or good.  They were nearly all married men, and hence were designated “Lay Chelas”—­a term new in English, but having long had its equivalent in Asiatic tongues.  A Lay Chela is but a man of the world who affirms his desire to become wise in spiritual things.  Virtually, every member of the Theosophical Society who subscribes to the second of our three “Declared Objects” is such; for though not of the number of true Chelas, he has yet the possibility of becoming one, for he has stepped across the boundary-line which separated him from the Mahatmas, and has brought himself, as it were, under their notice.  In joining the Society and binding himself to help along its work, he has pledged himself to act in some degree in concert with those Mahatmas, at whose behest the Society was organized, and under whose conditional protection it remains.  The joining is then, the introduction; all the rest depends entirely upon the member himself, and he need never expect the most distant approach to the “favour” of one of our Mahatmas or any other Mahatmas in the world—­should the latter consent to become known—­that has not been fully earned by personal merit.  The Mahatmas are the servants, not the arbiters of the Law of Karma.