Note 2 — INTRODUCTORY.
Reading edition
" ... there remain but a few years to the last hour of the term—namely, till December the 31st, 1899. Those who will not have profited by the opportunity (given to the world in every last quarter of a century) ... will advance no further than the knowledge already acquired. No Master of Wisdom from the East will himself appear or send anyone to Europe or America after that period.... Such is the law, for we are in Kali-Yuga—the Black Age—and the restrictions in this cycle, the first 5,000 years of which will expire in 1897, are great and almost insuperable." (H. P. Blavatsky in the "Book of Rules, E. S. T." 1888.)