Full text of "The Theosophical quarterly"

Theosophical Quarterly

VOLUME XII

JULY; OCTOBER, 1914
JANUARY; APRIL, 1915

PUBLISHED BY

THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
NEW YORK

The Theosophical Quarterly

Published by the Theosophical Society at

159 Warren Street, Brooklyn, N. Y.
').

In Europe single numbers may be obtained from and subscriptions

sent to Dr. Archibald Keightley, 46 Brook Street, London, W., England.
Price for non-members, $1.00 per annum ; single copies, 25 cents

THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

The principal aim and object of this Society is to form
the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, with-
out distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color. The
subsidiary objects are: The study of ancient and modern
religions, philosophies and sciences, and the demonstration
of the importance of such study; and the investigation of
the unexplained laws of nature and the psychical powers
latent in man.

Entered July 17, 1903, at Brooklyn, N. Y., as second class-matter,
under Act of Congress of July 16, 1894.

INDEX TO VOLUME XII.

A PAGE

Ancient Commentary 203

Art of Living, The; C. A. G 170

Ashton, Theodore 44

Bergson's Philosophical Position ; John Blake, Jr 17

Blake, John, Jr 17, 220, 321

Cave 9, 112, 202, 299

Checkering, Julia 29, 145, 312

Clark, Clarence C 204

Dante's Beatrice ; Katharine Hillard 35

Does Consciousness Evolve? Charles Johnston 233

EARLY ENGLISH MYSTICS ; Spenser Montague 114

Evans, Anne 127, 241

F
FRAGMENTS ; Cave 9, 112, 202, 299

G., C. A 73, 170, 275, 369

Genghis Khan Julia Checkering 312

Gerard, John 11, 139, 214, 332

God and Immortality ; Robert W '. McBride 50

Hillard, Katharine 35

How Do We Think of God? R 136

I
Inspiration in Art and Morals ; Theodore Ashton 44

J
Johnston, Charles 233, 345

LETTERS TO FRIENDS ; John Gerard 11, 139, 214, 332

McBride, Robert W 50

MacDonald, George, Mystic ; Alfred Williston 337

McKlemm, G. M 249, 355

Magic Art of Listening, The ; Parlessimo 122

Men-tek-nis 229

Montague, Spenser 114

NORSE MYTHOLOGY ; Anne Evans 127, 241

NOTES AND COMMENTS 1, 105, 193, 289

O PAGE

On Mounted Service ; Servetus 150

ON THE SCREEN OF TIME ; T 66, 161, 266, 361

Parlessimo 122

Patanjali and His Disciples ; Charles Johnston 345

Poetry of Charles Peguy, The ; Clarence C. Clark 204

Q
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 81, 182, 283, 379

REVIEWS :

Ancient Rome and Modern America ; Guglielmo Ferrero 280

Cahiers de la Quinzaine 177

Constructive Quarterly 181

Contemplations ; W. L. Wilmshurst 282

Dharma 79, 378

Hibbert Journal 180

In the Way of the Saints ; Geraldine E. Hodgson 180

Manhood of the Master, The; Harry Emerson Fosdick 375

Pastoral Letter of the House of Bishops, 1913 , 280

Practical Mysticism: A Little Book for Normal People; Eve-
lyn Underhill 375

Practice of Christianity, The; by the author of Absente Reo,

and Pro Christo et Ecclesia 376

Praise of God, The; Reminiscences of Sister Elizabeth of the

Trinity 281

Poems of Alfred Noyes, Collected 178

Problem of Christianity, The ; Josiah Royce 77

Pro Christo et Ecclesia ; by the author of Absente Reo 80

Sceur Therese of Lisieux : An autobiography 176

Songs of Kabir; Rabindranath Tag ore and Evelyn Underhill. . 377

Theosophisches Leben 80

Unknown God and Other Orthodox Essays, The ; James Pratt

Dunn 282

Rule of Life, A; C. A. G 275, 369

SACRED BOOKS OF ANCIENT CHINA ; Julia Chickering 29, 145

St. Vincent De Paul ; John Blake, Jr 321

Scho field, John 156

Servetus 150

Slocum, Jane 62

Some Aspects of the Kingdom ; John Blake, Jr 220

"T" 66, 161, 266, 361

Theosophy and Business ; G. M. McKlemm 355

T. S. ACTIVITIES 86, 188, 384

Twin Doctrines and Social Unrest, The; G. M. McKlemm 249

War Seen from Within ; Men-Tek-Nis 229

We Create Our Limitations ; C. A. G 73

WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 62, 155, 258, 300

Williston, Alfred 337

JULY, 1914

The Theosophical Society, as such, is not responsible for any opinion
or declaration in this magazine, by whomsoever expressed, unless con-
tained in an official document.

MODERN PROBLEMS AND THE THEOSOPHIC LIFE.

TO supplement that part of the work of the Annual Convention
of The Theosophical Society which is for members only, it
is the custom to arrange for a Lecture, to which all are welcome
who are sufficiently interested in the thought and activities of
the Theosophical Movement to wish to come. This year, at the close of
the Convention, the annals of which are to be found in the present
number, such a Lecture was delivered, the title being : Modern Problems
and the Theosophic Life.

The Lecturer, who spoke from thirty years' experience of the Theo-
sophical Movement, began by saying that, a generation ago, Theosophy
was a sensation ; then it became a scandal ; later, it came to be regarded
as a body of teaching, a system of metaphysics ; while, at present, those
who have seen it pass through all these stages, have become convinced
that Theosophy is a life. Let us suppose then, said the Lecturer, that a
group of people had diligently set themselves to live that life whose
character and significance might perhaps be considered more at length
later on and had in some measure succeeded in so doing. What would
be their view of some of our modern problems, their view, as the fruit
of living the Theosophic Life?

To begin with, they would tend to regard all problems of life as
problems of the will ; the supreme problem being, to find out the Divine
Will the Will of God and to obey that. So that their tendency would
be to ask how this or that problem looked, viewed in the light of the
Divine Will. And, holding that the search for the Divine Will, and
obeying it, are the great matters of life, these practical students of divine
things for such is the meaning of Theosophist would inevitably regard
self-will, the assertion, that is, of one's own will against the Divine

2 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Will, as the one indubitable evil, the greatest of all misfortunes, the
infallible root of unhappiness and misery.

These practical students of divine things would, therefore, ask
themselves, when they were confronted with one or another of the "burn-
ing questions" of the day, whether those who espoused one or another
cause were seeking with a single heart to find and obey the Divine Will,
or whether their movement was not, perhaps, a conscious or unconscious
expression of self-will. If this latter, then it stood condemned, and its
fruit could be nothing but confusion and misery.

What are the burning questions of our modern life? There is,
to begin with, the Woman question, of which the question of equal
suffrage for men and women is a minor concrete expression ; there is the
Labor question, growing daily more explosive in this and other coun-
tries ; and there are questions of politics, of the church, of religious life.
On all these, the imagined group of practical students of divine things
would find themselves, by the very force and tendency of their lives, in
possession of very clear and definite views. In one sense, therefore, for
them these Modern Problems would not exist; they would have ceased
to be problems, since their solution would have been found, not by
speculation, which is always a somewhat uncertain light, but by sheer
force of living, the great solver of all problems.

What view would this supposed band of students of life hold
on that exceedingly controversial matter, the Woman Question? Prob-
ably, some such view as this. Holding that the one vital thing in life
is to seek the Divine Will, and, finding it, to obey, they would hold, to
begin with, that this is the vital thing for men and women equally.
While they do this, they are safe. On all other paths, they are doomed
to confusion and misery ; the misery which besets any living thing which
is out of harmony with its own fundamental law.

Is the motive power of the Woman Question, taking it in its
largest sense, the effort to find and fulfil the Will of God? Or is it,
perhaps, an expression of self-will? This is the first question which
the supposed practical students of divine things would raise. And they
would, perhaps, find, to their astonishment, that the prophets and
prophetesses of the Woman Question have never even raised that most
fundamental question, but, assuming themselves to be altogether right,
have gone boldly, even wildly, ahead, pursuing their problem to all
kinds of practical issues, before they have even sought for its first
principle.

But, granting that the vital thing, for men and women alike, is,
to seek the Divine Will, and obey it, these students of life would quickly

NOTES AND COMMENTS 3

discern that that Divine Will has bestowed on men and women a dif-
ferent range of faculties ; has set for them contrasted ways of obedience.
For the men, the executive way; for the women, the way of inspiration.
Therefore, for men, the path of obedience to the Divine Law, which
is their own inherent law, is the way of executive action. For women,
it is the way of inspiration. By following these contrasted, supplemental
ways, they will find well-being, power, peace.

The executive way is, primarily, the expression and application of
physical laws, as in the building of a house, a street, a city. The prop-
erties of substances, of wood, stone, slate, iron, are mastered and ranged
under the steadying power of gravitation. To set the physical forces
running through material things, ranging and ordering them, to conquer
the material world by setting the will to guide and rule the natural
forces: this is the executive way. Further, there comes the ranging of
the wills thus applied, so that many men work together in the conquest
of nature, as gangs of bricklayers on a big building, groups of structural
ironworkers, a train crew, or the small army which makes up the crew
of an ocean liner. The ordering of these many wills is the higher part
of the executive way.

Any headway along this line can be made in one way only: the
way of complete obedience to the Divine Will, as expressed in physical
law and the properties of natural substances. A skyscraper can be built
only by slavishly obeying the law of the strength of materials, the law
of gravitation, the laws of cohesion, of strain, and so on; all direct
expressions of Divine law. So the ordering of the wills of men can be
successful only by obedience to the law of the will; fundamentally, by
supplying these men with something they want, whether it be more
evident prizes, or the simple prize of the means of physical life. But
there is no headway possible without obedience ; no permanent headway,
without conscious obedience to the Divine law, the Will of God.

This is the executive way. Through it men come, in time, to a
practical knowledge of the Will of God. To that end our multifarious
industries and activities exist. What, then, is the contrasted way, the way
of inspiration, the way which is natural and inherent for women, as the
executive way is for men? Men, busy with the study of application
of natural forces, perpetually digging, as it were, into the mountains of
material substance and physical force, are in as perpetual danger of
forgetting the finer, the diviner aspect of life; in perpetual need, there-
fore, of inspiration. Without inspiration, they will dig downwards and
bury themselves in the earth ; with inspiration, they will build an upward
path to heaven. The task of the women is, to find and impart this
inspiration to the men.

4 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

The quality of inspiration is like the quality of light. Formless
itself, it makes visible all beautiful forms. Therefore, in the view of the
supposed band of students of divine things, it is the part of women,
not so much to dictate this or that concrete betterment, but rather to
stand for the loveliness of all lovely things; and to stand for it, not so
much by precept as by example; by embodying it in themselves; by
presenting in their lives the beauty of holiness, the charm of all things
true and lovely; by making themselves a light which shall reflect the
everlasting light, the light of heaven.

At this point, the Lecturer did a rash thing. He said that, if
confronted with the application of this ideal, the band of imagined
students would most likely begin with the marriage service, and insist
that the great word Obey, in the injunction, "to love, honour and obey"
should be taken literally ; that it is meant to be carried out. And, to
support this unpopular doctrine, that wives should obey their husbands,
he told a story which he termed a Parable. The Parable was this:

He said that the band of students of divine things were once
confronted with the strange text of Saint Paul, declaring that "Woman
should have authority upon her head, because of the angels." Unable
to solve its mystery, they deputed an angel, who had access to the courts
of heaven, to carry the matter up and lay it before Saint Paul himself,
and that Saint Paul, thus questioned, had answered the enigma by another
enigma ; that he had said : "Men are men, but women are either
elementals or angels!"

What possible meaning could be attached to this dark saying ? This,
perhaps. Men, by the very necessity of their work, are compelled to
learn obedience ; obedience to natural law, to the laws of substances
and forces, to laws of the will. Even if they do take their guidance from
the earth, they must follow it with complete fidelity, or they must die,
beaten in the daily battle with the material world. Literally, their house
will tumble about their ears and bury them, if they take the least
liberty, if they swerve even a little from the plumb-line of obedience.
So they get their discipline day by day. What they need, is not so much
discipline as inspiration.

But women, especially if they belong to the growing class who
are not compelled to work, and to work steadily and hard, are without
this continuing discipline. If, thus liberated, they make the fulfilment of
their own wills and wishes the great purpose of their lives, then they
very soon swing loose from divine law, and weave about themselves a
cocoon of fancies and desires which straightway shuts them out from
the realities of things and imprisons them in a net of their own

NOTES AND COMMENTS 5

emotions, wishes and desires ; which, in fact, turns them into elemen-
tals when they might be angels.

Whether they recognize it or not, they become miserable. Further,
shutting out the divine light, they wholly lose the power of inspiration.
Or, as the Gita puts it, "When the women become corrupted, the whole
body politic goes to the devil." Something like this may, then, have
been Saint Paul's meaning. There must be a steady pressure of authority
upon the woman's personality, to save her from the danger of becoming
a slave to her own self-will, which is a cause of misery for her and
which shuts out the divine light that should pass through her, leaving
mankind in darkness. Because of the angels, therefore, that they are
meant to be, they should have authority upon their heads.

And the Lecturer said further that, once a woman recognized this,
and, finding the right man, set herself to obey him, she found a double
happiness; happiness for herself; happiness for him. For she became
to him the light and source of inspiration, the embodiment of the
loveliness of all lovely things, because, through an obedience which
kept her personality in check, she gave her soul a chance to blossom like
the rose, to make its own loveliness shine through her, irradiating her
with everlasting charm, filling her heart with inspiration.

Why, if this be so, do not women find the right man, and, finding
him, obey, and thus open for themselves and him the door of joy?
Because, said the Lecturer, the men have lost the power, because they
have lost the right to command. Through their infidelity, their cowardice,
the lowness of their ideals, they have so buried themselves in the earth
that the power is gone from them. It becomes impossible to obey them,
whereas, if they responded to divine law, it would be impossible not to
obey them. Therefore the primary responsibility for the vagaries, the
anarchy, of the modern Woman Movement, lies not with the women
but with the men. It is the reversal of the story in Genesis. The
man has fallen and has led the woman into anarchy after him.

From him, therefore, must come the first steps in obedience. He
must set himself to seek, to love, to reverence, to adore, the Divine law,
the Will of the Father, bending every energy of his nature to the task
of finding that law and obeying it. Then, little by little, as he finds and
obeys, he will win back his birthright, rise once more from the earth
and stand upright, so that any woman will be not only willing but
even joyful to obey him, obeying in him the law of God made manifest.
Not the Christ alone, but every man, should thus be a Divine Incarnation,
as every woman should embody the healing, illumining power of the
Holy Ghost, the Comforter.

6 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Here the Lecturer followed one act of rashness by another. Having
already somewhat broadly hinted that the fervid apostles and prophetesses
of "Votes for Women" were, in the view of the supposed group of
students of divine things, merely woolgathering, he lost the chance to
make peace with their enemies by saying that, in this view, which he
evidently shared, the Anti-suffrage advocates, if of the feminine persua-
sion, were in even worse case. For they were even more completely
self -deluded. Playing politics, building up mannish associations, deliver-
ing platform orations, writing long controversial letters to the papers,
plunging into pamphleteering, they showed an equally fundamental
misunderstanding of the true nature of their sex, its true destiny and
power. Could it be said that the harangue of an Anti-Suffrage oratress
was the embodiment of the loveliness of all lovely things, which, by its
very radiance, would win men's heart's to the beauty of holiness ?

The Lecturer tried to make the matter clearer by a comparison.
Take the whole substance of poetry, he said, and consider it as, in a
sense, the substance of inspiration, an embodiment of beauty and charm,
making visible and tangible the loveliness of all lovely things. Do the
poets gain their power, does poetry gain its power, by insisting argu-
mentatively on this or another concrete reform? Or is it not the case,
on the contrary, that, the moment poetry enters the arena of controversy
and lends itself to a Cause, it loses all its force and becomes mere rhymed
pamphleteering, however melodious like some of Shelley's didactic
poems ? The true power of poetry lies elsewhere than in the espousal of
any concrete "reform." It lies in so flooding and suffusing men's hearts
with beauty, that all right and noble actions will become instinctive to
them.

So with the power of women, the power of inspiration, which they
can only enter into through the lowly door of obedience. They will
gain and wield the power to inspire, by embodying in themselves the
loveliness of all lovely things; by making that loveliness visible and
present, in their beauty, in their charm, in the fine loveliness of spirit
which illumines and inspires and heals ; which so floods the heart of man
with the joy of its loveliness that there is no room there for what is
base and gross.

Therefore "woman should have authority on her head because of
the angels." Therefore she should obey. But man must obey first,
and, to obey, he must cease to be such a coward. This, said the
Lecturer, is the pre-eminent vice of modern men, the vice which, more
than any other, has robbed them of their birthright, the divine right
to be obeyed. Take the gross sin of drunkenness. Does this come
of cowardice? In reality, yes. The man is afraid of his moods, afraid
of his thoughts, afraid of his duties, afraid most of all of his own

NOTES AND COMMENTS 7

cowardly heart. Therefore he drinks, not primarily to produce tem-
porary paralysis of the legs, but to fill his muddled head with delusions,
delusions about himself, delusions about life, delusions as to his own
heroic might. This, like every vice, is an expression of cowardice.

The Lecturer, in speaking of the power to exact obedience, had
used the words "divine right." Did this imply that the imagined band
of practical seekers after divine things desired the resurrection of that
antiquated and discredited doctrine, "the divine right of kings?" The
Lecturer came at this indirectly. If a woman, who, as a woman, was
worth her salt, found the right man, the man, loyal and courageous,
who set himself early and late to seek the divine will and obey it,
fearless of death or danger to himself, would she not be constrained
to obey him? Would she not find the greatest joy in obeying him?
For the heart of woman yields instinctive homage to courage, as the
heart of man yields homage that will never die to purity.

If then, in like manner, a tribe or a nation should find a man
who, with loyalty and unflinching courage, sought the divine will,
and, through a happy quality of light and power in his heroic soul, not
only sought that law but found it, found it in such fulness that he could
interpret and follow the divine law not only for the personal problems
of his separate life or the separate lives of others, but for the large,
general problems of his race and nation, would not that race gladly
and instinctively follow him, thus recognizing in him a divine right;
nay, even that antiquated and discredited thing, the divine right of
kings ?

So the word of the enigma is Obey, Obey and Obey. And, since
Obedience is the golden key which opens the door of heaven, so anarchy,
the determination at all costs to obey one's own wishes only, is the
iron key of hell. Anarchy is the malady of our times. Not merely
destructive lawlessness, but the subtler thing that leads to lawlessness:
the conviction that, for each, his own wish should be paramount; that,
in this sense, the sense of following out his own wish, he is expressing
his true individuality. For the truth is that, never shall we express
our real selves, our true individualities, in any way but the one way:
a faithful seeking and following of the will of God, the deeper will
and law of our natures, to which the lower, surface will is always
opposed, as the present is always opposed to the larger, higher promise
of the future.

So that this worship of one's own wish, this modern anarchy, is
a delusion, a thorough-going violation of the deeper law, the law
along which alone our real evolution can take place. We must cease-
lessly sacrifice the present and the ease and comfort of the present to

8 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

the greater future. So we must ceaselessly sacrifice the lesser and
lower will in us to the greater: the personal will to the will of God.

All obedience is training for that, and the only effective training.
Therefore the modern Labor movements, which take as their ideal not
obedience, but ease and comfort, are as false and misleading as the
Feminist movement. Both take their stand upon self-will, upon the
worship of self-satisfaction; but Evolution, the great divine law of
growth from lower to higher, from less to greater, from the natural
and human to godlike, builds not upon ease and self-satisfaction but
on sacrifice, on valorous obedience to the greater, deeper will, the
obedience which always offers up today on the altar of tomorrow.

So the practical seekers after divine things find their problems
solved. Seeking first to obey, and not to satisfy themselves, they
stumble on the secret of happiness and joy, of true development and
growth. And, since their obedience rests in no ephemeral law, but
in the everlasting Law of God, they enter, through obedience, into
the everlastingness of that law, opening, with the golden key of Obedi-
ence, the door of heaven and immortality.

PRECEPTS OF IYEYATEE.

"Life is like unto a long journey, with a heavy load. Let thy
steps be slow and steady, that thou stumble not. Persuade thyself that
imperfection and inconvenience is the natural lot of mortals, and there
will be no room for discontent, neither for despair. When ambitious
desires arise in thy heart, recall the days of extremity thou hast passed
through. Forbearance is the root of quietness and assurance forever.
Look upon wrath as thy enemy. If thou knowest only what it is to
conquer, and knowest not what it is to be defeated, woe unto thee! It
will fare ill with thee. Find faults with thyself rather than with others.
Better the less than the more."

Translated by Prof. K. Wadagatti, of the Imperial University.

FRAGMENTS

l*rom a letter to a Lay Chela:

"Believe neither the turmoil of your emotions nor the restless
hunger of your heart, these with time will pass: but rest assured
that joy lies in the depths of life, that happiness enfolds us, and that
darkness and shadow are unreal and passing. When the gloom settles
upon the soul, and you feel the chill twilight gathering, wait patiently.
Even the night has its stars, will we but raise our eyes to heaven; and
sure, beyond all failing, the sun rises with another day at its appointed
hour, and in the warmth of sunshine and brightness earth seems born
anew.

"I remind you but of what you know. Nevertheless I bid you,
when the darkness gathers, summon courage to face it, patience to bear
it, and the faith that knows the dawn is waiting and knows it cannot fail.
For God is love; and the law, compassion absolute. Dare you then to
say this is not so ? That you are signalled out for misery alone ?

"O eyes so blinded by your tears ! O poor heart, rent with pain and
suffering! You have not seen into the depths of life, nor tasted the last
drop within the cup, for those who taste have found it sweet. What is
the path the Masters have trod, think you? Woe unutterable, we call
it: but they will tell you that in its very sorrow lies a joy; and in its
sacrifice, reward for all their hopes. Not alone we walk, nor unregarded.
The Master's eye notes all, and His pity and His love enwrap each toiler
like a garment. Courage and patience, then, and ever, ever forward.
Some day the light will shine and peace console you, and I shall greet
the radiance of your knowledge which will tell me all is well.

"Lo! like a bugle call across the ocean of physical existence, they
bid us know those who have 'gone before' that all is well. And we
may trust those words of theirs, and following the path that they have
shown, loosen the bonds of ignorance and illusion, and stand some day
where now they stand, in full soul-consciousness, and know that it is
bliss."

From the letter of a Master:

"Softly the daylight dies, and the flaming light of the sunset
fades in the Western sky. The planet shows above: a silver
spark in a sea of violet. Three homing birds black silhouettes
pass across. The freshness of falling dew is in the air; the
scent of grass and earth and hidden flowers. A stir of insect life arises,
reminiscent of vague memories, growing more even in its cadences as the
light grows more dim. The day has been full of care and pressure

10 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

cross purposes unfulfilled plans. To-morrow I turn to the mountains
again, taking D with me. The mountains! how I have longed for
them and their uplifting peace. My blessing upon you, child of the loyal
heart. Keep the flower in your bosom fresh. Treasure all within your
heart both from above and from below. I always visit you there:
there you come always to me : there lies mirrored the vision of the ever-
lasting snows, their keen, pure air, the sanctity of their silences. Keep
that vision before your eyes. So shall others see it, even if in their
blindness they cannot see. So shall those darkened lives be touched by
some of their exaltation. Live forever upon those heights, wherever
your feet may tread. Hush. Good-night. My peace and theirs I
give you."

Notes from a talk given by one of the Masters to certain Chelas of the

Master K. H.:

"I do not ask any of you to live on the summits: that were, as yet,
to ask too much. But I do ask you all to live on the summits of your
own attainment. This each one can do.

"Be unfaltering in your remembrance of the privilege of ser-
vice. Nothing is so great. It is the highest boon that the most spiritual
beings ask, the hall-mark of discipleship, the crowning glory of adept-
ship. You, disciples, who strive forward to the hour of Initiation, who
have learnt by much sacrifice, and tasted in many communions some-
what of the meaning of that event, realize that for you there can be no
fatigue, no possibility of discouragement, no sense of being over-
burdened, no fear of responsibility. These so-called burdens are essen-
tial attributes of service, and each one must be welcomed with reverent
gratitude and joy. Only under the pressure of incessant service can the
disciple grow. Does fatigue follow? Look deep within yourselves for
needed adjustments here. At the service last night I noticed indications
of strain. These mean but one thing: weak points. What has a dis-
ciple to do with weak points? Consider this. Discover the disharmony
in your natures. Purify. Discipline. Re-adjust. Each such spot is a
centre of contagion for the whole group.

"The world behind you is praying for helpers none the less fer-
vently because its prayers are dumb. Labour unremittingly, therefore,
that you may attain the power to aid them : lifting them, and so carry-
ing part of that common weight of care and responsibility which your
Master serenely bears, and which it is your privilege to share."

CAVE.

LETTERS TO FRIENDS

DEAR FRIEND :

I HAD hoped that I might be able to see you again before I left,
but this morning's mail shows me that my hope was vain and that
if our interrupted conversation is to be continued it must be by

letter instead of face to face.

At first, I was sorry for this ; for so much more can be said than
can be written. Sometimes, indeed, I wonder at the temerity that dares
to write upon any real or vital theme. The chance is so small that the
written word should ever tell the truth. Did not you yourself quote
to me that passage from Virginibus Puerisque in which Stevenson
reminds us that it takes two to tell the truth, one to speak and one
to hear? Who can know how what is written will be read, or through
what moods it will be interpreted to the understanding? As for your
moods, dear man, they are as stable as April weather. If I send you
my messenger wrapped in mackintosh and with my best umbrella, he
is as likely as not to find you hatless and coatless basking in brilliant sun-
shine. Whereas if I deck him gaily in straw hat and white flannels he
will meet you miles from any shelter, drenched and shivering in a
Northeast gale. In conversation one's umbrella can be put up and
down, and one's mackintosh be put on and off, as occasion may demand.
But in a letter one has no such freedom. One is sewed up in one's
garments as permanently as the traditional Laplander, and often as
unpleasantly. "The perception that it is my own cow will not stop the
arrow sped under the delusion that it was a ferocious tiger." Could
even George Fox "speak to your condition" if he had to speak some
twenty- four hours in advance?

Yet as I thought over our last conversation, I realized that these
difficulties, real as they are, might serve my turn, and make my point
more clearly than anything I could say if we were talking at our ease.
For now, if you are to understand me at all, you will have to put some
of my counsel into practice ; and instead of listening lazily to my descrip-
tion of a certain mental attitude, you will have yourself to take it.
As I cannot adjust my words to your mood, you must even adjust your
mood to my words, and prove to yourself, what I have always told you,
that you can rule and use your moods, instead of being ruled and used
by them.

This, then, is what I want you to do. Go back, in thought, to the
real beginning of our friendship, to that scorching day in early June
when I called at your office in the city, and we walked together to the
subway. Take that walk with me again, in memory. Be once more

12 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

jostled by that hot, perspiring crowd. Wend your way between the
packing cases that blocked the sidewalk. Climb over the skids and
ropes which ran from the brewer's truck at the curb. Wait, on the
narrow wooden bridge spanning the excavation in the street, till the
procession of surface cars, trucks, delivery wagons, and motors leaves
an opening through which we can dodge. Hear the metallic clank and
grind and roar of the elevated train, and the pound of its flat wheels;
the deafening hammering of the pneumatic riveters on the building
going up beside us ; and the shrill yelling of the newsboys on the corner.
Take into your nostrils the smell of gas from the open ditch and the
fetid odor from the crowd. Be blinded by the glare of sunshine, and
dizzy from the blood driven to your head by heat radiating from baked
walls and pavement. Feel again, as you felt that day, the outrage to
every sense and nerve in your body, till you turned and swore at the
pasty-faced, unhealthy looking clerk who ran full tilt against you, and
who only spat indifferently as he hurried on. Recall your feeling as you
looked after him, with twitching face and hands, and then suddenly
beckoning to me, dived down a side street and stopped before a little
church all but buried beneath the loft buildings which towered beside it.

Do you remember the half shame-faced, half whimsical look you
gave me as you pushed open the leather-padded door that shut off its
cool, dark quiet from the inferno of the street? You said nothing:
gave no explanation, knowing that none was needed; but stood for a
moment till your eyes grew used to the darkness, broken only by the
white gleam of the marble altar, the dim red lamps before it, and,
high above, the many hued glow of a rose window. You led me along
the stone aisle, between the empty rows of seats, to the one small recessed
chapel on the right, so small that there was scarcely room for the four
chairs that had been placed in it. There we sat, in silence.

I want you to sit there again with me, feeling again as you did then.
Do you remember that after a little while we knelt, in prayer as silent
as that silent church, and as full of benediction and of healing peace?

It may have been ten minutes that we stayed there, perhaps fifteen,
I do not know. But I recall, as probably you do not now, the
amazing thing you said to me as the door swung to behind us : "I have
not been here for a year. It is the one place I know that has no walls.
In it, one is on a mountain top, alone under the glory of God's stars."

I did not answer, and you did not speak again, for we were once
more in the noise of the street, in the pushing, hurrying crowds, the
smells, the blinding glare and stifling heat. But though these were
unchanged you were changed. The nervous, tortured look was gone
from your face, and I think you noticed your surroundings not at
all. You moved serenely, choosing your way unconsciously and unhesi-
tatingly, and the pavement seemed always clearest just before you.
You were not thinking of these things or of yourself, and could not
have noticed them or now remember them. But I both noticed and

LETTERS TO FRIENDS 13

remembered. And you, I know, can recall the mood you then were in,
and the contrast to what it had been a short fifteen minutes before. I
want you to recall it.

If you have done so, if, feeling after feeling and mood by mood,
you have lived over again in memory the contrasting thoughts and
emotions that succeeded one another in that brief half hour, then I can
say what I have in mind to say, both briefly and with some fair chance
that it may not be wholly false.

My first point is this: in re-inducing in yourself the attitude of
mind and heart and will that was yours in that little chapel, and in
feeling again its silent aspiration, which drew your soul to prayer, you
have been meditating.

You have told me that you cannot meditate. The truth is that you,
and every man, are always meditating. The question is only upon
what you meditate. Memory, imagination, thought and feeling, when
are they ever silent? When are we not desiring something, feeling
something, thinking something? This combined activity of thought,
feeling and desire is meditation. It is the most continuous and the
most intimately familiar process of consciousness, and the most potent.

You may object that this is not what you have meant by meditation,
when you said you could not meditate ; and that it is not what religious
writers mean when they counsel meditation, for it would be obviously
absurd to counsel that which is by its very nature always taking place.
It is true that between the unpurposed broodings, which form the ever
changing yet continuous background of our consciousness, and such
meditation as devotional treatises describe, there is a marked difference.
But this difference is one of direction and of degree. As processes the
two are the same. If, as I have so often seen you do, you sketch idly
while you listen to me talk, you are prohibited from claiming that you
cannot hold a pencil and do not know what it means to draw. You
may draw well or badly, things hideous or beautiful ; but draw you
can, and meditate you can. The process by which you recalled and
felt again all the hideousness of those glaring streets and pushing crowds
was precisely the same as that which brought back to you the peace
and benediction of that darkened, silent church. The power is yours
to invoke what scenes, what thoughts, what feelings you will ; and the
act of invocation is the act of meditation, regarded as a purposed instead
of an unpurposed process.

If you still object that what you have just done was only to invoke
the past through memory, whereas if meditation is truly the gateway
to new consciousness it must depend upon the power of imagination, I
reply that between memory and imagination there is no such difference
as you suppose. It may be, as Plato seems to hint, that imagination is
but the memory of the soul. Do you recall the day when motoring
we came upon and caught a runaway horse, and we sat and waited
by the roadside for the farmer's team which we had passed a mile or

14 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

more before? In imagination you pictured its arrival; else we would
not have waited for it. But this imagination was based on memory. So
the swift flight of the soul's consciousness from the world of spirit
to the world of matter, from the potential to the manifest, may outstrip
the slow, sure movement of evolution and of growth, and, seeing the
future in the present, by both memory and imagination, prepare the
way for it, and aid it to come into its own.

But such a discussion is beside the mark. You have imagination,
no less than memory. You have never been to Chinon, never at least
in this life. Yet in imagination you can take your stand upon its ruined
battlements, and look down upon the swiftly flowing Vienne, the stretch
of meadow beyond the fringe of willows on its further bank, the encir-
cling hills, dark with woods and vineyards, and the long white road that
winds between them. You can make time cease, and live again in the
age of chivalry. As you stand and watch, you can catch, far off on the
crest of the hills, the glimmer of the sun reflected from burnished lance
heads, and trace a low moving cloud of dust. You can feel in heart
and mind and will the spirit of France in her extremity, overrun by
the armies of her enemies, despoiled of her fairest provinces, betrayed,
humiliated, beaten, hemmed in on every side, yet ablaze with the new
hope and indomitable courage kindled from the divine fire and all giving
devotion which flames through the heart of Joan of Arc. Yes, without
turning, without taking your eyes from that advancing, lengthening
cloud of dust, big with unknown issues of combat or of succor, you
can see her kneeling in that now roofless chapel, communing with her
"Brothers in Paradise," and drawing from "great Michael, Prince of
God's chivalry," the strength and wisdom for the saving of her nation
and the crowning of her King. And as you see her thus, that slim
girlish figure in its page's dress, her dark hair cut level with her
shoulders, her full, free throat, and upturned, tear-stained face, radiant
with the love and adoration shining through it, something of her spirit
passes into you, and you know yourself strong to meet, with her, what-
ever may befall. By imagination, no less than by memory, you can make
your own what time, what environment, what consciousness you will.
That this is within your power is my first point.

My second point is that there is nothing you can do which is more
important, and which has more dynamic and lasting effects upon your
life, than to meditate, than to invoke, by set purpose and act of will,
those thoughts, feelings and desires which are purifying and strengthen-
ing. I do not think I need to argue this point at length. In your own
experience, which I began by asking you to recall, you have proof
enough, if you but reflect upon its significance. Let us grant, for the
moment only, that it is not what a man is, but rather what he does
that is important. Let us think only of his work among his fellow men,
in his business or profession; or his duty to his family and in his own
home. Still I say that there is nothing more important, to the right

LETTERS TO FRIENDS 15

performance of such work or duty, than right meditation. For right
meditation enables us to come to our work in the right spirit, and in no
other spirit can we do our work as it should be done. This is surely
so trite and so obvious that not even your mind will venture to question
it. Why then do you not act upon it?

Partly because it requires effort. We can no more change the
current and direction of our moods, without effort, than we can change,
without the exertion of force, the course of any moving mass. Our
moods have a real momentum; and most of us, unfortunately, an equally
real inertia of the will. It seems so much easier to let our moods possess
us than to dominate them. We wait until they pass, or until something
"happens" to change them. And so we drift, blinding ourselves, where
we can, to the dissonance between our mood and the spirit which we
know our work requires if it is to be done as it should be done.

But in reality it takes less effort to change a wrong mood in its
inception, than it does to drag ourselves against its opposition through
the routine of the day. No one needs to be told the value of hope and
courage in times of stress and trial, nor how heavy are the burdens
which are carried with a heavy heart. It is infinitely worth while to
lighten our hearts when we cannot lighten our burdens, and to take hope
and courage for our companions when we know we shall have to fight.
Each morning, by meditation, we can attune ourselves to the day that
lies before us, and make our own whatever spirit we may need. On the
calendar, before me as I write, are these words: "It costs more to main-
tain one vice than ten virtues" ; and the labor, if it be such, of meditation
is far less than that which is the cost of our undominated moods.

Now I can hear you cry out at me in utter exasperation: What on
earth has come to the man, that he should be writing in such a solemn
way that it is better to be courageous than cowardly, cheerful than de-
pressed ! As if I and every one else did not know it without his telling !
And simply because, when he reminds me of it, I can put myself back
in memory to ten minutes of peace, or imagine myself in his old castle
of Chinon, he seems to think I can control all my feelings, and purr
sweetly when some one steps on my tail and rubs my fur the wrong way.

I do not know about the purring, but I do mean precisely that you
can induce in yourself and maintain any mood or any state of feeling
that you desire, and that you can do this with no more difficulty, and
much less irritation, than you have experienced in reading this letter.
Dear man, is there any mood, any feeling, which you would wish to have,
which has not been depicted and exemplified over and over again in the
literature of religion or of history? In the poets or in the writings of
the saints? You are able to read, and to make live in your own con-
sciousness that which you read; to use your memory, your under-
standing, your imagination and your will to open your heart, first to the
contagion of your author and then to the living reality of which he
writes, till its spirit floods your own and arouses your desire and your

16 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

will to show it forth in act. In that will is the fruit of your meditation.
Without it all that you have done is little more than dreaming. But
with it meditation becomes the most dynamic of life's acts.

This then is the meaning of my second point. If you would do your
work effectively and fulfil rightly and happily the duties that are yours,
look forward in the morning to what lies before you in the day, and
make up your mind what qualities and feelings will best enable you to
meet it. Then take from your shelves one book or another and turn to
those passages which embody the feeling you desire. Dwell upon them,
meditate upon them, live them; and set your will to the task of making
their spirit live in you and in your acts. The time you give to this will
be well spent and more than paid back throughout your day.

My letter is already too long, and I have not fulfilled my hope that
I could say briefly what I had to say. Therefore I can only indicate my
third point. You must find its implications for yourself. It is not true
that what a man does is more important than what he is. His work lives
only as he lives, and with such life as is his. The only gift we can make
is the gift of ourselves, and all that is of importance to us or to our
fellows or to God is what we are. I reminded you of what you said to
me as we left that church: "It is the one place I know that has no walls.
In it, one is on a mountain top, alone under the glory of God's stars."
You proved that day that it is not intercourse with men that fits us to
move easily and helpfully among them, but that it is intercourse with
God. There is no universal brotherhood save through the Father of us
all. But deeper and more vital than that is this truth : we can only come
to ourselves as we come to the Master. In and through Him only do we
come to a being "that has no walls", where we are ourselves, and all of
ourselves, because in communion with Him who is in Himself all. This
communion you know and have experienced. It is yours for the
taking, as it was yours to enter when you would that cool and silent
church, shut off from all the city, yet bringing you to peace with all
your fellows and open without walls.

Do you wonder that I thought it amazing when you told me it
was a year since you had been there? And that I deem it still more
amazing you should seek so seldom to enter the temple in your own
heart, for which the little church stood as symbol?

Faithfully yours,

JOHN GERARD.

BERGSON'S PHILOSOPHICAL
POSITION

IT would be a bold man who would attempt to make Bergson clearer
than he himself is; and yet so manifold are the subjects with
which he has dealt, and so comprehensive his range, that no article

suitable for a magazine could examine them all. A selection,
therefore, has to be made of those features which seem most character-
istic and at the same time of most general interest. Professor James
wrote in A Pluralistic Universe "I have to confess that Bergson's
originality is so profuse that many of his ideas baffle me entirely. I
doubt whether anyone understands him all over, so to speak; and I
am sure that he himself would be the first to see that this must be, and
to confess that things which he himself has not yet thought out clearly
had yet to be mentioned, and have a tentative place in his philosophy."
We shall, then, endeavor to present Bergson's world-theory, "Creative
Evolution" which he uses as the title for his greatest book, together
with certain of the arguments he uses to deduce this theory. We shall
also discuss some of the conclusions to be drawn from this conception
relative to the soul and its destiny, and attempt to determine the lasting
features of Bergson's philosophy and his true philosophical position.
Above all, it must be remembered that Bergson's method, as opposed to
the intellectual systems of his predecessors, is the heart and center of his
contribution, that for which he will be remembered rather than for any
one original idea. Some of these ideas, however, are very suggestive of
the philosophy advanced by Madame Blavatsky and often called Theos-
ophy. It was this that first attracted the writer to Bergson ; and it would
be gratifying to think that Theosophical ideas had so permeated the
Western world's atmosphere as the result of the labors of the Society,
that an intuitional philosopher could find them available in his search
after the Divine Wisdom.

Since the spiritual life is, in one of its aspects, an intellectual life,
whatever simplifies and clarifies and advances thought is a help to the
spiritual life. Bergson's undertaking is, therefore, by no means merely
an intellectual luxury ; and especially is this so because he does not make
it necessary for us to become intellectual acrobats in order to attain some
certainty of knowledge, some spiritual freedom. This very achieve-
ment is the logical outcome of the spiritual background which is the

18 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

basis of his philosophy ; it is only those who lack this point d'appui that
get lost in the endless meshes of intellect. Bergson has tried to take
man as he is, leaving out no part of his nature. Taking as a fulcrum
that plane of consciousness in himself which he knew to be most real,
he has raised the whole thinking process by constructing a method of
direct approach to this plane, itself super-intellectual and spiritual. To
him philosophy is essentially a struggle to rise above one-sided ideas,
the false moulds in which our minds are encased and have become
hardened. He has sought to gather the whole of the mind together, so
to speak, and to place it in its true position as subordinate to the will and
higher consciousness of man. And conceiving the mind to hold such
a place, he has attempted to make a thorough-going exposition in terms
of ordinary thinking of the method each must apply to himself in order
to reach this same detached position. Once having attained, we can
turn about on the mind and use it without being any longer deceived by
its limitations. Then, each one can and should discover his own truth ;
intellect checking up and mapping out the way intuition has pioneered.

Bergson's interpretation of his intuitions about life, evolution, and
the spiritual world is, of course, but another human effort, subject to
errors and limitations. But Bergson knows this perfectly well, and to
those who accuse him of leaving many great problems unsolved he
answers that an adequate philosophy will be itself an evolution. In
other words we must grow towards and into the Wisdom Religion, to
Theosophia, and no one philosopher can perform this service for the
race once for all. "A philosophy of this kind will not be made in a
day. Unlike the philosophical systems properly so called, each of which
was the work of a man of genius and sprang up as a whole, to be taken
or left, it will only be built up by the collective and progressive effort
of many thinkers, of many observers also correcting and improving one
another. So the present essay does not aim at resolving at once the
greatest problems. It simply desires to define the method and to permit
a glimpse, on some essential points, of the possibility of its application"
(Creative Evolution, XIV). Bergson's critics would do well to remem-
ber this passage in his Introduction.

In Creative Evolution we get a term that as nearly as possible
expresses the heart of the Bergsonian conception of reality. Our phil-
osopher tells us frankly that he has gazed intently at reality, and that no
mental machinery is capable of giving a true picture of what the con-
sciousness knows and perceives at such times. In order to interpret the
experience, however, he has endeavored to describe what he sees in
terms of life. His vision is that of a great life flowing through time.
This life-current is the fundamental reality, and is spirit in antithesis
to matter. The material universe is "the ebb of this great flow"; is a
flux and not a thing. Thus a given instance of life is, so to speak, an
inversion of the spiritual process, and is losing its vitality. It is exist-
ence almost without duration in comparison with the whole from which

BERGSON'S PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION 19

it was pushed ; for duration or timelessness, as the finite intellect conceives
time, is of the very stuff of this coursing life. Bergson states and
restates his thought in many ways, for he cannot escape using terms
which others have applied differently, and he does not wish to be
misunderstood. Life, he says, is tendency, is an irresistable internal push,
which, if it relaxed its tension would sink into gross materiality. "Life
is creation, the material is reality unmaking itself." "The real can
pass from tension to extension and from freedom to mechanical neces-
sity by way of inversion. Life is an effort to remount the incline that
matter descends." Again he pictures life as an immense wave that
flows through and organizes matter "sometimes turned aside, some-
times divided, always opposed ; and the evolution of the organized world
is the unrolling of this conflict." Bergson warns us, however, not to be
misled by his similies, which are but the best images that the physical
can give. "In reality," he expressly says, "life is of the psychological
order." Again, "Consciousness or supra-consciousness, is at the origin
of life."

Evolution, as we look out or back upon it, is the unfolding of this
life-force throughout the ages. It has met and overcome obstacles; it
has also been checked, and appears even to have failed of its purpose.
For Bergson clearly believes that evolution does not of necessity imply
progress, and that it is sometimes conforming to our ideals and some-
times quite antagonistic to them. He also sees that the unity of life is
to be found in the original impulse, which contained within itself the
many tendencies which are differentiated in the course of development.
Thus this original "sheaf" of tendencies is manifested in vegetation; in
ants, bees, and wasps; differently again in other animals; while the
best of its capacities are developed in man. In some of the great lines of
evolution Bergson feels that he has found "blind alleys," and also many
cases of retrogression.

The most interesting expressions of this original impulse, this
ponsse vitale, are to be found in the vegetative, instinctive, and rational
life-streams, which are conceived not as successive degrees or stages of
development, but as "divergent directions of an activity that has split
up as it grew. The difference between them is not a difference of
intensity, nor, more generally, of degree, but of kind," a view, as he
says, contrary to that held since Aristotelian days. On the subject of
matter, Bergson is equally original. "Matter," he says, "was life origin-
ally." That is, the cosmical elan which is life, conscious or supra-
conscious reality, is a current that ceaselessly flows. When it turns back-
ward, when for some unexplained reason the direction of the flow is
reversed, the result is that flux we call matter. "Life is a reality which is
making itself, matter is the same reality in the process of unmaking."
Matter is real, but it is derivative and perishing. Matter and life or spirit
are one in origin but different in degree. Spirit "is confronted with
matter, that is to say, with the movement which is the inverse of its own

20 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

and which is necessity itself. But it seizes on this matter and strives
to introduce into it the largest possible amount of indetermination and
freedom."

Over this matter the life-force has obtained various kinds of control,
has succeeded in moulding it so as to form vehicles for self-expression.
As men have not received all that life has to offer, so we may conclude
that the possibilities of the future are boundless. Men have intellect and
self -consciousness and free-will: in this they transcend the torpor of
vegetation and the instinct of animals. Ants, bees, and wasps, however,
have the instinctive powers developed far in advance of mankind. To
quote from Creative Evolution again : "It is as if a vague and formless
being, whom we may call, as we will, man or super-man, had sought
to realize himself, and had succeeded by abandoning a part of himself on
the way. The losses are represented by the rest of the animal world,
at least in what these have that is positive and above the accidents of
evolution . . . Consciousness has unloaded on them whatever encum-
berances it was dragging along, and so it has been enabled to rise, in
man, to heights from which it sees an unlimited horizon open again before
it. It is true that it has not only abandoned cumbersome baggage on the
way ; it has also had to give up valuable goods. Consciousness, in man,
is preeminently intellect. It might have been, it ought, so it seems, to
have been also intuition. Intuition and intellect represent two opposite
directions of the work of consciousness: intuition goes in the very
direction of life, intellect goes in the inverse direction, and thus finds
itself naturally in accord with the movements of matter. A complete and
perfect humanity would be that in which these two forms of conscious
activity should attain their full development." These passages speak for
themselves, and, as will be seen, further quotation will give the clearest
exposition possible on these points, as well as affording a glimpse of
the charm and lucidity of Bergson's style. "In the humanity of which
we are a part, intuition is almost completely sacrificed to intellect. It
seems that to conquer matter and to reconquer its own self, conscious-
ness has had to exhaust the best part of its power. This conquest, in
the particular conditions in which it has been accomplished, has required
that consciousness should adapt itself to the habits of matter and concen-
trate its attention on them, in fact determine itself more especially as
intellect." This limitation of our powers will be, and Bergson thinks
ought to be, overcome when we give up confining ourselves to purely
conceptual thinking, and allow our latent instinctive nature, developed
until it becomes intuition, to become the normal center of our conscious-
ness. As it is, our intuition "glimmers only now and then . . . But
it glimmers wherever a vital interest is at stake." Philosophy ought not
to ignore these too often fleeting intuitions; on the contrary, it ought
"to sustain them, then to expand them, and so unite them together. The
more it advances in this work, the more it will perceive that intuition is
mind itself [Higher Manas], and, in a certain sense, life itself; the intel-

BERGSON'S PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION 21

lect has been cut out of it by a process resembling that which has
generated matter. Thus is revealed the unity of the spiritual life."
Bergson follows these very remarkable assertions by a statement that has
great significance, that shows the sureness with which he has grasped
the reality of inner things, and that we hope will be acted upon by his
many followers and not merely made food for thought. He says that
if we wish to be "complete men," that is, if we wish a spiritual life that
shall be both intellectual and intuitional we must first use the intuitional
method; because, he points out, it is easy enough to go from intuition
to intellect, but if we start with the intellect and try "to think our way
back to insight into life," we shall find, as men have always found,
that we are attempting the impossible, "for from the intellect we shall
never pass to intuition." Philosophy is to be no longer, then, a science
of speculation and brain-spinning; but it is to return to, and use, those
higher faculties in man which are the modes of expression of our truer,
spiritual selves. "Philosophy introduces us thus into the spiritual life."

In his conception of the nature and function of the intellect, Bergson
has followed almost entirely the view-point taken by the East. Mind
is but the instrument that effects an adjustment between the inner,
conscious ego and the world of manifestation about it. Mind deals with
the material aspects of existence, and its concepts or "thought- frames"
apply admirably in practical life and in physical science. The trouble
comes when we try to apply this method to a living, flowing reality,
to life. We try to treat the living like the lifeless, and in so doing make
the unwarrantable assumption that a mechanistic outline can fit an
organic growing world. In our endeavor, we have learned to represent
life by a "cinemetographical mechanism of thought," that is, a rapid
succession of instantaneous static pictures; but this is not the same
thing as life itself, and never can be. Conceptual thinking about life,
says Bergson, is not even scientific; for science, when it seeks to under-
stand something, studies it directly. But the mind is incapable of doing
this with life; it can only deal with static, inert, conceptual forms or
frames, and can at best only form a hopelessly limited and inexact
reproduction of the truth.

In the Bergsonian world-view, then, there is the idea of a great
Life-current of consciousness which has penetrated matter, and which
is gradually organizing it. Mind, in its totality, is the complementary
powers of instinct and intellect. So far the Life-current has not suc-
ceeded in giving complete manifestation to, or in combining perfectly
these forms of consciousness. Man is endowed mostly with intellect
and some instinct ; ants, bees, and wasps have mostly instinct with some
"fringe of intelligence." The effort of the mind to grapple with diffi-
culties has produced self-consciousness; consciousness is most intense
when we face ourselves and exert our wills in some power of choice.
Will is the direct action of consciousness, of the vital impulse. The
reason we (of the Western world) have remained so in ignorance about

22 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

the inner life is because we have limited ourselves to the intellect, with
its fixed habits and poverty-stricken categories. Life is much larger than
the intellect because the latter is merely an implement which life has
formed to enable us to deal successfully with what is not living. Bergson
does not depreciate the mind; on the contrary he holds it to be an
admirable instrument for the practical purpose of dealing with the
physical world, but not for speculation or for direct communion with
the spiritual life that made it.

Much of Bergson's philosophy is a technical discussion of biology,
psychology, and other branches of human knowledge. We shall not
attempt to discuss his treatment of these subjects, nor the often brilliant
way he uses them as proofs, or links in his chain of proof, to lead us
towards the grander conceptions of the life of the spirit and the destiny
of the soul. It is these last questions that reveal at once the heart and the
culmination of the Bergsonian scheme, and so we shall deal with them
direct. In his lectures and in special articles Bergson has replied to the
storm of inquiry raised by scientists and religious thinkers alike; some-
times with a direct answer if he felt able, sometimes merely to indicate
the direction in which he thinks an answer can be found. He does not
often commit himself to an unqualified opinion. The study of the facts
of the universe can give us "a direction only. But it is a great thing to
have even a direction, and still more to have several directions, for at
the precise point where these directions converge might be found the
solution we are seeking. What we possess meanwhile are lines of facts,
none of which goes far enough, none of which goes right up to the
point which interests us and at which we want to place ourselves; but
these lines may be more and more prolonged, and they, moreover, already
sufficiently indicate to us, by the ideal prolongation that is open to us,
the region in which the answer is to be found." That is, facts such as
every modern scientist and philosopher has at his command lead Bergson
to the spiritual world, the region "at which we want to place ourselves."

In the wonderful third chapter of Creative Evolution, Bergson gives
us a dynamic interpretation of his intuition of the "Meaning of Life"
and of the "Order of Nature." He traces the development or unfolding
of consciousness through its various forms found in Nature, and comes
finally to man. In man, and in man alone, does this life-force seem to
have found freedom from automatism. "It has not found it with
instinct, and it has not obtained it on the side of intelligence except by
a sudden leap from the animal to man." We must study, then, how
to penetrate to the consciousness back of both instinct and intelligence
in order to obtain a glimpse of the life of universal consciousness its
creative, free, and spontaneous flow. Bergson finds that "the impetus of
life . . . consists in a need of creation. It lies dormant when life is
condemned to automatism; it awakens as soon as the possibility of a
choice is restored." Hence man differs radically from the animals, and
in his freedom to act proves his spiritual inheritance. We quote at

BERGSON'S PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION 23

length, as nothing could be finer than the closing pages of this chapter.
"With man, consciousness breaks the chain. In man, and in man alone,
it sets itself free. The whole history of life until man has been that of
effort of consciousness to raise matter, and of the more or less complete
overwhelming of consciousness by the matter which has fallen back on
it ... But man not only maintains his machine, he succeeds in using
it as he pleases. Doubtless he owes this to the superiority of his brain,
... to his language, ... to social life. But our brain, our society,
and our language are only the external and various signs of one and
the same internal superiority. They tell, each after its manner, the
unique, exceptional success which life has won at a given moment of
evolution. They express the difference of kind, and not only of degree,
which separates man from the rest of the animal world." Man, then,
must seize the advantages he possesses. The aim of philosophy ought to
be to study Nature and to expand and unite intuitions. If it does
this, man will become aware of the spiritual life. "And it shows at the
same time the relation of the life of the spirit to that of the body. The
great error of the doctrines on the spirit has been the idea that by
isolating the spiritual life from all the rest, by suspending it in space as
high as possible above the earth, they were placing it beyond attack,
as if they were not thereby simply exposing it to be taken as an effect
of mirage! Certainly they are right to listen to conscience when con-
science affirms human freedom, but the intellect is there, which says that
the cause determines its effect, that like conditions like, that all is repeated
and all is given. They are right to believe in the absolute reality of the
person and in his independence toward matter, but science is there, which
shows the interdependence of conscious life and cerebral activity. They
are right to attribute to man a privileged place in nature, to hold that
the distance is infinite between the animal and man; but the history of
life is there, which makes us witness the genesis of species by gradual
transformation, and seems thus to reintegrate man in animality. When
a strong instinct assures the probability of personal survival, they are
right not to close their ears to its voice ; but if there exist 'souls' capable
of an independent life, whence do they come? When, how and why
do they enter into this body which we see arise, quite naturally, from a
mixed cell derived from the bodies of its two parents? All these ques-
tions will remain unanswered, a philosophy of intuition will be a negation
of science, will be sooner or later swept away by science, if it does not
resolve to see the life of the body just where it really is, on the road
that leads to the life of the spirit."

Bergson then redescribes the initial impulse, which we have already
considered and continues "The matter that it bears along with it, and
in the interstices of which it inserts itself, alone can divide it into distinct
individualities. On flows the current, running through human genera-
tions, subdividing itself into individuals. This subdivision was vaguely
indicated in it, but could not have been made clear without matter. Thus

24 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

souls are continually being created, which, nevertheless, in a certain
sense pre-existed . . . Consciousness is distinct from the organism it
animates, although it must undergo its vicissitudes . . . The destiny of
consciousness is not bound up'. . . with the destiny of cerebral matter.
Finally, consciousness is essentially free; it is freedom itself; but it
cannot pass through matter without settling on it, without adapting itself
to it: this adaptation is what we call intellectuality; and the intellect,
turning itself back toward active, that is to say free, consciousness,
naturally makes it enter into the conceptual forms into which it is accus-
tomed to see matter fit ... Thus, to the eyes of a philosophy that
attempts to reabsorb intellect in intuition, many difficulties vanish or
become light. But such a doctrine does not only facilitate speculation;
it gives us also more power to act and to live. For, with it, we feel
ourselves no longer isolated in humanity, humanity no longer seems
isolated in the nature that it dominates. As the smallest grain of dust
is bound up with our entire solar system, drawn along with it in that
undivided movement of descent which is materiality itself, so all
organized being, from the humblest to the highest, from the first origins
of life to the time in which we are, and in all places as in all times, do
but evidence a single impulsion, the inverse of the movement of matter,
and in itself indivisible. All the living hold together, and all yield to
the same tremendous push. The animal takes its stand on the plant,
man bestrides animality, and the whole of humanity, in space and in
time, is one immense army galloping beside and before and behind each
of us in an overwhelming charge able to beat down every resistance
and clear the most formidable of obstacles, perhaps even death."

These long extracts may give the reader some glimpse of the
freedom and swing of Bergson's thought. As M. Peguy says of him,
he is geology, not geography ! And his style is not that of the scholiast ;
he can rise above technical limitations and distinctions.

We see, then, that Bergson has indeed "rediscovered the soul,"
and has done it thoroughly and conclusively. Humanity is in a special
sense the "ground of evolution," "on the road that leads to the life of
the spirit." Bergson has given further weight to his declaration that
we are right not to disregard our intuitions of immortality by entering
the Society of Psychical Research, whatever we may think of his choice
of this method for proving an after-existence. In addition to this he
has given a still more illuminated statement, quoted from the Huxley
Lecture, delivered at the University of Birmingham, May 29th, 1912.
"May we not therefore suppose that the passage of consciousness through
matter is destined to bring to precision, in the form of distinct person-
alities, tendencies or potentialities which at first were mingled, and also
permit these personalities to test their force whilst at the same time
increasing it by an effort of sel f -creation ? On the other hand, when
we see that consciousness, whilst being at once creation and choice, is
also memory, that one of its essential functions is to accumulate and

BERGSON'S PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION 25

preserve the past, that very probably (I lack time to attempt the demon-
stration of this point) the brain is an instrument of forgetfulness as
much as one of remembrance, and that in pure consciousness nothing of
the past is lost, the whole life of a conscious personality being an indi-
visible continuity, are we not led to suppose that the effort continues
beyond, and that in this passage of consciousness through matter (the
passage which at the tunnel's exit gives distinct personalities) conscious-
ness is tempered like steel, and tests itself by clearly constituting person-
alities and preparing them, by the very effort which each of them is
called upon to make, for a higher form of existence? If we admit
that with man consciousness has finally left the tunnel, that everywhere
else consciousness has remained imprisoned, that every other species
corresponds to the arrest of something which in man succeeded in over-
coming resistance and in expanding almost freely, thus displaying itself
in true personalities capable of remembering all and willing all and
controlling their past and their future, we shall have no repugnance in
admitting that in man, though perhaps in man alone, consciousness
pursues its path beyond this earthly life."

Of a definite plan or purpose for the universe, Bergson has written
uncertainly. He himself does not see it, though he sees tendencies. That
there can be no fixed, predetermined end he emphatically demonstrates.
"True, we shall not witness the detailed accomplishment of a plan. Nature
is more and better than a plan in course of realization. A plan is a term
assigned to a labor : it closes the future whose form it indicates. Before
the evolution of life, on the contrary, the portals of the future remain
wide open. It is a creation that goes on forever in virtue of an initial
movement. This movement constitutes the unity of the organized world
a prolific unity, of an infinite richness, superior to any that the intellect
could dream of, for the intellect is only one of its aspects or products."
Again, "Life, we have said, transcends finality as it transcends the other
categories. . . . There has not, therefore, properly speaking, been any
project or plan." Bergson is right in this, we think. Enough for us to
see that spirit endeavors to "form distinct personalities," and that the
tendency of life seems to be to create "complete men," men of masterly
intellect and piercing spiritual intuition, who may even learn to surmount
the barrier of death.

Of God, Bergson speaks with the same reticence and reserve. Once
and for all he attacks and discards the definitions of Aristotle, of Spinoza,
and of Anthropomorphic theology. But, looking out on the creative
universe, he sees God as "unceasing life, action, freedom." And he adds,
"creation, so conceived, is not a mystery; we experience it in ourselves
when we act freely." Such actions, fulfilling our destiny, when we have
raised ourselves above ourselves, Bergson points out, have received
Nature's special stamp of approval namely joy. "Philosophers who
have speculated on the significance of life and the destiny of man have
not sufficiently remarked that Nature has taken pains to give us notice

every time this destiny is accomplished; she has set up a sign which
apprises us every time our activity is full of expansion; this sign is joy.
I say joy; I do not say pleasure. Pleasure, in point of fact, is no more
than an instrument contrived by Nature to obtain from the individual
the preservation and the prolongation of life ; it gives us no information
concerning the direction in which life is flung forward. True joy, on
the contrary, is an emphatic signal of the triumph of life." Joy mani-
fests itself wherever we create, and to create is to use "spiritual force,"
to obey the "impulse toward a higher and higher efficiency, something
which ever seeks to transcend itself, to extract from itself more than
there is." Does this not remind us of the Master's joy, that abides in us,
and which no man can take from us, the reward of those who love God
and seek him?

Finally, Bergson sums up his own works on this subject in a letter
to V. de Tonquedec. "The considerations put forward in my Essay on
the Immediate Data (Time and Free Will) result in an illustration of
the fact of liberty; those of Matter and Memory lead us, I hope, to put
our finger on mental reality ; those of Creative Evolution present creation
as a fact: from all this we derive a clear idea of a free and creating
God, producing matter and life at once, whose creative effort is con-
tinued, in a vital direction, by the evolution of species and the con-
struction of human personalities." Such admissions from our phil-
osopher are not the least significant part of his work, even where his
revelations seem limited in certain directions. That these limitations
themselves might at any moment be overcome we can always hope, for
Bergson says that we can have a direct intuition of God, though we can
by no means limit this experience within the formulation of a mental
concept. "There is then within us, or rather behind us, a possible vision
of God, as the Alexandrians said, a vision always virtual, never actually
realized by the conscious intellect" (Creative Evolution, p. 322). Like
certain Hindoo schools, he forbids mere speculation about God and the
end of the universe.

To sum up the work of a man of Bergson's power is a difficult
undertaking. Great as has been the immediate fruit of his message, the
real harvest lies in the future. Bergson has figured in this article some-
what as the resultant of all the historical, philosophical tradition behind
him, which has been rapidly surveyed in the first two instalments. But
this, though of course true and of value as determining just what Bergson
had to contend against, is not the view of him which coming generations
will, we think, hold. He is the pioneer into new fields, he has inaugurated
a new era in philosophy ; and as such will stand apart from the long line
of his predecessors. Bergson has nothing of the ready-made about him.
He is true genius, following his own light, his own intuitions. He has

BERGSON'S PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION 27

come into contact, as the poets and mystics have always done, with
reality, with the spiritual world; and he has given to humanity what he
has known of this experience. Such as he have a power, transmit a
power, of which they are too often unconscious; Bergson, we feel, is
conscious both of what needs to be done and of what he is doing. On
this head, his simplicity and humility are the root of his contagion; he
assumes no more than any other man.

Of his philosophy, certain things, we feel, are sure to endure because
they are transcriptions of living truths. Bergson has seen and written
what Theosophical writers have set forth before he was known. He sees
that to Spirit, Time has no real existence ; it is only a necessary method
and instrument of finite intellect. It is a How and not a What, a method
of analysis, of intervalling or ruling off, which intellect employs to
enable it to contemplate in successive parts the Spiritual Life. Space,
too, has no real existence to Spirit. It is merely an order in which Spirit,
when bound in the fetters of intellect and shut up in the prison of the
body, is compelled to look out piecemeal on True Being itself essentially
one in a broken, multitudinous and successive way. It is another How,
not a What, a method of analysis, to enable our fractional natures to
deal with the totality which they cannot contemplate, as yet, in unity.
These two conceptions, opposed as they are to Kant and the other schools,
will hold their place, and may easily enter with surprising rapidity into
the fibre of our daily thinking.

Above all will Bergson be remembered for his method, and for
the appeal that he makes to that higher consciousness in each one of us.
Bergson finds in the depths of ourselves free-will, liberty; and he bids
us rouse that will and live by the light of the intuition it brings. "You
must take things by storm; you must thrust intelligence outside itself
by an act of will" he tells us in Creative Evolution. It is the effort that
best characterizes the growing tendency of our present humanity the
effort to become aware of the Life behind its physical or intellectual
expressions. And since evolution is creation, we must learn to act, to
create, and to become truly ourselves. Thus we are the architects of an
infinite and transcendent future. But this future, in Bergson's view,
is not to be regarded as a simple development of the present, a simple
unfolding of germs already given; else we limit creation itself. Con-
sequently there is no authority for saying that there is forever only one
order of life, only one plane of action, only one rhythm of duration,
only one perspective of existence. And if there be, apparently, abrupt
leaps from matter to life, from animal to man, have we not something
analogous in the very essence of human life itself, in flesh and the spirit,
in reason and love? For with man appear thought, reflection, clear
consciousness, and moral problems. Then the path of evolution, its
direction, its tendency, becomes Good; while Evil becomes that which
travels in opposition to the Good. By the soundings of our intuition we
can seize upon this tendency of the universe, this "Will that sends us

28 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

into the world"; can glimpse this Good, and so qualify for an advance
step over present conditions.

We believe that Bergson marks the departure-point for future specu-
lative philosophy and that he has opened a new channel for the minds
of men to use in their search after Truth.

(Conclusion)

JOHN BLAKE, JR.

"The object of knowledge is action. Education is a preparation
for life. A philosophy is to be judged by its power to inspire action of
the right sort. Action of the right sort produces the higher knowledge."

V. V. V.

THE SACRED BOOKS OF
ANCIENT CHINA

IN considering first the books of the Confucian canon, then the
great text of Taoism, the Tao-teh-king, we are impressed immedi-
ately by the strong contrast between the respective methods which
the two great teachers offer the disciple for his advancement toward
the state of perfection. And this point of difference, we find, consti-
tutes the very keynote of the two systems of thought. Whereas Con-
fucius taught that the perfect state is to be gained by the punctilious
observance of outward forms, and ceremonials, by conforming one's
conduct to a thoroughly practical though lofty standard of virtue,
Lao-tze turned away from or rather rose above the material plane and
sought to draw near to reality by going behind external forms.

We are told that the latter philosopher lived about the year B. C.
604; that practically nothing is known of his early life; and that at an
advanced age he withdrew from public service, seeking a lonely moun-
tain pass where he might end his days in undisturbed quiet. Legend
has it that he was recognized by the guard of the pass, who was him-
self a follower of the Tao and by the latter was induced, some say
was locked up and forced, to write an account of his philosophy. Thus
it is that we have the Tao-teh-king. Nothing further is known of its
great author, and subsequent ages during which the popularity of his
teachings flourished and declined, mark the alteration and even the
complete loss of much of the original work.

Like all great mystics, and transcendental philosophers, his teach-
ings were for the few, for those who could understand; and when
imparted, as they were, to the many, misunderstanding, misinterpreta-
tion and ridicule followed as a natural consequence. Lao-tze, himself,
says,

"When a learned man hears Tao he follows it.
When a man of average intelligence hears it, he holds to it
for a while and presently loses it.

When an ignorant man hears it he only laughs at it.
If it were not held in derision by such, it could not rightly be
called Tao."

Present-day critics speak of his writing as a series of paradoxes
and subtleties of speech, quoting derisively such passages as, "a good
keeper needs no bolts or bars, and none can open after him," "the

30 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

good binder needs no rope and none can loose after him," and offering
as conclusive proof of the visionary character of his work, Lao-tze's
own statement that the Tao could not possibly be imparted even by
those who understood it. Not only current writers, however, but many
of the great philosopher's disciples, as well, are guilty of manifest
misinterpretations of his teachings, and in reading of the extremes to
which this led, we appreciate to the full, the value of such an admonition
as that quoted from St. Dionysius, in another number of the QUARTERLY,
"See that none of the uninitiated hear these things. I mean those who
cleave to created things and suppose not that anything exists after a
supernatural manner, above nature, but imagine that by their own
natural understanding they know Him who has made darkness His
secret place."

Lao-tze taught of the Supreme and of the Way leading thereto;
and the term which he applied to this dual concept was the Tao. In
writing of it he recognized fully the fact that the Divine, the Infinite,
is beyond definition, utterly remote from human comprehension, and
the opening lines of his work show most clearly, perhaps, both the
nature of this Tao and the impossibility of its being known to the
"natural understanding" :

"The Path (meaning the Tao) that is the subject of discus-
sion is not the Eternal Path.

The quality which can be named is not its real attribute.

That which was before heaven and earth, is called the Non-
existent. Existence is the Mother of all things.

Therefore does man seek after the First Mystery of Non-
existence, while viewing in that which exists, the ultimates thereof.

Non-existence and Existence are identical in everything but
name.

This identity of apparent opposites I designate the Profound,
the Great Deep, the Open Door of Bewilderment."

Elsewhere, presenting it in its more positive aspect, he asserts that
before heaven and earth were, there existed a primordial substance,
serene, fathomless, self-existent, homogeneous, and without restraint.
The qualifications of this substance, he tells us, are boundlessness, inscru-
tability, inaccessibility and omniprescence ; and to this substance he applies
the term Tao.

Yet in spite of the clearness with which Lao-tze states that the
Tao is beyond mere verbal definition, that "the quality which can be
named is not its real attribute," we find commentators endeavoring to
reduce it to terms of the intellect. And among Lao-tze's own disciples,
the idea of the Tao gradually crystallized; the Formless was given a
definite form and the real character of his original teaching was lost
sight of entirely. Later writers expounding and adding to his work,
did not hesitate to attribute to Lao-tze much that was wholly their

THE SACRED BOOKS OF ANCIENT CHINA 31

own. Then too, by a series of misconceptions, his followers gradually
came to occupy themselves with methods for the prolongation of life,
the practice of magic, the study of alchemy and the search for an elixir
of life. Toward the close of the pre-Christian era, Buddhism was intro-
duced into China, and, apparently in an attempt to rival the new belief,
Taoism became for the first time a religion, borrowing ceremonials,
liturgies, the idea of a hell, etc., from the Buddhistic teachings. We
are told by one of the ancient Chinese writers that Buddhism stole the
best features of Taoism and Taoism the worst features of Buddhism.
"It is as though one took a jewel from the other and the loser recouped
the loss with a stone." Thus the history of Taoism is marked by a
slow but none the less certain decline, until, in the present day it occupies
a rather debased and anomalous position, being in many respects,
particularly in the matter of ceremonials, scarcely distinguishable from
the Buddhism of the country.

One of the first statements that one meets, and the one that is
evidently regarded as most condemnatory, in accounts of Lao-tze's work,
is the fact that he advocated the doctrine of inaction, "do nothing and
all things will be done." Commentators and evidently later disciples
as well, have received this teaching with the intellect only, have taken
it in its most literal sense and with consequences which are easily
imagined. It may be well to examine the doctrine as set forth in the
words of Lao-tze himself, taken from various parts of the Tao-teh-king.

"By Non-action there is nothing which cannot be effected."
"The sage acts through Non-action and hence he governs all."
"To teach without words and to be useful without action,

few among men attain to this."

"The gentlest thing in the world will over-ride the strongest.

The Non-existent pervades everything though there be no inlet.

So, by this I comprehend how effective inaction is."

That these words, as they stand, should be received by many as
a doctrine of passivity and inertness of living is not altogether sur-
prising. But it is necessary to remember that one of the points which
Lao-tze emphasized most strongly was that the disciple should so live
as to enable the Tao to act in and through him. And it was to this end
that he urged the power of inaction, a fact which is shown in numerous
passages, notably the following:

"Acting without design; occupied without making a business
of it ; finding the great in what is small, and the many in the few ;
repaying injury with kindness ; effecting difficult things while they
are easy; and managing great things in their beginnings; (this
is the way of Tao)."

"The wise man . . . teaches without the use of words, he works
without effort, he produces without possessing; he acts without

32 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

regard to the fruit of action; he brings his works to perfection
without assuming credit; and, claiming nothing as his own, he
cannot at any time be said to lose."

Surely these words are not written by an advocate of inactivity, of
"do nothing and all things will be done"; do they not point, instead, to
an activity, heightened because of the dissociation of self and the freedom
from personal motives, thus reminding us of passages both in the Gita
and Light on the Path? Perhaps the most noticeable resemblance,
owing to the similarity in form as well as in spirit, is to that portion of
the latter book where we are given the rule, "Kill out ambition," and
then "Work as those work who are ambitious. Respect life as those
who desire it. Be happy as those are who live for happiness."

Another point which commentators frequently raise against Taoism,
and one of the main reasons given for its decline, is that its teachings
are strongly adverse to education and learning. "Dispense with your
learning and save yourself anxiety," we find in one portion of the
Tao-teh-king, and numerous other passages imply that the effort to gain
knowledge is so much time wasted. This principle, accepted literally
at a later date, naturally brought derision on master and pupils alike, in
a land where learning was highly regarded. Yet here again we feel
that the teaching was for the initiated, for those who could read within
the words, for in succeeding chapters we find it written,

"The wise man is ambitious of what others despise, and sets no
value on things difficult to obtain.

He acquires no common learning, but reverts to that which the
masses have passed by."

And again speaking of the Tao,

"Those who know it are not learned,
The learned do not know it."

From these two passages is it not apparent that he is condemning
"the devotees of knowledge who forget their lives in the pursuit of it,"
and advocating that swift intuition spoken of in Light on the Path as
"the only form of knowledge which enables a man to work rapidly or
reach his true and high estate, within the limit of his conscious effort."

Indeed, in reading the Tao-teh-king, we note almost constantly the
analogy between its teachings and the great truths contained in the Gita
and Light on the Path. Throughout the book Lao-tze lays the utmost
emphasis on being, rather than on doing ; if we are what we teach, instruc-
tion by means of words will be unnecessary; if we undertake to act, we
have only to bring ourselves into harmony with the Divine, and the Tao
will use us as a channel, acting in and through us ; if we are called upon
to be rulers of men, and are possessors of the Tao, all things will of their

THE SACRED BOOKS OF ANCIENT CHINA 33

own accord fall into their proper places. There is nothing which cannot
be brought about through this oneness with the Divine which Lao-tze
calls the way of the Tao:

"Attain to the Great Idea, and all the world will flock to you ;

It will flock to you and will not be hurt therein.

For it will rest in a wonderful peace."

The means by which this at-oneness is to be attained has again its
parallel in the teachings of India. Take such a passage as,
"He is wise who knows others.
He who knows himself is enlightened.
He is strong who conquers others.
He who conquers himself is mighty."

To point the analogy here would be superfluous and this is equally
true in the case of Lao-tze's teaching of lowliness and humility :

"He who having known the light remains in obscurity, will
become a universal model.

He who knowing glory, at the same time continues in humility,
will be a universal valley.

As a universal valley the Eternal Virtue will fill him."

Again it is made clear in line after line, that the way of the Tao
means a turning from the objects of sense, entire detachment from the
things of the world. To be a possessor of the Tao, one must realize
that when he has accomplished his task and is about to receive the
reward, then is the time to withhold; he must be able, though richly
endowed with this world's goods, to dwell among them wholly without
attachment. "Light will blind a man's eyes," says the sage, "sound will
make him deaf; taste will ruin his palate; the chase will make a man
wild; and precious things will tempt him.

Therefore does the wise man provide for the soul and not for the
senses.

He ignores the one and takes the other in both hands."

Two other passages which strongly bear out the parallelism between
the Chinese and the Indian teaching, it will perhaps be well to give in the
words of the Tao-teh-king-'

"I observe myself, and I come to know others;
I observe my family, and others grow familiar;
I observe the kingdom, and others are known to me;
I study this my world, and other worlds are within my
knowledge."

And also:

"A man may know the world without leaving his own home.
Through his own window he can see the supreme Tao.
The further afield he goes, the less likely he is to find it."

34 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Compare with these the passage in Light on the Path, "Regard most
earnestly your own heart. For through your own heart comes the one
light which can illumine life and make it clear to your eyes. Study the
hearts of men, that you may know what is that world in which you live
and of which you will to be a part."

In the Christian teachings likewise, as may well be expected, there
is much that is similar to the philosophy of Lao-tze. In accounts of his
work we find noted, for instance, the fact that he anticipated the Christ
in his teaching of the return both of good for good and of good for
evil. This rule met with scant approbation among the followers of
Confucius, who, if they did not practice the doctrine of "an eye for an
eye," were at least taught that evil should invariably be met with stern
justice. One of the most striking resemblances between the teaching of
Lao-tze and that of the Master is the following passage, possessing much
of the beauty of the sermon on the mount:

"Whosoever humbleth himself, shall be preserved to the end.
Whosoever bendeth himself shall be straightened.
Whosoever emptieth himself shall be filled.
Whosoever subjecteth himself shall be exalted.
Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased."

Loftiness of thought and exaltation of spirit are characteristic of
the Tao-teh-king, so much so, in fact, that we soon come to regard all
that is not beautiful in Taoism as not Lao-tze. All that means unwisdom
and unloveliness in the conduct of those who have styled themselves his
followers, all the degradation with which his philosophy has met in the
form of modern Taoism, merely seems the natural effect of the passage
of time and the imperfect medium of men's minds, on a thought origin-
ally perfect in its beauty. The result is much as though we were studying
the reverse side of an exquisite tapestry and instinctively we agree with
the great philosopher that, "To regulate one's life by the ancient
knowledge of Tao is to have found the Path."

JULIA CHECKERING.

DANTE'S BEATRICE

THE vexed question of the historical or allegorical character of
Beatrice, as described in the trilogy of Dante, would require a
volume for its proper treatment, and there is only space here
for a brief and very inadequate summary of the principal
arguments in the case. That she was a real person, the daughter of
Folco Portinari, and the wife of Simone de' Bardi, that she was born
about a year after Dante, was a married woman at the time of her
father's death, and that she departed this life in June, 1290, are state-
ments vouched for by Boccaccio, and accepted as historical facts by such
early writers as Benvenuto da Imola, Filippo Villani, Manetti, Landino,
and Bruni. But these all follow the story of Boccaccio, and of him
Scartazzini (one of the most accomplished of Dante scholars) tells us
that "we should have wilfully to shut our eyes, not to see that the
loquacious Certaldese is a thousand miles removed from the conscientious
accuracy of the serious historian, and that if he did not invent the facts
which he relates, to give weight to his declamations, as certain too rigorous
critics have not hesitated to accuse him of doing, he certainly took no
manner of care to verify the historical truth and exactness of the facts
related by him" ( Vita di Dante, p. 6) . And Scartazzini might have added
that the greater part of Boccaccio's story is a mere amplification of
Dante's Vita Nuova, with the important difference that Dante nowhere
identifies his Beatrice with any family of Florence, nor does he identify
the city where she lived with Florence, but speaks simply of "that city in
which God had placed my lady." The dates given by Dante in the Vita
Nuova are all mystical combinations of the number 9, and it seems hardly
probable that so many coincidences could have occurred in a real life.
And although we could readily believe in the love of a boy of nine for a
playmate a little younger than himself (as in the case of Byron, for
example), it is hard to believe that as the children lived so very near
each other, and Dante says that he often "went in search of this youngest
of the angels," that it could have been nine years after their first
meeting before she ever spoke to him, and then only to salute him in the
street as she passed by. And it is still more incredible that the love of a
boy of eighteen, whose only outward recognition in the space of nine years
was a passing salutation, should have needed the "screen" of a pretended
love for two other ladies. And if within the space of three years, at the
farthest, from their second meeting, Beatrice married Simone de' Bardi,
why have we no allusion to a fact so tragic in its significance to even
the most ideal of lovers? It is true that Dante mentions the father and
friends of Beatrice, but he also speaks of the relatives and friends of
Philosophy, who were dear to him for her sake.

36 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Not many days after the death of Beatrice's father, Dante himself
falls ill, and on the ninth day of this illness the thought occurs to him
that Beatrice herself must die someday; whereupon he has a vision of
her as dead, and the details of this vision correspond in many respects
with the description of her first appearance in Purg., c. 30. Following
this dream comes the curious passage already quoted, wherein he com-
pares Joan who came before Beatrice to John, who came before the true
Light, after which he makes a long digression to prove the necessary use
by poets of an allegory in the form of a love-story.

His own narrative abruptly breaks off at the news of the death of
Beatrice, at the first hour of the ninth day of the ninth month (according
to Syrian reckoning), of that year of the century (the thirteenth) in
which the perfect number (ten) was nine times completed. And as one
reason why nine plays so conspicuous a part in her history is that all
the nine heavens were in most perfect harmony at her birth, but "the more
subtle and infallibly true reason is, that she was a miracle whose sole root
was the miraculous Trinity." Does this sound like the genealogy of a
mortal woman?

Here the story of the Convito comes in, to corroborate and help out
that of the Vita Nuova. Having defined the method of his exposition as
first literal and then allegorical, and having explained that the former
is a beautiful fiction, while the latter is the hidden truth, Dante proceeds
(Book ii. ch. 2) to tell us that two years after the death of Beatrice he first
saw the donna gentile, the "lady at the window" (of 36, Vito Nuova),
who so comforted him by her pitying glances, that he thought of her as a
person who pleased him only too well. This lady, Dante Rossetti conjec-
tures, may be meant for Gemma Donati (whom Dante married a year or
two, perhaps, after the death of Beatrice, and whose house stood between
those of Alighieri and the Portinari), because he believes "in the existence
always of actual events, even where the allegorical superstructure has
been raised by Dante himself."

Such was for a long time my own belief, but, after careful considera-
tion of Dante's definition of the literal, I cannot find that it necessarily
implies the historical. It is simply a narrative, however fabulous, under
which he conceals his true thought (see Book ii. ch. 1 ) . And the argument
for the necessity of the existence of the actual Beatrice falls to the ground
when we admit that "the literal" is often what the poet himself calls it
"a beautiful fiction" It is quite possible, nay, probable, that Dante may
have fallen in love, at the age of nine, with a little neighbour who became
to him "the idol of his youth, the darling of his manhood, and the most
blessed memory of his age" ; but I cannot see that we have any right to
identity that ideal with Beatrice Portinari from any evidence furnished
by Dante himself. Such identification rests solely upon the authority of
that exceedingly untrustworthy romancer, Boccaccio.

The dates and the events of the Vita Nuova, I repeat, are too mystical
to belong to real life, and we have no more right to identify "the lady of

DANTE'S BEATRICE 37

my mind" with Beatrice Portinari, than we have to identify "the lady at
the window" (who, Dante tells us, is Philosophy) with Gemma Donati,
or the lady "screen" with Monna Vanna. Dante strikes his key-note in
the very first section of the Vita Nuova, when he speaks of "the first time
that appeared before my eyes the glorious lady of my mind," implying
a pre-existing conception. In fact, I cannot but feel that even if those
were "actual events" upon which Dante raised "his allegorical super-
structure," that that superstructure had become to him the all-important
thing.

In the Vita Nuova and in the Convito the story is the same. Two
years after the death of Beatrice, Dante found consolation in the charms
of Philosophy, and for the next two years and a half devoted himself to
scholastic learning. The works of Cicero and Boethius were his constant
study, and the Consolations of Philosophy of the latter seems to have
suggested much of Dante's allegory. It is very certain that Dante owed
far less to the various Visions and Voyages in Heaven and Hell that
had preceded Him, than to the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, the
Aeneid of Virgil, Cicero's Dream of Scipio, and his various essays, the
Consolations of Boethius, and the suggestive words of the Apocalypse,
and the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon.

But, in spite of the charms of scholastic learning and the active life,
the love of the first Beatrice was still latent in the soul of the poet ; and as
he proceeds with the Convito, he shows us how beyond science and all
morality is the Divine Philosophy or Eternal Wisdom, which is full of
all peace, and whose dwelling-place is that Quiet Heaven where the soul
is at rest in God. So at the end of the Vita Nuova, after describing the
same struggle of conflicting thoughts that he dwells upon in the Convito,
he has a vision (about the ninth hour again) of the glorified Beatrice,
clothed in that sanguine raiment in which she first appeared to his eyes,
and she seemed to him as young as when he first saw her. And, remem-
bering the past, he grieves to think that he has ever loved another, and
all his thoughts return to their most noble Beatrice. And he has a
vision of her receiving homage beyond "that sphere of widest range,"
that is, in the Quiet Heaven of Divine Wisdom and Peace. And after
that he has another vision (of the Commedid), in which he sees things
that make him resolve to say no more of this blessed one till he can
more worthily treat of her.

If we interpret Dante's story after his own fashion, that fourfold
manner in which he says all books "may be read and ought to be
explained," it seems to me that we have, according to the literal sense,
the story of a heart that consoles itself for the loss of its first love with
the pity of another, and then repents its inconstancy, and returns to its
original object of devotion. If we take it in the allegorical sense, we
have the rivalry between philosophy of the schools and theology. If
we interpret it according to its moral significance, we have the opposition
of the active life and the contemplative life, the two beatitudes that Dante

38 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

tells us are possible to man; and if we look for the mystical meaning,
we have a soul that, having recognized its true blessedness in the Divine
Wisdom, loses itself for a time in the things of this world, shortly to
repent, and to turn back to "that blessed Beatrice, that gazeth continually
upon the face of God," for she "is privy rto the mysteries of the knowledge
of God, and a lover of His works" (Wisd. viii. 4).

The Book of the Wisdom of Solomon (said by some authorities to
have been written by Philo) is constantly quoted by Dante, and if we put
together some of its verses, we shall see how closely he followed its
suggestions in many passages of the Commedia as. well as the Convito.
We read, for instance, in the description of Wisdom

"I loved her, and sought her out from my youth ; I desired to make
her my spouse, and I was a lover of her beauty.

"Therefore I purposed to take her to live with me, knowing that she
would be a counsellor of good things, and a comfort in cares and grief.

"Moreover, by means of her I shall obtain immortality, and leave
behind me an everlasting memorial to them that come after me" (ch.
viii. 2, 9, 13).

"What hath pride profited us? or what good hath riches with our
vaunting brought us?

"All these things are passed away like a shadow, . . . and as when
a bird hath flown in the air" (ch. v. 8, 9, 11).

"Wherefore I called upon God and the Spirit of Wisdom came to me.

"I preferred her before scepters and thrones, and esteemed riches as
nothing in comparison of her.

"For she is the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence
flowing from the glory of the Almighty.

"For she is the brightness of the everlasting Light, the unspotted
mirror of the power of God, and the image of His goodness.

"And in all ages, entering into holy souls, she maketh them friends
of God and prophets.

"For she is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of
the stars: being compared with the light, she is found before it" (ch. vii.
7,8,25-27,29).

"And Wisdom knoweth thy works, and was present when Thou
madest the world" (ch. ix. 9).

"Before the fair flowers were seen, or ever the motive powers were
established, before the innumerable multitude of angels were gathered
together (2 Esdras vi. 3).

"Wherefore," says Dante (Conv. iii. 14), "it is written of this
eternal Love which is Wisdom, He created me from the beginning before
the world, and I shall never fail (Ecclus. xxiv. 9). And in the Proverbs
of Solomon (viii. 23) she, Wisdom, says, / was set up from everlasting.
And in the beginning of the Gospel of John her eternity is openly
declared."

From these and many other passages quoted or assimilated by Dante,

DANTE'S BEATRICE 39

we see the deep hold that the Gnostic ideas had taken upon his mind, and
the close resemblance that his " Wisdom" (identified here and in many
other places with the Logos and the Second Person of the Trinity) bears
to that of spiritual intuition, or secret knowledge of Divine things,
common to mystics of all ages. She is identified with the Active
Intelligence of the scholiasts, and with the Gnosis of the Hermetic philos-
ophers. We read in Hermes Trismegistus (said by Bunsen to have been
finished at the latest 670 B. C., and by others assigned to a far earlier
date) that "God did not create all men with intelligence" (that is, spiritual
insight), "because He wished to hold it before men's souls as a prize to
strive for. He filled a great bowl with it, and sent it by a messenger,
ordering him to cry to the hearts of men, 'Baptize ye, ye who have the
power, in the bowl ; ye who believe that you will return to Him who has
sent it, ye who know wherefore you are born !' And those who answered
the call, and were baptized in this intelligence, these possess the Gnosis,
and have become the initiated of the spirit, the perfect men. Those who
did not understand the call, possess reason but not intelligence, and know
not wherefore and by whom they were formed. Composed alone of
passions and desires, they do not admire that which is worthy to be
contemplated, but give themselves up to the pleasures and appetites of
the body, and believe that this is the end of man. But those who have
received the gift of God, these are immortal, and no longer mortal. Dis-
daining all things, corporeal and incorporeal, they aspire towards the
One and the Only. This is the wisdom of the spirit, to contemplate Divine
things and to know God. This is the blessing of the Divine bowl."

So Dante says, "If it happen that by the purity of the receiving
soul the intellectual virtue be absolutely separate and free from any
corporeal shadow, then the Divine goodness multiplies in that soul, as in
a thing worthy to receive it; and further, it multiplies in the soul
endowed with this intelligence according to her capacity of reception. . . .
And in such a soul is her own virtue, and the intellectual, and the Divine.
. . . And some are of opinion that if all these powers should co-operate in
the production of a soul according to their most favorable disposition,
the Diety would descend upon that soul in such fulness that it would be
almost another God incarnate" (Conv. iv. 21).

If we open the Consolations of Philosophy, by Boethius, we find
many striking resemblances to the allegory of Dante. Boethius, wretched
and in prison, is lamenting his exile and his misfortunes, when a lady of
majestic presence suddenly appears at his bedside. She has glowing
eyes, and a stature that is at one moment that of ordinary men, and the
next rises to the highest heavens. Her garment, woven by her own
hands, of the finest indissoluble threads has inscribed upon its lowest
edge an alpha, upon its highest an omega, and between the two is embroid-
ered a ladder of many degrees. But her robe is torn, and violent hands
have rent away the fragments. In one hand she carries a sceptre, in the
other some books. She expels the muses of poetry from the philosopher's

40 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

cell, saying that, under the guise of medicines, they have given him sweet
poisons. "You have taken from me no common man," she says to them,
"but this my faithful one, whom I believed to be in Greece, rapt in the
study of Plato and Aristotle. Depart from him, ye sirens, whose sweet-
ness hath brought him nigh to death." And these having left him, she
seats herself by his bedside.

"Dost thou know me?" she says to him. "It is in sooth I, who
nourished thee, and who armed thee with such weapons that, hadst thou
not thrown them down, would have defended thee from every assault."
Whereupon Boethius wept bitterly, and she dried his eyes with the hem
of her robe.

This lady is Philosophy, who never abandons her faithful ones. She
requires from her disciple a full confession, and hearing how he laments
the lost favours of Fortune, his exile and his imprisonment, sets herself
to discredit this rival, to show him how worthless are her favours and
herself. She tells him that man's true fatherland is the contemplation
of immortal and divine things, and that they alone should be called exiles
who are shut out from this perfection, seeing that the ultimate end of
man is the supreme beatitude of the contemplative life, and to that end
he should dedicate himself entirely. Therefore she who has loved him
from his earliest years, now that she has told him wherein consists his
true beatitude, will point out to him first indicating the things he should
avoid the path which will lead him back to it, and will replume the
wings of his mind so that he may be enabled to soar to "la somma
Beatrice." There, restored to health and safety, and untroubled, made
one of the army of heaven, he will contemplate the law by which the
King of kings rules the universe, and will see how, for the individual as
for the race, the highest beatitude is resolved into the Unity.

When Beatrice first appears to Dante in Purgatory, she says to
him, "Look at me well ; I am in sooth Beatrice ! How didst thou deign
(being lost in the pride of philosophy) to come unto this mount where
man is happy? Not only by the influence of the stars at his birth,"
she continues, addressing her attendant virtues, "did this man receive
great intellectual power, but also by the special gift of Divine grace
did he become such in his new life (sua vita nuova) that everything
good was possible to him. I revealed myself to him in his youth, and
for some time led him with me in the right way, but when I stood upon
the threshold of my second age and changed life, he left me, and gave
himself to another. As I ascended from flesh to spirit, and beauty and
virtue increased in me, I became less dear to him, and he turned to
pursue those false images of good that never fulfil their promises. Nor
was he affected by the inspiration of the visions that I sent him, but fell
so low that I was obliged to show him the realm of the lost. The law
of justice would be broken should he pass Lethe without tears and
repentance." And then, addressing herself directly to the poet, she
demands his confession that this charge is true, and asks him what

DANTE'S BEATRICE 41

impediments he found while following those desires inspired by her
(which led him to love that good wherein aspiration ceases) that caused
him to lose hope, or what advantages to any other good that he should
turn to it? And the poet, weeping, says that the things of this world,
with their false images of pleasure, led him astray as soon as her coun-
tenance was hidden from him. Then Beatrice tells him that her "buried
flesh" should have led him in the opposite direction; for neither art nor
nature ever gave him so much pleasure as her fair members now
dispersed in earth.

In the Convito (iii. 14, 15) Dante tells us that the soul of Divine
Philosophy is love, and the beauty of her body is morality, "because as
the beauty of the body results from the proper ordering of its members,
so the beauty of wisdom, which is the body of philosophy, results from
that ordering of the mortal virtues which makes us take a sensible delight
in them." Barlow (Hist. Contributions to the Study of Dante), in
commenting upon this passage of the Purgatorio, says, "The Donna of
the Vita Nuova, of the Convito, and of the Divina Commedia is one and
the same, only differently treated. In the first we have the Aristotelian
form of Beatrice treated of, that is, Amore, in the second we have the
beauty of Beatrice treated of, that is, Morality; in the third we have the
Substance of Beatrice treated of, il soggetto materiale, or Sapienza, in
which the real nature of Dante's Donna is made manifest."

The two passages of the Purgatorio already quoted (Purg., 30, 127-
130, and 31, 47-51), where Beatrice speaks of her "second age" and of
her "buried flesh," have always been the stronghold of those who believe
in the historical Beatrice; but if we are to accept these lines in their
literal sense, they carry us entirely too far, and convey a meaning which
is surely other than Dante's. In the Vita Nuova the whole story of his
intercourse with Beatrice is limited to his seeing her once at the age of nine
(2), to her speaking to him nine years afterwards, as she passed him
in the street (3), and to his seeing her once across a church (5),
after which, hearing of his love for "the lady who served him as a
screen" on that occasion, she refuses to salute him ( 10), and even joins
with her companions in making a jest of him when he meets her once
more at a wedding feast ( 14) ; while Dante himself assures us, "to
prevent every vicious thought," that the end of his desires was the
salutation of his lady, "which consisted of two acts of her mouth
her smile and her speech" (19). Is it not grossly inconsistent with this
poetic ideal, for that Beatrice who went through life so clothed upon
with maidenly modesty, to tell her lover when she first meets him in the
spirit world a lover the end of whose desires was her smile of greeting
that her fair body had given him more pleasure than anything in art or
nature, and that the memory of that "buried flesh" should have kept him
insensible to all other attractions, for when "the highest of all pleasures"
was taken from him by her death, what mortal thing was there to
awaken desire? (Purg., 31, 48-54). She had told him just before that

42 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

the desire for her led him to love that Good beyond which there is nothing
to aspire to ; but could the love of the body, however fair, inspire that love
of God that Dante describes over and over again as "our highest beati-
tude"?

It seems to me impossible to take the Beatrice of the Vita Nuova for
an historical reality and the Beatrice of the Commedia for an allegory
(as many have done), because the two are so closely connected; in
fact, as Giuliani says (though he is, nevertheless, a realist), comparing
29, Vita Nuova, and Par. 32. 7, where Beatrice is placed under the
standard of the Virgin, "whoever noticed all these minute relations, and,
indeed, the perfect accordance of the Vita Nuova, the Commedia,
and all the other works of Dante, must be forced, while he admires, to
recognize ever the same mind in the architect of such numerous and
varied works." And not only the same mind, but the same intention.

Perez identifies Beatrice with the Active Intelligence (which he iden-
tifies with Wisdom, or the Divine Light), and his argument may be
briefly summed up thus. Dante is said by Beatrice (Purg., 30. 109,
et seq.) to be endowed with all possible intellectual power; not only by
the influence of the stars at his birth, but by the special gift of Divine
grace, which is that seed of felicity that is the beginning of all good in
man (Conv. iv. 21). The fruit which should be produced from this seed
is the blessedness which follows the use of the soul in contemplation
(ibid. 22). The angel at the sepulchre says to those who have
wandered from the true way that is, to all who have sought for
happiness in the active life that it is not there, but that it goeth
before them into speculation, or the contemplative life. Now, if
(as Dante has said elsewhere) "the highest Good, beyond which
there is nothing to aspire to," is the use of our intellect in
speculation; if the false pleasures of present things make up the
beatitude that the schools of philosophy are seeking in this world
where they will never find it; if Beatrice asserts that she guided him in
his youth to this highest Good; and if, as we have seen, the intellect
cannot act unless the active Intelligence enlighten it; what else can
Beatrice be, but that Active Intelligence (or Divine Wisdom), the
enlightener of the possible intellect (or human understanding), which,
united to the latter, becomes the Beatrice beataf (the blessed or glori-
fied Beatrice).

Dante's beatitude had preceded him into speculation, and he finds
her on the summit of "the Mount Delectable, which is the source and
cause of every joy" (Inf. I. 77), whence, by the power of his lady's eyes,
he is lifted to travel through the heavens (Par. 17. 113). So Richard
of St. Victor says, "Man must ascend this mountain if he would compre-
hend those things which are above human senses. Its ascent leads
to the knowledge of one's self ; that which happens on the summit leads
to the knowledge of God. He who ascends the mountain, who knows
himself as he is, will know what he should be. The mind that never

DANTE'S BEATRICE 43

rises to the knowledge of itself, can it ever soar upon the wings of
contemplation to that which is above itself? So long as it spends itself
in manifold desires, so long as by many ways of thought it wanders
here and there, it cannot ascend to contemplation."

"And thus it appears," says Dante (Conv., iv. 22), "that our beati-
tude, that is, this felicity of which we are speaking, we may first find
imperfectly in the active life, that is, in the exercise of the moral virtues,
and then almost perfectly in the contemplative life, that is, in the
exercise of the intellectual virtues ; which two operations are unimpeded
and most direct ways to lead us to the supreme beatitude that cannot be
obtained here below."

The story of Dante's inner life (la vita nuova, or regenerate life),
as told in the great trilogy of his works, appears to be this that from his
early boyhood he had felt a strong love for the contemplative life
(or study of Divine Wisdom) ; that amid the distractions of the active
life, the pursuits of the world, the cares of the state and the family, the
duties of the soldier, the studies of the artist and the scientist, this
heavenly "giver of blessings," this Divine beatitude, passed away from
him. Then came the consolations of scholastic philosophy, with "its false
images of good," in whose attractions his whole soul was for a time
absorbed, until at last the vision of the higher life, as he had seen it
when a boy, came back to him, and he returned to the love of the Divine
Wisdom, who revealed to him first her eyes, "those demonstrations
wherein one sees the truth with the greatest certitude," and then her
"second beauty," her smile, "through which the inner light of Wisdom
shines as without any veil" ; for in these two we feel that highest
pleasure of beatitude which is the greatest joy of Paradise (Conv., iii. 15).

KATHARINE HILLARD.

"Were we to take as much pains to be what we ought, as we do to
disguise what we are, we might appear like ourselves, without being at
the trouble of any disguise at all."

LA ROCHFOUCAULD.

INSPIRATION IN ART AND
MORALS*

SOME of us are loath to admit the inconsistency between an artist's
work and an artist's life, which Plato recognized, when, with
ironical praise, he called the poet a "light and winged and holy
thing," and then, leading the "holy" creature beyond the gates of
the sacred city, gave him freedom to distil his honied pollutions outside
the holy precincts. The inconsistency persists, notwithstanding our
unwillingness to face its consequences. Of all but an exceedingly small
number of poets the life and the works are at variance. We repeat
Whitman's exquisite lines

The night in silence under many a star,

The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,

And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death,

and we vainly deplore his six ill-gotten children. We sing with Swin-
burne

If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf,

and then laugh at the suffragetic frenzy of his life. The beauty of
holiness seems almost unveiled as Milton chants the celestial choirs,

Up he rode,

Followed with acclamation, and the sound
Symphonious of ten thousand harps that tuned
Angelic harmonies.

But the harshnesses of Milton's personal life refuse to melt in the sound-
ing symphony of his words. We grow "breathless with adoration" as
Buonarotti prays to Vittoria Colonna, e s'i'c' amo con fede Trascendo a
Dio, e fo dolce la morte, till Buonarotti's brawling, and fisti-cuffing, and
nose-breaking disturb our devotion.

It is not only the life and the works that are at variance. Even in
the work of many artists, there yawn abysses that are almost immeasur-
able between sublimity and inanity. Such disparity of achievement is not
explainable by immaturity, etc. For it does not cease when the poet is

* Part of a discussion at a meeting of the NEW YORK BRANCH of the T. S.

INSPIRATION IN ART AND MORALS 45

at his zenith. In a single poem often in a very short poem one finds
verses that wheel on eagle wings and others that lie flat on the ground,
heavy and stupid. Wordsworth is not unique; he is typical. How
superb the lines in the Prelude!

Like angels stopped upon the wing by sound
Of harmony from Heaven's remotest spheres.

Yet, in the same work, the climax of another section is the appalling line
And Negro ladies, in white muslin gowns.

Poe wears real jewels on one hand,

Nicean barks of yore
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea
The weary, wayward wanderer bore,

and on the other flashy imitations:

At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born.

Noyes delights one with "cornices and coronals," yet, in a flower fantasy,
is so little the master as to write "the soft petallic door." Any poet,
whether careful or careless in his workmanship, classic or romantic,
shows in his written work the immense difference between good and bad
taste, between inspiration and dead imitation ; it matters not whom we
read Francis Thompson, Matthew Arnold, Shelley, Chaucer or
Tennyson.

What causes such a wide oscillation in matters of taste and excel-
lence ? The poets certainly have not been unmindful that in their art they
were aiming at high ideals. O'Shaughnessy states the opinion (and his
vacillating verses are thoroughly characteristic) of the whole clan; they
are the leaders of humanity, they think, however obscure and resultless
their efforts may seem.

We are the music makers
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
World losers and world forsakers,
On whom the cold moon gleams,
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world forever, it seems.

Other poets make the same declaration in other words

I am thy storm-thrush of the days that darken,
Thy petrel in the foam that bears thy bark.

46 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Even the cool-brained, myriad-minded Shakespeare thinks of the poet as
seer and prophet thus almost as religious leader. The poet stands in
the van and sees ahead into invisible realms.

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,

And, as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.

The poet's unconsciousness of sublimity and of bathos which appear
side by side in his writing, is explained, I think, by the creative function
that manifests through him. The word itself means a maker or creator
7r<H?7T77f (poietes from Trotelw (poieo) to make or do). Let us
assume that all creation issues in hierarchical procession from the Unman-
ifested Logos. To understand something of the process of creation
by nature and by art, let us take as example, flowers. Flowers,
I have heard said, are the thoughts of angels. A real flower
then is an entity on the spiritual plane evolved from the consciousness
of some superior being. The spiritual force of the true flower in its
radiation downward reaches the plane of matter, and comes to mani-
festation as a blossom familiar to us, rose, lily or larkspur, lovely shadows
of ravishing blooms. So far for nature. The creation by art may be
said to begin at this point. A man is enamoured of the color and per-
fume of a rose. He hangs over it, he gives himself pain to protect it,
his thoughts center about it, and his dreams picture it. May not such
self-sacrificing devotion rise like incense of worship to the rose-angel
and attract his attention to the ardent worshipper? "We become what
we love." The man would find delight in merging his own identity
with the flower he loves. He begins to draw it on wood or marble.
His worship makes, as it were a mould, to be filled by the original crea-
tive impulse. The magnetic lines of force from the true flower in the
spiritual world come to a focus in the rose-lover's mould. A new rose
is born this time with stone or wooden petals. None of the color or
perfume of the earthly rose is depicted. There is no hideous waxen
imitation. There is something subtler. Flower-lovers, who caress the
garden blossom recognize its marble sister. They feel the "spirit of
the rose" subtily pervading and animating the granite petals. They love
ardently this new rose created by art. Such is artistic creation. No
matter what be the artist's material, iron, pigment, stone or words, it
is galvanized into life by spiritual force. The outer vesture of the
rose will differ the animating spirit is the same. All art that is not
thus spiritually created is waxen.

INSPIRATION IN ART AND MORALS 47

What does it take to make a rose,

Mother-mine ?

The God that died to make it knows
It takes the world's eternal wars,
It takes the moon and all the stars,
It takes the might of heaven and hell
And the everlasting Love as well,

Little child.

Such a view of artistic creation would explain the variable excellence
of an artist's work. His flaming love and devotion draws magnetic
force to a focus. The original creative impulse acts through him in his
self-forgetfulness. But he cannot maintain that white intensity of love
and devotion. His selfish, lower nature asserts itself, becomes dominant.
Some memory of the inspired moment lingers. And it is his job to
versify or paint or carve. So he goes to his task. And in cold egotism
he writes some pompous or ludicrous line that seems to him as good as
any other.

The deeper antithesis between the poet's art and morals is not
however explained by this theory. Milton said the man who wished to
write a great poem "ought himself to be a true poem that is, a com-
position and pattern of the best and honorablest things." Artists are
not such patterns. If one follow their example, one lands in gross and
vulgar immoralities. Their moral vagaries bewilder many honest minds,
that, having no religion higher than art, would logically accept artists
as religious guides. Yet native honesty and decency restrain them from
artists' swinishness. The artist's moral failure cannot be extenuated.
It can only be faced. Recognized for what it is, and condoned with no
sentimentality, one can only depose them from their usurped place of
leadership. Blind leaders ! it is the saints who are the vanguard of
humanity, the pioneers who blaze the path of return to the happy home
from which the exile, man, has strayed.

In the province of literature itself, there is an analogy to that usur-
pation of the poets upon the realm of the saints. That analogy is the
rise to prominence of the critical essay during the XlXth Century.
Carlyle said that the critic stands between the poet and the uninspired
man. The critic is a sort of middleman who interprets to the average
reader the poet's language which would otherwise be an unknown tongue.
One is familiar with the sympathetic interpretations thus made, in France
by Sainte Beuve, in America by Lowell, and in England by Matthew
Arnold and others. The aim of those critics was, in every case, to lead
readers, by an interesting essay, to the poetry itself. But many people
found the interpretive essay pleasant and easy reading, while the poetry
required an effort. So they came to rest satisfied with the essay, and
that which should have led up to poetry unintentionally became some-
thing- of a hindrance.

48 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Just as the critic stands as interpreter between the poet and the
average man, so the poet stands as middleman between the saint and
the world. The poet interprets to the world the high ecstasy and joy
of the saints. But an effort is required to share the saint's experience.
On th v e other hand, to read about that experience in poetry is com-
paratively easy. Thus poetry has become as it were a block in the way
instead of being a stepping-stone toward the beauty of holiness.

The true relation of artist and saint may perhaps be reached if we
study the attitude of each in a given circumstance. Take the exquisite
lullaby of Noyes a slumber song of the Blessed Virgin.

Sleep, little baby, I love thee.

Sleep, little king, I am bending above thee.

How should I know what to sing
Here in my arms as I swing thee to sleep?
Kings may have wonderful jewels to bring,
Mother has only a kiss for her king!
Why should my singing so make me to weep ?
Only I know that I love thee, I love thee,
Love thee, my little one, sleep.

What movement of the will or emotions will be roused by that
verse? In an aspirant for laureateship, the emotions will be touched.
There will be a reaction of impulse. The effect is superficial. Let me
make my meaning clearer. Some years ago, a friend came back to
America after several years of hard work on music. She was finely
cultivated. The first music she heard after her return was some of the
old plantation songs. They were unfamiliar to her. I remember quite
vividly how she was touched by the ravishing melody, "Steal away home
to Jesus." Tears were in her eyes. For the moment she was ready to
start at once southward to devote her life to work among the negroes.
The melody haunted her and sang itself in her memory. But she never
acted upon her impulse. She had quite other ambitions. And she never
gave a moment's consideration to the deep significance of the words.
She remained on the shifting surface of emotion. She never got down
to the reality of the will. The simple figure in those words "Steal away
home," if heeded, would have led out of the region of shadows face
to face with a living Musician ("His voice was like the sound of many
waters"). Is it clear now how the poetic temperament acts? To enjoy
the song by Noyes no belief in the Christian story is necessary. A
skeptical mind can admit a supposititious Virgin who might thus sing.
The mildness of mother and child, the playfulness, the swinging joy, will
give lively pleasure, and will arouse a desire to produce other scenes and
songs as picturesque and lovely.

How would the song affect a religious person who has an uncon-
scious desire to follow the way of the saints? In such a heart the song

INSPIRATION IN ART AND MORALS 49

recalling Christian history might bring to memory those words of
Pusey's: "He left us, but to be closer to us; He left us in Bodily
Presence, but to be present still more nearly in Spirit ; not without us any
longer, as Teacher, Guide, Comforter, but within us; withdrawn from
our bodily sight, to fill our souls; no longer to be touched or handled
by our hands, that His Spirit might be made manifest to our spirit, that
we might touch Him with the hands of our heart, feed on Him with the
cravings of our spirit, see Him with the eyes of our mind, be enlarged
to receive Him, and being expanded, be filled with Him, and be 'one with
Him and He with us.' "

Meditation upon those words might bring back Pascal's saying that
it is the good fortune of those who love Christ to experience in them-
selves all the events of His life. Roused to action by that cumulation of
statements, the religious aspirant would use his will to put himself in
the way of experiencing what Noyes has recorded. With a desire to
imitate the saints, he might reflect upon the words of St. Paul to the
Galatians: "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until
Christ be formed in you." He would come to believe that Christ could
be born in his heart, and that from Him, the Master Musician, he might
learn a true song to sing Him. In other words, a saint would experience
at first hand, the reality which a poet knows at second hand. The saint
knows. The poet hears about what the saint has seen and felt, and
writes it down.

In the sense of the Greek word, it is the saint therefore who is the
true maker or poet. The saint with resolute will puts himself to practise
until he comes to share the consciousness of spiritual powers, is one
with them, and, through that oneness, shares their creative faculty. The
saint's joy is, we may say, radio-active. It reaches the poet and sets
him vibrating. The poet, as we know him apart from the saint, is in no
sense a creator. He is a recorder, a sensitive medium. He reflects with
more or less of faithfulness the joy and beauty and truth and goodness
which the saint creates. He reflects some of the light when his sensitive
plate is unclouded with personal defilement. When the lower person-
ality is the only medium, there is no reflection of truth and beauty, but
the foul or pompous or ridiculous things in which all poetic writing
abounds.

THEODORE ASHTON.

GOD AND IMMORTALITY"

"Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out
the Almighty unto perfection?" JOB xi, 7.

SITTING opposite me at one of the lunch tables at the Club were
two men who were apparently discussing the question of Immor-
tality. My attention was attracted when one of them, with an
air of finality, said:

"Immortality is at the utmost a mere hope. There is no way of
proving it, or even of showing its probability." When reference was
made to certain men eminent in scientific circles who testified to having
received convincing proof of the survival of the conscious human
personality after that which we call death, he contemptuously brushed
their testimony aside as unworthy of credence. His attitude was typical
of the attitude of the average intelligent and cultured man, an attitude
that is in its way quite as mysterious as is the mystery of Immortality.

In matters of recognized science the utterances of Sir Oliver Lodge,
Sir William Crookes, Alfred Russell Wallace, Camille Flammarion, and
Caesare Lombroso are received with respect and acknowledged as
authoritative. Men who accept without hesitation their pronouncements
on such matters reject as unworthy of credence their testimony on
matters relating to man's continued conscious existence after the death of
the body. I will confess that I am not convinced that the phenomena of
so-called Spiritualism is sufficient in and of itself to demonstrate to my
satisfaction the survival of the conscious personality. I am satisfied
of the genuineness of much of the phenomena, but await further evidence
as to its meaning. However, as I listened to the conversation referred
to, it occurred to me to try the question out in my own mind along other
lines and for my own satisfaction.

Is it true that we can do no more than guess at and hope for
Immortality, or is it possible, by any process of legitimate reasoning, to
demonstrate the probability, if not the certainty, of such Immortality,
the Immortality of intelligent and conscious humanity ? Do we still have
conscious existence after we have passed through the change called death,
and if so can that fact be fairly deduced by legitimate processes of
reasoning from other and generally -acknowledged facts?

First, let us consider a matter of definition: What do we mean by
Immortality in this connection ? What idea does the word "Immortality"
convey to us? Does it mean that the real individual is a conscious
personality that first came into existence with our birth or generation,
but which continues conscious existence after the body has been

*Paper read before the Indianapolis Branch of the Theosophical Society.

GOD AND IMMORTALITY 51

destroyed? Or, does it mean that the real individual is an entity that
has always existed and will always exist, and which has simply occupied
the body as a temporary vehicle for manifestation? If the former, the
inquiry ends where it begins. Immortality cannot be predicated of that
which has a beginning. If anything is immortal, it has been always and
will be always. Lest this may be considered dogmatic, let it be under-
stood that it is in this case and for my present purpose a mere matter of
definition. It is a statement of what I mean by Immortality. In my
inquiry concerning Immortality I shall start with the premise that nothing
is to be considered as immortal that has had a beginning or that can be
conceived of as having an ending. That which is immortal can know
of time only as an episode in its eternal sweep.

What is really meant, therefore, from this point of view, by an
affirmation of Immortality in man is, that there exists an intelligent and
conscious entity in connection with our physical bodies, but separable
therefrom, a Something that is also apart from physical life, in which
our consciousness resides, which not only does not die when our bodies
die, but which cannot die; a Something that has been always and will
be always ; that Something to which has been given the name of Soul. It
seems to me that in essaying a solution of this problem, there should be
coupled with it the further inquiry concerning the existence of a
Supreme and Conscious Intelligence, that Infinite and Supreme Some-
thing to which we give the name God. Indeed that inquiry should take
precedence. Can we know that God is? I confess that I approach the
subject with diffidence. It savors much of presumption to essay a
solution of problems which so many great minds have found insoluble.

I am not vain enough to think I shall be able to add anything to
the wisdom of the ages. My only hope is that I may be able to point
out a way by which those of us who do not lay claim to great wisdom
may reach an understanding of some of that wisdom which seems
obscure and hard to understand. Solomon says :

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that
which is done is that which shall be done ; and there is no new thing
under the sun.

"Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See this is new?

it hath been already of old time, which was before us."

Ecclesiastes, Chapter i, verses p and 10.

Students of Plato and of the Hindoo and Egyptian sages will
probably say that my effort is but a weak attempt to re-state theories
that are not only not new, but that they were exploited thousands of years
ago. This is doubtless true. Those theories, however, have failed of
general acceptance, and are known only to students of Philosophy. The
majority of persons of average intelligence of today know but little of
them, and truth to say, care even less. May it not be that the reason
they have failed of general acceptance is because that in the manner of

52 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

their statement they were above the heads of the people of average
intelligence? May it not be that the very grandeur of the conception
involved in these theories, coupled with the manner in which they have
been given out, has placed them beyond the grasp of those of us whose
intelligence is not above the average and who lack in intuition? While
great and philosophic minds may be able to conceive intuitively a great
truth, those of us who lack intuition need the ladders of logic and
induction to enable us to scale the heights to which intuition carries them
at a bound. It seems to me that the discoveries of modern science have
supplied enough rounds in the ladder to bring us to a point where
knowledge can begin to take the place of doubt and uncertainty. It seems
to me that in the present state of human knowledge we know enough of
nature and of nature's laws to enable us not only to affirm our belief in
the existence of God, but to demonstrate such existence by legitimate
processes of reasoning, and also to demonstrate the probability, if not the
certainty, of our own Immortality. It is probable that the majority who
affirm their belief in the existence of God do so as a mere matter of faith.
Would not all such be better satisfied if they could demonstrate by
legitimate reasoning that their faith is well founded?

The one great fact of which we are bound to take cognizance is the
existence of the universe. There is an occult saying that man is an
epitome of the universe. Of course this conveys no definite meaning
to the scientific mind except that it is an assertion apparently resting on
no basis of ascertained fact. That statement may be true or it may not
be, but as man is within and a part of the universe, it is manifest that
there is nothing in him that is not in the universe. If we can discover
and know broadly and generally all of the things that are in the universe,
our knowledge will of course embrace all that is in man. I do not mean
to suggest that it is possible for us, with our limited faculties and our
limited means of observation, to know all of the complex forms which
substance or matter may assume, or the combinations in which it may
appear; or of the forms in which energy or force may manifest itself.
But may we not be able to take cognizance of that which embraces all of
these various forms of matter and manifestations of energy, and as a
matter of broad generalization, of all that makes up the universe?

The two things in the universe of which we are first bound to take
cognizance, are matter or substance and force or energy.

MATTER OR SUBSTANCE

We know matter or substance in the aggregate. By this I mean
everything we know as matter. In whatsoever form or guise it may
appear, whether as solid, as liquid, as gaseous, or in forms so subtle
and refined, or diffused, that our senses cannot cognize it, or any instru-
ments we may devise detect its presence, it is still only substance or
matter. In so far as the visible, tangible universe is concerned, it is
made up of matter in some form. It is common knowledge that science

GOD AND IMMORTALITY 53

has reached the point of suggesting, if not actually declaring that instead
of there being some eighty-odd primary or elementary substances or
elements, there is but one Protean, elemental and primary form of
substance, and that all of the so-called elements are merely differing forms
in which that substance manifests itself. If substance or matter partakes
of Immortality, it must be merely as substance or matter, whatever that
may be, but not as to any particular form in which we find it. In its
primary or elementary form it may possibly be eternal and immortal, but
in that form it is and may forever be beyond our ken. At all events we
at present only know it as something that is ever subject to change and
ever changing. We do know, however, through the revelations of the
spectroscope, that matter as we know it on the earth is uniform with
matter throughout the universe. Not only so, but among the recent
theories advanced by science is that which finds in the universal ether
which pervades infinite space that elemental and primary form of matter.
A still more recent theory is that what we call matter is only an
appearance created by force, so that if this is true even the so-called
universal ether is in fact at the same time universal and elemental force
or energy, and all the various forms of matter so-called are only some of
its varying manifestations. Do not these discoveries concerning the
nature and composition of matter or substance furnish us some rounds
in the ladder? Whether this is true or not, force and matter are more
closely united than were the Siamese Twins.

ENERGY OR FORCE

We never find substance or matter separate from some form of
energy or force. There is no such thing as dead matter, in the sense
that matter ever exists apart from some form or mode of force. Science
has demonstrated beyond controversy that every atom of matter, however
minute, is at all times vibrant with energy. Matter and force are
inseparable. I use the terms "substance" and "matter" interchangeably,
as meaning the same thing. So also I use the words "energy" and
"force" as being in this connection synonymous. Like matter, force
manifests itself in many forms. A study of the correlation of forces,
however, suggests that as all of the various forms of matter are but
varying combinations formed from the one elementary and primary form
of matter, so force or energy in all of its varying manifestations is one,
the apparent difference being due to causes which we may in time
discover as we are gradually discovering the relations between light and
heat, and electricity and sound. Whether this is true or not, we do know
that light, heat and electricity are each manifestations of force or
energy. So also are the things we call gravitation, attraction, repulsion,
cohesion, the varying phenomena of chemical reactions, and even life.
As I shall endeavor to show hereafter, life itself is only the organizing
and sustaining force in nature. It is only one of the many forms in
which that Protean thing we know as energy manifests itself. Have we

54 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

not here still other rounds in that ladder ? Is force or energy immortal ?
Again I would say that as force or energy it is doubtless eternal and
immortal, but not so as to any one phase of its manifestations. But
of that hereafter.

How FORCE AND MATTER ACT

While we find force and matter everywhere, apparently inseparable,
and acting together, force acting on matter so-called, and matter
apparently reacting on force, we always find them acting in accordance
with law: Law that is without limit in its scope; law that governs the
movements of the universe and the movements of the atom; law that
controls the development of worlds, and with equal care and precision
controls the unfolding of a flower ; law that is so certain, so uniform, and
so unvarying in its action, that the astronomer can tell with certainty the
position occupied by a given heavenly body a million years ago, and can
with equal certainty point out the precise point in space that will be
occupied by that same body a million of years in the future. The chemist
knows that the chemical reactions between substances to-day do not vary
a hair's breadth from the chemical reactions between the same substances
in the very beginning of time, and the physicist knows that he can rely
with certainty on the law of cause and effect, and that without exception
a given cause will always produce the same effect. Science recognizes
the universal reign of law and the perfection with which it does its work.
Here again are other rounds that carry us still higher. Whence comes
that law ? Does it not imply intelligence ? Could its source be elsewhere
than in mind of infinite scope ?

What is the legitimate inference to be drawn from all this? Would
anyone venture to suggest that the intelligence and power that obviously
lie back of manifested nature were mere products of matter and force?
If so, matter and force themselves make the laws which they obey, and
which they are apparently unable to disobey. Can it be possible that the
appearance of a conscious intelligence in the orderly processes that
attend every movement, whether of the universe or of the atom, is due
merely to the reactions of force and matter on each other? We only
know the visible material universe through a multitude of phenomena in
which we find that something we call "matter" assuming various forms
as it is acted upon by some mode or manifestation of that other some-
thing to which we give many names, but which by whatever name we call
it we recognize as a form of force or energy. No form of force of which
we have any knowledge is self -originating. Every form of force of
which we have any knowledge began acting only under a communicated
impulse. Whence comes that impulse? We know that whatever form
force or energy assumes, it acts under control of and in strict obedience
to immutable laws, to which we give the name of "The Laws of Nature."
Do we ever find matter and force acting otherwise than in strict obedience
to laws that never vary? Do we ever find matter and force throwing

GOD AND IMMORTALITY 55

off this yoke of the law's control, and entering on new and untrodden
paths? While new species have appeared from time to time in the life
of the world, while other species have disappeared, and while variations
and changes in existing species are from time to time developed, is it not
true that in the evolution of these new species and of these variations
nature has ever followed the orderly processes of that which seems to
be the great law of life and development? Have not matter and force,
considering life as one of the manifestations of force, ever been the
obedient servants of law, instead of being its originators? Is it not too
plain to admit of argument that Infinite Mind lies back of all manifested
nature and controls all? The special pertinence of this will be apparent
when we come to consider man.

GOD

"The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." Psalm 14. I.

"As for God, his way is perfect." Psalm 18. 50.

"The law of the Lord is perfect." Psalm 19. 7.

"The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice." Psalm pp. /.

So far as our first inquiry is concerned, the ladder is complete.
The inference is irresistible that there is a third element in nature,
the source of that law, a Something which is entirely outside of both
force and matter. It tells us in language that cannot be misunderstood,
of an Intelligence that is independent of both and that is Infinite and
All-embracing, coupled with a Power that is All-controlling. All of the
so-called laws of nature seem to emanate from "It." Nothing in the
vast realm of nature seems to be above or beyond the control of these
laws. They control alike the movements of suns and worlds that swing
through space, and of the atom, ion, or electron so small that the most
powerful microscope fails to disclose its form. As the mind of man can
but faintly grasp the idea of space that has no bounds, or of eternity
that has neither beginning nor end, so the conception of an Intelligence
and a Power without possible limitations defies the possibility of exact
definition. In its vastness it seems not only the unknown but the
unknowable. Any name we may give to it is at the utmost a mere
symbol. Words all have their limitations in our minds, and even the
word "God," to the minds of millions of people, seems to carry no idea
but that of a Being of many limitations, and yet we have no other word
that seems at all adequate. The unvarying and unerring accuracy of the
laws which seem to emanate from It, bespeak Infinite Intelligence and
Infinite Wisdom, while the manner in which they act tell us of Infinite
Power. It embraces all that we can possibly conceive of under the
names of Mind, Intelligence, Consciousness, Will, and Power. Power
not as force, but as that which controls and directs force. May not that
which we call force and energy be only one of the manifestations of that
Infinite Power? May not that which we call matter or substance be a

56 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

mere appearance created by that Power manifesting as force or energy?
Do not recent speculations concerning the "ions" and the "electrons"
suggest this? If so, is not the apparent trinity of nature, viz. substance
or matter, force or energy, and the unknown and unknowable source of
law and power, reduced to one? The trinity becomes unity. But again
does not that unity become a trinity when we recognize in it Infinite
Knowledge, Infinite Wisdom, and Infinite Power? Knowledge which
embraces all things; Wisdom that holds all knowledge in orderly and
harmonious classification and arrangement, and has within the grasp of
its perfect comprehension all that enters into the shaping of worlds and
systems of worlds; and Power that with Infinite Wisdom directs and
controls. Again, Three in One. The unknown and the unknowable.
Here at last do we not find Immortality, Something that knows neither
beginning nor end, neither past nor future. Something for which time
does not exist. A Something for which there is only an eternal now.
/ am that I am. Serene and changeless through the eternities. It is the
mighty soul of the universe. In this Immortal Something we find
mind, superlative mind, combined with superlative wisdom ; mind that
does not have to grasp and strive and search for truth, but mind that
knows ; mind that makes no guesses, but, that spans and grasps the
infinitudes; mind that holds within its never-loosening grasp all the
knowledge, not only of the ages but of the eternities that are unbounded
by either space or time; mind that comprehends each and every phase
and detail of the laws that rule the movements of the universe, from
suns and systems of suns and worlds, to the laws that rule the genesis
and the movements of the tiniest animalcule or the tiniest atom, ion, or
electron. Something there is, though, more than mind and more than
wisdom. Mind can conceive, mind can plan, mind can formulate laws,
and wisdom can co-ordinate them, but to enforce those laws, to make
those plans effective, power is necessary, and so, coupled with that
Infinite, that Superlative Mind, we find an Infinite and Superlative
Power. Not mere force, not simply energy, but a Something that
controls and directs force, a Something that is Infinite and Resistless.
And as with matter and force, so with that Infinite Mind, that Infinite
Wisdom, and that Infinite Power. They, too, are inseparable.
Wherever we find the unvarying and unchanging laws of nature acting
(and they are always and everywhere acting), they are acting with a
Power that cannot be stayed or resisted. Do not the names "matter,"
"force," and "mind," with mind's inseparable and accompanying
"power" (which would perhaps be better named "Spirit"), embrace all
that is to be found in the universe? Matter that takes on many forms,
but which, in whatsoever guise it appears, is after all only matter ; force,
which manifests in many ways, but which may be always recognized as
force; and Mind, with its accompanying executive officer Power or
Spirit. This embraces all. Search as we may we can find nothing more.
These are not mere abstractions. The universe, with its component

GOD AND IMMORTALITY 57

parts, substance, energy, intelligence and power, are concrete and
cognizable things. So also is that Trinity in Unity in which is combined
Infinite Mind that knows all things, Infinite Wisdom that plans all things,
and Infinite Power that compels all things. The One only and true God.
I shall not hazard any definition of the attributes of this Infinite and
Ineffable One. I will, however, call attention to the fact that in all of
the world's great religions, there is recognition of the existence of a
Divine and Overruling Power, or of Divine and Ruling Powers.
Whether these religions have been Ethnic or racial, or whether they have
been Catholic and world embracing; whether they have been Mono-
theistic or Polytheistic, their followers have clothed their conception of
Diety, or of their Deities, with certain attributes, and it is worthy of
note that in every instance, while as a rule the attributes with which a
people have invested Deity have marked the limitations in the develop-
ment of that race or of that people, their Deities have ever been clothed
with immortality and power. Ingersoll was accused of irreverence when
he inverted Pope, and declared that

"An honest God is the noblest work of man" ;

but the irreverence was only for those conceptions of God which pictured
him as cruel, jealous, vindictive, revengeful, savage and bloodthirsty;
who would and did command and commend wholesale butchery and
wholesale robbery. Neither shall I attempt even to imagine form or
habitation for this Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent One. I
will, however, venture this suggestion: Is it not conceivable that this
Infinite One who is the seat of all knowledge, the personification of all
wisdom, and the source of all power, is indeed that loving "Heavenly
Father" of whom Jesus taught? If so, his consciousness embraces every
atom of illimitable space, and not a tear can fall, not a sigh be breathed,
nor a thought take shape in the mind of man, that is not instantly known
to him, and no appeal for aid can possibly be unheard. While it is incon-
ceivable that a Being of such Infinite Wisdom will violate or abrogate
any law to grant the prayer of anyone, is it not conceivable that the
prayer of one worthy and deserving that can be answered without the
violation of any law may be heard and answered, not in violation of but
by and through those laws? However, this is aside from the main
inquiry. It is plain that in a general way we can and do know all that
is embraced in the universe. We also know that the universe is
governed by an Infinite, Conscious Intelligence, acting with Infinite
Power, and knowing these things we know that God is.

MAN

"What is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of
man, that thou visitest him?" Psalm 8. 4.

THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

When we turn to a study of man, do we not find the same things in
nature that we find in the universe at large? There could of course be
nothing more, but neither is there anything less, except in degree. We
find in physical man substance and energy, or matter and force, force
acting as life, the builder and maintainer. We find them acting together
as everywhere, in accordance with law, and we also find conscious intel-
ligence and power ; power as manifested in that we call Will. The matter
and the force in man do not differ from matter and force as we find
them elsewhere in nature. Nor does life as we find it in man differ from
life as we find it in other animals, or in that which builds a tree or paints
a flower. As everywhere, it is the building and sustaining or main-
taining force in nature. Two atoms of matter encounter each other, and
we have a germ. In some way life enters and we have a living germ
in which is a potential man. Two other atoms of matter encounter each
other, and we have another germ, and again life enters and we have
another living germ in which is a potential oak. How life enters is in
either case aside from our present inquiry. It is enough for our purpose
at this time, to know that it does enter, and that when it enters the germ
is complete. But of what it has become a living germ depends upon the
character of the impulse that has been given to the life force by a power
of which life is a mere servant.

It is, of course, obvious that civilized man of today has been
developed from man of a lower type intellectually, morally and physic-
ally. Indeed he is still developing, and we may today study many
phases in that process. Man, as we know him today, even among the
most brutalized and savage races, has taken many steps in an ascending
scale. This, however, is not only true of man, but of other forms of
organic nature. The records of the ages, written by nature herself, on
tablets of enduring stone, tell us of a constant unfolding and develop-
ment. From germ to cell, from protoplasm and protozoan to man, the
line of march has been unbroken. Nature has ever been reaching
upward, and as species and races have run their course and disappeared,
others higher in the scale have taken their places. Through all the
millenniums there appears no break. The so-called "missing link"
between the monkey and man does not break the chain. There is no
valid reason to suppose that there ever was such a link. It is incon-
ceivable to suppose that the Power that produced the original germ which
life wrought into a living creature, exhausted its power with the pro-
duction of a single germ. There were no doubt myriads of original
germs, each of which was the beginning of a line of descent, or rather
of ascent. The inference that all living organisms have developed from
a single primordial cell rests upon the assumption that the Power which
lies back of organic nature had spent its force with the production of that
single cell. All organic forms as we know them begin their existence
with a germ, and the initial effort of the life force which has been
emplanted in that germ results in the production, first, of a single cell,

GOD AND IMMORTALITY 59

but as cell after cell is added we discover that in each instance when life
enters a particular germ it comes charged with the duty of performing
a particular bit of work and of building a structure along predetermined
lines. An intelligent Something has furnished the plans of that
structure, and the work of life consists in obediently following those
plans. As each living thing has its beginning in a germ, and in an initial
cell, so doubtless each particular form of organic nature had as its pro-
genitor its own original germ. It has been remarked many times by
students of Evolution, that it did not furnish an explanation of the
beginnings of organic life, but only traced the lines of growth and
development after life had begun its work. Evolution accounts for
variation in species, and for improvement in forms, but it does not nor
can it explain the origin of entirely new forms. It can trace the develop-
ment of the horse from the Eohippus, or from still earlier forms, but it
cannot tell of the origin of the germ in which was embodied the original
Eohippus. Why search for a "missing link" between the oyster and the
monkey, or between the monkey and man ? It strikes me that the entire
philosophy which is based upon the assumption that in all the aeons
nature was able to produce but one solitary original germ of grotesquely
absurd. We know that such a germ was at one time produced. Grant
the power of nature to do this, and we grant the power of nature to pro-
duce still other germs, and from those other germs to produce forms that
differed as widely in their beginning as they differ today. It is far more
reasonable to believe that the original germ from which the monkey has
developed was only capable of producing the monkey, and that the
original germ from which man came could only result in the production
of man. As physical man today begins with a germ, and from the first
cell up can only grow into a human form, so the germ which marked the
genesis of man could grow into nothing but a human form.

Physical man is, as is obvious, a mere temporary mechanism, begin-
ning with a germ and built up by life, and certain, sooner or later, to be
broken up and thrown into nature's scrapheap. The human body is,
however, a wonderfully and delicately adjusted piece of mechanism, the
masterpiece of that master builder, life. The plan followed by that
builder, including the construction of the instrument, the correlation of
its several parts, their interdependence and their adaptation to the work
each part is to do as a part of the whole, shows that the architect, the
maker of that plan, had intelligence and design of the highest conceiv-
able order. Does not the manner of the construction of this mechanism,
and its adaptability for use as an instrument by an indwelling intelligence,
indicate a design on the part of the Supreme Intelligence that it should
be occupied and used by an intelligent entity? Is it not plain that it is
thus occupied and used? As we have seen, life is limited in the scope
of its operation, and can only act along predetermined lines. It builds,
but in building it can only follow the plans of the Architect. Having
built, its further functions relate only to the maintenance of the structure,

60 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

but as I have said, the instrument it has fashioned is plainly adapted to
use by an intelligent operator. What of that operator?

In the developed man, as in the universe at large, we find something
more than matter and force or life. As in the universe, and apparently
differing only in degree, we find also conscious intelligence, coupled
with power to control and direct force. Man thinks, reasons, formulates
plans, and has the power to act in the execution of his plans. He has
the power to develop and set in operation various forms or kinds of force,
and to make them do his bidding. He is of course limited in his action
by the laws which govern the universe, and can accomplish nothing in
violation of those laws. But this is also true of the Supreme and Over-
ruling Intelligence and Power from which the law emanates. If it is
true that the universe is governed by law, and that that law is enacted
by a Supreme and Infinite Intelligence, such a law emanating from such
a source is not only perfect but it also necessarily involves a self-imposed
limitation upon the intelligent source of the law. Otherwise it would
not be perfect. It can only be perfect if it provides for every possible
contingency, so that no change can ever become necessary.

But can any difference be shown, except in degree, between the
Intelligence and Power which rules the universe, and intelligence and
power as displayed by man? Man can himself set in operation the laws
that govern nature, and can generate, direct and control force. He can
mould matter into such forms as suit his convenience, his pleasure, or his
caprice. Having done that which according to the laws of nature would
lead to a certain result, he may do something else which will change the
result. Having set in operation a given form or mode of force for the
accomplishment of a certain purpose, he may not only suspend or termi-
nate its operation but he may consciously and intelligently substitute for
it a different form of force for the accomplishment of that same design,
or of a still different design. He even has power within the limits
imposed by nature's laws, to control, direct, or even to terminate the
action of life itself. Does not all this go far to vindicate the occult
saying that man is an epitome of the universe?

It may be asked that if it be conceded that mind in man is identical,
except in degree, with that Supreme and Intelligent Mind that lies back
of manifested nature, how does this tend to show that man is immortal
as a separate and an individual entity? Does it show anything more
than that mind in man is merely a manifestation of the universal Mind?
As science has shown us that all of the various forms of matter are
reducible to one primary or elementary form, and that all of the varying
modes in which force acts as merely differences in the mode in which
the one elementary force makes itself known, is it not reasonable to
conclude that mind in man is merely a mode in which universal mind
manifests itself? What reason is there for supposing that mind in the
individual man is an entity separate and apart from universal mind?
To this I answer, my effort is to show, if not the certainty, at least the

GOD AND IMMORTALITY 61

probability that the individual man is a separate and immortal entity,
and that it seems to me that nature plainly shows us how this may be.
There is ample analogy in nature to make plain to us how mind in man
may be at the same time a part of that universal mind, and also be in
each of us a separate and an individual entity. Such analogy may be
found in certain crystals. Take a large crystal of a certain kind, and
carefully note its facets and its angles. Subdivide this crystal along its
lines of cleavage, and continue such subdivision until we have reached
the smallest subdivision into which our instruments will enable us to
separate it, and we will find that each of such subdivisions is a perfect
crystal, with the same number of facets and the same angles as we found
in the large crystals. The large crystal was in itself a single, a complete,
and a perfect entity, but so also are each of the innumerable smaller
crystals into which it has been subdivided. If we could re-assemble the
small crystals and place them as they were, we would again have one
large and perfect crystal, but we would know that within it were all of
the smaller crystals and that each one of them was a separate and perfect
individual. In Genesis we read:

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created
he him." Genesis, Chap i, v. 27.

The Infinite God is One, perfect and complete. If man is made in
God's image, he is also one, a separate and a complete individual.
May he not also be at the same time a part of that Infinite One?

Let it be understood that my reference to the crystal is merely by
way of illustration and to demonstrate the possibility of the separate and
individual existence of man as an intelligent, conscious, and immortal,
but separate entity, coincidently with the oneness of conscious intelligence
throughout the universe. We find that man possesses in miniature that
immortal something which we found in the universe, and which we
recognize as the chief attribute of God. In man we find mind, we find
potential wisdom, and we find nascent power, and in finding them have
we not found the immortal soul of man ? We have found the tenant for
the house that life has built. We have found the real man. We have
found immortal man. Man not only made in the image of God, but
formed from the very essence of God.

ROBERT W. MCBRIDE.

WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHI
CAL SOCIETY

TO those who join the T. S. early in life, as has been my good
fortune, it may not be so easy to formulate in the mind a reason
for doing so, for our experience being but in the bud as far as
this life is concerned we have not had the opportunity to weigh
the pros and cons of existence which maturer years, in the natural course
of things, would furnish. So as I look back and trace the path which
led me to the T. S. I find myself saying first of all that it was because
I was impelled, was ready for such a step and all that it implied, that I
joined, which to another may not be any reason at all. Upon con-
sideration, however, it will no doubt be seen that such readiness must
have in it a combination of mental and spiritual growth in some degree ;
a heart to feel the necessity of a universal brotherhood among men, a
mind to comprehend something of the basis upon which it can be
established.

While in my earlier years circumstances, at times, associated me with
people of a theologically narrow and dogmatic type, their views did not
appeal to me and consequently such contact had not the effect of getting
me into a rut and keeping me back. After this came a period in which I
was left to do my own thinking uninfluenced, and from which freedom
I emerged none the worse. There was certainly an appeal to my sense
of honor to live a good, straightforward life, but beyond that nothing to
confine me in any way. Arriving, then, at a period when I more
definitely approached the problems of life, I was enabled to do so with
a practically free and unbiased mind.

I consider I received no little help from a study of some of the poets.
I may only have perceived their beauty or significance in a very small
degree, but yet I feel that the religious aspect, the high ideals which they
put forward, contributed largely in preparing the way for further enlight-
enment. Of these poets Tennyson was certainly the most helpful, and
as I call to mind some of the verses that particularly struck me, it is
wonderful to see how much they contain. While, of course, all these
cannot be given, perhaps the following may be of interest:

"Self -reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power.
Yet not for power (power of herself
Would come uncalled for) but to live by law,
Acting the law we live by without fear;

WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 63

And because right is right, to follow right
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.

Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell ;
That mind and soul, according well
May make one music as before
But vaster.

Thou seemest human divine,
The highest, holiest manhood thou:
Our wills are ours, we know not how ;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine."

Though the orthodox Christian idea of Deity did not appeal to me,
the impersonal idea was but very vague and indefinite. Beginning to
attend, at this time, a Unitarian Church, where a larger degree of
religious freedom seemed to prevail, my mind mainly dwelt upon works
as being the most important feature the idea that by the life we lived
should we be judged. Continuing in this fluidic state I made the acquaint-
ance, at this church, of one who was a student of Theosophy and who
lent me some books on the subject. These I read with deep interest for
I felt the scheme of life which they presented was the very thing I
had been wanting. What impressed me mainly, as far as I remember,
were the teachings of Reincarnation and Karma. I always had a
feeling of how right and just it must be for a man to reap that which
he has sown. And when I read how this law of cause and effect
operated, it opened up quite a new pathway. The progress and salvation
which it offered was the most encouraging thing I had ever heard of,
and so I had not the slightest difficulty or hesitation in accepting it.
Along with this teaching of Reincarnation was of course the fuller and
more complete explanation of the constitution of man which gave con-
siderable light to St. Paul's triune man of body, soul and spirit,
where before there was none. Coming to a knowledge of Theosophy
brought in its train some knowledge of the T. S. and its work, so at this
point I think what other reasons I had for joining may fittingly be
given.

The principal aim and object of the Society: "to form the nucleus
of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity without distinction of race,
creed, sex, caste or colour," was what strongly appealed to me. I felt
it my duty to ally myself with such a force for good. At times when I
have heard other nations and races unkindly or unfairly spoken of,
I have wondered at such people, for most of them would admit that
God created all men, that it was only their fortune being born in a
certain nation, and if such was more intelligent, more evolved, surely
it was more responsible.

64 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

The principal aim and object of the Society so strongly appealed to
me because of the light which Theosophy shed upon the nature of
man. The basis of Brotherhood was removed to a deeper source alto-
gether and seen from this vantage ground the "call to arms" was made
much more imperative and clear; the cry was not "Am I my brother's
keeper?" but "I am my brother's keeper." Referring to the constitution
of the Society and the procedure of its meetings it is perhaps needless to
say how much I felt in sympathy with them. I recognized the neces-
sity, the value, of a body or organization to which could not be attached
any view or belief. In this way it provided an open door for all who
had the real welfare of humanity at heart. Just as no member can
commit the Society to any belief, another wise provision is the basis
upon which discussion may take place. A member or friend may freely
express his belief on any given subject but he may not force such upon
others. What of course also greatly appealed to me was the oppor-
tunity the meetings afforded for each one to take part. Self-expression
seemed to me an important factor and where one could show an appre-
ciation of another's ideal or give even a different view in a kindly
spirit, what more could one desire as a means of harmony and enlighten-
ment.

These, then, were my reasons for joining and which I still regard
now as having the same value. Certainly I have more fully awakened
to the trend, the keynote of the Society, as time has gone on, and on its
importance I consider too much stress cannot be laid. It is a thing
which is attached and at the same time unattached to the Society: it
is attached in that it exists amongst the members and that its influence
pervades the meetings as of course other places ; it is unattached in
that it is not to be found in the constitution or in any official document.
From this it will be evident that it is a question of perception, of our
becoming cognizant of it. But this perception is also a question of
growth. According to the life we have lived has our pathway been
illumined. So by effort our Ideal has widened and deepened. This,
then, is an Ideal the Ideal of Discipleship a thing which is not by any
means fascinating or attractive to everyone, but which is infinitely worth
all the striving it requires to make it the Real. It seems to me that this
hall-mark of spiritual force will render the Society a greater power for
good than can be conceived, it may not bring a large increase of mem-
bership, but it certainly will draw those who are preparing for such a
life, and those whose sympathies tend in that direction. Though the
latter may not be prepared for the more direct, positive efforts towards
Discipleship, yet they can appreciate the atmosphere such an Ideal can
create.

EDWARD LEWIS.

It is many years since I joined this dearly loved Society, and if
one has known it long, the thought of it becomes so much a part of

WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 65

one's life that it is very difficult to disassociate oneself enough to think
or explain why one joined.

It is much like telling why one was born. In that case, one came
into this outer world to learn through the conditions of external life.
Many of us believe, I think, that the purpose of Creation is for the
evolution of Consciousness in, and through, all the planes of matter,
consciousness gradually growing finer and more spiritual and matter
more rarified.

I was fortunate in being born into a family which believed in the
reality and primal importance of the spiritual part of man's nature, and
the necessity of occupying our minds and hearts with the highest and
best of which we know, in order that it may increase and multiply within
and around us.

Born in such surroundings, associations and reading naturally gravi-
tated in due time to the centre of its vital expression, as embodied in
the Theosophical Society. In the lives of the leaders there was inspira-
tion to an understanding pursuit of the spiritual life, and in the teachings
there was an explanation of the laws of the spiritual life, which accentu-
ated the continuity of life and made all life just and fair.

They taught that we cannot throw off our individual responsibility,
but that the spiritual law brings to us only what we justly deserve, and
deals impartially with all. If we wish different results, we can beget
causes which will bring them, and we can complain of no one but
ourselves. Not finding fault with God or man saves a great amount of
time and makes life infinitely easier. In my experience, the teachings
of this dear Society are invaluable, in enabling one to live the Christian
life in its more interior sense, through the explanation of the laws which
Christ taught, but which so few comprehend.

It is vastly easier to do what one understands, and to follow a
continuous thread, continuous as found in all the ages, and nations,
and religions.

"Life behind its accidents" becomes the real thing to us, and harmony
gradually evolves in our thoughts and lives, where before was chaos.

Is not this enough to hold one to the Theosophical Society? Could
one do otherwise than join, or remain, in an organization that gives
a scientific, as well as spiritual, explanation of the laws of life? Could
one do otherwise than wish to unite his life with those who believe,
teach, and constantly endeavor to live such vital truths ? Having received
so much, gratitude alone would make one wish to do his utmost to help
the work of the Society. And in addition, one reveres and loves the
Masters, who founded, and the devoted souls, who, for so many years,
have carried on this work for humanity. Great is the honor if one is
permitted to serve in any way.

JANE SLOCUM.

ON THE SCREEN OF TIME

THE following words were inscribed on a banner carried on
Labor Day, up Fifth Avenue in New York, by some union of
Jewish workmen:

"We have nothing to lose but our chains, and to gain the
whole world!"

What they meant by those words was that if they could work for
shorter hours, or not at all ; if they could be paid higher wages, or could
receive all the money they might desire, they would be freed thereby
from their chains, and would gain the whole world. Poor fools! So
splendid an inscription; such hopeless misunderstanding! Are rich men
free? Have rich men gained the world, or any part of it? Ask them.
No need even to carry the question to the plane of ethics or of inner
development. Take such universal concomitants of happiness as health
and love and a contented heart. Can money buy these things? What
does the Jewish workman do with his spare minutes? What better use
would he make of his spare days or years?

The chains we wear are the chains of our sins; or, to put it differ-
ently, our chains have been forged by ourselves, part of our Karmic in-
heritance, the crop which we sowed and perforce must reap, seeing that
rigid justice rules the world. By right acceptance those chains can be
worn out by right use of circumstances, by right perception of our
own weaknesses and the conquest of them, by right aspiration and right
effort. Not otherwise. We can gild the chains Christian Science will
do that for us ; but to do that adds, in the end, to their weight and also
makes them more lasting. No ! there is only one way to gain the whole
world, and that is to say : "I am tied and bound by the chain of my sins ;
may the Great Compassion help to deliver me from them ! What have I
done to create them? What is there in myself at this moment of sloth,
of lust, of self-love, of self-will, of pride, vanity, envy, hatred, malice
which would account for their perpetuation? How can I transform my
weakness into strength, my sin into virtue, my hatred into love, my self-
will into obedience, my vanity into humility and so into self-respect?
There is, truly, the kingdom of heaven itself which includes the whole
world to be gained by my self-conquest, by my spiritual regeneration;
how can I get desire enough and strength enough to accomplish so great
a task? Is there no spiritual power to aid me? Where can I begin
where, in this moment, can I begin?" Then, with all of heaven back of
you, begin! Are you untidy? Make yourself tidy. Are you restless?
Make yourself an example of repose. Are you a glutton? For love's
sake always for love's sake conquer that. Are you a liar? Make
yourself speak the truth. Are you depressed and therefore depressing

. 66

ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 67

to others? Remember that "the soul of sadness is self-love." Conquer
that. Make yourself smile when you feel least like it. Do violence to
yourself, against yourself, in those simple ways. Thus is the kingdom
taken. Undo your chains. To gain, there is the whole world: eternal
life and immortal consciousness and everlasting peace.

Perhaps this will help you. It is a quotation from a letter written
by St. Bernard to Guigues the Prior, and to the other monks of the
Grand Chartreuse, in about the year 1125. (Human nature does not
change any more than the solution of our problem.)

"For this is the property of that eternal and just law of God, that
he who would not be ruled with gentleness by God, should be ruled as
a punishment by his own self ; and that all those who have willingly
thrown off the gentle yoke and light burden of charity should bear
unwillingly the intolerable burden of their own will."

But people desire a short cut. There is no short cut. The entire
road must be travelled. True, it can be covered in minutes or in months,
in years or in many lifetimes, depending upon the intensity of desire,
upon the understanding of the task, upon the unselfishness of the
motive. But there is no escape from hell except by the turning of heart
and will, by the complete reversal of our lower inclinations, and then
by the ascent of the terraces of Purgatory.

Yet because people desire a short cut, which in most cases does not
mean that they desire to do quickly that which they see should be done,
but only that they desire to escape from the unpleasant consequences of
their sins without any turning from evil or from self, there is a spirit
of discontent abroad, which is the same as that which preceded the
horrors of the French Revolution. It is an evil spirit. Discontent always
is evil, unless directed against our own inner condition, against our own
folly and blindness. But that sort of discontent is not prevalent. On
the contrary, the prevalent spirit is directed against those who seem to
be better off than we are ; against outer conditions ; against governments
and particularly against government. It is destructive; it is self-as-
sertive. It talks of freedom, but it means licence, and whenever it finds
an opportunity, in word or in deed, it expresses itself licentiously, an-
archically, viciously.

If this spirit be not either checked or transformed, it will have to be
brought to a head. The Wisdom back of things will see to that. The
French Revolution illustrates the law. Upheaval, more or less prolonged,
is followed by reaction. The upshot of it is likely to be, in this country,
an unenlightened despotism, and men blown from the muzzles of guns
for outrages too horrible to contemplate. Let us, in any case, do what
we can to live in such real obedience to law, both human and divine,
that our words of warning may in time arouse this nation to a sense of
its own danger and so perhaps avert the crisis which otherwise must
come.

********

68 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Much of the responsibility for this spirit of anarchy, which per-
meates all classes, though manifesting differently in each, rests with
modern methods of education. To describe them as principles of educa-
tion would be a misnomer. Undisciplined people cannot see the need
for discipline. Their chief aim in life being to have "a good time" in
any way that happens to suit their mood or inclination, with but little
if any regard for principles of right and wrong, it is but natural that
they should evolve a theory of life that fits their own practice. The
result is that the philosophy ( ?) of "self-expression" is used to justify
its progenitors and also to serve as basis for the education of their most
unfortunate human offspring. Froebel is travestied, and his reputation,
which rightly is great, is used to bolster methods which differ essentially
from his own. He taught that there is a higher self and a lower self,
and that the purpose of education is to bring the lower self into obedience
to the higher. In other words, the lower self the body, the mind, the
emotions must be made into an obedient instrument through which the
higher self can find unimpeded expression on this plane. Everything
unruly, or cramped; everything running counter to the divine will;
everything which is mean or low or selfish or self-indulgent, must be
conquered, that the higher self may use the lower as the violinist uses
his violin, or as the artist uses canvas and paint to externalize his vision
of truth and beauty. It is the duty of the educator to work with the
higher, and of parents to represent and to act on behalf of the higher
until the personality has become sufficiently self-conscious and also suf-
ficiently obedient to place itself voluntarily under control.

Foreign indeed to modern methods and to modern understanding!
For there is no recognition of the higher, and "self-expression" is inter-
preted to mean that the "natural bent" of the child should be encour-
aged, and that, except at the cost of inconvenience to the parents, the
self-will of the child should be indulged. No task should be imposed
which is not agreeable, and a task which involves anything resembling
hard work should be turned into play by adventitious aids. Think of a
man brought up, as a child, in that way! Duty will be meaningless.
Whether in business or in his home, he will regard everything which
conflicts with his personal inclination as an unwarrantable imposition.
He will have no love of work for its own sake; no desire to perform
his task perfectly just because it is his task ; no ability to infuse his task
with the spirit of consecration, with the joy of self-sacrifice; no will
with which to force himself, against the grain of his mood, to perform
his duty cheerfully, effectively, fruitfully. Until Fate has hammered
his education out of him, he is doomed to live a life of lazy, querulous
discontent, and, unless Fate finally succeeds, he will become in fact if
not in name an anarchist. This means an individual whose aim it is to
do what he pleases with impunity, and to ignore or to abolish all authority
over him, other than that which it pleases him to describe as his con-

ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 69

science, but which, in his case, is the voice of his absolutely conscience-
less desire.

The theory of "self-expression" has curious corollaries. One is
that a child should never be given orders without full explanation of
their purpose: all the reasons must be given, so that the child may
understand. The cruelty as well as the folly of such procedure is well
stated by Chesterton whose sense of humor, if he possessed no other
faculty, would be sufficient to save him from most of these modern
lunacies. Quite recently he wrote : "In dealing with childhood, we have
a right to command it because we should kill the childhood if we con-
vinced it."

But think also of the practical result of such training. A child
should be given reasons some people say before it obeys; others, less
fantastic, say that reasons should in any case be given immediately after
the child has conceded obedience. The supposed principle is that the
child must understand.

Follow the child into manhood. There will be no trouble so long
as there be no serious temptation. All may go well for years. Finally,
however, there comes a real temptation to steal. We must suppose that
the theft, if committed, will not be crude or glaring. It may be a ques-
tion involving the temporary use of trust funds, to save a business which
is regarded as fundamentally sound. The man who has been trained,
not to obey rules whether with or without understanding, but only be-
cause he understands; who, in other words, has been taught to use his
understanding as the ultimate test of right and wrong, is certain, in the
circumstances I have imagined, to do the wrong thing. Probably he
will land in jail. The mind, when the desire is really tempted, will
always find reasons, and excellent reasons, justifying the gratification of
that desire. The mind is not intended to decide ; is incapable, even, of
understanding, which is a separate and superior faculty. No man is
trustworthy who is not drilled to obey the moral law on sight, regardless
of reason and if necessary in the very face of what, in that moment, he
may regard as common sense. He must be prepared to go without
understanding for ten years or for ten life-times. It is his duty to obey.
The understanding will come in time, but the gods alone know when.

This does not mean, of course, that the moral law which is only
another way of saying the law of the spiritual and real world ever
conflicts with reason or with common sense. That which is right in-
variably is wise. If we knew all the facts, not only on this plane but on
inner planes, we should be able, doubtless, always to understand. But
when we use our reason to decide, it means, in most cases, that con-
sciously or unconsciously, we are looking for excuses to do the thing that
we want to do, or that we have failed to recognize and to act upon the
golden flash of intuition which, the moment a moral question is pre-
sented, almost invariably illumines the heart and so gives opportunity for
right decision.

70 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Children should be taught to obey their parents and their teachers,
instantly and unquestioningly. Explanation should come later in some
cases, but not in all, and never as the child's right.

On the other hand, while even mechanical obedience is better than
none, the spirit of obedience can never be acquired by children if their
parents and teachers give orders capriciously and as the expression of
their own self-will. We ourselves must be obedient if we would evoke
true obedience in others. The orders we give must be those which we
have received. Parents ought to represent deity and should be obeyed
as deity should be obeyed. But they must strive to transmit and express
the divine will in small as in great: the will of the highest they recog-
nize, which is the will, in fact, of the child's own immortal spirit. For
the universe is a hierarchy, and the soul of every atom as of every man
and every planet looks upward to its Master, and can rightly command
only as it rightly obeys.

There is not enough of the military spirit in the religious life of to-
day. The Salvation Army is not an exception, even on that level,
because the spirit of "the Army" is the volunteer spirit and not that of
the regulars. We may take West Point, in this country, as the best
expression of the military ideal. Discipline is not merely enforced: it is
recognized as desirable as essential to a successful career. That is to
say, the subject accepts it as beneficial, as helpful. He conies to see
that the inability to go cheerfully without things is a weakness to be
conquered; that he must learn to miss a meal or two without loss of
temper, nerve or strength; that dependence upon any kind of creature
comfort is a disgrace ; that he must obey promptly, conscientiously,
effectively, and that he owes this to himself, to his own self-respect,
apart even from the effect on his power to command. It is learned that
to be alert and vigorous in battle, a man must keep himself in proper
condition during times of peace : in obedience to his ideal, he must main-
tain himself constantly on a war-footing. He will need recreation, but
he will take that in ways which will assist and not hinder his main
purpose. If he takes his profession seriously and we must suppose
that he does to waste a moment will be a crime. Every faculty he
possesses must be concentrated on the attainment of his goal, which is,
to turn himself into a perfect soldier.

And we, so many of whom have pledged ourselves to a life of
service, do we carry a similar spirit into the performance of our daily
tasks? Do we keep before us our life's aim? Do we drill, discipline our-
selves? There is a chair which exactly suits your taste. You love to
lean back and take it easy. What is more, you dislike exceedingly to
rise from that chair when once comfortably planted in it. Do you know
what you ought to do, instead of pampering yourself with its enjoyment?
You ought, without attracting the notice of others, to select a stiff, up-

ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 71

right chair, with a hard seat, and deny yourself, do violence to yourself,
by using it until you prefer it to the other. Then go back to the other as
a penance for your vanity because you will be pleased with yourself
for so much unaccustomed virtue.

To those who have not tried it, or who have tried it half-heartedly,
such a practice will seem repellant and unprofitable. Those who do such
things whole-heartedly will find that strength and gladness are their
immediate reward. They will find themselves not only stimulated but
braced. Nothing in fact is done properly until it is done with gladness
in the doing and with gladness as a result. It is the half -doing of things
which accounts for most of our fatigue, depression, and sense of failure.
The lukewarm always have been anathema "shadows not yet ascended
into Hell." But they curse themselves far more effectually than they
have ever been cursed, for they distil misery from air which, breathed
deeply, is alive with the spring-time of eternity, and, by flabbiness of
foothold, find the broad walks of Paradise, treacherous and unreal.

Are we lukewarm? Are you? Often I ask myself, Am I? And in
some respect or other, every one of us is. In that particular direction
we are both unsuccessful and unhappy. The remedy lies in right
identification, and in the clearer recognition of our real aims. We are
not these lazy personalities, these indifferent minds, these blase emotions :
we are, on the contrary, souls who see and know, who love and who
desire, and whose life-purpose it is to bring our personalities into
harmonious relations with the world of truth and fact.

It is not, however, in the way of self-discipline only that the military
spirit is needed. The religious life is full of romance, of adventure.
It demands daring, reckless dash, fierce onslaught, as well as endurance
and grim determination. It demands strategy and foresight, bold imagin-
ation and the most careful attention to detail. I am not speaking now of
external work ; of great missionary enterprises or of organized "fishing"
for souls. I am speaking of the inner life; of self-conquest on the one
hand, and of self-realization on the other. To gain, there is the whole
world. But the world can be gained only by the discovery that we are
already in possession of it, and any such discovery must remain impos-
sible until, from the vantage ground of the real, we look down and see
the world as in the hollow of our hand. Differently expressed, we have
to fight our way through the thick veils which cover our hearts and
therefore our vision veils of our own weaving and so, without change
of place or circumstance, learn that the kingdom of heaven is here,
not there; that we are in it and of it; that the world we have thought
to be real is no more than a mist which our own distorted mind-sight
has projected; that the things and persons we have imagined as spiritual,
are spiritual, but that this means, in fact, more tense and powerful,
more solid and substantial, than the material bodies and forces which
imperfect vision has failed to penetrate, but which, seen from above,

72 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

are like lines on a flat surface significant of reality, suggestive and
perhaps beautifully suggestive of still greater beauties known to us.

Such splendid things are done for King and country! Need there
be so few to follow the blood-red banner of a King Immortal? Life is
spent like water in that warfare; life is given but life is gained a thou-
sand-fold in this. Where are those generous hearts which, ready to die,
will live and labor for a great ideal; careless of reward, will find it in
the triumph of their Leader? Is chivalry dead, or are there not still
many who will answer the call of need with a leap to the sword of
Obedience? Have we not ears? Are we deaf to the clarion blast of
the Warrior, battle-stained but joyous, looking to us to follow as he
hurls himself again and yet again upon the enemies of heaven? Men,
men, where are men ? It is not saints that are needed. No man thinking
himself good could be of any use at all. But men who can catch fire;
men who can forget themselves in an enthusiasm of hope quenchless,
flaming passion of hope; men who will be tortured but who will not
betray; men who are fearless, men who are valorous, men indomitable,
men who are men ! Above all, perhaps, the man who says "I am none
of that, but I wish to be. I am unfit and unworthy and I know it. I
am neither brave nor good. But to serve so great a Leader in his need
to be made fit to serve him I will give my life and my all."

There was a toast once drunk in England : "That the king may come
into his own !" It was a cause worth fighting for, but nothing in com-
parison with this. And if the appeal seem vague; if there be doubt as
to what to do, what step next to take find out : a man of will would, a
man of will can. There is so common-place a means as the mail ! But in
this case as always, "ask and ye shall receive ; knock and it shall be
opened unto you." Souls honored by the world as its heroes, just and
perfect spirits of the past, look down and envy us our opportunity.

" We make little actions great by performing them with a great
desire to please God; the merit of our services consisting, not in excel-
lency of the works, but in the love which accompanies them."

ST. FRANCIS OF SALES.

ELEMENTARY

WE CREATE OUR LIMITATIONS.
III.

TO pick up the thread of our theme:
The purpose of Life is conscious reunion with God. This
is the ultimate destiny of every soul. There are barriers in the
way, which we ourselves created in the past by breaking Divine
Law, and especially by the exercise of self-will, as opposed to Divine
Will. We were given free will because it was necessary to enable us to
become self-conscious. In the process of becoming self-conscious
through the exercise of free will, we broke many of the laws of God.
This made barriers ; clouded our vision ; gave rise to ignorance ; created
limitations. Then pain arose, to play its beneficent part; pain being the
whip used by Life to drive us back upon the Path, the friction caused
by the rubbing of our wills against the Divine Will. We cause our own
suffering, for we created the ignorance and limitations which produce
suffering. But owing to Divine Compassion, this suffering burns away
the limitations, gives rise to understanding, and as we understand, and
act upon our understanding, pain ceases and we find joy.

In the previous sections we described the Purpose of Life, the
Meaning of Pain, and the fact that we cause our own suffering ; suffering,
which arises from ignorance, the ignorance being due to our limitations.
We now want to show that we cause our own limitations, that each one
of us is solely responsible for the barriers which separate him from God.

It is not easy to see this because we seem to be hampered in so many
ways by other people, by circumstances, by conditions over which we
have no control and for the creation of which we are not responsible.

The fallacy is in thinking that the circumstances and conditions for
which we are not responsible, really do hamper and thwart our evolution,
our inner growth. They do not. They only seem to us to do so, because
they limit the freedom of our free will. Indeed the exact opposite is
the fact. Instead of these circumstances and conditions being obstacles
to our growth, they provide us with the very means we need in order to
go forward. They are rungs up the ladder which leads to Heaven. No,
the real barriers are never in circumstances, but are in ourselves, in our
minds, our hearts, our wills; and these are all self-created. If we have
a bad temper, it is because we did not exercise self-control in the past;

74 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

if we are gluttons, it is because we indulged our love of food; if we
are sensual, it is because of previous lack of self-restraint; if we lack
perception, it is because we dulled our faculties by abuse of some kind.
Therefore, whether our barrier is the presence of a fault, or the absence
of a virtue, and we all have barriers of both these kinds, it is directly
traceable to repeated infraction of some spiritual law. It can, therefore,
be laid down as an invariable rule that each human being could see and
walk with God if it were not for his limitations, and that without
exception, these limitations are self-created. I know of only one
exception. It is possible voluntarily to accept limitations which will
temporarily make inner communion impossible. Jesus did this as the
culmination of His sacrifice. He gave up everything, even His conscious-
ness of the Father. There was a period during the crucifixion when His
power was gone, and He had to depend solely upon the integrity and
strength of His moral nature for victory over the powers of evil. His
was a tremendous responsibility, for if there had been a single flaw in His
armor of righteousness, the dark powers would have won. This explains
something of the agony of the Passion, and of that mysterious cry from
the Cross, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Similarly it is said that in order to be properly equipped for some
special piece of work in the world, disciples will voluntarily surrender
much of their power and consciousness and will accept whatever limita-
tions are a necessary part of the task they have to perform. St. Francis
of Assisi's fervent devotion to Lady Poverty, and his tender and gentle
sympathy for all forms of suffering, would ill equip him to act as
Emperor of Germany if the Master should need him to incarnate for
such a purpose. He would keep his splendid courage, his tenacity of
purpose, his will, his devotion to duty and many other qualities and
powers, for they would be appropriate and useful, but surely veils would
be drawn over other qualities and powers which would make his mission
incongruous, if not impossible.

Similiarly, if the Master wants to found a religious Order, which
will combine the fervor and devotion of the monk with the courage and
spirit of the soldier, a different combination of qualities is called for.
There should be more interior illumination than would be needed for a
purely secular ruler, but there should not be so great a horror of suffering
as to prevent the vigorous prosecution of a campaign.

There is, of course, a stage of development when all qualities and
powers are so well controlled and can be exercised at will in such an
impersonal manner that any necessary work will be done without
hindrance from one's nature. The messengers of God destroyed Sodom
and Gomorrah by fire, as part of one day's work. The afternoon of that
same day may well have been spent in inspiring a poet to write a great
poem, or in increasing the fervor of a convent of nuns. The full disciple
must be ready to do any task, great or small, at the bidding of his master.

There are, however, natural aptitudes and qualifications among all

WE CREATE OUR LIMITATIONS 75

grades of disciples, and we may be quite sure that these are taken fully
into account and that we shall be assigned the kind of work we love to do
and for which we are best qualified. Only we must not let self-will enter
here. The Master knows our real powers much better than we do, and
we must accept cheerfully his assignment of duty with the serene con-
fidence that, however it may appear to us who see only the surface, it
is in fact not only what we are best fitted for, but also what will make us
happiest and most satisfied.

OUTER LIMITATIONS NEVER BARRIERS

We cannot repeat or emphasize too often the twin statements, first,
that we create our own barriers, and, second, that the limitations and
circumstances existing outside ourselves never are barriers. It is neces-
sary to elaborate this latter doctrine, for it is one of the fundamental
facts of the spiritual world, and is also one of the failures to appreciate
which causes infinite distress and delay, especially with beginners.

Many students of the art of living are willing to accept this state-
ment as a theory. They give it mental assent when it is considered in
cold blood; but a moment afterwards let something unpleasant happen,
and they deny it in action. Even the advanced disciple has not fully
conquered this inevitable tendency of the human mind to blame circum-
stances for lack of success, to resent what we call misfortune, to be
impatient at delay, to be irritated over events, to pity himself when in
pain, to be discouraged by failure. Indeed, so long as we have any
"lower" nature left, we shall continue to react from the events of life and
the conditions of our environment in some such ways. One important
test of progress is our freedom from these reactions. We can ask our-
selves if we are free from self-pity, from resentment against Fate or
other individuals, from impatience, irritation, discouragement. Only the
Master of Life can say, Yes ! The disciple, even the saint, must answer,
"I have made progress in these directions, but there are still moments
when I forget that outer events are never limitations; that everything
that happens is absolutely for the best, in this best of all possible worlds."
As this is so important a subject, we must get at it in every way we
can. Our Master, with a wisdom which seems to us miraculous, looks
us over, and weighing and balancing all the forces of our nature, moulds
and guides events to produce situations calling for the display of those
qualities we lack and must develop, or which stimulate those faults we
must learn to conquer, the evil in us often must be brought to the
surface before it can be recognized and cured. What is our frequent
response ? An immediate resentment, a feeling that we are being hardly
used, that too much is being put upon us, that Fate is unkind, that we are
having a much harder time than others, that if He wants to to do a certain
work He must provide conditions which will make it possible and free
us from those circumstances which thwart all our best efforts. Cannot
we imagine the tender pity and compassionate forgiveness with which He

76 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

watches our reaction ; but cannot we also imagine the little tug at His
heart with which He views the reception we give to His effort to help
us? For remember that He is human as well as Divine, and we know
from our own experience how hurt and pained we are when our effort to
help another is misunderstood, is rejected, and is resented. It is dreadful
to contemplate the endless suffering we must cause our Master by our
stupidity and our failures in this respect It must form a large part of
the Cross which we force Him to bear.

It is a question of the mind; another case where the "Mind is the
great Slayer of the Real," so our problem is to weave into the very fabric
of our being an ever growing realization of the fact that outside events
cannot be barriers, but are always helps. We must never drop from our
consideration any given event until we see the truth so far as it is con-
cerned. It is here that prayer and meditation will help us, for by means
of prayer and meditation we rise above the lower mind and its limited
and prejudiced vision, and can see things as they really are, from the
standpoint of the spiritual world. We should make a practice, at our
time of self-examination, of reviewing the events of every day, and of
noting how wrongly we reacted in such and such an event because
instinctively we regarded it as a barrier, or limitation, or misfortune, and
not as a Heaven-sent opportunity for our advancement. If we fail to
see how that particular event was an opportunity, and not a hindrance,
then we should pray and meditate about it until it becomes clear. Often
a spiritual director is a most valuable aid, for he can see the matter dis-
passionately as we cannot; so if after honest effort we cannot discover
the solution for ourselves, then we should consult our advisor. We must
learn that there are no exceptions to the rule, that the universe is made
that way, and that our failure to understand is only a failure to under-
stand, and does not mean that in our special case the universe is running
backward.

It is a hard lesson to learn, but it can be done, and it must be done ;
for progress, even from the very beginning of the way, is hampered by
failure to realize it, and becomes impossible after a certain point. Sooner
or later our destiny will hang upon this single issue.

Another and very important phase of the subject must not be over-
looked, and that is the immense amount of suffering this point of view
will save. If you consider carefully the cause of a very large part of
human pain, you will find it is not caused by hunger or disease, or injury
or any direct physical means, but by our kicks against the pricks of Fate,
by our revolt against the conditions of our lives. Probably more than
half of human misery is self-created in this way, and would disappear
entirely with a serene acceptance of the decrees of Fate.

C. A. G.

The Problem of Christianity, by Josiah Royce, published in two volumes,
being the Hibbert Lectures delivered in 1913. The first of these (subtitled The
Christian Doctrine of Life}, is untechnical, and can be read with pleasure and
fully appreciated by any thoughtful reader untrained in philosophical subtleties :
the second {The Real World and the Christian Ideas) is avowedly an examination
of the conclusions empirically reached in the first volume, by modern meta-
physical idealism, and, we may add, by the technical method peculiar to Professor
Royce himself. From the point of view of one who is seeking in modern develop-
ments the reawakening to the spiritual world, this very sincere effort of a leading
philosopher to approach a strictly religious problem is sufficiently significant in
itself, however far short of satisfaction his conclusions may be. Professor Royce
writes that he has "approached this study, not as an historian, nor as a theologian,
but as a philosopher," and therefore as such only can he be criticised with
fairness. This emphasis which he lays on his work, however, makes what he
has done another noteworthy indication of the trend towards religion and religious
things. For a "pure" philosopher, and only that, to have responded so far to
the outer stimulus of the world's attitude as to turn consciously and deliberately
to a study of the Christian religion, not merely for personal satisfaction, but
through a recognition of the universality of its principles and ideals, is a totally
new step, and one representing a very different attitude from that formerly
maintained by the philosophers, even those who discussed religion at all. No
longer antagonized by crude dogmas and narrow institutions, philosophy seems
to be waking to an appreciation of what the great truths of Christianity compre-
hend, and is starting forth to find interpretations of them in her own terms.
Professor Royce holds in this respect, however, a different position from Bergson
and Eucken ; for while these, each in his own way, are pioneers of our generation,
Professor Royce represents a traditional philosophical school, and has long been
identified with a particular technical system. If, then, we find that the leaven
of today will accomplish a reinvigoration and inspiriting of the old systems,
or, in other words, that the new spirit will use out-worn tools for its own
higher ends, does not this contribution of Professor Royce assume a special and
richer meaning, and give us one more confirmation of the transforming and
regenerative power of spiritual forces?

Professor Royce traces in outline the growth of his own convictions since
the publication of his earlier works, and says that he has reached his present
conclusions through developments of his "philosophy of loyalty," first appearing
in 1908. "My efforts to grasp and expound the religion of loyalty have at length
led me, in this book, to views concerning the essence of Christianity such that,
if they have any truth, they need to be carefully considered." Those familiar
with this Philosophy of Loyalty will welcome its application to Christianity; if
only because the spiritual truth, of which this is an "idealistic" expression, is at
one with the very heart of what the Master stood for and represented. "Loyalty,
as I have elsewhere defined it." says Professor Royce, "is the willing and thorough-

78 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

going devotion of a self to a cause, when the cause is something that unites
many selves in one, and which is therefore the interest of the community." This
community becomes for the Christian what Professor Royce calls "the Beloved
Community," which in essence is a restricted interpretation of the Kingdom of
Heaven as taught by Christ, or, more specifically, of St. Paul's commentary on
it in his doctrines of the Church. The practical realization of this Beloved
Community, and loyalty to it, is actually and historically the central Christian
doctrine. Thus "Christian love, as Paul conceives it, takes on the form of loyalty
(to the Church or Beloved Community) : this is Paul's simple but vast transforma-
tion of Christian love." We have no intention of attempting to criticise either
the construction of Professor Royce's theory or of his individual opinions;
he is entitled to them, and to respect for his fearless utterance of them our
criticism must necessarily be directed against his whole position and approach
to such a subject; for the rest, our purpose is to present briefly his views, and
to examine such as we believe to be most significant.

Basing all his subsequent theories, then, on a belief in the existence of this
Beloved Community, and holding up before its members the ideal of a complete
and perfect loyalty to this Community, Professor Royce proceeds to state clearly
his problem, and to seek for its answer first in the world of life about him, and
secondly in the framing of a metaphysical system, in harmony, as far as he can
see, with the facts, and also conforming with the philosophical idealism of which
he has for so long been the expounder. "When we consider what are the most
essential features of Christianity, is the acceptance of a creed that embodies these
features consistent with the lessons that, so far as we can yet learn, the growth
of human wisdom and the course of the ages have taught man regarding
religious truth?" To throw light on this, three characteristic Christian ideas are
analyzed and reinterpreted ; salvation, original sin, and atonement. The whole
trend of his argument is to show that true loyalty requires no creed, but can use
any; that "the name of Christ has always been, for the Christian believers, the
symbol for the Spirit in whom the faithful that is to say the loyal always are
and have been one" ; that "the Christology of the future cannot permanently
contain the traditional forms which have heretofore dominated the history both
of dogma, and of the visible Christian Church." Such an appeal to the spirit
of Christ rather than to the standards of the various churches, coming as it does
from outside the official ranks of any church, should act as a challenge to all
of them ; and we note with interest that several pastors and clergymen are
speaking and writing in praise of just this point.

In his treatment of the above-mentioned topics, Professor Royce has shown
both originality and vision. Salvation, he says, is possible through union with
this spiritual community ; the purpose of the members of which community being
the means whereby the self-will and egotism of us all, which are the product of
our social life and daily conflict with our fellows, are raised and transmuted to
a higher, purer, loving, common will, united in the one great aim and will of the
community. Original sin, and the one hopeless and irretrievable sin, is deliberate
disloyalty. A conscious, self-accusing traitor can never feel that he may by any
possible future acts obliterate the fact of his disloyalty, or make things as though
it were not. Atonement becomes, then, a different problem from that usually
conceived by the theologian ; it cannot merely be forgiveness resulting from a
sacrificial act of suffering on the part of the community, because, however gen-
erous and self-effacing the suffering and forgiveness may be, it cannot free the
individual from his own inner "hell of the irrevocable" ; but atonement, or
specifically an atoning act, must step in and use that very traitorous deed, must
start with that, and build from and with it some good for the community, which
without that traitorous deed could never have been accomplished for the com-
munity. Then, and then only, can the traitor feel "my deed has actually been

REVIEWS 79

a source of benefit to the community, such that, if I had not been faithless, the
community would not be so well off. I can now renew my union with the
community, freed through this atonement from my hideous past." This is what
Jesus did and does for us; this is the atoning power of grace. His atoning
deed, through his sacrifices, won again the lost causes of our moral world by
creating new good out of existing evil, opening to us a future life that will be
the better and richer for the very fact of our old evil and the existence, as a
result of it, of the atonement.

The above brief outline gives the best of what Professor Royce has achieved,
and can mostly be found in the first volume. The second volume centers around
a purely technical exposition of how these theories can be brought under a
"sound" metaphysical system through the agency of a new method of knowing,
neither "perception," nor "conception," but "interpretation." As a psychologic
study Professor Royce's exposition is interesting; but it fails to carry convic-
tion because he never raises the technical idealistic terms which he employs,
above the plane of unproved philosophical theorizing; and he emphatically
opposes Bergson's intuition on the one hand, and the inspiration of the mystics
on the other. Professor Royce contests that interpretation is a constant act of
life, in that we "interpret" common experience, either to ourselves or to another,
when we see some meaning in it. But this whole process which he describes in
detail is limited to the mental realm of ideas ; no pure Bergsonian perception,
no direct mystic or spiritual illumination can enter the interpretative act at all.
Thus Professor Royce has deliberately shut himself within the mind, and how-
ever beautiful or attractive may be the results he has obtained on that plane, we
fail to see that he has done more than give to the world one more metaphysical
theory and one more opportunity for endless discussion, theorizing, and ratiocina-
tion. At the heart of his thought lie glimpses of spiritual truths : as his vision
of the Beloved Community, and his recognition of our dependence on and need
for the atoning power of the Master. One feels that Professor Royce has had
genuine experience; and if he could only relieve himself of his philosophical
mind, if he could use the vision he has already received to adventure further
into a knowledge of the truths of Christ instead of attempting to frame it in
some cramped metaphysical system, and if he could cease to subject it to the
sceptical analysis of an all too prejudiced mind, he could profit both himself and
his many followers very greatly. But this criticism applies to almost all phil-
osophy; and we should, perhaps, remind ourselves that Professor Royce has
made a distinct contribution in the direction of raising philosophical thought,
and we should be grateful to him for at least turning men's thoughts towards
religion and religious things. JOHN BLAKE, JR.

Dharma : This tasteful little magazine of our Spanish brothers continues
to maintain the high standard of excellence with which it started. In the
April number there are four reprints from the earlier magazines ; one by Mr.
Judge, two by Mr. Johnston, and one from the pen of Katharine Hillard. The
leading article is on "Theosophy and Christianity," by Roman Grim, and points
out that there can be and is no vital antagonism between the two ; always a
valuable theme to keep before our readers. Other articles are : one on Norman
Angell's new book The Great Illusion; a "Dialogue," which discusses certain
questions asked about writings of Madame Blavatsky, with frequent quotations
from The Secret Doctrine; and "The Mystery of Christianity" an imaginative
conversation occurring at Ephesus. The "Notes and Comments" are of value,
well-written and interesting. There is also a "Questions and Answers" depart-
ment. Thus this issue is well-balanced, and contains a variety of helpful and
interesting contributions, both old and new. A. G.

80 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

The April Theosophisches Leben has an enviable table of contents. Five
articles from the QUARTERLY are translated by the indefatigable Editors, and
reprinted. Especially notable is the translation of a "Fragment" by Cave, which
in a remarkable way reproduces the beauty and atmosphere peculiar to that
wonderful writer. There is an exceedingly able article on "Christ and the Holy
Supper" by Paul Raatz; and one on "Joy" by Ernst Traumer, which the reviewer
found very helpful. Other valuable articles, including several short poems, fill
up the pages. The Editors should also be congratulated on the bibliography of
Theosophical books, and also of other works that would appeal to our readers.
This is not merely a list of titles, but each volume is characterized briefly, so
that we are in possession of the scope and purpose of each book at a glance.

A. G.

Pro Christo et Ecclesia, by the author of Absente Reo, published by Macmil-
lans. This little book has a double interest. We are presented with the striking
thought, backed up by the most recent expert research, that the "Pharisees con-
demned in the Gospels were God-fearing, earnest, and conscientious," and not the
utterly bad and hypocrital sect that ordinarily we think them. The author sug-
gests that the reason for Christ's wholesale condemnation lay not in the individual
wickedness of the Pharisees, who were according to their lights above the average
standard morally and religiously, but in the fact that it is the very defects and
narrowness of the most religious people that are the foes and murderers of the
Christ. Thus the Sadducees were merely moderate and stagnant; they raised
no opposition, and, like all sinners, were open to conversion and a change of
heart. But the Pharisees were pride-blind in their supreme confidence that they
knew the will of God, and lived it to the best of their ability; they were selfish,
because their hearts were closed to the claim of sinners upon God's love, through
their self-confidence, which position is born of spiritual pride ; and, finally, they
were intense ritualists, dependent on their ritualism because they had lost the
significance of its symbology. But they were the most religious people of that
time, the most earnest, the most whole-hearted.

Jesus saw pride to be the fundamental sin ; he knew humility to be the requisite
of all earthly love. So, while not condemning the law and tradition, which are
needful and helpful to weak humanity, he condemned mercilessly those who
shielded themselves behind the law and denounced others as sinners and outcasts.

The second point of interest is the lesson which the author draws from
this contrast of Christ's attitude and the Pharisaic. "The terrible warnings of
Jesus make it evident that he was oppressed by a vision of the future Church
strewn with the wrecks of faith." "The pharisaic retort that his inspiration was
Satanic was most natural, as is proved by examining what our feeling would be
if he came now and crossed our beliefs to the same extent." Indeed, the picture
drawn of the Church today, with its assurance, its exclusive party factions, its
blindness to the inner spiritual call to immediate fellowship with Christ, is a
living counterpart of all those sins Jesus so emphatically condemned in the
Pharisees.

The book provokes serious thought. It is a wholesome challenge to the
existing order in the churches. The writing is vivid and clear; there is breadth
of view and the contagion of a deep personal conviction on the part of the author.
On the whole we agree with him. The book is timely, and should be very helpful
to those seeking the church's ideal. JOHN NEWCOMBE.

QUESTIONS

QUESTION 172. If the next environment of the soul determined by chance?
If not, how is it determined?

ANSWER. Once I was in a school superintendent's office when a lot of
children, whose parents had just moved into town, were being questioned. The
superintendent rapidly assigned each child to that school and that grade best
suited for it, being helped by the child's own desire, as modified by his trained
knowledge of its need. May we not suppose that God would be as competent?
"But there are so many of us" may be suggested. Mr. Elaine was said to know
over 100,000 men by name and position. His brain was finite what could
not a Master's brain hold? Besides would not the soul help? Would it not
seek of the Master that school and grade where it would learn the most? The
soul untrammeled by the body, uncolored by the mind, must seek the shortest road
to Union with the Master in the perfected obedience of recognized discipleship
call it Heaven if you prefer. It would, therefore, ask for the most trying
opportunity to learn the fastest, to get rid the soonest, of all barriers self-erected
through ignorance and lack of discipline. H. K.

ANSWER. The next environment of the soul is determined by the needs of
that soul. If the soul lack development in a certain direction it will sooner or
later have to come back to an environment which affords opportunity for the
development of that which it lacked. The ultimate goal being the perfect flowering
of each soul or union with the divine. M. T.

ANSWER. The universe exists for the soul, is ideally designed for the develop-
ment and growth of the soul. This naturally includes the immediate environ-
ment of each soul. That is determined for the soul by the particular needs of
that individual soul. In a sense we determine absolutely our own future environ-
ment. What we think, feel, wish and do determines what we become; as what
we have done heretofore has determined what we now are. What we are deter-
mines what we need, what we need determines what we get, our environment and
all that comes to us. D. d'A.

ANSWER. If this be a spiritual universe, governed by law, what is the
meaning of Chance? Has it any meaning? Remember Emerson's fine phrase:
"All things, even motes and feathers, go by law and not by luck." J. C.

ANSWER. It seems to me the next environment would be determined by the
needs of a soul. Karma is the compassionate law of a compassionate God. A
wise and loving Teacher examines the task submitted by a pupil. The task may
be done in such a way as to show that the pupil is ready for advancement; or, on
the contrary, he may need to be demoted. But whatever the next step be, progress
or retardation, it is Love and Wisdom (they are identical) that determine it.

S. M.

6 81

82 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

ANSWER. The next environment of the soul is not determined by chance. It
is the deliberate choice of the Soul. In its previous incarnations the Soul has
woven several vestures. These vestures are not fixed but living and interchanging
according to the forces which compose them. When the time comes for the Soul
to again assume its garments of mortality, these vestures are assumed and matter
is precipitated upon them by the terms of vibratory activity which they possess
and by which the growth of the unborn and then the growing infant are deter-
mined. As an example by analogy study the Voice-figures of Mrs. Hughes.

A. K.

ANSWER. If we admit such a thing as "chance" anywhere into the universe,
we admit chaos. There is and can be no such thing. Either the universe from
top to bottom is spiritual life (which, seen in its parts, appears as a congeries of
great laws), or it is nothing at all.

Karma is the Sanscrit name given to that aspect of the spiritual life which
governs the effects to follow given causes, be they physical, psychic, mental, moral,
and spiritual, or all these combined. Our next life is determined by the causes or
actions which we ourselves have set going through the use of our free wills, in
previous lives. Most of us have no idea what all these forces are. We are told
that through the vicarious atonement of its members, The Lodge of Masters can
interfere (relatively, as they themselves, and their power, come within a still more
embracing Karma) with our personal Karma; by holding back evil till we have
had time to strengthen the good in us, or by precipitating the evil if we are capable
of faster progress, and desire to push ahead of our normal advance by more
strenuous efforts and by more immediate suffering. There are no hard and fast
rules ; so each one of us would do well to examine our past with the intention of
seeing just what it is that our environment has sought to teach us, that is, our
souls. If we can find out what it is that we have to learn, what faults to over-
come, what vision to acquire, we can work with our Karma instead of struggling
blindly against what appears to so many as an evil fate. And we must not forget
that there is "good" Karma as well as "bad" ; too many accept the "good" com-
placently as a right, and reserve their rebellion and bad feelings for the bad."
Union with the Master, with the Divine, sonship with the Father, this alone will
free us from the necessity of rebirth, which subjects us to the earth's physical
Karma. Then we can live free, under the higher Karma, the divine harmony of
the Heavenly Kingdoms. G. HIJO, JR.

ANSWER. The next environment of the soul, like the present and all past
environments, from moment to moment, is determined by the soul's real needs.
At each moment we are precisely where we ought to be. He is wise who
recognizes this, and seeks in each situation and environment, in each moment,
the soul's lesson for that moment. For him, every moment of life is magical.

C. J.

ANSWER. Does not this depend upon the desire of the Soul? If it wants
something very much, won't it seek to get it? Is the doctrine of Freedom of
Will compatible with any other theory? Personally, I believe that I have
always wanted to be with the people I am with and that I particularly chose to
"suffer" the "trials" of my present lot or, as it sounds nearer the truth, to enjoy
the opportunities of my present lot. I do not believe there was any chance about
it. It amuses my Mother when I say I long since ages ago picked her out,
but I mean it quite simply. I believe I have wanted and will always want to
serve with and fight for certain people Souls, Egos ; call them what you please
and I intend to stay with them. I believe that we are brought together again
and again because we belong together. In short, Karma and reincarnation make

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 83

Death a manifestation of Divine Love and Life a wisely-guided course of lessons;
because chance, injustice and cruelty are removed from the Universe. If I
could learn not to dissipate force, energy, love entrusted to me, would not I
rejoice to starve to death a few times to acquire so great a virtue, and to make
me more serviceable? G. V. S. M.

QUESTION 173. Is the theory of reincarnation necessarily reincarnation upon
this earth ? If so, does this process continue indefinitely, or does the soul at
some period pass to a totally different environment?

ANSWER. What difference does it make? To me reincarnation on this
earth is the only kind, logical explanation on scientific lines of why we exist.
It explains love of family and friends, and makes one's environment a Heaven
sent opportunity, not something to be grumbled about or neglected. I like to think
that those I love I have loved before and will love again and always in
contiguity. This takes the sting out of death. In fact, I believe it demonstrable
that the Bible, both in the Old and the New Testament, teaches the doctrine
of reincarnation. Limited (for the time being at least) to this earth it falls
into correspondence with the law of the conservation of energy and matter.
The sins I commit give me experience the doctrine of reincarnation eliminates
waste. As to the future "when God wills" I suppose I may go somewhere else,
but I want at least a few lives here on earth to try to clean the slate until I do,
I want the process to continue indefinitely. G. V. S. M.

ANSWER. As the earth is only a part of this great universe, and the soul
must have all experiences, does it stand to reason that the soul would always
return to the limitations of this earth? Would it not naturally outgrow them?
Also are there not visible and invisible bodies? A. F.

ANSWER. The essence of reincarnation is the continuous growth of the soul,
the development of its inherent powers and the elimination of its weaknesses,
through its own efforts. Whether the environment that provides it with this
opportunity for continuous growth is on this earth or on Mars is, from one
point of view, quite immaterial. The point is that this opportunity is provided,
this necessity imposed. When we have exhausted the lessons that life on earth
has to teach doubtless we shall pass on. Obviously however one life or one
hundred lives are too short to learn all that may be learned here. We do
but scratch the surface of life's richness. We have been told that the soul here
on earth may attain to heights of growth and splendour of which we do not
yet even dream.

Here on earth it is in our power to choose for ourselves between environ-
ments farther apart than earth is from heaven's remotest star. We may dwell
in our hearts and minds surrounded by our own most evil passions, hatred and
greed and lust. Or we may, like Brother Lawrence, dwell in the presence of
God and be consciously with the Master surrounded by His infinite love and
tender care in each moment of our lives. J. F. B. M.

QUESTION 174. "What is the difference between a religious Order, a Congre-
gation and a Community? The three words seem at times to be used interchange-
ably."

ANSWER. It is not easy to draw a sharp distinction between an Order and
a Congregation, although the dictionaries are mistaken when they state that
there is no difference. The trouble is, (a), that the words are often, but incor-
rectly, used as synonymous and (b) that their present meanings are the result
of some hundreds of years of evolution and they did not always have the signifi-
cance which they have now.

84 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Five hundred years ago the difference was quite simple and arose from the
reform movements within regular Orders. For example, a group of Benedictine
Monasteries would associate themselves together to practise a stricter mode
of life, to return to the observance of the primative Rule as, for instance, the
Maurists, under St. Maur, or the Cluniacs under the leadership of the great
Abbots of Cluny; and they were called Congregations. In other words, a Con-
gregation was a segregation of monasteries, or individuals, within an Order.
In time, however, some of these reform movements became so important that they
were separated from the parent body and raised to the dignity of an Order.
Then the distinction between the two terms became more a question of privilege,
as, for instance, whether they should be free from episcopal jurisdiction or not;
the Orders, almost without exception, alone obtaining this jealously restricted
right. In time this distinction also broke down to a considerable extent, although
it still marks one line of cleavage. The next important difference was a ques-
tion of the solemnity and term of vows taken by the members. All the Orders,
with practically no exception, had solemn and perpetual vows, while Congre-
gations were associations of priests, like the Oratorians, founded by St. Philip
Neri, who live under a common rule but take no vows ; or of laymen or women,
like the Daughters of St. Vincent de Paul, who take annual vows. Since the
16th Century practically all the religious associations which have received the
sanction of the Papacy have been Congregations and not Orders.

To generalize, therefore, and to sum up ; the word Order is used to designate
the more highly developed and completely realized association, which has received
full papal sanction and the most extensive privileges. A Congregation is not a
fully realized religious association because of some limitation in its government,
its rights, its practices or its purposes.

The word Community has no technical meaning in this connection. It is
applied to any given group of religious who live together, or have a common
purpose.

The term Confraternity has, however, a technical meaning. It is a voluntary
association of the faithful, established and guided by competent ecclesiastical
authority, for the promotion of special objects of charity or piety. Priests,
members of Religious Orders or Congregations, or laymen may belong to one
or to several Confraternities. The League of the Sacred Heart and the Apostle-
ship of Prayer and the Sacred Name Society are Confraternities. C. A. G.

QUESTION 175. "What is the difference between a Priest, a Deacon, a Monk,
a Friar, a Canon or Canon Regular, a Clerk or Clerk Regular and a Tertiary or
Lay-Brother? What are the feminine equivalents of these terms?"

ANSWER. In the Roman Catholic Church which is the only organization
which includes all these terms :

A Priest is a man who has taken Holy Orders. He is under a Bishop, a
member of the Church as a whole, and need not and usually does not belong to
any Religious Order or Congregation. Technically speaking, only a Bishop is
truly a Priest of the highest grade, for certain functions, such as confirmation,
ordination and the consecration of Churches, are reserved to him. The ordinary
priest, therefore, belongs to the second degree of priesthood. He has powers
conferred upon him, rather than rights, and in the Roman Catholic Church he
requires the consent of his bishop before he can exercise any of the sacerdotal
functions, save, perhaps, that of saying Mass.

A Deacon. In modern times the diaconate has ceased to be anything but a
stage of preparation for the priesthood. In the Catholic Church he can minister
at High Mass, can expose the Blessed Sacrament at Benediction, and in case
of need, can act as deputy of the Parish priest in distributing the Communion.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 85

In the Episcopal Church, a Deacon can perform any priestly sacred office, save
consecrating the elements and pronouncing absolution.

A Monk, who may or may not be a priest, is a man who dedicates himself
to a life of religious contemplation and endeavor, in a community devoted to
this purpose, secluded from the world, taking the three solemn vows in per-
petuity. His allegiance is to his abbot and his particular Monastery where he
usually spends the rest of his life. His object is personal perfection, and to
this end he renounces the world and all natural affections. Monks do not, as a
rule, however, refuse the cure of souls or other secular occupations, when the
necessity arises, and have often busied themselves with education, the preserva-
tion of learning, with agriculture in its widest sense, and with other useful
work. The Benedictine Monks are responsible for the preservation of learning
during the Dark Ages. .

A Friar is a member of one of the Mendicant Orders, like the Franciscans
or Dominicans. He may or may not be a Priest. He combines a religious life
of contemplation with work for the Church. He is not a member of any com-
munity, but of the whole Order and is moved about from place to place at
the will of his superiors. He is a soldier in a religious army, governed by a
hierarchy of local, provincial and general superiors.

A Canon Regular is a Priest, attached to a Church, but who also lives a
religious life under Rule and Vows. With Monks, Holy Orders are accidental
and secondary, and are superadded to the religious life ; with Canons Regular
the Holy Orders are the principal thing arid the religious life is superadded.

A Clerk Regular is a combination of a Canon Regular and a Friar. First
of all he is a priest, in dress and mode of life, doing all the duties suitable to
priests ; but to this he adds a religious life with the usual vows. He is not,
like a Canon Regular, attached to a Church, or like a monk, attached to a
Monastery, but, like a Friar, he is a member of a religious army and is, therefore,
free to go anywhere his superiors direct. The Jesuits are Clerks Regular.

A Tertiary or Lay-Brother is a member of an Order who has taken simple
vows. The practice of having lay-men and lay-women associated with regular
monastic establishments, under a modified Rule and simple vows, arose in
the Twelfth Century. The Franciscans were the first to have a regular Third
Order. In time some of these rose in dignity and importance and the vows
became solemn vows, the members living a community life hardly less rigid and
severe than that of the First Order. All Orders do not have lay members ;
neither the Benedictines nor the Jesuits have Tertiaries; but as a rule all the
Orders having women members also have a third order. A tertiary may remain
such all his life or he may be raised to the rank of full membership.

There are no feminine equivalents for most of these terms. In the old
days when Orders were formed which did not contemplate their members taking
Holy Orders, the Rule was as suitable for women as for men, so that there were
Benedictine nuns and Convents as soon as there were Benedictine Monks and
Monasteries; but when the Mendicant Orders and Clerks Regular were formed,
whose Rules were entirely unsuitable for women, the founders either expressly
forbade nuns, as in the case of the Jesuits, or wrote a special rule for them, as in
the case of St. Francis, who was the first to found a regular Second Order for
women. Since then special Orders have been founded exclusively for women,
such as the Order of the Visitation, founded by St. Francis de Sales, and the
Ursulines. Many of these have lay-sisters who follow a modified rule of vary-
ing strictness. There is no rigid distinction between the terms Sister and Nun,
but as a rule a Nun is more or less cloistered while a Sister goes out into the
world to nurse or teach. In many Orders the members are called Sisters to
distinguish them from the Mother Superior. In other Orders all the nuns are
Mothers and the lay-members are Sisters. C. A. G.

REPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE THEOSOPHICAL

SOCIETY

The Annual Convention of The Theosophical Society was held at 21 Mac-
dougal Alley, New York City, on Saturday, April 25, 1914. The Convention was
called to order at 10.30 A. M. by Mr. Charles Johnston, Chairman of the Execu-
tive Committee.

MORNING SESSION

Temporary organization was effected, when, upon motion of Mr. E. T.
Hargrove, seconded by Mr. C. A. Griscom, Mr. Charles Johnston was elected
Chairman, and upon motion of Prof. H. B. Mitchell, duly seconded, Mr. K.
D. Perkins was made Secretary.

Mr. J. F. B. Mitchell's motion that the Chair appoint a Committee on
Credentials, being adopted by vote, the Chairman appointed the Secretary of the
Society (Mrs. Gregg), the Treasurer (Prof. Mitchell), and Miss Isabel E. Perkins,
to examine the credentials submitted by delegates and to report to the Convention
as soon as their duties could be concluded.

ADDRESS OF WELCOME

In greeting the delegates, Mr. Johnston said : "On behalf of the Executive
Committee, and in the name of the New York Branch, it gives me great pleasure
to extend a most cordial welcome to delegates from the Branches, to members
of the Society, and to the visitors within our gates.

"On more than one of these pleasant occasions it has been my duty and my
privilege to make clear the point of reality in the year's experience as a society.
In some years we have needed to be encouraged ; to be reminded that valor
belongs to the best part of our natures. In years of prosperity there has been a
warning not to let prosperity carry us away, to look out for storms in fine
weather.

"The truth of the Parable of the Sower is significant in the life of The
Theosophical Society. During the period from 1875 to 1899 the seed was
widely sown : and while some fell in thorny places, and some in shallow soil,
it often seemed as if that sowing were about to prosper in the widest way.
Today there remains what fell in good ground 'first the blade, then the leaf,
then the full corn in the ear.'

"It takes a long time to ripen a Theosophical harvest. Because the areas
of those earlier years seem wider than the areas of today let us not be misled
into thinking that this is necessarily the time for another broadcast sowing. Let
us realize well that this is the time for filling in the ears.

"Do not impatiently expect area increase ! Be careful to weed, to irrigate.
Let it be our present care to provide material for filling out the grain in the ear."

THEOSOPHICAL CONVENTION

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON CREDENTIALS

The report of the Committee on Credentials showed that 23 Branches were
represented by delegates in person or by proxy, entitled to cast 152 votes in
the Convention as the accredited representatives -of 553 members of the Society.
Prof. Mitchell reported that the credentials submitted, were, in the judg-
ment of the Committee, authentic; that there were no contested seats in the
Convention ; and that the Committee having finished its labors would like to be
discharged.

By motion of Mr. G. V. S. Michaelis, the Committee was discharged with
thanks for their report on the following Branches whose representatives con-
stituted the Convention :

Aurora, Oakland, California.
Blavatsky, Washington, D. C.
Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Dayton, Dayton, Ohio.
H. P. B., Toledo, Ohio.
Hope, Providence, Rhode Island.
Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Middletown, Middletown, Ohio.
New York, New York, N. Y.
Pacific, Los Angeles, California.
Providence, Providence, R. I.
Queen City, Seattle, Washington.
Stockton, Stockton, California.
Syracuse, Syracuse, New York.

Virya, Denver, Colorado.

Alta Gracia de Orituco, Alta Gracia

de Orituco, Venezuela.
Aurvanga, Aker, Norway.
Aussig, Aussig-Obersedlitz, Austria.
Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
Flensburg, Flensburg, Germany.
Krishna, South Shields, England.
Munich, Munich, Germany.
Neusalz, Neusalz, Germany.
Nuevo Ciclo, Caracas, Venezuela.
Swedish, Arvika, Sweden.
Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela.

PERMANENT ORGANIZATION

Mr. C. A. Griscom, rising to place a nomination for permanent Chairman before
the Convention, said that it was a practice of many years standing in the Society
to make the President of the Branch which entertained the Convention its per-
manent Chairman, it gave him great pleasure therefore to nominate Prof. Henry
Bedinger Mitchell, President of the New York Branch.

This nomination being seconded by the Rev. Dr. C. C. Clark, and by several
other delegates, Prof. Mitchell was elected, and taking the chair expressed the
very genuine satisfaction which the New York Branch felt in again having the
privilege of acting as host to the Convention. This, he said, should not be
passed over as merely a formula with which to "welcome the coming, speed the
parting guests."

"It is an easy hospitality which makes welcome to the best one has. As
members of The Theosophical Society we are all eager to do more we wish to
share with each other the best that we are : more than that, we must surely wish
to share whatever in the past year's experience has served to renew our aspira-
tion, to enkindle the fire of obedience in our hearts, to make dynamic in us the
will to serve and not to count the cost."

Mr. E. T. Hargrove made motion that the temporary Secretary be made
Secretary of the Convention. This motion being seconded and carried, the Chair-
man announced that it was in order to elect three standing Committees, one on
Nominations, one on Resolutions, and one on Letters of Greeting.

Upon motion of Mr. Charles Johnston, duly seconded, the Convention voted
that these Committees be appointed by the Chair, and the Chairman made the
following appointments, requesting that the Committees report at the afternoon
session.

Committee on Nominations :

Mr. C. A. Griscom,
Mr. G. V. S. Michaelis,

Mrs. Marion F. Gitt,
Mr. Charles M. Saxe.

88 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Committee on Resolutions :

Mr. E. T. Hargrove, Miss Margaret Hohnstedt,

Mr. Charles H. Dower, Mrs. R. F. Helle.

Committee on Letters of Greeting:

Mr. Charles Johnston, Rev. Dr. C. C. Clark, as Secy.,

Dr. George Woolsey.

The Chairman, in asking for the reports of the officers of the Society, called on
Mr. Charles Johnston to speak in behalf of the Executive Committee.

REPORT OF THE CHAIRMAN OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
"Mr. Chairman, Fellow-members, and Visitors: The details of the work of
your Committee, as reflected in the life of the Society for the past year, will be
given in the report of the Secretary T. S. One or two interesting points have
arisen questions of principle and the action of the Executive Committee in these
matters is, as always, subject to approval. During the year two groups of mem-
bers in two Branches of the Society have held different views, have believed in
widely different plans for carrying forward the work which was near to their
hearts. Two courses were open: (1) either one group in the Branch might over-
ride the wishes of the other group, which would be most undesirable, or an
attempt might be made to try alternately one plan and then the other, which would
be an admirable experiment. But .if it were not found practicable in any way
to amalgamate the two groups, then (2) the second course would manifestly
suggest itself, that is to form these two groups into two separate Branches of The
Theosophical Society. This seemed to your Committee the right and proper course
in the case of both the Branches in question ; and it does not reflect in any way
upon the members forming the different groups. The Theosophical Society stands
for complete freedom. Under the letter of the law the three members in one of
those groups need not admit anyone else to membership in their new Branch.
The Theosophical Society must admit members, but the Branch need not. It
might not only be lawful but it might possibly be valuable to carry out a plan of
campaign and try it thoroughly before admitting additional members. This
would not reflect in any way on members of the Society wrto were not invited
to join the Branch.

"Such a condition arose in South America. A group of members believed
that they had a valuable plan to carry out, and asked for a Branch Charter.
In asking for this Charter they wished to use as the name of the Branch the name
of the capital city of the state in which the Branch was located. But the
Executive Committee requested them to select a new name as there was already
a Branch of some years' standing in that city which, though it did not bear the
name of the city, had long been identified there with the work of The Theosophical
Society. The principle is clear. Suppose, for instance, that three members of
the Society in New York City had a plan which they believed valuable and were
anxious to carry it out. They would be quite within their rights in asking for a
Charter. But if they also asked for the name "New York Branch," it would
become the duty of the Executive Committee to point out that there has been a
Branch in New York City for many years and that a new Branch should bear a
distinguishing name. That very situation is now pending in South America;
and I lay it before the Convention as the only one that has arisen during the year
that involves constitutional law. Given a thousand members who wished to
form themselves into three hundred and thirty-three separate Branches, I should
be prepared to issue Charters to them."

Mr. Hargrove: "It is customary, I believe, to move a vote of thanks to the
Executive Committee ; and although a member of that Committee I have no
hesitancy in making the motion since the work of the Committee has been done

THEOSOPHICAL CONVENTION 89

by its chairman. The truth of the matter is that most of the questions which
come before the Committee are very simple, although often entailing a large
amount of work and correspondence. If serious questions arose the Chairman
would undoubtedly have consulted with the rest of the Committee, but this year
it would have been a horrible waste of time. I have not heard before about
this matter of the new Branches, but it commends itself to me as the only logical
solution, and a very simple one. I do not know for how many years Mr. Johnston
has occupied his present position at the head of the Executive Committee, and I
am very sure that none of us know how much gratitude we really owe him.
The position is a difficult one; whatever he does is sure to displease somebody;
and for this reason the more I wish to move that the most cordial thanks of
the Society be accorded to him for his arduous and constant labours in our
behalf."

Four delegates claimed the privilege of seconding this motion which was
unanimously carried, as was also the motion to accept and approve the report

The Chairman then called for the Report of the Secretary T. S. Mrs. Gregg
responded as follows:

REPORT OF THE SECRETARY FOR THE YEAR ENDING APRIL 25, 1914

NEW BRANCHES AND MEMBERS

The Secretary begs to report that during the past year diplomas have been
issued to 98 new members. Germany leads with 37. Then comes the United
States, 29; South America, 16; England, 11; Sweden, 3; Norway, 2; Austria, 1.

During the same time, one Branch has given up its charter, and in all the
other Branches the loss in membership has been only 9; by resignation, 5; by
death, 4. Among the four who have passed on was a devoted member whose hus-
band has never been a member of the Society, yet it was his desire to mark in some
way his wife's abiding interest in the work. So he offered to pay her membership
dues, annually, and to keep up her customary donations so that her name might
be kept on the rolls of the Society. A similar feeling has prompted a son, also
not a member of the Society, to continue, year after year, the payment of dues
for his deceased father. Surely these cases speak eloquently of the quality of the
life lived by these two members.

Since the last Convention, Charters have been issued to 2 new Branches:
Rama Nuevo Ciclo, Caracas, Venezuela.
Hope Branch, Providence, Rhode Island.

CORRESPONDENCE

No phase of the varied work that falls to the Secretary's Office seems to the
Secretary so important as the opportunities that the correspondence brings. Letters
from places where there is no local center, and letters from new members or
students are more eagerly welcomed than the writers of them could imagine.
Often the Secretary has to restrain the expression of joy that such letters call
out lest these new correspondents should mistake that joy over a possible new
recruit in the service of the Masters for satisfaction over the addition of one
more name to the rolls of the Society. The individual needs of each, as the
correspondence may reveal them, are constantly remembered; and a chance to send
an unexpected bit of help is hailed with delight.

And this is not only true of new members, for there are the dear comrades
of many years, whose faces may not be known but whose hearts are. The least
request from them is joyfully received; and the word of cheer that they add
to a book order, or a routine letter, is like a bit of a visit from an old friend.

Some of our members have the happy custom of making connections with the
local Branches in the places they visit. If their travels take them to places
where there is no Branch, they ask the Secretary whether there are members-

90 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

at-large to be visited. It is a special satisfaction to be able, thus, to put them
in touch with members who are working alone, and to whom the coming of a
fellow member is a real event; and there is always the hope that through this
reinforcement a new Branch may spring into life.

Then the mail brings also requests for guidance in studies, or the frank state-
ment of a personal problem on which light is desired, or, perhaps, the story of a
friend whom the writer cannot reach personally but hopes to help through the
Society. Every year of experience in this work leaves a deeper impression of the
breadth of opportunity that inevitably comes within the sphere of this office,
which only time and strength can limit.

Mention should also be made of correspondence with the foreign Branches
of the Society. They are so uniformly responsive in replying to all inquiries sent
them, so punctilious about complying fully with every request, so eager for any new
literature, any suggestions, any opening. By their attitude and fraternal spirit
they bridge the space between them and the Secretary's Office, and seem a very
near and vital part of the work in which we are united.

THE BOOK AND MAGAZINE DEPARTMENT

The number of orders received in this Department has steadily increased
during the past year. Our own members appear to be giving more time to the
study of our literature ; and there are many non-members who are coming to
find their needs met by the books we offer. The chief demand is for the books
listed in the QUARTERLY, reviewed in its columns, or referred to in its articles.
It is significant that among these the devotional books are most generally sought.
For Mr. Johnston's annotated translations of the Bhagavad Gita and Patanjali's
Yoga Sutras there are orders from all parts of the world. For each of the books
published by the Society there is also widespread demand. They are even sold in
wholesale quantities to various other organizations.

It is well understood that the Secretary's Office stands ready to secure any
and all other books that may be desired. The order will be filled promptly if it
contains the complete title of the book, with name of author and publisher.
Frequently it has been possible to supply the desired book when none of these
essential facts was correctly given, but the unravelling of such puzzles takes time;
so the fullest possible information is appreciated.

Requests for complete bound volumes of the earlier magazines, particularly
the Path, are still coming in; and it will now be impossible to fill them without
the co-operation of members who have files on which they would be willing to
allow us to draw. Will not members who have unbound sets of the Path, or
who know of any in existence, communicate with the Secretary, stating just
what numbers they could spare? To the younger members of the Society, who
did not have the privilege of sharing in the life and work of those early days,
the Path represents a means of coming into touch with that life ; and so it is
always a pleasure to be able to respond to requests from such members for sets
of that magazine.

"THE THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY"

It would be quite impossible to give any adequate expression to the estimates
of the QUARTERLY that are constantly received ; and yet it is only fair to the
many to whom it is so precious that their feeling should be represented. When
reading the letters, full of heart-felt gratitude, which often accompany a re-sub-
scription, there comes into mind that rule laid down by one of the Masters
"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and
glorify your Father, which is in Heaven." To many, the QUARTERLY represents
the only light they have yet found; they do not hesitate to say that they live on
it and by it. But most significant of all, perhaps, is the fact that the gratitude for

THEOSOPHICAL CONVENTION 91

all this help is first directed, as editor and contributors earnestly desire, to the
Society itself, in recognition of its mission, of its place in the world.

Constant readers of the QUARTERLY will not be surprised at the statement
that many of its articles have proved permanent additions to the literature of
religious philosophy. Much of the precious little volume called Fragments first
appeared in the QUARTERLY ; and it is now widely used as a book of devotion. Mr.
Johnston's translation of the Bhagavad Gita, which is regarded by some scholars
as the best translation of this great classic ever made, was put into book form
soon after its publication in the QUARTERLY; and yet the first edition is already
exhausted, and the second, we are pleased to announce, is in course of prepara-
tion. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, annotated like the Gita, in Mr. Johnston's illum-
inating and inspiring manner, is another QUARTERLY product, and so generally
appreciated that another edition is now projected. Professor Mitchell's Talks
on Religion found its first audience in the QUARTERLY, and the interest aroused
led to its publication in book form. His admirable brochures, Meditation and
Theosophy and the Theosophical Society, which also originated with the QUARTERLY,
have been invaluable aids in our work; the former is used as a text-book in
many study classes, and the latter is constantly making friends for the Society.

Again, it is through the QUARTERLY that the Secretary most frequently hears
from people who are strangers to Theosophy. And it may be a surprise to some
to know that in the majority of such cases the writer found the QUARTERLY in
some library, has been reading it, and wants further information about the Society.
A few libraries are regular subscribers to the QUARTERLY; to others it is sent
by certain Branches and individuals ; to others it is sent at the expense of the
Society. But the libraries offer a wide field for further work; there are thousands
of them in which the QUARTERLY is not to be found. Here is a line of work in
which every member and every Branch could share. Has the QUARTERLY been
put into the libraries in the cities and towns near you? If not, take a sample
copy to the librarian, get a subscription if possible, or arrange to have the magazine
properly displayed with other magazines if furnished to the library. In case the
neighboring field is covered, there are many libraries known to the Secretary, for
which Branches or individuals might place subscriptions. Will not each Branch
and each member-at-large undertake to do something toward putting the QUARTERLY
into the libraries of the country? It will be a help, in advance, to know that,
with a few unimportant exceptions, the mazagine is gladly received by librarians.
Many of them show their appreciation of its value by writing for duplicate copies,
and by asking whether it is to be furnished them for another year.

The Secretary would be happy to respond to calls for sample copies of the
magazine to be used in that way, sending the samples free of charge. Free samples
would also be sent, on the request of members, to friends whom they would
like to interest in the Society, by persuading them to become subscribers to the
magazine. And what better birthday gift for a friend who is trying to solve
the riddle of life than a subscription to the QUARTERLY?

Interest in the QUARTERLY is by no means limited to this country. Frequently
members in foreign Branches write that they are learning English so that they may
be able to read it. This desire is no less manifest since the publication of the
admirable magazines that are issued by our brothers in Germany and South
America Dharma, published by the Branch in Venezuela; and the Theosophiches
Leben, published in Berlin by the United German Branches. Both magazines add
to their original articles translations of articles from the QUARTERLY ; and it is
interesting to see which of the many treasures contained in its 11 volumes are
chosen by the editors of those magazines as the medium for the introduction of
the theosophic life and spirit to their countrymen.

It is again necessary to call the attention of members to the importance of
sending the Secretary prompt notification of any change of address, in order that

92 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

the QUARTERLY and other of the Society's papers may reach them safely. Care-
lessness or forgetfulness in this matter always greatly increases the work of the
Secretary and often makes it impossible to communicate with the member in
question.

A PERSONAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT

There is much in my heart to say about the many and constant kindnesses that
have been shown to me, personally, by members near and far; but this is hardly
the place for such acknowledgments. I must, however, ask the privilege of saying
a few words here about what has so generously been done to further the work
of the Secretary's Office.

First, to the officers of the Society my constant thanks are due and are
gladly here recorded. Without their fraternal cooperation, counsel and assistance
the work could not be carried on; and they never fail to give, in abundant and
joyous measure, all that is asked of them. Again, and this is for the third time,
my own thanks and those of the Society, are due to Mrs. M. T. Gordon for the
valuable work that she has done in the Secretary's Office. This year, as new
needs arose, demanding the devotion of much extra time to the work, Mrs.
Gordon was always ready to meet the emergency, and so made it possible to carry
on work that must otherwise have suffered. I am glad to say that Miss Perkins
was later detailed to assist me with the work. Mrs. Helle has, as for several years
past, addressed the envelopes for a large section of the QUARTERLY subscription
list; and with the increase in the lists Miss Hascall has also shared in this very
necessary task; and for other special help I am also indebted to Miss Peters.

It is due to such voluntary service that our Society is so strong, and it
assures us of the continuance of the work as long as devoted hearts can be found.

Now, my friends, let us be encouraged by the results of our work in the past,
and as we go on in life's ways let us try to help those around us, let us try to
love all. Then we may be sure we are following the teaching of the Master.

Respectfully submitted,

(Signed) ADA GREGG,

Secretary T. S.

The Chairman : "You have heard the Secretary's Report, covering the wide
field of the activities of the Secretary's Office, what is your pleasure as regards
this report."

Mr. Griscom: "It is very difficult to voice what we feel for Mrs. Gregg and
for the work which she has so faithfully performed in the interests of the
Society. This year her duties have been peculiarly difficult. She has been ill for
ten months out of the twelve since last Convention. In spite of her physical
condition she has gone steadily on with her work, nothing has been neglected; the
letters have been written, the records are up to date, the book orders have been
promptly filled, and the QUARTERLY has been sent out on time. This work she
herself has carried forward, and to her our gratitude is due, although we would
not fail to join with her in expressing thanks to those who have helped her
to Mrs. Gordon, Mrs. Helle, Miss Peters and Miss Perkins. This year there is
occasion not only for the thanks which we usually express to Mrs. Gregg but also
for a special recognition. It is not a question of the number of letters written
but rather of the gentle sympathy and the spirit of affection which goes into them,
and which has done so much to make the work of the Secretary's Office of lasting
value. In making this motion, as a member of the Society, I also wish to include
an expression of my personal debt of gratitude to Mrs. Gregg. I believe that it
will give us all pleasure to accept the report, and to express our deep appreciation
by a rising vote of thanks."

This motion being cordially seconded, it was unanimously approved.

Mr. Johnston being called to take the chair, Professor Mitchell presented the
Report of the Treasurer T. S.

THEOSOPHICAL CONVENTION 93

REPORT OF THE TREASURER

"We began the year with a balance of $1,000.56. This was a very large amount
to carry over, but in part this was due to unpaid printing bills for the QUARTERLY.
The receipts for the year amounted to $1,818.27; the disbursements for the year
were $2,392.20, which, with the balance from the previous year, leaves a general
balance, all bills being paid, of $426.62, which seems to me very creditable, especially
as compared with some years when it was necessary to report a deficit and to
make an appeal for special contributions. The details of the report are as follows :

REPORT OF THE TREASURER OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY FOR THE YEAR FROM

APRIL 20, 1913, TO APRIL 20, 1914
Receipts Disbursements.

Dues $843.69 Secretary's Office $240.63

QUARTERLY 429.80 Special Pub. Account 300.00

Contribution 544.77 Discretionary Exp. Account. 350.00

Printing 5 issues of the

$1,818.26 QUARTERLY 1,501.57

Bal. April 20, 1913 1,000.56

$2,392.20

$2,818.82 General Bal. April 20, 1914.. 426.62

$2,818.82
(Signed) H. B. MITCHELL,

Treasurer T. S.
April 24, 1914.

"In conclusion, let me express appreciation for the generous donations which
the increasing demands of the work have made most timely. I also wish to
acknowledge the assistance of Mr. and Miss Perkins in the details of the
Treasurer's office."

Mr. Johnston, as instructed by vote of the Convention, tendered to the
Treasurer its most cordial thanks and congratulations upon the success of the
year as reported.

Resuming the chair, Professor Mitchell announced the usual recess between
sessions, suggesting that the Committees on Nominations, Resolutions, and Letters
of Greeting should confer and be ready to report when the Convention reas-
sembled at half-past two o'clock. In the meantime there would be opportunities
for the renewing of old acquaintances and for the forming of new friendships.
Visiting delegates were invited to lunch with the members of the New York
Branch, at the Hotel Brevoort.

Upon motion by Mr. Acton Griscom, duly seconded, the Convention adjourned
until 2.30 P. M.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

The Convention was called to order bv the Chairman, who asked for the
Report of the Committee on Resolutions.

RESOLUTIONS

Mr. E. T. Hargrove, as Chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, submitted
the following :

Resolved, That Mr. Charles Johnston, as Chairman of the Executive Com-
mittee, is hereby requested to reply to the messages of greeting from foreign
Branches in the name of and in behalf of this Convention; and to extend to the
Conventions of the European Branches our fraternal greetings and hearty good
wishes.

94 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Resolved, That this Convention of the Theosophical Society hereby requests
and authorizes visits of the officers of the Society to Branches in Europe and
America.

Resolved, That a new By-law shall be added to the present By-laws, to read
as follows, "No. 39. Assistant Secretaries and Assistant Treasurers may be
elected at any Convention or appointed by the Executive Committee between Con-
ventions." By-law 39 then becomes No. 40.

Resolved, That the thanks of the Convention and of the Society be extended
and are hereby extended to the New York Branch for the hospitality received.

Resolved, That the greetings of the Convention be extended by cable to the
British Branches and to Dr. and Mrs. Keightley, with an expression of regret for
their absence.

Each of these resolutions having been separately approved by the unanimous
vote of the Convention, Doctor Clark made a motion, which was duly seconded,
that the report as a whole be accepted, and that the Committee be discharged with
the grateful thanks of the Convention. This motion being carried, the Chairman
announced that the election of officers for the ensuing year was in order.

ELECTION OF OFFICERS

Mr. C. A. Griscom, Chairman of the Committee on Nominations, reported
that it was the duty of the Convention to elect two members of the Executive
Committee, to serve for three years from date of election, and that this Committee
was unanimous in nominating Colonel T. H. Knoff of Norway, whose term has
just expired; and Judge Robert W. McBride of Indianapolis, whose membership
in the Society antedates other American members. Mr. Michaelis, seconded by
Mr. Saxe, made motion that the Secretary be instructed to cast one ballot for the
election of Colonel Knoff and of Judge McBride. By unanimous vote of the Con-
vention this was done.

Mr. Griscom then placed in nomination for the office of Secretary T. S. the
name of Mrs. Ada Gregg. The nomination being seconded, Mrs. Gregg was
elected by unanimous vote.

For the office of Treasurer, Mr. Griscom brought forward the name of Pro-
fessor Henry Bedinger Mitchell. Upon motion of Mr. Michaelis, duly seconded,
the Convention ordered the Secretary to cast one ballot for the election of Pro-
fessor Mitchell.

For Assistant Secretary, the Committee nominated Miss Perkins ; and for
Assistant Treasurer, Mr. Perkins. Both were duly elected; and upon motion of
Mr. Russ, the Committee on Nominations were discharged with thanks.

REPORT ON THE THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

The Chairman then called for a report on the QUARTERLY from the editor-in-
chief, Mr. C. A. Griscom, who said :

"Last year, some of you may remember, when I got up for the tenth time to
speak about the QUARTERLY, I told you that I had exhausted all my own ideas and
had asked my son to supply me with some new ones, which he did. This year,
finding myself in the same position, I asked him again to furnish me with a few
well chosen thoughts, but he declined, saying that I had played a mean trick on him
last year. Then I appealed to Mr. Hargrove, who made the cheerful and lumin-
ous suggestion : 'You are not going to live forever. Why not tell them what your
policy is so that they will be able to carry on the magazine after you are dead?'
I think that a great idea!

"From the very beginning we established one standard to avoid personalities.
Those of you who are familiar with other magazines that call themselves Theo-
sophical will know that this was a decided departure. In all the years that the
QUARTERLY has been published it has never yet attacked anyone, and it has not

THEOSOPHICAL CONVENTION 95

referred to individuals, has not been controversial, with the single exception of
Professor Mitchell's article on "Theosophy and the Theosophical Society," which
had to deal with individuals to a certain extent so that the real position of
the Society should be on record once and for all ; so we could refer people to that
and avoid that kind of thing in the future. The article was well done and most
successful; we should all feel gratitude to Professor Mitchell for the complete
way in which he performed his melancholy duty.

"Save for obituary notices, we never speak of individuals as such. Instead,
the magazine is devoted to a personal exposition of the views of the writers on
every subject under the sun.

"A second point to be noted is that the Society is not responsible for what is
printed in the QUARTERLY, except in the occasional official documents; and that
the articles do not even represent the views of the editors. The magazine stands
on the Theosophical platform of tolerance ; and we occasionally print articles
with which we do not agree at all, and there are frequently sentences and para-
graphs in many articles with which we do not agree. That is inevitable, natural
and proper. This attitude, on the other hand, does not require that space should
be given to the propaganda of every fad and ism that may come along, but the
pages of the magazine will be found to contain widely different types of articles.
We endeavor to make each issue as well balanced as possible ; we always want
to have the East represented, which is done by Mr. Johnston's contributions
and translations from the great scriptures of the East. Recently a series of
articles on the religion of China has been started by a very retiring person now
sitting over in the corner who would be shocked if I were to mention her name.
Christianity is always represented; the teachings of Madam Blavatsky, which are
often called Theosophy as a philosophy, are usually represented in one or more
articles; and there are always articles on the devotional, practical side which give
the reader something to do. We aim to be a sufficiently scholarly, erudite magazine,
but our special effort is to emphasize living the life. "Fragments," "On the Screen
of Time," and the many separate articles dealing with different points of the inner
life and religious experience are the most valuable features we have. I do not
think of anything else to say."

Mr. Hargrove : "Why not thank the contributors to the QUARTERLY ?"

Mr. Griscom : "Why not let the readers of the QUARTERLY do that? Every-
one knows who has ever had occasion to get out a magazine on time how
genuine are the thanks that the editor owes. Nearly everyone present has helped.
There are, for instance, three excellent articles on "The Eastern Church," by Miss
Anne Evans of Denver; but there are so many people to be thanked that I think
it a proper thing for the Society to go on record to that effect, and I should like
to make that motion."

Mr. Michaelis: "I object. With all due respect for and recognition of the
contribution of others, I think we ought to remember that all the constructive
work is done by one person. The work of the contributors is all laid out for
them, and the labor of integrating and unifying these widely differing contributions
is the responsibility of the editor-in-chief alone. Therefore, as an amendment to
Mr. Griscom's motion, I should like to add the heartiest appreciation for the
editor-in-chief and the Society's most cordial congratulation upon the policy which
he inaugurated and has wrought out."

The motion as amended was carried, with the manifest good will of the
Convention.

REPORTS OF DELEGATES

The Chairman then called for the reports of Branches that were represented
by delegates in person.

96 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

CINCINNATI BRANCH

Miss Margaret Hohnstedt read the report of the Cincinnati Branch as for-
warded by its Secretary ; and, being asked to tell the Convention something further
of the work there, said that this year the meetings seemed to be held on a higher
plane than ever before. "We have an average attendance of thirty during the
season, bad weather and all ; two-thirds of the number being visitors. These
visitors return, meeting after meeting, and that is not because they are attracted
by discussions on psychism, for some of them have expressed surprise at finding
the tone of the meetings so thoroughly religious. That is what we have been
trying to bring out the religious aspects of Theosophy.

"We have a Secret Doctrine Class of 12 members; there is a class for study
of the Ocean of Theosophy and we have been using the second volume of Letters
That Have Helped Me. Mr. Manning conducts the Secret Doctrine Class most
successfully. The QUARTERLY, which is in our public library, has many readers,
which it seems to me is another evidence of the growing influence of the Theo-
sophical Movement in Cincinnati."

WASHINGTON BRANCH

The Chairman called upon Mrs. Thompson of the Washington Branch, asking
her to make an informal report of the life and progress of the work at the
national capital. Mrs. Thompson protested that she came to the Convention to
listen, not to talk. Whereupon the Chairman asked Mrs. Gitt, the President of
the Washington Branch, to present her report.

Mrs. Gitt said that there had been much sickness among the members, and
that in the last few years many had been called away from the city, so that the
membership showed no increase. There seemed to be no lack of interest, and much
devotion to the cause. The vital questions which they used for public discussion
were the evolution of man, and such questions of the day as the Mexican problem.
The Branch seemed to have experienced three separate stages of growth. During
the first stage, that of propaganda, there was much excitement and tremendous
enthusiasm ; in the second stage, through further development, they began to
wonder what the Master would like to have them do ; in the third stage, they had
become satisfied to let the Master do the work through them. This third stage
had not meant the loss of anything, but rather the gain of greater obedience,
further aspiration, and resignation to his will. The question most in the minds
of members seemed to be Is anything being done through us as a center?

MlDDLETOWN BRANCH

A letter from the Secretary of the Middletown Branch was read, sending
heartiest greetings to the Convention, and presenting Mrs. Margaret T. Gordon
as delegate to report on the Branch work. Mrs. Gordon gave the following
report :

"The Middletown, Ohio, Branch sends to this Convention the heartiest of
greetings and to each and every one of you love and good wishes. I am requested
also to say, that this love and these good wishes are sent in great, big chunks.

"The Middletown Branch now numbers eight an increase of one since report
of a year ago. While the growth of the Branch in numbers is slow I believe it
is sure. The material that is being added is of good quality and strong.

"One of the older members writes: 'The two or three that joined the Branch
within the last two years are very earnest and very hardworking members. They
are thinkers and above all they are trying to live the life trying to be theosophists.
You know there is quite a difference between a member of the Theosophical
Society and a theosophist. All members of the T. S. believe in Universal Brother-
hood but do all so live.'

THEOSOPHICAL CONVENTION 97

"All the letters that come to me from the Branch are full of enthusiasm for
the work full of expressions of encouragement and of hope for the future of
the Branch.

"I have been told of some very interesting meetings held during the winter
just passed that visitors are now always in attendance at the meetings and that
often there is a goodly number of these comers. For a long period in the life
of this Branch visitors were an exception not a rule. The few members that
gathered together for study seemed like a little family circle and the program
for the occasion was carried out in a homelike, friendly and intimate manner.

"I was quite touched by a statement made in a letter I received.

"Just prior to a meeting of the Branch information came that quite a crowd
would be in attendance. I inferred they were all or most of them strangers to
the members. At any rate, he who was to conduct the meeting was somewhat
puzzled as to how he should do it and serve the needs of these visitors. Then
the thought came to him to pray for help, so he fell on his knees and prayed,
he said, more earnestly than he prayed ever before prayed for help and guid-
ance. Then the letter says: 'You may imagine the result a decided success,
interest at high tide many questions asked crowd lingered until a late hour,' and
I was assured that prayer would thereafter precede each meeting. Can I close
a report of this Branch without mentioning our blind member? It would not
seem complete. With her gentleness, patience and good will toward all she is
such a vital part of it. I am sure she is giving much to these meetings, much
that serves to hold this little Branch in place."

HOPE BRANCH

Mrs. Irene Regan, Chairman of the new Branch in Providence, when asked
to present a report expressed her own pleasure and satisfaction in attending the
Convention, and referred to the Secretary of the Branch, Mrs. F. A. Fitts, the
making of the report. Mrs. Fitts said :

"There is little which may be said as a formal report from Hope Branch,
for our Charter has just been received and there has been no formal meeting:
It is our desire to sound one clear note, the note of cooperation. There are so
many ways of doing effective work for Theosophy. For the present we want
to try one of these ways exclusively; we hope through the use of the Theosophic
method to gain a synthesis of the views of each member of our Branch and so
come to a broader vision of truth. We hope that your prayers will follow us."

PROVIDENCE BRANCH

The Chairman called upon Mrs. Jennie C. Sheldon, President of the Providence
Branch, for their annual report. Mrs. Sheldon said :

"There are very few events to report in the life of Providence Branch during
the last year. The history of Providence Branch has been very much like the
history of the Society. We were troubled when we heard that there was to be
another Branch in Providence; we were troubled lest in some way we had not
done our full duty. But Mr. Johnston has made it clear that it is all right, and
we wish the new Branch most hearty good will and success in their work.

"As one of the other delegates has said here today, we have had much sick-
ness to contend with, and this has made the attendance at our meetings smaller
than usual. Many of our members live in the outskirts of the city and the bad
weather has kept them at home. Our regular Sunday evening meeting has been
maintained, and a spirit of devotion is manifest. The Tuesday evening meeting
has been held regularly, and I, for one, feel how great is our indebtedness to
the authors of those articles in the Path, Lucifer, and Theosophy which we have
been following at these Tuesday meetings. Their unselfish work lives on after
the workers have departed. Our Wednesday afternoon meetings have been most

98 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

successful. There are sometimes 14 persons present. We have been studying the
Yoga Sutras, and we have recognised their inspiration toward spiritual growth;
next we take up the Religion of the Will. As a result of these meetings, five
members have joined our Branch. We also use Mr. Judge's letters on chelaship,
and Cave's writings on discipleship. We are grateful for the many spiritual
blessings which have come to us during the year, and we hope that we may be
true to the principles of Theosophy as we go forward to do our duty with the
strength that is in us."

SYRACUSE BRANCH

The Chairman spoke of his pleasure in welcoming Mr. Charles H. Dower,
for many years a member of the Society and of the Syracuse Branch. Mr.
Dower said :

"The Syracuse Branch is one of the old Branches of the Society. In Mr.
Judge's time it was a very strong center; since then we have had many ups
and downs. During the years death has taken many of our members from us,
and a large number have moved away to other cities, and I hope to other
Branches of the Society; but the work has been carried on. When Mr. Judge used
to visit us he would sometimes go out to the Indian Reservation and talk to
the Indians who lived there ; and this work we have carried on. One thing we
have learned it is not difficult to interest people in Theosophy, if one goes
about it in the right way; people are always drawing general conclusions from
the events of everyday life, and if one is willing to approach Theosophy from that
angle people are ready to listen. If we are ready to listen to the truth of another
we shall find him ready to hear the truth as it seems to us. No matter how few
members may be present at any meeting, we find the Masters willing to second
our efforts in their cause."

NEW YORK BRANCH

Mr. E. T. Hargrove, Chairman of the New York Branch, was asked to report
upon its activities, and spoke as follows :

"Mr. Chairman, delegates of the Convention, and fellow-members : It is
part and parcel of the philosophy of our Branch that one member cannot present
its report. It is part of our aim to draw out the contribution of the individual
members. By cooperation, by real Brotherhood, it is possible so to combine
individual gifts and the light that filters through the individual mind as to get a
fair representation of the truth. So I hope that others also will speak for the
Branch. I will try to contribute my quota.

"As a group we do not call ourselves Theosophists because that would be
to claim too much. We regard Theosophy as the ideal toward which we work
but which must ever recede as we approach it we are members of the Theo-
sophical Society, and are striving to become Theosophists. It was well said that
we reach a point at last at which we realize that of ourselves we can do nothing;
we see that the Universal must accomplish things through us by means of
achieving things in us and on us. The Branch as a whole has seriously taken to
heart its responsibility under that head. We have discovered, as a Branch, that
it is absolutely useless to talk about Theosophy, to propagate intellectual ideas
or formulas. The acceptance of a creed, whether labelled theosophical or any-
thing else, does not even constitute belief. No man believes in something unless
he lives it ; belief only exists if it affects his conduct and moves his will : that is
if he does something about it. A man may say that he believes in human brother-
hood; if he does not act it, live it, think it, he does not believe it a man lives
that which he believes. If a man calls himself a Christian and is a thief by
profession, he is not a Christian, he is a thief. It is horribly simple. We can only

THEOSOPH1CAL CONVENTION 99

give what we are. If we are talking about brotherhood, the first and the last
step for us is to be and to become what we are talking about.

''Years ago, at the beginning of the movement, much fundamental work had
to be done by Madame Blavatsky and by Mr. Judge; during his lifetime very
few members had outgrown the kindergarten stage. It was given to Mr. Judge
to find few who could understand him. He was always striving to give the
spiritual reality ; he wanted to give knowledge first hand and not out of books.
He knew, if anyone ever did know, that knowledge is only obtainable by turning
the will from the unreal to the real. But during his lifetime, I do not think
there were more than three or four people in the Society who began to understand
Mr. Judge or what he was working for.

"Little by little the Society grew up. The Almighty used his fan and
winnowed out those who on account of psychic or intellectual barriers were incap-
able of seeing what William Q. Judge really was teaching. As a Society we
have grown to a point at which we are really beginning to understand something
of Theosophy.

"The New York Branch flatters itself that it, in any case, is beginning to show
signs of adolescence, since it is interested in the things that concern the will.
In our Branch there has been a spontaneous tendency to discuss questions of
discipleship, or what might be called the religious aspect of Theosophy; and
Miss Hohnstedt has spoken of this as being true in the Cincinnati Branch also.
This does not mean that we are losing interest in other things, but that we are
learning to use them for the purpose of discipleship. We can never serve the
divine, unless we become like that which we would serve ; the whole problem
could be expressed in terms of likeness.

"We can sympathize with Mrs. Sheldon's expression of good will for the
new Branch in Providence ; the three members who hope by cooperation to express
their own ideal. We must be very careful that we do not get hurt feelings
because someone else does not agree with us; that would show that we did not
understand Theosophy Where two or three are gathered in the name of an ideal
that ideal will grow up in the midst of them.

"On my own behalf and that of the Branch, I wish to say that we look
forward with real pleasure to these Conventions ; I do not . know so glad a
time in the history of the Branch as when we can welcome a Convention of the
Society. I do not know any atmosphere that is so cordial and homelike as the
atmosphere of a Theosophical Convention. If you had been away from it for
a number of years and then came back to it, you would realize this.

"This is the fourth year that the New York Branch has been favored by
being the host of the Convention. The Branch that entertains the Society has
to be very firmly planted on its feet. The Branch that entertains the Conven-
tion has occasion to tremble. The fact is that if we look back over the past we
shall see that more than one Branch has nearly been shaken off its feet just
because the Convention has been held in its midst. Because so many members
of the New York Branch are case hardened and have learned by long experience
to balance themselves when the ship rocks under them, holding onto the rigging
or anything else in sight, it is perhaps wiser and safer to have Conventions held
here.

"The gladness created by your presence is very great and very deep. Those
in this room who represent the survivors of the Theosophical Movement may be
war-worn, but we are not weary, thank Heaven ! It may be that we have begun
to learn the lesson of eternal youth. Again and again I would speak of the
pleasure, the immense delight, the lightness of heart that exists in such a meeting,
among members of a Society working together for a common aim, backed as the
Society is backed by the greatest spiritual force in the universe the thin edge
of a wedge, driven home, further and further into the most material civilization

100 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

that the world has ever seen. The edge is not even worn or blunted but instead
grows more alive. This may sound figurative, but I do not believe it to be so.
The longer we live the better we are able to appreciate what the Society stands
for in the real world ; and I cannot imagine a greater honor than to be a member.

"At no time in the past have I, for one, known such open and manifest
expression of the power back of us as in the last few years. The future is not in
our hands, the present is. If we do our best, if we are true to our ideals, then
the future will be taken care of for us."

The Chairman then called upon the members-at-large. Dr. Woolsey of
Fonda, New York, expressed his pleasure at being able to attend the Convention,
as it brought members who live where there is no Branch so much closer to
the real life of the movement as a whole. Dr. Woolsey said that he would much
prefer to listen to others than to speak himself.

Mr. Saxe, of Niagara Falls, said that he felt as Doctor Woolsey did, and that
he would much prefer to listen, but lest a member-at-large might seem to appear
ungrateful for all that the Convention meant he would tell a story. "Once upon
a time I had an old 'cello which seemed well enough in its way but failed to give
a good clear tone. I looked it all over and thought I discovered a little crack
in the top which might be making the trouble; so I took it to a competent 'cello
maker and left it to have the little crack glued up. But the 'cello maker knew
far better than I. He found something wrong with the inside of the instrument,
fixed that, paid no attention to the little crack, and the 'cello responded as never
before.

"I came to the Convention knowing that I was lonely, as there is no Branch
where I live and I seldom have opportunity to talk with members of the Society.
I knew that if I came to the Convention this spot would be all made right, and
instead I have received help where I did not know that I needed it at all."

LETTERS OF GREETING

Responding to the Chairman's call for a report from the Committee on Letters
of Greeting, Mr. Johnston said that Doctor Clark and Doctor Woolsey agreed
that it was not possible to read to the Convention all of the letters of greeting
which had been received. He would therefore read extracts, hoping that the
editor of the QUARTERLY could find space for the full text of the letters in the
July issue. Upon receiving the assurance of the Committee that the cablegrams
and letters of greeting would receive proper acknowledgement, the Committee was
discharged, with the thanks of the Convention.

ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR MITCHELL

Mr. Johnston was asked to take the chair so that Professor Mitchell might
respond to the request of Mr. Hargrove that he, as President of the New York
Branch, should give some further account of its activities.

"One of my brother professors, who holds the chair of psychology at Columbia
University, tells me that I am all wrong in my endeavor to mark my own students,
that if I wish an illuminating report on their progress I should get them to make
the report and to determine what their own marks should be. Now the Chairman
of the New York Branch suggests that if I see no need of further report on the
Branch work I might at least report on myself, on my behavior. That I decline
to do! Among its many functions that of the confessor does not belong to the
Theosophical Society.

"But I am glad to make my contribution to a report of the New York Branch,
for it is true, I believe, that no one member can report upon any true Theo-
sophical work. Any work which is undertaken to be an expression of the funda-
mental principles of the Theosophical Society must of necessity find its complete-

THEOSOPHICAL CONVENTION 101

ness only as the collective expression of a group of members ; that is the principle
on which we have proceeded throughout the Winter.

"Our proceedings could be described in many ways. The meetings are inter-
esting and real to me but I never know whether they will be interesting to any
given individual. To me there is something fairly exciting about our meetings:
there is the open door, and we do not know who will come in, what elements
will be brought into this collection of truth which it will be our effort to synthe-
size; we do not at all know what turn things will take, what facet of the truth
will be brought out. I feel confident that one who comes to our meetings and
earnestly tries to fit the pieces together, to get the life and the spiritual significance
of it all will find the meetings exciting as well as profitable, for if one is going to
find the synthesis of dissimilar views, it must be sought in a higher realm, the
discussion must be lifted to another plane.

"The very fundamental Theosophical method of tolerance, of synthesis, of
the open door, in an all inclusive sense, the method of Catholicity, which accepts
all that comes as having some gift to offer and welds all together, is a method
that drives you inward, beyond and below the mere surface of things to their
essence and reality.

"Here is another side of that most significant phase of the work of the
New York Branch; its insistence on reality. I believe that we become real as
we deal with real things, searching in ourselves and in others for the reality. Our
Society is founded on the belief that intellectual dogma and mental views are not
real, are but forms or approximate expressions of the Real; if we are going to
deal with reality we have to get beneath them. It does us no good to know all
about Theosophy, or all the facts about discipleship. To know just how one
ought to attain and then not to act should not content us; that descriptive kind
of knowledge does us no good, we want first hand knowledge. In Theosophy
it is the attitude, the method, the spirit, the life; those are the chief expressions
of our work. The New York Branch meetings are interesting, vital, and real;
and I believe them to be typical of what the Society stands for. I think they
are generally helpful. I know they always help me."

The Chairman announced that while the business before the Convention had
been completed there would be an informal meeting, a reception, at half-past
eight o'clock in the evening, when there would be opportunity for exchange of
views and for a freer expression of that tie of brotherhood in which we find so
much of the real joy and happiness of our lives.

He also announced a public lecture by Mr. Charles Johnston at Hotel St.
Denis at a half after three o'clock on Sunday afternoon, to which the delegates
were invited to bring their friends; the subject of the lecture being "Modern
Problems and the Theosophic Life."

Mr. Michaelis asked the privilege of voicing the gratitude of the delegates
for the great opportunities of this Convention; he felt that the Convention must
represent highwater mark in the experience of the Society and he hoped that it
might prove a long step upward from which the Society would never permit
itself to recede.

Upon motion by Mr. Johnston, the Convention expressed its appreciation for
the services of its Chairman and Secretary by a rising vote of thanks.

By motion of Mr. Hargrove, seconded by Mr. Johnston, the Convention
adjourned without day.

, KARL D. PERKINS,

Secretary of Convention.

102 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

LETTERS OF GREETING

Many letters of greeting were received by the Convention, from all parts of
the world, and the customary and always welcome cable from Dr. Keightley in
London, on behalf of the British members.

From Sweden, Mr. H. Julin writes that "if you hear a soft whisper in the room
where you are assembled, please take it as a warm greeting from far off friends.
If you hear it not, it yet will be there, bearing the thanks which we all feel
for all that comes to us from America during all these years ; and carrying our
wishes for the future. We will endeavor to keep the day of the Convention as a
Holy Day. We will meet and send our thoughts to the country which contains
the Heart of the movement."

From Norway, Colonel T. H. Knoff sent the following:

I have been charged by the two Norwegian Branches to send a message to
the Annual Convention of the T. S., which is now to be held at New York.
April 25th this year.

We all regret very much to be so far away, that none of us can attend at the
Convention and profit by coming in direct touch with so many strong and
devoted Co-Workers. This is our Karma, and we have to bear it. Meanwhile,
we know that we are not forgotten, and that we shall partake in the power of
harmony and devotion manifested at the Convention.

Rejoicing in this thought, the Karma Branch, Kristiania, and the Aurvanga
Branch, Aker, are sending their brotherly greetings, wishing much success for
the deliberations of the Convention. Yours fraternally,

T. H. KNOFF.

On behalf of the members in Venezuela, Mr. J. J. Benzo wrote :

The members of the "Rama Venezuela" have entrusted me with the charge
of sending to the Convention of the Theosophical Society our cordial greeting.
Notwithstanding our ardent desire, we have been unable to nominate one of our
companions from here to represent us directly in the greater labors of the
Society ; but there will not be lacking the presence of our spirit among those who
receive the blessing of the Masters and who sustain and live the principle of
universal brotherhood.

The most important event of this year has been the re-appearance of the
review Dharma, which has permitted us, among other things, to make known to
the South American public the thought and life of the Society through the
medium of its writers. One of its works of most excellent merit translated,
because of its actual interest, has been "The Theosophical Society and Theosophy,"
by Prof. H. B. Mitchell, who has depicted with absolute clearness the historic
process of the Society founded and sustained by H. P. B. and W. Q. J., at the same
time as he demonstrates its eminently impersonal existence. This work has been,
doubtless, a special benefit to the readers of our movement ; because it throws
light over many points that had been subjects of discussion and diverse com-
ment, even among the very members of the Society.

Our review circulates sufficiently over all Spanish-America and has met with
a good reception. Its pages bear admirable articles, selected from the notable
review THE THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, and in this way is instrumental in giving
in Spanish the literary and philosophical labors of our North American brothers ;
it would appear to fulfil the mission of joining the thought of one-half of
America to the thought of the other half as a detail of the noble design of the
Masters of uniting the world through life and spirit.

The "Rama Venezuela" most sincerely desires a happy issue for the works
of the Convention. Fraternally,

JUAN J. BENZO.

THEOSOPHICAL CONVENTION 103

Mr. Paul Raatz, whose presence at the Convention last year was so much
enjoyed, had to content himself and us this year with written greetings :

To the members of the T. S. in Convention assembled:
DEAR COMRADES:

Another year of work for mankind as members of the Theosophical Society
has passed, and we have met together to draw up an account of our activity during
the past year.

It is my privilege to tender to you the hearty greetings of all the Branches
in the "Union of German Branches of the T. S." A year ago I had the pleasure
and good fortune of being present personally at the Convention, of taking part in
the proceedings and what was of most importance, of personally sensing the
Spirit, which prevailed. I experienced this as a great blessing, for although the
universal Spirit is everywhere, it is however true, that this Spirit can manifest
itself better on certain occasions and at certain places. Our Convention is such
an occasion. Not only personalities take part in it, but also the spiritual selves
of all members of our T. S. and above all our Elder Brothers, the Masters, who
stand and work behind the visible world, for the progress of mankind, as we
are told in Light on the Path. I believe, that the force of the Masters manifests
itself more at our Convention than at any other time.

But I must not forget that this is a Convention of the "T. S.," of a Society
which requires no beliefs and no dogmas, and therefore not even a belief in the
Masters. There may be members here who do not believe in them, and these
members have a right to their place in our midst. The T. S. in its universality is
open to all, who believe in humanity. May we members also succeed in identify-
ing ourselves with this spirit, so that a consciousness of this universality and
immortality may be aroused in us. Our Convention gives us a good opportunity
of strengthening our consciousness in this direction.

I have an excellent report to make of our movement in Germany. We are
making progress, but this shows itself less in an increase of members than in
the earnestness to live, to practise what has been recognized as true. This is
to be ascribed in a great degree to the inspiring articles in the QUARTERLY and
the translations of these in our magazine Theosophisches Leben. This has been
unusually successful since we transformed it to a quarterly. The list of readers
has increased and these send us many a word of praise. Fifteen universities in
Germany have asked to have the magazine sent regularly to them, and in case a
number is delayed or lost, immediately we receive notice, begging to have it re-sent.
This success in the most educated classes in Germany is due solely to the excel-
lent articles in the QUARTERLY, which are translated and form the greater part
of the contents of our magazine. I take this opportunity of once more thanking
the editors for giving us the right of translation. May these articles bear much
fruit in the coming years.

Greeting you once more in the name of all our German members, I remain
with best wishes for a successful Convention.

Yours sincerely,

PAUL RAATZ,
Secretary of the "Union of German Branches of the T. S."

The Convention was also privileged to receive reports and letters of greeting
from many Branches both in our country and abroad, which lack of space prevents
our printing. The "Nuevo Ciclo" Branch of Caracas, Venezuela, sends a most
interesting report of its formation and of the work it has in prospect, signed by its
Vice-President, Dr. Lopez-Fontaines.

Mr. M. de Cueva sends greetings and report from the Altagracia de Orituco
Branch, also of Venezuela, while from Germany we have the pleasure in acknowl-

104 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

edging letters, from Aussig, so complete and interesting that it is a great pity it
cannot be printed in full, from Flensburg, from Munich, and from Dresden. This
latter Branch reports most gratifying activities and the possession of a library of
550 volumes for the use of members.

The Aurvanga Branch of Norway reports 29 public meetings, at which 319
visitors were present, and at 22 of which lectures were given mostly by Mr. Alme,
whose specialty is Norse Mythology.

Mrs. Graves reports for the Norfolk Branch of England.

In this country, in addition to the verbal reports and greetings of the delegates,
we received written communications from Branches in Cincinnati, Indianapolis,
Seattle, Oakland, Stockton, and Los Angeles, all full of good cheer and warm
wishes, and permeated by a striking spirit of optimism and hope for the future.

NOTICE

A new edition of Mr. Charles Johnston's translation of the Bhagavad Gita,
with his illuminating and valuable commentary, is in the press and will be ready
the first of October. It will be printed in convenient size for the pocket, in two
styles of binding; red cloth, for $1.00, and red, limp leather for $1.50. The limp
leather edition is printed on the best imported India paper, and will be less than
a quarter of an inch thick; an ideal travelling companion. The first 100 copies of
this leather edition will bear the signature of the translator on the title page.
Orders for this autographed edition may be placed at once; they will be filled in
the order in which they are received, until the edition is exhausted. Orders should
be sent to "The Quarterly Book Department," 159 Warren Street, Brooklyn, New
York.

COMMENT

OCTOBER, 1914

The Theosophical Society, as such, is not responsible for any opinion
or declaration in this magazine, by whomsoever expressed, unless con-
tained in an official document.

THE SPIRITUAL VALUE OF WAR

WRITERS in THE THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY have many times
been taken severely to task for criticising one phase or
another of modern Socialism, and have been told, with
reiterated severity, that they are wrong in principle and
attitude, because they do not co-operate heartily with a movement which
makes for human brotherhood ; a movement which should appeal irresist-
ibly to those of us who hold to the ideal of a universal brotherhood of
humanity. Now, it seems, these same writers will incur renewed censure,
if they declare that, though holding to the ideal of the great peace, they
find themselves compelled to doubt not only the wisdom but also the
moral Tightness of the modern movements for world peace; if they
find themselves compelled to recognize and assert the spiritual value of
war.

It is pretty certain that many good and considerate people, who have
a hearty detestation of Socialism, are as heartily in favor of the peace
propaganda; yet some of us are convinced that the peace movements
and Socialism are equally at fault, because they rest on practically the
same principle, and appeal, though often only half consciously, to the
same low and materialistic impulses. It has often been said that the lower
nature ceaselessly calls on the lower mind to justify and defend it ; that
the lower mind is an adept at finding convincing reasons for whatever
the lower nature wants to do. And it seems to us that just this action
of the lower mind is exemplified in both cases ; that the resources of the
lower mind are used to cover up and deck the same essentially low and
selfish view of life.

When we come down to fundamentals, we shall find that a defence
of Socialism is a more or less veiled defence of physical comfort, of physi-

8 Io s

106 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

cal self-indulgence of a pretty sordid kind. One can illustrate this in
two ways. Take the complaints and accusations which are so eloquently
made by the fiery apostles of Socialism, when they are "arraigning the
capitalistic class," as the phrase goes. These arraignments sum them-
selves up in this, to strip off the tinsel of false rhetoric ; that the capital-
istic class is irremediably evil because it prevents the working class from
eating more, drinking more, idling more, and in other ways enjoying a
larger measure of self-indulgence.

The second illustration is a little more subtle, yet essentially the
same in principle. It is an objection that one has heard made in church
pulpits, by those curiously wrong-headed people, as we must hold them
to be, who think that Christianity is essentially the same thing as Social-
ism; or, to put it the other way, who think that Socialism is essentially
Christian. It is this : that Socialism has a claim on all religious-minded
people, because the Socialist state will give the workers leisure to culti-
vate their souls, a leisure which, supposedly, they do not at present
possess, under the evil system of capitalism.

Of the two ways of putting it, we greatly prefer the first: that
Socialism will enable the workingman to eat more, drink more and idle
more. It has at least the virtue of entire candour. For think of the
moral doctrine which underlies the second illustration. It is nothing
less than the affirmation that a man's soul is in better shape and is more
advantageously placed, when he is following his own sweet will, than
when he is exerting himself to the full in some work that entails self-
denial and self-sacrifice. But we, who are deeply convinced that self-
will, the following of one's own sweet will, is the one positive evil, can-
not but believe that when a man's personality is restrained, constrained,
harrassed even, by work set him by some will other than his own, then
that man's soul has its golden opportunity.

We do not believe for a moment that the Socialist state would fulfil
its promises; it violates too many of the essential laws of life for that.
But if we did so believe, if we held that its roseate dreams could be
realized, then we should find in that fact its greatest condemnation, since
the success of Socialism, by ushering in the era of self-indulgence, would
bring with it the most formidable dangers for the welfare of the soul.

Perhaps this makes the ground of our objection to the movements
for universal peace already somewhat clearer. Briefly, our objection is
this : that peace is sought and praised, not so much as a spiritual victory
over selfishness, but rather as making a secure field for the growth of
selfish self-indulgence. Of course, just as was the case with the plea
for Socialism as a soul-strengthener, so with the arguments for peace;
they are generally decked up and cloaked in rhetorical phrases. But

NOTES AND COMMENTS 107

when the rhetoric is stripped off, they come down to this: that world-
peace is desirable, because it will give a great many people a great many
more opportunities to "have a good time," in the sense of having more
to eat, more to drink, more leisure, more time for idleness and self-
indulgence. Of course, all kinds of pleas are made for family life, for
domestic bliss and well-being, for the torn hearts of women and children ;
but under all of this is the assumption, which we cannot but think is at
once base and essentially false, that our real well-being lies in self-will and
self-indulgence; that fattening is good for the soul.

This is just what we do not and cannot believe. Holding, as we do,
that self-will, self-indulgence, is the greatest evil, we are quite firmly
convinced that the soul's health lies in self-sacrifice and self-denial ; often
in suffering and sorrow and death. Nay, more, that these "enemies" of
human happiness, sorrow and suffering and death, are means and imple-
ments of the soul, formed and created by the soul in its war against self,
the time-old enemy, which now, as of old, seeks the soul's destruction.

We might go much further than this; we might put aside for the
time the whole idealist argument, and, standing on the basis of sheer
materialism, declare and demonstrate that, all through the immense ages
of organic evolution, we find no growth without danger and self-sacrifice ;
that the surest and most enduring growth has invariably been made in
the face of imminent and impending death. Organisms that shirk the
risk and refuse the sacrifice are organisms doomed to die, for throughout
all ages evolution has meant the sacrifice of today for tomorrow, the
payment of present pain for future gain.

This has not meant unhappiness. Far from it. Self-sacrifice, so
far from destroying happiness, is the one sure source of happiness ; and
we can add this to our other "arraignments" of the Socialistic state,
that, if it were thoroughly successful, as successful as the wildest of
Utopian hopes, it would speedily make mankind altogether miserable.
For there is no such certain cause of misery as methodized self-indul-
gence.

Organic evolution, we believe, has been full of happiness throughout :
happy as the loveliness of flowers, the song of birds. It has been full of
sacrifice, the sacrifice of self for others, of the present for the future,
of the individual for the all. Vicarious atonement, sacrifice that shall
profit others, is the universal law.

Therefore the hedonism, the love of comfort and self-indulgence,
which is the real motive behind both Socialism and the peace propa-
ganda, is directly contrary to the great forces which have guided and

108 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

guarded organic evolution. So that, even from the standpoint of material-
ist biology, these two movements, and the spirit they engender and foster,
are equally dangerous.

But we do not take the standpoint of materialism, though we do hold
that, within certain limits, and with certain qualifications and supplement-
ing considerations, biology is a genuine revelation of law, and therefore
worthy of most serious study. It is one way, and a very fruitful way,
of making discoveries concerning "the mind of God."

We hold the standpoint of spiritual life and spiritual law. And
holding this standpoint, we view as grave dangers any movements which
tacitly hold as their ideal some condition of life that fosters self-indul-
gence and self-will. And, as a low and materialistic peace, a peace
sought and defended in order that we may be able to eat more, drink
more, idle more, a peace which tacitly holds that the well-being and
comfort of the physical man is the supreme good, seems to be the object
of the peace propaganda, we are compelled to think that the movement
which brings forth such propaganda is both dangerous and wrong.

But it will be immediately objected that peace fosters moral virtues,
while war breeds nothing but evil, cruelty and hate. We have already
considered the qualities which, it seems to us, are really fostered by a
low and materialistic peace. Let us turn the medal, and see what moral
characteristics, qualities and principles are fostered by war.

Take, first, the readiness to die. That is always a spiritual quality
and a great one. It is one which, even biologically speaking, is of the
utmost value. Nearly all the higher animals, during the breeding time,
stand ready to die for their offspring, and this readiness of theirs is the
great safeguard of their race, the pledge of continuity and future growth.
Concerning the soldier's readiness to die, the best and noblest saying is
Ruskin's. The peace advocate fiercely declared that "the soldier's pro-
fession is, to kill." "No" exclaimed Ruskin; "the profession of the
soldier is, to be killed." That is it. By the mere fact of his being a
soldier, he declares himself ready to make the supreme sacrifice, the
sacrifice of his life. That is one of the things that his uniform means.

The readiness to die in battle is a spiritual power, not solely because
it is the very negation of materialism and the selfish will toward material
life. One hopelessly ill may cheerfully face death, and that cheerful
acceptance is a spiritual victory. But readiness to die in battle is more,
because it is the voluntary acceptance of death, for a principle, for a
cause. It is, therefore, the declaration, backed by the stake of one's own
life, that the cause, the principle, are of higher value than that life; of so

NOTES AND COMMENTS 109

much higher value, that it is altogether well to sacrifice one's life in
order to support the principle.

Then there is something more, of yet higher spiritual value : after the
soldier has passed through the valley of the acceptance of death, he does
not sit down, meekly resigned, to await death's coming. If he be a genuine
soldier, he puts the thought of his own death, or rather, perhaps, of his
own personal life, out of his mind altogether, quite obliterating it from
his memory, and then goes forward, full of that positive courage which
is so much greater even than acceptance, exerting his will and all his
powers to the utmost in carrying out his allotted task. That comes about
as close to the sheer exercise of spiritual power, oblivious of one's own
personal interest, one's own personal existence even, as it is possible to
come in earthly life.

But, there will come the ready objection : so many of the soldiers do
not voluntarily make the act of self-sacrifice, the willing acceptance of
death. They are driven into battle, like sheep to the slaughter, the victims
of tyrannous emperors and kings, or even of the scheming political
leaders of republics. This is the kind of argument one is particularly
likely to meet in the United States, and one is likely to see it cited in
praise of democracy: "When the people rule, wars will be at an end."
If so, then so much the worse for democracy; so much the worse for
the people.

We might quite justly argue that emperors and kings cannot bring
about wars unless the karma of their nations allows it; that the kings
and emperors are there because the karma of their nations put them there.
So that the private soldier goes to war, in the name of his emperor, but
in reality in obedience to his own karma. And we might justly add that
it is a part of the materialism of the peace propaganda, a part of the
materialism of democracy, to ignore the law of karma, merely because
it is an occult and spiritual law, not instantly perceptible on the material
plane. Democracy may ignore karma, but karma will not thereby be
induced to ignore democracy.

But we shall also take this ground: that the soldier who, knowing
nothing of karma, and knowing as little of the rights of the quarrel and
the principle involved, goes cheerfully and courageously to war, simply
because he is a soldier and is sent to the front, thereby stands in a far
better position spiritually than that same man, peasant or artisan, when
peacefully plying his trade at the plough or the loom. Why? Because,
whether consciously or not, he is treating himself as what he really is,
an immortal soul, a child of the deathless Warrior, and not a mere
animal getting food and clothing from the earth. He interests us as the
immortal, not as the animal; he interests us when the energies of his

110 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

soul are correlated with the great spiritual forces which ignore our earthly,
bodily limitations. It is as the soul struggling towards conscious im-
mortality through pain and death, if need be that he is his true self,
not as the animal gathering material sustenance from the earth.

Without doubt, a very terrible and pitiful side of war is the suffering
of non-combatants, and particularly of women and children. Where the
"laws of war" which should be binding on the honour of all modern
armies, but, unfortunately are not, are religiously observed, the suffer-
ings of women and children are intense, and make their appeal direct to
every heart that is capable of human feeling. We have seen the horrible
suffering put upon those whose villages and towns were overrun by hostile
armies ; where, it seemed, the resistance of the men was visited in suffering
on the women. But where nothing like this exists, there is yet an appalling
amount of misery.

Take, for example, a little pen-picture one read the other day: the
writer, walking through one of the streets in the capital of one of the
countries engaged in the war, met nineteen women within a certain dis-
tance. Of these, sixteen were wearing black, and this, within three weeks
of the beginning of the war. What will be the sum of woe, before the
war is ended ?

Of such suffering, such seemingly wanton suffering in part, one can
only say this, that must be said of all human suffering ; that it is a part,
seemingly a quite indispensable part, of the development of the soul.
Our age-long selfishness and sin has heaped up conditions so adverse to
the soul, that, seemingly, only desperate remedies will serve to combat
them ; and such a desperate remedy we may see in the suffering of women
and children in war. Let us not consider them simply as women and
children, whose apparent helplessness makes their suffering so poignant,
so pitiable. Let us think of them as souls ; as the fine gold of the spirit,
being tried in the furnace of affliction. Let us think most of all of the
purity of heart, the spiritual receptivity, that this suffering will bring
about. And let us gain also the ever necessary lesson of compassion,
which all suffering can teach.

Again, it may be said that the soldier, whose profession it is to be
killed, as Ruskin said, is also called upon to kill, and that this is of
necessity morally evil. That objection is no new one. Indeed, it has
been taken up and thrashed out in all its phases, in the famous dialogue
between Krishna and Arjuna. There, arguments eternally valid will be
found, every one of which throws light on the spiritual value of war.

But we have yet to come to one of the greatest benefits which war
brings ; a benefit present even in military service in time of peace, though

NOTES AND COMMENTS 111

not to the same degree: the supreme benefit of discipline. In essence,
discipline is this : methodical obedience to the will of another, in disregard
of one's own desires. And this human discipline is the finest, indeed, the
only, preparation for that supreme spiritual discipline, which consists in
methodical obedience to the commands of the soul. It is all a matter of
breaking our bondage to our own wills, a result of such high value that
it is worth almost anything to gain it.

Here are the principles, as we have been able to apprehend them.
Whoever will, can expand and apply them for himself. But we antici-
pate that one more objection will be raised: that a soldier may be ordered
to do what he knows to be unjust or wrong. This, too, we take it, is the
working of karma. Perhaps he has done just the same thing, in some
earlier time, of his own will, deliberately shutting his eyes to its wrongness
and injustice, and this is his retribution; the lesson needed, to burn into
his soul the hatred of wrong and of injustice.

We shall be told that it is all very well for us to defend the lessons
of war, by assuming spiritual destinies and spiritual laws. But surely
this opens the way for the answer that our arguments can only be met by
ignoring spiritual laws and spiritual destinies ; by a world-view essentially
materialistic, which holds the greatest self-indulgence of the greatest
number to be the highest good.

Spiritual life is ceaseless warfare ; we hold that earthly warfare has
lessons invaluable, lessons not to be learned in peace, for this reason,
if for no other, that its conditions are far closer to those of normal
spiritual life, the long warfare against active, insidious forces of evil,
for the making of immortals, for the redemption of the soul.

FRAGMENTS

WOULDST thou truly forsake thyself and follow me? Lift
up thy heart then, and see again the road that thou must travel.
First thou shalt be filled with the sense of thine own
nothingness; thine efforts shall prove of no avail save
more firmly to rivet thee in the chains of thine old sins, thy will shall
snap under thee like dried twigs, thy vision prove the mirage of the
desert, thy desires the puling whimpers of a new-born babe, thy prayers
the monotonous cadence of a summer night, unheard by the stars in
heaven. And this shall last for long, that the iron of it may enter
into the citadel of thy heart, where pride and fear, contending against
me, would secure the inmost chambers from my approach. But at
length, having drunk my cup of anguish to the dregs, as in the garden
of old so also to thee shall my grace, like a ministering angel, appear
to comfort and refresh thee. Mine is the tyranny of love, that breaks
that it may straighten. How couldst thou understand a love so infinite,
by the pale shadow of thine own?

When thou hast tasted somewhat of my comfort, and leaning on my
heart hast learnt some secret of its passion, then again I must depart,
or, weak and treacherous still, thou wouldst betray us both. Yet in that
inner place where pride is dead (though fear be still enough alive to
suffer), there, in his death, and in thy desolation at my loss, commingled,
thou shalt find some whisper of the truth: that as thy love reflects my
own, so also does thy sorrow; that our cross is borne together; that in
it is an eternal comradeship ; till, nailed thereon by thy complete consent
to my least will for thee, thou shalt find thy spirit lifted on its arms
above that level of an earthly consciousness to one of paradise, where
there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there
be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.

Again and again the battle must be fought and won. It is only for
an interval that Nature can be still. To learn is impossible until the first

FRAGMENTS 113

great battle has been won: then it is always possible to learn, for the
Voice of the Silence remains within him my voice and one day it will
resound and separate his divine possibilities from himself. O would-be
disciple, hear my call ! There is need of men. Who will lay down his

life that he may fine it?

CAVE.

EARLY ENGLISH MYSTICS

VII
RICHARD ROLLE

GEOFFREY CHAUCER perfumes and whitens the fourteenth
century in England with flowers of a new spring. His gaiety,
geniality and sympathy with "all sorts and conditions of men"
have won him a place second to Shakespeare in the minds of his
countrymen. Few writers of that century besides Chaucer are known.
"Piers Plowman" is a phrase on many lips, but acquaintance with the
work is confined to scholars. Richard Rolle's name occurs in many text
books designed for the purpose of leading youthful ignorance to some
familiarity with the "morbid syntax" of the mother tongue in its formative
period. Twenty years ago professors of linguistics drew upon Rolle's
writing for illustrations. Rolle himself they scarcely deigned to consider.
They thought he was only one more of the curious gargoyles on the
deserted mediaeval cathedral his thoughts and feelings were exploded
superstitions. Twenty years have witnessed a steadily increasing wave
of spiritual and devotional interest until now the erstwhile ridiculous
hermit is read, as widely, perhaps, as the great Chaucer and surely with
greater profit. Contemporary men and women of devout hearts have
found ghostly aliment in the teacher of an older time. They have taken
his writings out of Latin or quaint early English, and have put them into
modern words. Thanks to Father Benson, Miss Hodgson and others,
most of Rolle's writing is now entirely accessible.

Rolle's life was short and uneventful. Yet the critical epochs of his
inner life are manifested outwardly in rather dramatic incidents. He
was born about 1300, and went to Oxford for study. It was the period
of decadence in the great Scholastic philosophy. The constructive epoch
of the renowned Aquinas, his theosophic endeavor to harmonise and
synthesize Greek and Christian thought had ended. The most con-
spicuous of the ecclesiastical scholars could no longer build. Duns Scotus
(died 1308) was the most accredited disputer of the period, and his
activity had been limited to destructive criticism of Aquinas. The con-
clusions of Duns Scotus were dominant at Oxford. Dry fodder of the
intellect, they were like swine husks to the hungry heart of Rolle. He
turned away from Oxford at nineteen to seek God in a likelier atmosphere.
His inclination led him to the method of solitary prayer and fasting
the hermit's life. He went back to his home, from some old garments
of his sister's he made his hermit's garb, and then to avoid paternal inter-
ference and hindrance he quit his family. He went to the nearby parish
church of some old family friends and began to pray there. The sons

EARLY ENGLISH MYSTICS 115

of the family, Dalton by name, had known him in Oxford. Their report
confirmed the deep impression made upon Lady Dalton by the sincerity
of Rolle's devotion. He was invited to accompany her to her house,
and the incident ended by Squire Dalton giving him permission to build
a cell on the estate where he might live undisturbed. The Daltons under-
took to supply his simple needs.

That hermit's cell was Rolle's Manresa. Three years of interior
discipline by prayer brought his soul to the stage of Contemplation. That
height of power attained, he left his cell, journeyed from one religious
center to another to guide and counsel those who could profit by his
instruction. One place thus visited was a church in Yorkshire where
he remained writing for an Anchoress, Margaret, by name, the treatise
on "The Form of Perfect Living." Father Benson explains the difference
between an anchoret and a hermit thus: A hermit lived in his forest
cell or roamed at will. An anchoret lived in a cell built on to the chancel
wall of a church. A window in the inner wall looked upon the altar and
made it possible for the anchoret to join in the Mass. A window in the
outer wall gave access for food. An anchoret never left his cell.

Rolle is usually named as "of Hampole" or is called the Hermit of
Hampole. At some period he ended his wandering, built a cell again in
the village of Hampole, and became director of a convent there. He
died in 1349.

Three of his important treatises are now accessible, "The Form of
Perfect Living," already mentioned, "The Mending of Life" and "The
Fire of Love." Father Benson has included in a devotional book, Of the
Love of Jesus, a flaming meditation on the Passion also other fragments
and poems which he thinks may be Rolle's.

One short passage from the last named Meditation gives Richard
Rolle's calibre and character. He prays thus to his Crucified Master:
"I know well, glorious Lord, that I was never worthy to be thy mother's
companion, to stand at Thy passion with her and with John; but, Lord,
if in that manner I may not be there for my great unworthiness to
see that holy sight, yet I hold me worthy for my great trespass to hang
by Thy side as the thief hanged. So, Lord, if in virtue of my worthiness
I may not be there, I ask in virtue of my guilt to share Thy death ; so that
though I be not worthy that my heart be visited, yet my need and my
wickedness ask that Thou set it right."

All of Rolle's writing abounds in the warmth and sweetness and song
of a lover. His books will be offensive to some readers for there are
certain people today, middle-aged intellectualists, who feel toward motions
of the heart as most grown-ups feel about measels. If such maladies and
follies, as they hold them, are not out-grown they ought to be. Such peo-
ple cannot brook to see or hear about human loves, youthful or mature.
They are humanitarian mad and can understand nothing higher than
sentimental philanthropy. When by some chance they hear the language
of human affection applied to an invisible divine being they unequivocally

116 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

declare the user of such phrases a blatant hypocrite. The short quotation
just given explains Rolle, I think. He loves. He loves passionately. He
won to that love by obedience ("it may not be but that thou receive
Him to Whom thou hast been obedient"). Rather than be separated
from the Object of his love, he would prefer to hang in sight of Him as
a thief on a cross.

Flames of love! songs of joy! these leap from Rolle's pages as
from his heart. "Out of cleanness of heart spring songs of joy, well-
sounding gests, and merry melody; and sometimes to such a clean soul
a wonder gladness that may not be told is given of God." Even when
his writing is formal and didactic, as that to the Anchoress Margaret,
there are meditative passages that sing with melody. His writings are
of the nature of meditations. They are transcendent poetry. Rolle's
prayers were original creative forces of which many a poet has perhaps
caught the reflection.

As in all the great mystics, so, in Rolle, ecstacy and passion of love
are accompanied by most sober common sense discretion. Richard of
St. Victor, it may be remembered, symbolised discretion as Joseph, the
late born son of Jacob. Discretion must precede Contemplation. Rolle's
interpretation of "Blessed are the poor" evidences his discretion. It is
made up of no small part of Wisdom. "What is poverty of the spirit,"
he asks, "but meekness of the soul, whereby a man knoweth his frailty and
his sickness? Some men change their kirtle, but not their soul. They
leave riches as to the sight, but they gather to them many vices and sins.
What is worse than a poor proud man? What is worse than is an
envious beggar? Therefore thou that leavest all things for God's sake,
take more keep to that that thou forsaketh than to that that thou leavest.
Take keep busily how thou shalt follow Christ in good manners. Christ
said, 'Learn of Me, for I am mild and meek in heart.' He said not,
'Learn of Me, for I am poor,' for poverty by itself is neither virtue, but
rather it is wretchedness. And it is not for to praise of itself, but for it
is an instrument for to get virtues. Those men that have wilful poverty,
and want mildnesses and meeknesses, they are more wretches than those
that have great riches. They shall not sit upon high seats in heaven for
to deem other men, but they shall be deemed themselves with body and
soul. Those men that be here meek and mild, and also have great riches,
shall stand on Christ's right side, and shall be saved in [the] Doom."

JULIANA OF NORWICH

Juliana (or Julian) of Norwich was born shortly before Rolle's
death, and is said to have lived a hundred years. Nothing is known of
her beyond the few facts recorded in her writing. She was an anchoress,
and lived in the manner already described in a cell attached to the parish

EARLY ENGLISH MYSTICS 117

church of St. Julian at Norwich. It is surprising to find in fourteenth
century England that so much of the devotional literature was written
for or by hermits and anchoresses. The freedom of unattached hermits
had not been found advantageous among the early Egyptian Christians,
and it was to bring about a better condition that Pachomius gathered the
hermits together into the first monastic communities. Still there were
gains for the laity in the little dwelling built on to the church wall. The
anchoress took the part which the priest was so often unable to take. She
was spiritual physician to the community, more accessible to the com-
mon folk perhaps than if in a convent.

Juliana speaks of herself as an unlettered woman. In her early reli-
gious life she prayed for three things. The first thing that she asked
for was some understanding of the Passion. She prayed secondly that in
her thirtieth year some severe bodily sickness might come upon her ; this,
she thought, would aid her in apprehending some of our Lord's suffering.
The third blessing she prayed for was the gift of contrition, compassion,
and steadfast desire for heavenly things.

Her prayer was answered. In 1373 she fell seriously ill, and, after
a few days of extreme suffering, received the last rites of the church.
Her body gradually became numb, and she lost speech and sight. Her
confessor on a last visit placed a Crucifix close to her eyes and bade her
look upon that for comfort. She had sufficient resolution to concentrate
her feeble energy in an effort to obey. As she gazed her pain suddenly
left her, her faculties returned, and she became aware of certain teaching
that was being given her from a higher plane. This teaching continued
from four in the morning until nine in the morning. Through her after
life she received further instruction in the way of comment upon the
first teaching. Some fifteen years or more after her illness what she
had been taught was written down as "Revelations of Divine Love."

Juliana records that the teaching was given to her in three ways
though she had never prayed for objective, bodily sight. It came to
to her first as things seen by the eye, secondly as words formed in the
understanding, and thirdly (more difficult for her to narrate) as pure
spiritual vision. The first revelation, a vision of Christ Crucified may
be an example of the first manner of teaching: "In this moment sud-
denly I saw the red blood trickle down from under the Garland hot and
freshly and right plenteously, as it were in the time of His Passion when
the Garland of thorns was pressed on His blessed Head. I conceived
truly and mightily that it was Himself showed it to me. * * * And I
said: Benedicite Domine! This I said for reverence in my meaning,
with mighty voice ; and full greatly was astonished for wonder and marvel
that I had, that He that is so reverend and dreadful will be so intimate
with a sinful creature." The second method by which Juliana was taught
through words formed in the understanding may be illustrated by
this passage: "Wouldst thou learn thy Lord's meaning in this thing?
Learn it well: Love was His meaning. Who shewed it thee? Love.

118 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

What shewed He thee? Love. Wherefore shewed it He? For Love.
Hold thee therein and thou shalt learn and know more in the same. But
thou shalt never know nor learn therein other thing without end." Though
she found it more difficult to tell of her experience in a case of pure
spiritual vision, there are excellent examples of this third method also;
and they suggest somewhat experiences of St. John, George Fox, and
other religious hearts. "And then our Lord opened my spiritual eye and
shewed me my soul in midst of my heart. I saw the soul so large as it
were an endless world, and as it were a blissful kingdom. And by the
conditions that I saw therein I understood that it is a wonderful City.
In the midst of that City sitteth our Lord Jesus, God and Man, a fair
Person of large stature, highest Bishop, most majestic King, most won-
derful Lord; and I saw Him clad majestically. And worshipfully He
sitteth in the Soul, even-right in peace and rest. And the God-head
ruleth and sustaineth heaven and earth and all that is, sovereign Might,
sovereign Wisdom, and sovereign Goodness, (but) the place that Jesus
taketh in our Soul He shall never remove it, without end, as to my sight :
for in us is His homliest home and His endless dwelling."

Juliana is very clear in narrating her experience and the various ways
in which she was instructed. She won that teaching through her love
of Divine things, and it was given to her to increase her love. But her
narrative has none of Rolle's passion in it.

Fifteen "visions" were granted to her on that morning of dire illness.
When they had ended and she turned to converse with friends, she
remarked that she had been raving. Then in contrition for her doubt
she prayed for forgiveness, and the final corroborative vision (quoted
above) was granted. That seems to have ended all her uncertainty as
to the reality of the Master's Presence with her.

MARGERY KEMPE

Margery Kempe is another anchoress of whom nothing whatever
is known, except a little devotional fragment that would seem to form
part of some larger book. Even this fragment is not to be found in any
known manuscript. It is preserved in a little volume printed in 1501,
and reprinted afterwards. No information is given of the authoress
herself except that she was an anchoress at Lynn..

The little fragment records conversations between the anchoress and
her Master. She is moved by warm love for Him, and is eager to do
some act that will manifest her love. She offers her head on the block.
But the Master replies: "Daughter, thou mayest no better please God,
than to think continually in His love. It is more pleasure to Me that
thou suffer despites, scorns, reproofs, wrongs, than if thine head were
stricken off three times a day every day in seven years." The Master tries

EARLY ENGLISH MYSTICS 119

to lead her away from absorption in outer acts, fasting, weeping, the
hair-shirt, frequent telling of beads, hundreds of prayers with the lips;
He directs her attention to the inward cell where in silence He can speak
to her soul. "Thou shalt have more merit in heaven for one year think-
ing in thy mind than for an hundred year of praying with thy mouth."
A beautiful spirit of humility pervades the little fragment. The anchoress
is elevated in joy by the presence of her Saviour and King, but the con-
trast between His goodness and her own foulness keeps her spirit lowly.
She seeks out wretched and diseased paupers whom formerly she had
abhorred, and ministers to their needs, seeing in their sufferings the
anguish of her living Lord.

WALTER HILTON

The fourteenth century closes with a mystical teacher who for many
centuries has thrown Rolle and other religious souls into the shadow.
Hilton, who died in 1396, was widely read in the centuries immediately
after his death. He is selected, together with Juliana, by Dr. Inge in the
epoch-making Bampton Lectures, as a type of English mysticism before
the Reformation. Dr. Inge does not at all consider Rolle. Yet Rolle is
much the more fervent of the two. Rolle is ablaze with the fire of love.
He seems to be an example of Contemplation. Hilton instructs in the
way that leads to Union. Thus Rolle is a devotional and Hilton a didactic
mystic.

Hilton's chief work is The Ladder of Perfection. This is a long
treatise written for an anchoress to guide her through the due stages of
virtues until she reach her goal of Contemplation. Its aim therefore is
somewhat like the Benjamin of Richard of St. Victor ; though Hilton does
not base his work upon an elaborate allegory. "The end and sovereignty
of perfection," Hilton writes, "standeth in very union of God and of a
man's soul by perfect charity. This union, then, is verily made when
the mights of the soul are reformed by grace to the dignity and the state
of the first condition ; that is, when the mind is established firmly, without
changing and wandering, in God and spiritual things, and when the reason
is cleared from all worldly and fleshly beholdings, and is illumined by
grace to behold God and spiritual things, and when the will and the
affection is purified and cleansed from all fleshly, kindly, and worldly
love, and is inflamed with burning love of the Holy Ghost."* The Ladder
of Perfection shows to a soul the steps of virtue it must take before it
can reach the goal of Union. Hilton is full of warning to false devotees
who would like to reach the goal by some easier ascent than the ladder:
"Whoso thinketh to attain to the working and to the full use of contem-
plation and not by this way, that is by the perfection of virtues, and tak-

This extract is from another work; The Song of the Angels.

120 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

ing full heed thereto, cometh not in by the door, and therefore as a thief
he shall be cast out. A man may have by the gift of God a tasting and
a glittering of the contemplative life some at the beginning of their
conversion. But the solid feeling of it shall he not have, until he have
gotten in him some perfection of virtues."

The treatise is rich in practical guidance for the spiritual novice.
Hilton's wisdom as spiritual director is splendidly shown in the following
extract which warns against psychic delusions. It is counsel useful today.
An aspirant for the spiritual kingdom so soon grows dry. He longs for
"sensible consolations." He is prone to rest content in such reliefs even
when their source is evil. "If it be so that thou see any manner of light
or brightness with thy bodily eye or in imagination, other than every
man seeth; or if thou hear any pleasant, wonderful sounding with thy
ear, or in thy mouth any sweet sudden savour, other than what thou
knowest to be natural, or any heat in thy breast like fire, or any manner
of delight in any part of thy body, or if a spirit appear bodily to thee,
as it were an angel to comfort thee or to teach thee ; or if any such feeling,
which thou knowest well that it cometh not of thyself, not from any
bodily creature, beware in that time, or soon after, and wisely consider
the stirrings of thy heart; for if by occasion of the pleasure and liking
thou takest in the said feeling or vision, thou feelest thy heart drawn
from the minding and beholding of Jesus Christ, and from spiritual
exercises, as from prayer, and thinking of thyself and thy defects, or
from the inward desire of virtues, and of spiritual knowing and feeling
of God, for to set the sight of thy heart and thy affection, thy delight and
thy rest, principally on the said feelings or visions, supposing that to be
a part of heavenly joy or angels' bliss, and thereupon comest to think
that thou shouldst neither pray nor think of anything else, but wholly
attend thereto, for to keep it and delight thyself therein : then is this feel-
ing very suspicious to come from the enemy; and therefore, though it
be never so liking and wonderful, refuse it and assent not thereto, for
this is a sleight of the enemy. When he seeth a soul that would entirely
give itself to spiritual exercises, he is wonderfully wroth; for he hateth
nothing more than to see a soul in this body of sin to feel verily the
savour of spiritual knowledge and the love of God, which he himself,
without the body of sin, lost wilfully. And therefore, if he cannot hinder
him by open sinning, he will let and beguile him by such vanity of bodily
savours or sweetness in the senses, to bring a soul into spiritual pride
and into a false security of himself, weening that he had thereby a feeling
of heavenly joy, and that he is half in paradise, by reason of the delight
he f eeleth about him, when indeed he is near to hell gates ; and so by pride
and presumption he might fall into errors or heresies, or phantasies, or
other bodily or spiritual mischiefs.

"But if it be so that this manner of feeling let not thy heart from
spiritual exercises, but maketh thee more devout, and more fervent to
pray, more wise to think ghostly thoughts, and though it be so that it

EARLY ENGLISH MYSTICS 121

astonish thee in the beginning, nevertheless afterward it turneth and
quickeneth thy heart to more desire of virtues, and increaseth thy
love more to God and to thy neighbour, also it maketh thee more humble
in thine own eyes by these tokens mayst thou know that it is of God,
wrought by the presence and the working of a good angel, and cometh
from the goodness of God, either for the comfort of simple devout souls,
for to increase their trust and desire towards God, to seek thereby the
knowing and loving of God more perfectly by means of such comforts."

The series of Early English Mystics ends with this number. The
next important writer, Father Augustine Baker, would carry the
series into the seventeenth century. A period as late as the seventeenth
century would scarcely seem to be included in the scope of a series that
purports to deal with early writers. The religious movements in England
after the fifteenth century are fairly familiar. So it seems best that the
present group of mystics should close the series.

SPENSER MONTAGUE.

"He has afflicted me sorely and I have rejoiced. He has taken away
the world and I have thanked him for his great gift. Yet I have not
won him, but he me. I am nothing. Make of me a channel, Oh Master,
to bear thy love to a needy world that, unknowing, yearns for thee."

V. V. V.

THE MAGIC ART OF LISTENING

"I measure the height, not merely the depth of a soul, by its still-
ness" FRAGMENTS, p. 51.

THERE are experiences that hurt when they begin. As they
develop they help. Later they bring joy. Then it is that one
who is striving to attain progress in discipleship seeks to share
his joy. Sometimes this is welcomed by others. Sometimes one
shows excess of zeal which carries in its train vanity and egotism. It
does not need reference to Light on the Path to remind us what is the
effect of egotism ! But "nothing venture, nothing have." It seems to be a
Law in Occultism that to get more one must give to others what one has
received. Then one gets more. I want more. Perhaps one reader of
the QUARTERLY will share my experience and then I shall get more.

It may be well to reintroduce myself to the readers of this maga-
zine. One of the writers once told of my indebtedness to my Senior
Partner. It was then said of me : "As he talks frankly about all sorts of
things about which most of us keep silent, why not let us call him Parles-
simo." I recently made a visit to a friend of that Senior Partner, my
"Chief," to whom I owe so very much for his patience, and his love and
his teaching. This friend was one of a small number of people gathered
for a week end. They were a remarkable group. I was wild with ex-
citement over a chance to get so near the center of things in which I was
interested. I treasured up questions I had wanted to ask. Finally an
evening came just before I left. I opened rapid fire with my questions.
I left delighted with what I had received. When I met Spencer Mon-
tague and Servetus I could not contain my pride and happiness. But
I found something preventing my giving them much of what I had
received.

While I was puzzling over this a letter came to me from the friend
whom I had visited. I give him no other title though I could give him
many for to me his attitude toward life and those whom he meets is
the acme, the perfection of friendship such friendship I believe as must
exist towards the Koot Hoompas from their Master as hinted at in the
articles in Five Years of Theosophy. This letter read :

"DEAR PARLESSIMO,

"It was a real pleasure to see you down here.

"You must know my desire to help you. Merely to thank or
to praise you for your efforts would not go far. So I am going to
suggest a criticism. Try to listen less with your mind and more with

THE MAGIC ART OF LISTENING 123

your soul always, with all people. I noticed last night, when you
were talking with Madame Excelsis, that although you were very
attentive, you were attentive in a fearfully busy way mind, imagina-
tion, next statement or quotation, not at all sequential jumping
from point to point : not an unf oldment but, instead, a series of dis-
connected explosions. I do not mean that you got nothing out of it.
You got much. But you might have got ever so much more.

"You do not look for the principle underlying a particular solu-
tion. You hear something. You recognize the light as thrown on a
particular problem. Your mind jumps to another problem. You
ought to get enough light from solution of the first to solve all others !
In other words, you do not gnaw to the bone. You skim. So you
lose nine-tenths, and the best.

"Your mind is an ass. That sounds impolite. But so is mine
and every other. You use it as the instrument of understanding.
It is nothing of the kind. It is the faculty of expression. The soul
alone can understand. I say 'soul.' It would serve as well to say
'heart.'* Understanding is sealed in a part of yourself which is above
the mind, and looks down on it; or is within the mind, and should
look, listening, over the edge of it. When it (the understanding)
functions, the mind becomes still. So you can help to induce under-
standing by stilling the mind or by ignoring it, which is better.

"It would be well, then, to aim for great serenity of heart, such
as comes from depth of feeling ; great stillness of mind, which comes
from depth of understanding and the complete elimination of fancy,
which comes from depth of vision.f You can begin by accepting,
on faith, that you have not learned as yet how to listen. Then try to
listen not by straining harder, but by remembering that any kind
of strain is proof of wrong method. Listen easily, gently, with
simplicity, with sympathy, with your 'understanding heart.' Listen
with the ears of the Master, and then for His voice in comment."

When this letter was finished I was happy. My Friend, the busiest
person I know (save perhaps one of his associates) had deigned to con-
sider my need and to help me. From him there is no higher compliment
than to get his criticism. He rarely gives it. So when it is given it is
valued. It is valued because it is real. But real things are organic they
have life. They either die or grow. Fortunately for me this criticism
began to grow. As it grew it began to press in, seeking more room. It
pressed against what Mr. Judge calls "a sore spot." I began to object
to the sentence: "You can begin by accepting, on faith, that you have

* If there be rationalists who do not follow this marvellously concise statement of mystical
teachings compare the conclusions reached by W. Hanna Thomson, M.D., the brain specialist
in his Brain and Personality. His whole volume says what is here said in a few words. P.

t See Mr. Charles Johnston's discussion of the difference between fancy and vision (imagi-
nation) in Book I. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras (published through the Secretary T. S., Brooklyn,
N. Y.). P.

124 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

not learned as yet how to listen"! What did this mean? Had I not
spent months, literally, on the Comment on the Second of the Four
General Rules in Light on the Path? Had I not hung on every word
the Friend himself had ever uttered in my hearing? "But wait a bit," I
found myself saying to myself, "is this listening or is it not just refusing
to listen?"

I went at it, head down, as we used to charge the line in the old days
of football. Word by word I conned that letter. I tried to follow its
instructions. Not a bit of progress could I make until I came to the
advice "Listen with the ears of the Master." It was cryptic. I doubt
if I ever grasp its full meaning. However, what I did get was real
help. The only way I could conceive of His listening would be with
love. I thought yes I meditated on His Love, His Patience, His Com-
prehension, His Sympathy. "As I do not know how to listen with His
ears I shall try to listen as if, as I may grasp His all-embracing, never-
failing Love, He would listen," thus I charged my mind.

I soon had a test. As was described, I am a lawyer. One of the
other younger partners and I are thrown together a great deal. Last
summer I got on his nerves terribly. It is only fair that this summer he
got on mine. I tried to listen to him as my Friend advised and inside a
week the real, underlying friendship had come through and we actually
were admitting that we enjoyed being together, instead of making jesting
remarks that did not hide the truth that we only "played together"
because we were business partners and mutually interested through our
chief in various matters theosophical.

"This is magic" I cried, and I tried to use it. I found that by
listening especially listening in the "aim for great serenity of heart,"
and, as detailed, in relation to not "straining harder," I could stay awake
during arguments in court and even listen to sermons ! Formerly the
effort to concentrate had been so absorbing that I would become drowsy.

Then I received further help. The "Premier Cavalier," as some of
us call him, an associate of my Friend's, let me show him the "Magic
Letter" as I had now come to call it. I asked for further exposition,
telling my difficulties. "If you really listened to all that letter can tell
you, you would not be asking advice."

"But I cannot wait. I want to listen better now and you know how."

The Premier Cavalier looked at me. Light on the Path reminds us
that the eye has been called the window of the soul. Sometimes when I
see a mighty soul looking out I want to run by dropping my eyes, yet I
dare not lose the chance of illumination so I look back until my own
soul shrivels in the glow, as things burn up, and then begins to grow as
if sunlight were falling upon a plant. So it was now. "I think I can
listen to criticism," I said. "I am beginning to know that thus the
Master seeks to guide us when we wont follow the inner voice call it
conscience or the Higher Self. Please help me."

THE MAGIC ART OF LISTENING 125

"You have often asked me to help you this way," came the reply,
"and each time I have had to respond to the call. But as I have tried to
help you I have felt the hopelessness. My words have come back to
me as if from a blank wall. You either are thinking of something you
want to say or ask as soon as you feel it will not be impolite to interrupt
or else you are carrying on a conversation with yourself. You listen only
to yourself. You allow yourself to hear no other voice than your own.
To listen as one should listen one must stop talking to oneself, stop being
interested only in oneself and, instead, put oneself in the other person's
place seek to comprehend what he is thinking and how one appears to
him. Give him the interest and sympathy you must realize you give
to yourself. It is interesting and it is helpful. Try it sometime."

I have tried it. And I have found a new world. It is magic! I
have found one of the lost arts of antiquity for no one listens nowadays.
I have found my work much more interesting. People are much nicer
than they used to be. I had had no idea how charming and wise my
friends are. Please bear in mind that this is not enthusiastic over-state-
ment. According to the light of my own experience I am painting a dull
picture in barest outline, using very drab colors.

Try it for yourself ! The Inspired Preacher more than once told us
that Religion is the greatest of experimental sciences and he has chal-
lenged all to use laboratory methods. It comes back to me that only
last spring on two Saturdays he suggested "keeping quiet," if only for
five minutes a day and thinking of God as one would want Him to
be if one believed in Him, and keeping this up for a month. One of
my friends tried this. He was agnostic. Now he is a follower of our
Great Western Master. After all was not this "listening"? Medita-
tion" had meant little to me, compared to what it might have been, until
I began to listen.

This recent letter brings back (and gives new meaning to) that
marked xxvi "On Occult Philosophy" in the second series of Mr. Judge's
Letters that Have Helped Me, when he wrote :

"Begin by trying to conquer the habit, almost universal, of pushing
yourself forward. This arises from personality. Do not monopolize
the conversation. Keep in the background. If some one begins to tell
you about himself and his doings, do not take first chance to tell him
about yourself, but listen to him and talk solely to bring him out. And
when he has finished suppress in yourself the desire to tell about your-
self, your opinions and experiences. Do not ask a question unless you
intend to listen to the answer and inquire into its value.* Try to recollect
that you are a very small affair in the world, and that the people around
do not value you at all and grieve not when you are absent. Your only
true greatness lies in your inner true self and it is not desirous of obtain-
ing the applause of others. If you will follow these directions for one

* The italics here and below are mine. Read this in the light of the letter I received I P.

126 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

week you will find they will take considerable effort, and you will begin
to discover a part of the meaning of the saying, 'Man, know thyself/ "

Of course I am still new as a practitioner of the magic art of listen-
ing. Yet already do I know that I know that I am in a new and wonder-
ful world and starting on a path that is the Old one yet made New by
the music that cheers me on. Is it worth while? Let me not seek to
answer but rather let me quote words that are golden : *

"The divine harmony of the Lodge surges through our hearts
in mighty waves, will we but listen.

"In hours of meditation seek it, listen to it, it faileth never; and
a Power and Peace will be yours, unspeakable, divine.

"From this, knowledge arises, knowledge of things spiritual, the

GIFT OF TONGUES and THE HEALING FIRE.

"This is the Song of Life in which all nature joins, for reaching
the heart of Nature we reach the heart of all, and read therein the
most sacred mysteries of being.

"Fail not, falter not in the endeavour to hear this always. Re-
member that the cries of suffering and of pain which so constantly
reach your ears, are but the discords which make the music finer,
discords only to the untrained ear. And some day the whole grand
symphony it will be yours to listen to; hearing it first in your own
heart, and from thence in the heart of the whole world.

"0 suffering, struggling Humanity! whose eyes know only
tears, whose ears hear only discords, blind and deaf, an infinite
compassion broods above you.

"Awake and hearken. The inner voices echo a harmony sub-
lime. Cease your conflict for an instant's space and you will hear a
promise of salvation. Peace and power are yours, peace divine and
power all powerful.

"Lo ! your deliverance has come. The Light shines out, the hour
is at hand. Nature calls aloud with all her voices.

"Humanity shall sweat and toil no more in vain. Men's feet
shall be set upon that path which leads to glorious heights Nirvanic."

PARLESSIMO.

Fragments, pages 53 and 54.

NORSE MYTHOLOGY

WHETHER one believes that a people is shaped in the mould of
its revealed religion, or vice versa, that a people's religion
gradually evolves through inherent racial predilections, that
religion is still an equally vital factor in any just estimate of
a national character and of the part it has played in the world's history.
And when we turn specifically to the Scandinavian belief, such an under-
standing becomes doubly important, since it is for us a real task of self-
study. But a few centuries ago, we ourselves, our most immediate fore-
bears, accepted unquestioningly this theogony, whether through inherited
right to all Teutonic tradition, or from the forced imprint of marauding
Vikings and the irresistible hordes of the great Northern Exodus.

Over France and Germany in turn the Christian missionaries swept
with so militant an attack that save for obscure traces in folk-lore and
superstition, all literary evidence of the supplanted faith was irrevocably
destroyed, though the lasting inhalt of its effect on action and ideal can
no more be discounted than can the physical vigour imparted by the
fiery Norman blood.

In the Anglo-Saxon tongue there remain the Beowulf Epic and the
Travellers' Song to bear witness by reference and suggestion to the whole
body of myth which the bard so easily took for granted as the common
mental content of his hearers, reference and suggestion which would
for us remain forever enticing riddles, but for the happy circumstance
which preserved the key and the clue in the treasure house of Icelandic
literature.

In that remote island of volcano and glacier, girt about by a tumult-
uous sea, the solitary and song-loving people tenaciously guarded their
sagas and lays; and even after Christianity had been both officially and
voluntarily adopted, in the first years of the eleventh century, continued
to use them as their one source of dramatic entertainment. A marked
contrast to the usual vandalism of zealous bigotry with which we are only
too familiar, the tolerant priests here aided and abetted the conservative
loyalty of their converts; in place of ruthlessly consigning the old gods
to the realm of witch and demon, the Valfadir was quietly metamorphosed
into the Father Almighty; Odin and his sons merely declared to have
rounded their life-cycle, and already to have met their defeat in the long-
prophesied and confidently expected cataclysm of Ragnarok, familiarized
to us as the Twilight of the Gods in the Niebelungen Trilogy. To this
conviction of Odin's finitude, inherent from his semi-earthly origin, was
probably due the dearth of any determined defense of his worship. The
apostles of the new faith had but to declare the Risen Christ, and the
tidings were acclaimed as the joyous fulfilment of the prediction that

127

128 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Balder the Good, incarnation of light and peace, would in good time return
to rule with the Valfadir over a regenerated world.

Free from the rancor which stubborn opposition would inevitably
have provoked, the monks and priests constituted themselves the chief
guardians of the native literature, sedulously collecting and transcribing
all available annals of the past. Happily, however, it is to a learned and
royally descended convert, Saemund the Wise, that gratitude is presum-
ably due for our one supremely important source of knowledge, the
Elder or Poetic Edda, in whose rugged verse is garnered the chief body
of Icelandic legend, mythical, historical and prophetic, and wherein is
accurately mirrored the customs and manners of pre-historic Scandinavia.
Further still it is from Saemund's additional manuscripts, preserved intact
for over a century in the family archives at Oddi, and Snorri Sturleson,
a foster child of the house, compiled and elaborated the Younger, or
Prose Edda, a work valuable for the additional light it throws on the
archaic puzzles of the earlier lays, despite the ludicrous fore-and after-
word wherein the author strives to reduce it all to palatable pabulum for
the devotees of the newly acquired classics, jumbling together Noah and
Priam, Hector and Thor in a fearful and wonderful syncretism.

Any endeavors to comprehend the cosmogony of a primitive people
through the maze of its tardily collected myths is fraught with dire diffi-
culties. The scraps of information are so enmeshed in a tangled skein
of imaginative brooding and concrete folk-lore; of legendary tales and
historical facts; of reminiscent metaphysics and fore-shadowed science,
that the task of unravelling the many strands leads to the very verge of
discouragement. The thread of truth is further disguised by a strange
nomenclature and a wealth of unfamiliar metaphor, and must be sedu-
lously followed back and forth over unsuspected leaps of time, till baffled
and despairing, one deserts the original documents and turns to the com-
mentators. Here at first the problems seem only augmented and multi-
plied, for each bends all the strength of his argument to the confutation
of rival scholars, buttressing his own theories with such incontrovertible
facts and fancies, that one's progress through the several volumes is but
a series of falls. Light begins to dawn with the discovery that each guide,
followed in turn with implicit credulity, has painstakingly led to the same
identical threshold of uncertainty, and there promptly deserted, leaving no
lamp save intuitive discrimination between the true and the false ; and that
the various interpretations, instead of cancelling one another, but add
their quota to a basis of real understanding.

After following the entire allegory through as a simple, objective
solar myth, with personified sun and moon, stars and clouds, one can turn
again to the first page and gain added insight by transposing the names
of gods and giants into the inner elemental forces of heat and cold, dark-
ness and light ; and having re-read in this wise one can bring a richness
of conception to the dramatic human story, which might seem but a bare
and bald account of fighting heroes and fair-haired heroines if one did

NORSE MYTHOLOGY 129

not more or less consciously bind it, link by link, to the larger motive;
while in the final ethical and metaphysical rendering one has need of each
and every interpretation, not excluding the philological, to aid in the
visualization of the mighty conflict between will and desire, thought and
aspiration.

With the Sagas and the Eddie Lays at our command, we are unusu-
ally equipped for research into the primitive concepts of a race's child-
hood ; while our heritage of Norman brain and brawn insures an instan-
taneous response to its fundamental characteristic note of daring and
action.

Subtract this deification of stubborn endurance, their specialized gift,
from the spiritual consciousness of the English nations, and fancy the
comparative paucity of accomplishment; there could scarcely have been
a Newton, a Cromwell, or a Shakespeare; on the other hand, when we
scan the concrete directions voiced in the High Lay of Odin, wise saws
which for ages, spurning the devious intricacies of subjective thought,
led us by short cuts to the path of immediate action, we find small cause
to wonder at the throes of the Anglo-Saxon mind when struggling with
the subtle metaphysics of the contemplative East. One feels no higher
stretch of the imagination, no deeper introspective plunge demanded by
these canny precepts than by the handy proverbs of the wise Solomon.
Many of the sayings might indeed be interchanged, and but for slight
differences in form, leave an unsuspecting reader none the wiser; quite
willing, for example, to credit the Hebrew king with the statement, "A
better burden no man bears than much good sense ; that is thought better
than riches in a strange place," and the mythic hero with "Happy is the
man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding; for
the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver and the gain
thereof than fine gold," or to either one, interchangeably, these terse
admonitions against the infringement of hospitality, "Withdraw thy foot
from thy neighbor's house lest he weary of thee and so hate thee," and
"A guest should depart, not always stay in one place ; the welcome becomes
unwelcome if he too long continues in another's house." In condemning
sluggishness, garrulity, intemperance; in extolling prudence, honesty and
thrift, there is an almost word-for-word parallel, a common level of ideal-
ism whose high-water mark reaches a fairly just but scarcely generous
self-protection. Up to this point, indeed, the spiritual development of
the two peoples had followed markedly similar lines. The cosmogony of
Genesis, the concepts of the early Hebrew historic books, are fairly matched
in the Eddie Lays, while lofty courage had been distilled, drop by drop, in
the veins of each ; the one through the trials of persecution and exile, the
other through unceasing warfare against doughty foes and grimly hostile
elements. But here the two paths diverge diametrically, humbled Israel
mounting directly on the wings of prophet and psalmist to the heights of
mystical experience, where in the quiet of long days and calm nights a
shepherd king or an Isaiah might listen to the voice of the silence, and

130 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

through song and rhapsody fit his people for the Great Advent; the
victorious Northmen, cleaving their way slowly upward amidst the clash
of arms and the din of crashing seas, till through the virtues of heroism
they too were prepared for the message of the same Master ; a message,
however, which they were fated to receive, not in its pristine clarity, but
turbid from its long course through the ten intervening centuries in a
channel blocked by all possible misconception.

The mythology which it displaced and supplanted was unfortunately
never rounded into full symmetry by the genius of either a poet or a
philosopher, who inspired by the same faith, might have fused the inspira-
tional fragments so deeply poetic in essence, into a mighty epic ; or with
brooding wisdom have penetrated into deeper mysteries and rendered
the metaphysics luminously self-interpretative, independent of the cold
reflected light of comparative criticism. The drama of the Golden Age,
the cycle of concrete tales which constitutes the mythology proper, will,
however, be much more convincing if in this first article we can get some
idea of its proper setting; the cosmogonical back-ground dimly titanic,
and the great life symbol drawn thereon, the Ash Ygdrassil, all-inclusive
tree of the sentient universe. Both concepts must needs be chipped out,
bit by bit, from the mine of the Elder Edda, chiefly, indeed, from the
Voluspa, its first and most archaic lay. In it the ancient Vala, a sybil of
the North, chants in the wild strains of induced ecstasy her reminiscent
and prophetic vision, unequivocal affirmations of direct experience,
accepted unquestionably by all skalds and bards of later date, who but
repeat her words almost verbatim whenever the origin and order of being
is touched upon.

After her first introductory strophes, "For silence I pray all sacred
children, great and small, since they will that I Valfadir's deeds recount,
those that I best remember; I who nine worlds remember, nine trees,
and the great central tree beneath the earth," She proceeds to expound,
"There was in times of old, ere Ymir dwelt, nor sand nor sea, nor gelid
waves ; earth existed not, nor heaven above, 'twas a chaotic chasm. 'Twas
before Bor's sons raised up heaven's vault, before they the noble mid-earth
shaped." And then with a fine disregard of chronological consistency
granted to those whose statements are believed because they are so, not
theories to be proved or disproved, she plunges abruptly down a few
aeons to a time when "The sun shone from the south upon the structured
rocks, then was the earth begrown with herbage green," and back with-
out warning to explain that when "The sun knew not where she a dwelling
had, the moon knew not what power he possessed, the stars knew not
where they had a station ; then went the powers all to their judgment seats,
the all holy powers, and thereon held council ; to night and to the waning
moon gave names; morn they named and mid-day, afternoon and eve,
whereby to reckon years."

By diligently piecing together such broken fragments of information
with bits found here and there in the Sagas, and the more coherent, if less

NORSE MYTHOLOGY 131

convincing account of the Younger Edda, we find the jagged edges gloving
surprisingly each to each, and eventually forming a fairly complete story
of the origin of the universe and the creation of man and gods, told it
is true in veiled allegorical terms, but which for native grandeur of thought
and high import can well hold its own against erudite Egypt or philosophic
India.

Their concept of the period before the veriest beginnings of time, was
of a vast and fathomless abyss, void to the point of utter emptiness, hold-
ing apart by its very emptiness two potential worlds, one of living heat,
the other of inert matter. "By the will of Him whom none dare name,"
there arises in the very center of the lifeless Northern plain a slowly
welling spring of venom, the source of twelve rivers which sluggishly wend
their way southward till they congeal on the verge of the great chasm;
while guarding the plain of the South, a region "so hot and light that it
is impervious to those who have no home or heritage there," stands Surt,
angel of the Flaming Sword, and flashes broadcast sparks from his
brandished blade. At the moment of creation the gelid vapour meets
the blast of heat, and melting falls drop by drop till there is deposited in
the abyss, Ginnunga-gap, a huge inert bulk of matter which again "by the
will of Him who sent the heat" is quickened into partial life as the Frost
Giant Ymir. The name signifies merely a rustling confused noise, and
in conjunction with the other appellation, Aurgelmir, or Seething Clay,
by which he is interchangeably designated, strikingly elucidates the vague
formlessness of the monster. From him was born a son, Thrudgelmir,
Compact Clay, and a grandson, Bergelmir, Solid-Rock, and from them
in due turn a whole race of frost giants, all evil of nature, and forever
resistant to the sons of the second creation, the Gentle Powers of Light
and Warmth. The Great Mother, typified as the wonderful cow, the All-
Nourisher, is co-seval with Ymir, whose life is sustained by the four
rivers of milk flowing from her udder. But whereas matter so preponder-
ates in the giant that his progeny, mere divisions of his body, sink ever
lower beneath its bonds, in the Nourisher life is in the ascendant. By. con-
tinuous and patient licking of the rime-blocks, she eventually unearths a
new being "endowed with beauty, agility and power"; and these divine
attributes increase and develop through a line of descendants till finally
one of them in conjunction with a daughter of the frost giants, gives birth
to the three demi-gods, Odin, and his brothers, Vili and Ve, or Spirit,
Will and Holiness. With the appearance of this first Norse Trinity, in
which is embodied the full creative force of conscious divinity, war to the
death is declared against all the beings of lower nature. The first
vague monster form of inertia was forthwith slain, shattered into a
thousand bits, and in the deluge of his blood are drowned all of his
kind save Bergelmir, the stone-strong. In an ark alone with his wife he
makes his escape to repeople the world with a new giant race. These
Jotuns, who, though banished far beyond the seas, yet constantly encroach
upon the world of men, and are to be met and battled with in the stony

132 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

caverns of the mountains, in the ice-fields of the frozen North, in the
barren wastes of the desert, as the hostile powers of Nature, forever
inimical, resistant, repellant.

From the disintegrated and partitioned body of Ymir, the Gentle
Powers proceeded to form the earth and the world. For the encircling
ocean they used the wide deep pool of his blood; from his flesh they
shaped the land and upon it his bones were heaped into the ever-
lasting hills, while from his brow they fashioned the safe mid-world,
fit habitation for the coming race of man ; then high over all they raised
the dome of his skull to form the vaulted heavens, where above the murky
clouds of his brain they themselves might dwell in sunlit peace, and from
a lofty throne of clear air overlook the regions under their dominion. At
equi-distant points beneath the rim of this dome, they stationed the four
dwarfs, Vestri, Oestri, Nordri, and Sudri, entities quickened in the flesh
of Ymir, endowing them with form and understanding that they might
support and give direction to the structure. But the bright stars of the
firmament with which finally the skies were bedecked were showered
straight from Surt's sword, a free gift from the supreme Fire Spirit and
no handiwork of the lesser gods, who but allotted them rightful stations
that they might mark the seasons and the alternations of day and night.
With this completion of the objective universe, the brothers, Villi and Ve,
as separate individuals, mysteriously vanish, absorbed and blended into
the one person of Odin, the Spirit of the world ; until time being ripe for
further creation they are again discovered under the new names of
Hoener and Loder, wandering with their great brother by the shore of
the sounding sea. From two branches of drift wood which they gathered
in the strand they fashioned a man and a woman, Ash and Embla, to whom
Odin gives spirit, Hoener reason, and Loder "the red color of life, and
burning keenness of the senses," and then once more their separate indi-
vidual tasks completed, this second trinity is also merged into one with
the Valfadir.

To this manifestation of Odin, together with his heavenly sons, and
the lesser divinities of the sea- Vans, is hereafter entrusted all guidance
of the created world, and it is from this point forward to the cataclysms
of Ragnarok that we tread the comparatively firm ground in which the
Odin of the familiar myth cycle, with Thor, Balder and the rest of the
goodly company of his sons play the mythic drama through to its nobly
tragic end. The Great First Cause, once having given the initial impulse,
retires into the recesses of the highest Fire-heaven, leaving the entire
guidance of the world to the incarnate gods. He appears only in shadowy
allusions, included in the prognostications of the end and of the regenera-
tion. "There was one born with wondrous might endowed of origin
divine; nine jotun maids gave birth to the gracious god, at the world's
margin. The boy was nourished with the strength of earth, with the
ice cold sea and with Sun's blood. There shall another come, yet mightier
than he, although I dare not his name declare."

NORSE MYTHOLOGY 133

For a complete and explanatory plan of the created universe, essential
to a full understanding of the cosmogony, we turn to the symbol of the
great tree, Ygdrassil. The name signifies "the Bearer of Him who
meditates," for Odin himself relates in his Rune Song how, suspended
head downward among its branches, he peered into the mysterious depths
of the spring guarded by the fateful Norns, the Past, the Present, and the
Future, and thus acquired all wisdom and all power, even to the magical
might of the written rune. "I knew that I hung on a wind racked tree
nine whole nights with a spear wounded, and to Odin offered, myself to
Myself ; in that tree of which no one knows from what root it springs.
Bread no one gave me, nor a horn of drink. Downward I peered, to
runes applied myself, wailing learnt them, then fell down thence. Then
began I to- bear fruit, to know many things, to grow well and thrive.
Word by word I sought out words, fact by fact I sought out facts. Runes
thou will find, large and potent characters, which the higher powers found,
which I myself first graved. Knowest thou how to expound them?
Knowest thou how to prove them? Knowest thou how to pray?" And
of the magic powers so acquired he declares, "The weapon's edge I
deaden of my foes, nor arms nor wiles harm aught. If men place bonds
upon my limbs, I so sing that I can walk ; the fetters dart from my feet,
the manacles from my hands. Fire shall not so furiously burn, but that
I can it quench; that song can I sing. When hatred grows among the
sons of men, that can my song assuage. I can wind on the waves allay,
and the sea lull. Should a corpse from halter swing, I can so grave and
in runes depict, that again the man shall walk and with me converse," and
so on strophe after strophe through a whole category of wonder-workings.

The tree whereon was gained such powers, includes in itself the
universe of life and time in the entire totality of its underlying idea and
the unique elaboration of its detailed subdivisions. Ever growing and
expanding it draws sustenance to itself through three great roots from
the fountain-heads of the three worlds. Each day the Norns freely
sprinkle the roots and wash the leaves with the milk-white waters of the
heavenly spring, thus insuring abounding life to the branches and verdant
freshness to the leaves. Grudgingly the giant guardian of the spring of
worldly wisdom, Mimer of the long Memory, grants to one root drops of
his distilled knowledge, but for Odin's full draught demands in exchange
that the god's right eye shall be cast into the spring as a pawned pledge.

In this wise Mimer partakes somewhat of the essence of divine
wisdom, since each morning he quaffs the waters from his resounding
Gjaller-horn, the trumpet upon which will be eventually wound a terrific
blast, the signal of the final cataclysm, when the central tree takes fire
and the gods meet their doom. This catastrophe is relentlessly furthered
by the serpent Nidhogg, who with his whole reptile brood dwell in the
stagnant pool of lowest Nifleheim, and by their ceaseless gnawing sap
the very life of the third great root. Two gray-wise birds perch on the
topmost bough, who eagle-eyed and hawk-keen, have observation over

134 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

the whole wide prospect of the years, while ceaselessly up and down the
length of the trunk runs a chattering squirrel, seeking by calumny and
malicious gossip to stir up strife between all kingdoms.

Other phases of the sentient life of the tree are symbolized by four
stags, their names vaguely suggesting the four stages of dream conscious-
ness, who leap about beneath the branches and browse upon the rune-
written leaves ; and by two mystic swans who float stately and serene on
the waters of the Urdar- fount ; both the stag and the swan being destined
to play important roles in the future development of the mythology in
the Scandinavian as in the myths of other lands. Through all three
worlds, each divided into three sub-worlds, and so making the full number
remembered of the Vala, the brotherhood of the gods disport themselves
at will, crossing and re-crossing the never- freezing river which bounds the
giant realm, or passing lightly over the "sounding gold-covered bridge"
which leads to the region of the dead.

But to the heights of Asaheim they must invariably mount each
day over the bridge Bifrost, the Vibrating Way, built by subtlest art of
three rainbow hues, in order to hold high council on the management of
their kingdom. To this high heaven, none save the pure can win, since
the burning red of Bifrost inevitably consumes all creatures of lower
nature ; the roar of the waters beneath terrify all save the dauntless gods.
Even of these, Thor must perforce win his way to the council by another
road, since the rattling thunder of his heavy chariot would shatter the
bright arch of the delicate structure.

For a final summing up of the entire conception, we will quote once
more from the Elder Edda, and abandoning all labored efforts at explan-
ation and elucidation, close with the high words of inspiration, of poetry
in its very essence, a very revelation of things felt, not seen.

"I know an Ash tree standing, Ygdrassil height, towering to heaven
aloft, laved with limpid waters ; thence came the dews into the vales that
fall, honey dew the food of flowers and bees ; ever stands it green over
the fount of Urd. Yet greater hardships it assail than deem the witless
sons of men ; harts bite it above, in its side it rots, and serpents foul tear
it beneath.

"When shall resound the Gjaller-horn trembles Ygdrassil's ash, yet
standing; groans that aged tree.

"The Moon's Devourer bursts his bonds assunder, the wolf is loosed
and forth he runs; he is sated with the breath of dying men, the god's
seat with red gore he defiles. Brothers shall fight and slay each other;
hard is the world ; an axe age, a stone age, a sword age, shields shall be
cloven ; a wind age, a wolf age, Mimim's sons shall dance ; the central tree
takes fire.

"When Gjaller-horn resounds Surt from the South shall come with
flickering flames, shines from his sword the Val-god's sun.

"The stone strong hills are dashed together, the giants tread the

NORSE MYTHOLOGY 135

path of Hel, and heaven is cloven ; the sun darkens, earth in ocean sinks,
fall the bright stars, fire's breath assails the tree.

"A second time the earth from ocean shall arise, beauteously green,
with waterfalls descending, the eagle flying over all ; Then shall again the
wondrous Golden Tables in the grass be found, which in days of old the
Ruler of the Gods possessed. Unsown shall the fields bring forth, all
evil be amended. There is a hall standing, brighter than the sun, with
gold bedecked, there shall righteous people dwell and forever more
happiness enjoy.

"Balder shall come, Hodr and Baldr, the heavenly gods. Then comes
the Mighty One to the great judgment, the Powerful from above. He
shall dooms pronounce and strifes allay, holy peace establish, which shall
evermore endure. But him I dare not name."

ANNE EVANS.

"There is no more real satisfaction in laying up in your bosom an
injury, than there is in stuffing a dead hornet that has stung you, and
keeping it to look at."

JOSH BILLINGS.

HOW DO WE THINK OF GOD?

IT were much easier for God if we would cease to think of Him as
so unpleasant. And it is not fair to make His task too difficult.
There will be objection at once, by some, to the use of the per-
sonal pronoun. They will argue rightly that the Absolute can-
not be limited, and that personality implies limitation. On the other hand,
to deny personality to the Absolute also imputes limitation. We use the
impersonal pronoun for inanimate objects and babies. Mothers protest
against this, because the babies cannot, and we hear the mothers. To deny
that inanimate objects also protest would be to claim more knowledge
than we possess. All we can say is that we cannot hear them. This,
perhaps, will be sufficient to show that it would be wise to mean some-
thing more when we speak of God than what we think we mean when
we speak of the Absolute. It would be better, in other words, to begin
lower down and to work upwards. We can stop when we grow dizzy.

The denizens of the spiritual world are an ascending aristocracy.
They constitute a hierarchy of ever greater and greater beings. If it
pleases us to think of that hierarchy as culminating at an apex, we are
obliged to admit that the apex itself must be the point of contact with
other and still great hierarchies, stretching back infinitely into the
Infinite. The Absolute contains that Infinite, but is also beyond it.

Let us begin again. What ought the Christian to believe about
Christ? He believes, as a rule, things that are very insulting and almost
wicked. He believes that Christ, having completed his work on earth,
ascended into Heaven, where he now sits in glory, continually interceding
for us, but no longer capable of suffering. "He is always in adorable
tranquility; no trouble can come nigh His Being," as a well-known theo-
logian has expressed it. The Roman Catholics, while accepting that view,
have felt it to be so unsatisfactory, that they have devised, in the Eucharist,
a way in which Christ may be kept in touch with earth ; in the Eucharist
he remains voluntarily a prisoner. It is an extraordinary expedient,
when, as a matter of fact, he never left earth at all. If in God we live
and move and have our being, as St. Paul said, it follows that to sit at
the right hand of God means to be at the right hand of every point in
space. And this, instead of being unthinkable, means no more than to
postulate the existence of space transcending three dimensional space as
that transcends, looks down upon and includes a flat surface. The "body
of the resurrection" is of the substance of that transcending space more
real, more substantial, more dynamic, more ideally human, than the
physical body of our mortality.

That is what Christians ought to believe of Christ and in time will
believe. They will discover him to be the embodiment of love and wis-

136

HOW DO WE THINK OF GOD? 137

dom and power ; a Saviour, a Friend, a Guide ; infinitely tender, infinitely
virile, infinitely near. And, as they come to understand him better, they
will come to understand God better.

We think of God, whatever we mean by the term, as supremely wise
and powerful. We speak also of His love. We quote, occasionally, that
"God is Love." We know, in our own experience, that when we love
another and see that other suffer, we too suffer. If not, we do not love.
And when a man can witness anguish of soul or body and remain indiffer-
ent, we call him a brute, by which we mean something less than human.
The more perfect the nature, the more intense the sympathy and therefore
the suffering. This does not mean weakness. The ideal mother will,
for love of her children, punish and cause them suffering when there is
need. But the pain which she inflicts will be as nothing to the pain which
she herself endures, first because of the sin or wrong-doing which her
loved ones have committed, and secondarily because of the punishment
which for their sakes, she is compelled to administer, or which she permits
to fall upon them through the reaction of their own misdeeds.

Is Christ less human than his followers? Would it not be more
reasonable to suppose that when he sees men suffer, as the world suffers
today, his suffering, because of his compassion, exceeds by a million fold
the suffering he permits? He did not weep because Lazarus was dead.
It was the Jews who thought that. He knew that Lazarus would be
restored to life. He wept for the sorrow of Mary. Believe, all ye who
grieve and who look to him, that his grief for you is infinitely greater than
your own ! And is God less than Christ ?

In an article by the Rev. B. H. Streeter, Fellow and Dean of Queen's
College, Oxford, in the Hibbert Journal of last April, the author protests
against the conception of Divine omnipotence as a kind of infinite brute
force. Far nobler, he says, is the attribute of power as claimed by the
sufferer in Shelley's Prometheus Unbound:

"To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite ;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates ;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent:
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory."

In opposition to the ordinary view of God, the author asks us to press
home boldly "the principles of St. John and Athanasius, 'He that hath
seen me hath seen the Father/ the Father is essentially as the Son," and
says that by doing so, all is changed. "God Himself is seen to share the
suffering He allows. More than that: by an eternal activity, of which

138 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

the death of Christ is both a symbol and also an essential part, He is
everlastingly, at the cost of His own effort and His own pain, redeeming
and perfecting the world He made."

That, however, is but half of the truth. The ordinary view is the
other half. God is Joy. The reconciliation lies in this: Christ died of
pain, but that pain, because of love which passeth understanding, was
ecstasy intolerable. No physical body could contain it. He contains it
now, and lives. But who knows, of the words we use, whether Pain or
Joy would best describe his heart today ! Better, perhaps, to use both, or
neither, but to see them inseparable in Love, and his heart forever as fire
and flame and passion of Love.

So, through that Master of Love, we may gain some knowledge of
God. So, through wider and less selfish sympathy, we may make God's
task easier for Him. Our sorrows may be real, but Christ's sorrow is
infinite. In him is sorrow for the Father's sorrow, which is beyond our
comprehension; and sorrow for our sorrows which for our sakes he
cannot always remedy. If, through sympathy, we lose our little in that
stupendous whole, we too shall find that pain and joy are one in ecstasy.

He who would find happiness for a day

May do so by working for himself;
He who would find happiness for a year

May do so by working for his friends;
He who would find happiness for a life-time

May do so by working for humanity;
He who would find happiness for Eternity

Can only do so by working for God.

BOOK OF ITEMS.

LETTERS TO FRIENDS

XI
DEAR FRIEND:

I HAVE to thank you for your letter of last night, which reaches
me this morning, raising again the matters of which you spoke
to me, and renewing your request to be shown the way that leads

to discipleship. You were both hurt and puzzled, you tell me, that
I should have remained so silent and so unresponsive before the sincerity
of your appeal, made, not from the impulse of the moment, but after
long thought and much reading, and such effort at self -conquest as you
felt should have proved the reality of your aspiration. Therefore you
ask me to tell you what the barrier is, and why I seemed to throw you
back upon yourself and asked you to look still deeper into your own
heart and wish.

What is your barrier? A misunderstood and divided allegiance.
Why did I throw you back upon yourself? Because only you can tell to
what you wish to give your whole allegiance, and because until you
have decided that, no one else can help you. Why did I tell you to
look still deeper into your own heart and wish? Because it is there
you must find your answer.

Surely your reading must have shown you that if you are to find
the way you must be thrown back upon yourself. "Seek the way by
retreating within. . . . Each man is to himself absolutely the way,
the truth, and the life." Or again, "Desire only that which is within you.
Desire only that which is beyond you. Desire only that which is unat-
tainable. For within you is the light of the world the only light that
can be shed upon the Path. If you are unable to perceive it within
you, it is useless to look for it elsewhere. . . ." Do I still need to
remind you of this? I cannot answer your questions as you wish. You
yourself must answer them. If you are to enter the way, it must open
to you from the inmost recesses of your own being. I can only hope
to lead you to see certain general principles.

You write: "I suppose that no man can know what may lie con-
cealed in his nature, and what some crisis may reveal ; but I am no longer
a boy, and life has brought me much to try and test me in both joy
and pain. So far as I know myself, I desire discipleship more than I
desire, or ever have desired, anything else. Is not this enough to say?"

It is much; but how far do you know yourself? Look back again
over the past years. This desire was not always paramount. Why do you
think it is so now? Perhaps you think there could be no better proof

139

140 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

than your wish to give up everything else for this work which you ask
me to open to you. In reality it only shows you have not understood.
You think you say with St. Paul: "When I was a child, I spake as a
child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child : but when I became
a man, I put away childish things?" But the things which you now
deem yourself ready to surrender are not childish. If you think them so
you know little of your own heart, little of the path that you seek to
enter. The plummet of your experience has not yet touched their depths.
In them is the very thing you seek.

Suppose that you had not made this request to me to the friend whom
you think has been told something of the pathway of the soul but that
you were standing where you ask me to lead you, before someone who
had himself attained, some high disciple in the Lodge of Masters. No,
let us be still bolder. Imagine that your prayer is heard, and that your
own Master comes to you, opening the door, as you kneel in the quiet
of your study, and stands and looks at you.

I do not ask you what you would say or do. It is the truth of your
heart that would speak, for before those eyes all pretence is silenced
and the veils of self-delusion fall away. Imagination cannot help us
here, for it, too, is silenced. Only the real can speak in the presence
of the Masters, f But we can imagine his speaking; and to those
imagined words we may seek to reply. What would you answer if to
you, as to Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom, he should say
"Follow me"?

I can imagine the gladness with which you would hear those words,
repeating and confirming outwardly what you have for so long heard
within your soul. I can see you rise up eagerly to follow wheresoever
he might lead. But at the door, would there not come pause and ques-
tion? Were you free to go? What of your duties? What of wife,
and children, and the loss that would come to others who had trusted
you? "Master, whither goest thou?" Even if not spoken, would not
that question come before your mind? Not because you were your-
self unwilling to follow, not because, in those first moments, you cared
where or through what he might lead you, but because you felt the ties
which hold you where you are.

What would his reply be to such a question? Do you think that
he would say to you then what he once said in Galilee? "He that loveth
father or mother more than me is not worthy of me ; and he that loveth
son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that
taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me."
Suppose he did say this, and that you answered him, as I believe
you would answer: "Lord, father and mother, son and daughter, my
wife and home and friends, all are your gift to me, infinitely precious
to me. Yet it is not because I love the gift more than the giver that
I pause. They are yours, as I am yours, and you have given them

LETTERS TO FRIENDS 141

to me. If in answer to my prayer you call me to follow you, who will
care for these? Can I come to you and leave uncared for what is
yours? I have prayed to follow you, to live v.ith you, day by day.
And now you bid me come. But my soul asks 'where dwellest thou,'
and if I should turn my back on the work you gave me to do, and
those you told me to guard. Lord, had I not prayed to you to call
me, I could come. But now it seems a coward's prayer. I cannot leave
until my work is done. To follow you, to live with you, I must be
where you dwell, in the labour and the love that you have given me."

You cannot doubt the answer. The Master whom you seek to
follow, the Christ who said "My meat is to do the will of him who sent
me," would tell you you had chosen rightly. "Where two or three are
gathered together in my name, there am I." It is in your home,
in your family, in your business, and your own place in the world,
that you must find and dwell with the Master, if you are to find and
dwell with him at all. The one condition is that it shall be in his
name, for him, no longer for yourself.

Do you see this now? It is the first thing that must be seen, the
last that we can ever forget. Therefore I beg of you try to see it
with the utmost clearness, and with a vision that burns itself into your
heart and soul so as never to be erased. It is in this way we do see
when we look with the Master's eyes, and it is for this reason that I
ask you to place yourself before him, in imagination, and to follow
his gaze into the depths of your desire. If you will do this, you will
never again think of any duty as in itself a barrier. Can a soldier's
post be a barrier between him and his general? Does he pray to be
taken from the outposts to the splendour of the capital? Learn this
primary lesson, once and for all; the service of the Masters, the path-
way of discipleship, lies through the day by day and minute by minute
fulfilment of the duties and relationships of that state of life unto
which it has pleased God to call us. It is there, and not elsewhere, that
we may dwell with the Master.

It may well be that you think you have already understood this
point, and that there is no need for me to labour it. But in reality
you have only partially understood, and your half -knowledge has mis-
led you. Both your questions and your actions show you have not
grasped its actual significance. You have recognized that you cannot
reach the Master by deliberately turning away from your duties, but
you have not realized that you must reach him in them. You have
regarded the time given to them as the price you must pay for the
hours of leisure in which you could seek him or try to serve him
directly. Look squarely at the facts and you will see that this is so.
With your mind you may have known that it should not be so. But
knowledge is not knowledge until it passes from the mind to the will.
You have gone to your business in a very different attitude from that

142 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

which you bring to the work of the Society ; and many times, when
the detailed demands of your home and family interrupted your medita-
tion or some paper you were writing, you have been impatient at what
you felt to be the sacrifice of inner to outer things. You have not
acted upon the knowledge, even if you possess it, that no man can
serve God in anything or in any moment, unless he serves in every-
thing and in every moment. Your business is as indispensable a part
of your path to discipleship as is your method of prayer or meditation.
You have no need to ask the way ahead until you have followed the
Master through the path he has made clear to you and marked out in
your duties. It is through these that you must acquire the training
which is essential for discipleship. They are designed for just that
purpose and offer just that opportunity. If you wish to know what
you need to do, in order to become a disciple, ask yourself what would
be required for the perfect fulfilment of each of your present duties
and relationships. The barriers that exist between you and discipleship
are precisely the faults, weaknesses, and personal tendencies, that your
daily life reveals when you apply to each of its details the standard
of perfection.

My first point is thus capable of a fourfold elaboration, (a) Your
Master does not call you from your duties and family relationships,
but demands that you enter into them more fully, (b) It is in them
(not only in your leisure moments), that you must find him if you
are to find him at all. (c) Each one of your duties must be used as a
means of reaching him and must be fulfilled as a service rendered to
him. (d) In the effort to fulfil your duties perfectly you will be attack-
ing those faults in yourself which are your real barriers.

Now I come to the second point. It is not less important than
the first. For you, it may be even more important, but you can under-
stand the one only as you understand the other. To try to fulfil your
duties is one thing; to follow and serve the Master in them is some-
thing more. To love and cherish those whom he has given you is not
the same as to love and cherish yourself in and through them. If
it is yourself in them that you love, then truly your foes shall be
those of your own household.

Look deeply into your own heart to find the answer to this ques-
tion : Is it yourself or your Master that you love ? All love, all desire,
springs from one of these two sources, and according to its source is
its effect. It draws us to our Master, or it chains us to ourselves, or it
sets us in conflict with ourselves in inner and incessant strife that nul-
lifies all progress. "No man can serve two masters: for either he will
hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and
despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." You cannot
follow the Masters with a divided allegiance. Is that which you offer
whole and single?

LETTERS TO FRIENDS 143

Your imagination can help you as before. It has shown you that
love of the Master cannot cause you to desert your duties or those whom
he has given you to love, but that the way to him lies through these
things of his appointing. The way to self lies also through them, and
the question you have to answer is which way are you following. What
use are you making of the Master's gifts? Are they drawing you to
him, or are they binding you to yourself? You can answer this best
by considering the result of being deprived of them.

Suppose you were to lose one or all of those you love. Suppose
that death called wife or child. You would suffer deeply. That tells
us nothing. We are not meant not to enjoy the gifts that are given
us, and not to feel loss when they are withdrawn. They are not
childish things which we put away without a pang because they are
outgrown. The capacity for suffering grows as we grow, is, indeed,
one of the tests of our stature in the world of reality. And the more
rightly we have loved, the more we must miss the wonted opportunities
for love's service and expression. So that, in any case, whether our
love be of self or of the Master, we would suffer in the death of one we
love. But how would we suffer? Would you feel resentful? Would
it seem to you that an injury had been done you? Would your cry
be one of self-pity? Would your life have crumbled beneath you?
If so, your love was of self, or has been turned to self; and your
allegiance to the Master is not whole. The one you loved meant more
to you than his will means. You have taken his gift to you and have
used it, not to draw nearer to him and as a means of serving him,
but as a means for ministering to yourself. Your resentment is as
though a soldier should hold a city, not for his king or general, but
against him. So long as he holds it for his king and in his name, the
soldier's love of his post draws him closer to the king, makes him
a wiser, better governor, inspires him to greater ardor and valour in
its defence. But if he forgets his king, and begins to think of the
city as his, then his love may make him a traitor, and at best divides
his allegiance.

Apply this same test to your work in business. Suppose you were
to fail, losing not only your own money, but all that had been entrusted
to you. Suppose yourself innocent of wrong, but that the circumstances
were such as to make the opposite seem the truth, and that you were
considered to have acted dishonourably. Again you would suffer; and
again that mere fact tells us nothing. Your reputation is something
you must value and must guard for the Master's sake, even as you
would guard it for your own. But for which are you guarding it?
Were it to be taken away, would you feel it had been taken from
him or from you ? Were it to be sacrificed, whose sacrifice would you
feel it to be? Here, also, you have to ask yourself if you are giving
undivided allegiance.

144 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Do these tests seem too hard to you, or to set an impossible
standard of selflessness? Remember that though many are called, fey,
are chosen. There are very few that are ready for discipleship, for
it means and requires just this singleness of devotion. If you would
be a disciple it must be all or nothing. The Masters do not call us
out of the world, nor away from the occupations and the sorrows and
joys of the world, but they do call each one of us to follow his own
Master, and not himself, in those occupations, joys, and sorrows. Unless
this call rings in our hearts and souls as the one all-absorbing and com-
pelling passion of our lives, we are not disciples. We may not know
whether it is God or devil that thus calls us, but we must know that
there is for us no other thing, no other love, no other way in which
we can move or live than by obedience to it. To the disciple the Master's
will is the law of his life, the single allegiance of his heart and effort,
the source and goal of all he loves, the end for which all means are
used, and all gifts or powers treasured.

If you have been honest and fearless in the self-examination this
letter has asked of you, it should have removed certain of the mis-
conceptions that underlay your attitude when you spoke to me. It will,
I trust, also have helped you to realize that you are not held back
from the path of discipleship by any other barriers than those which
arise from your undivided desire. If there be barriers, it is because
you have not the desire of the disciple. The question for you then to
answer is : Do you desire that desire ? No one else can give it to
you, "the disciple becomes a disciple, and is not made," but you can
gain it if you will.

Faithfully yours,

JOHN GERARD.

"Though God wishes to save us, it is His will that we contribute our
part towards this ^vork, otherwise He will do nothing; for this reason
we must make up our minds to suffer."

BLESSED MARGARET MARY.

THE SACRED BOOKS OF
ANCIENT CHINA

III

OF the three religions of China, Buddhism has possessed, in the
past, probably by far the largest collection of sacred writings.
In the days when this faith enjoyed the favor of kings and princes,
pilgrimages were made into India to obtain there the sacred
Buddhistic works; translations were made from Pali and Sanskrit and
in China many more were written by learned Chinese. A catalogue of
the year 518 A.D. has listed 2,213 of these writings. Naturally the centers
of literary activity were the monasteries found in large numbers through-
out the Empire. With the decline of the monastic system, however, the
work ceased and the sacred books were scattered and lost, till at present
only 276 of them are in existence; China possesses no complete edition,
though several in the Chinese language may be had in Japan and in one
or two European libraries.

This decay both of monachism and of the literature is due to the
persecution which Buddhism in common with all things foreign has
suffered at the hands of the Chinese government. According to some
authorities, it was during the Han dynasty, in the third century, B.C., the
age in which Lao-tze's doctrines gradually crystallized into a formal
religion and a Church, that the foreign religion was first introduced. For
several hundred years it enjoyed considefable prosperity and a rapid
growth, reaching its climax in the fifth century A.D. At this time it
was patronized by the ruling classes, monasteries flourished throughout
the land, and the hills and mountains of the country were studded with
Buddhist temples. During the fifth century, however, a rebellion occurred
which was supposed to have been furthered by the monks of one of the
monasteries; the house and its occupants were promptly annihilated and
from then on, Buddhism lost favor. In the later part of the century we
find a synod called to decide which of the religions, Confucianism, Taoism
and Buddhism was the best. In Confucian China, there was little difficulty
in determining the question and the work of exterminating the other two
faiths then began, a climax being reached, fifty years later with the decree
that 4,600 Buddhist convents and 40,000 religious buildings should be
destroyed and 260,000 monks should adopt a secular life. Taoism too,
had its monastic system and a few semi-clerical Taoist states had been
formed, both of which institutions shared in the persecution of the time.
Taoism though, while regarded as heteredox has too much in common
with Confucianism ever to receive quite the same treatment as Buddhism.

146 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Persecution of Buddhists, much of it of the most cruel sort, has con-
tinued to the present day, until now the religious houses have practically
disappeared, but few of the monks remain, and a nun is a rarity. The
erection of a convent is possible only by imperial authorization ; the power
to ordain a monk is possessed only by a few monasteries and that by
imperial authority; the sites of the flourishing monasteries of former
days are marked merely by an occasional neglected temple, occupied by a
priest who is little more than a caretaker, and his one pupil, even the
number of the pupils being regulated by law.

With monastic life, perished also religious learning, and the temples
still standing, show a Buddhism vastly different from that of south-eastern
Asia. So completely has this faith suited itself to the country of its adop-
tion, that only in certain famous monastic centers south of the Yang-tse,
does Buddhism as a distinct religion exist; elsewhere priests and people
alike know little if anything of the life and teachings of Buddha. Many
of the divinities of Taoism have been adopted and their images placed in
Buddhist temples and one writer declares that, were it not for these images
the temples would be deserted, and practically their sole source of revenue
would be the money paid by laymen for the storage of their unused
coffins in the temple precincts.

But Buddhism in its prime exerted a mighty influence and to this day
Buddhistic ideals and ceremonials play a large part in the religious life
of the people. Outside the monasteries, the most noticeable example of
the continuance of this influence is the existence of certain lay com-
munities or sects, joined together for the purpose of "assisting each other
on the road to salvation," and bound by the five commandments against
theft, adultery, lying, the use of alcohol and the infliction of death. They
have rites of initiation and consecration ; religious ritual ; chapels ; sacred
writings, etc., but all these elements while borrowed principally from
Buddhism show also a strong admixture of Taoism and Confucianism.
The sects are very numerous at the present time, though their existence
is of necessity surrounded with the utmost secrecy, since they are the
object of bitter persecution by the government, a persecution which only
serves to strengthen their spirit of fraternity, devotion and sacrifice. The
fact that they do not conform to the classics and are, therefore, heretical,
is one reason for this persecution; then too, the government is strongly
opposed to any organizations or associations other than those of fellow-
clansmen, and threatens with flogging, banishment and strangulation, all
members of such organizations. It is interesting to note the suggestion
of one writer that these sects with their broad tolerance, their doctrines
of love, truth and belief in a future life, may serve as a point of contact
for the introduction of the religion of the West. Some sectaries are
well acquainted with the Christian gospels and many, it seems, see an
identity between our God and their eternal Order of the World, regarding
the Master as one of the many luminous Buddhas sent for the redemption
of man.

THE SACRED BOOKS OF ANCIENT CHINA 147

In view of China's suspicion and hatred for all things foreign, there
arises the natural question, how did Buddhism gain its hold on the people,
why was it patronized, even many centuries ago, by the highest in the
land? The answer to this question takes us back to the very core of
China's religious thought ; first, to ancestor worship ; second, to the belief
that every person or thing in the universe is animated by gods and demons,
all of whom exercise their influence on mankind. Ancestor worship in
its early days was carried on without any Church to provide it with
doctrines or determine its ritual. Neither was there contained in it any
teaching concerning the life after death. Buddhism with its doctrines of
transmigration, paradise, hells, etc., supplied this lack, appealing to both
the interest and the imagination of the people. It adopted the Confucian
rites of sacrifice, added to the solemnity and beauty of the worship and
arranged an elaborate mass for departed souls, claiming to deliver them
from hell and secure their entrance into paradise. It will readily be
perceived what the effect would be on a nation whose highest religious
duty is devotion to the welfare and happiness of ancestors. Added to
this, the ritual and ceremonial of Buddhism was and is used largely in
the propitiation of gods and the exorcism of demons, and wherever the
belief in universalistic animism is found, a religion which will aid man in
his relation with the host of spirits, is sure to find favor. By these means
then, Buddhism became as one with the central thought in both Confucian-
ism and Taoism. With Taoism it was even more in accord, for adherents
of the two faiths saw much in common between the Buddhistic way of
salvation leading to Nirvana and the way of the Tao leading to assimila-
tion with the universe. Indeed, Taoism may be said to have paved the
way for Buddhism in China, and the two religions developed by a sort
of reciprocal influence. We see then the chief reasons why Buddhism
not only gained a place, but held it so tenaciously through centuries of
persecution.

In explanation of its persecution, we have only to remember that for
the good Confucian two principles are ever to be regarded, first the infalli-
bility of the classics, and the heresy of all not in conformity with them;
second the paramount importance of the welfare of the state. In this
connection it is interesting to note a statement made by Arthur H. Smith
in his Chinese Characteristics to the effect that every candidate for civil
service examinations hopes for the stability of the government and of
existing conditions as a prerequisite to his own success. Bearing these
points in mind, it is easy to understand the hostility of the mandarinate
toward Buddhism. Many arguments urged against the faith are mere
superstition, as for instance, the assertion that the introduction of Bud-
dhism delivered up China a prey to demons ; that since its introduction the
average age of man has been considerably shortened; faithlessness and
treason among ministers of state have increased, and no dynasty has been
able to maintain itself on the throne for any length of time. Other argu-
ments, however, will be seen to have considerable cogency, at least from

148 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

the Chinese point of view. It is declared, for example, that the Buddhist
aspiration toward a higher life than that of this world is mere nonsense,
for nothing of the soul is found in the classics ; its doctrine of rewards
and punishments other than those meted out by the state, is virtually
treason; its teaching that monachism is the main road to salvation is a
blow both at Confucianism and the state, for the clergy, (1) by the build-
ing of temples and monasteries encourage waste of money; (2) by not
cultivating the fields, rob the treasuries of ground-rent and taxes which
the state would otherwise receive; (3) by not marrying, fail to supply
soldiers for the army and also sin against one of the fundamental tenets
of Confucianism, hiao or filial devotion. Mencius, the great writer of
the Confucian school declared, "Three in number are the great sins against
hiao but to have no posterity is worse than any," the sin being against
the peace and happiness of ancestors. On other points as well, Buddhism
is at variance with the fundamental principles of Chinese thought, so
much so that its long history of bloody persecution is a natural result.

In view of the obstacles which the religion has had to meet, it would
be interesting to know by just what proportion of the vast population of
China it has been embraced. But this it is difficult to ascertain. Travellers
state that in some sections of the Empire there may be found no trace
of a Buddhist priest for miles at a stretch ; while in other parts the daily
life of the people, down to the smallest detail is regulated by Buddhist
rule ; throughout the land, however, Buddhist thought has taken a strong
hold on the minds of the people and practically everywhere its influence is
apparent in their religious life. But the real difficulty in determining the
number of its adherents lies in the universal mingling of the religions
and this is equally true of Confucianism and Taoism. One writer declares
it "impossible to make a Chinaman perceive that two forms of belief
are mutually exclusive. He knows nothing about logical contradictions
and cares even less." The same author compares the relation of the
average Chinese to his three religions, with the relation of the Anglo-
Saxon to the various components of the English language, and adds that
to China may well be applied Gibbon's remark concerning Rome, "to
the common people all religions are equally true, to the philosopher all
are equally false, and to the magistrate all are equally useful."

In a study of the religions of China then, it is more profitable to
consider what the three faiths have offered and what has been their
actual contribution to the country. Briefly, Buddhism with its teaching
that man is not destined to die, but to live forever, satisfied the craving
of such as were not content with a mere materialistic explanation of
the universe. It has been said that spiritual religion in China exists only
within the circle of Buddhism and that Buddhistic rule has been a
mighty instrument for the betterment of social conditions and the mitiga-
tion of cruelty, but because of its conflict with Confucianism this influ-
ence has extended all too little beyond the monastic centers. Taoism

THE SACRED BOOKS OF ANCIENT CHINA 149

offered an ideal of a glorified future life as a sequel to life on earth
spent in accord with the principles governing the universe. But lofty
as were the teachings of its founder, popular Taoism, the Taoism of
today and of many centuries past, never rises above the level of idolatry,
Polytheism and Polydemonism.

Concerning Confucianism, opinions differ widely, one writer, De
Groot in his Religion of the Chinese, declaring it to be a religion of a
lower order, characterized by thorough materialistic selfishness, without
a trace of a higher religious aim. This is by no means the universal
opinion, however. Other authors, while recognizing the lack of spiritu-
ality in Confucianism, rate at its true value the high order of its moral
teaching and the tremendous power which this teaching has exerted.
Perhaps as an example of those favorably disposed toward the faith it
would be well to quote again from Chinese Characteristics, where
after remarking that "Confucianism, as a system of thought is among the
most remarkable intellectual achievements of the race," the author pays
tribute to the Confucian canon, the sacred books not of ancient China
only, but of the China of all time.

"It is not merely by perusing them," he says, "that we are to
receive our most forcible impressions of what the Chinese Classics are
and have been, but by contemplating their effects. Here is the Chinese
race, by far the mightiest aggregation of human beings in any one nation
on earth, 'with a written history extending as far back as that of any
other which the world has known, the only nation that has throughout
retained its nationality, and has never been ousted from the land where
it first appeared,' existing, for aught that appears, in much the same
way as in hoary antiquity. What is the explanation of this unexampled
fact? By what means has this incomputable mass of human beings,
dwelling on the Chinese plains from the dawn of history until now, been
controlled, and how is it that they appear to be an exception to the uni-
versal law of the decay and death of nations?" And the answer is,
those teachings through which China has learned to depend for her
welfare on the power of moral forces, Confucianism.

JULIA CHECKERING.

"ON MOUNTED SERVICE"

EVERYBODY was cross and I was amiable. For instance, my
big, steady-and-sure partner was decidedly "scratchy." My aunt,
with whom I live, was a victim of "nerves." My office staff was
stupid and impertinent without an exception. When even the
subway guards were all insolent in manner, and yet nobody even seemed
to notice it, I felt a crisis had been reached. While it was true that I
was amiable, it could not be that all the world was out-of- joint and
I alone was perfect. There must be something wrong with me !

There came back to me suddenly a recollection of what the Inspired
Preacher once said: "When you feel most safe, you are in greatest
danger; when you feel most virtuous, beware; when you feel absolutely
good, and all others appear hopeless, you are merely seeing in them
your own faults and you should repent at once the warning is for
you."

What was the matter with me? One part of me was good and
another part of me was evidently occupying the other pole. Queerly
enough, it was that other part of me that the world saw, reacted from,
and was stirred up by. Why could not I show instead the other I,
the better I; what seemed to me to be the real I?

Thanks to the wisdom of a Friend, who started my interest in the
Great Problem of endeavoring to live theosophically, I had begun
with Light on the Path, and I have the habit of turning to it, as to a
life buoy, whenever I feel I am getting in over my head. So now
there came back to me from its inspired pages: "The whole nature
of man must be used wisely by the one who desires to enter the way.
Each man is to himself absolutely the way, the truth, and the life.
But he is only so when he grasps his whole individuality firmly, and
by force of his awakened spiritual will recognizes this individuality as
not himself, but that thing which he has with pain created for his
own use, and by means of which he purposes, as his growth slowly
develops his intelligence, to reach to the life beyond individuality."

It was clear that the whole world, in this time of gaiety, could not
be at fault. The corrolary to that was that I must be. Something
within me told me that that passage from Light on the Path held the
answer to my riddle. What could I do to bring through the real
me and to displace this very horrid me that was evidently most
objectionable to others?

The first thing to do was to get that answer into my brain; into
terms that I could understand as well as feel. Feeling, I have found,
is useless unless formulated into a rule of action; manifested in turn
in action. I was told this; taught it even, but it has taken hard
knocks to make it somewhat a part of me. "Feeling" that there was

"ON MOUNTED SERVICE" 151

an answer, it is obvious that it became my duty to "know" that
answer in brain terms. What was the everyday expression of grasping
one's "whole individuality" and using it?

I went home and locked myself up and began to meditate on the
problem, following as best I could the method illustrated in Prof.
Mitchell's booklet Meditation. I came near going to sleep, as he warns
us we may, but I fought it off. My mind became blank, but I fought on.
I followed the advice of Patanjali, which Prof. Mitchell quotes with
approval, and "muttered" to myself over and over again. I used that
prayer of prayers "None of me; all of Thee." At last the answer
seemed to come. I say "seem," for no beginner dares ever be sure, if he
would be safe. Yet, as the answer has helped me, my surmise has proved
at the least a workable hypothesis.

As such answers so often seem to come, it was indirect and germ-like
at the start. It was a vague remembrance that some dear old Bishop
in medieval times likened the soul or higher man to a rider, and the
physical or lower man to an ass obstinate, bad-tempered and worse
trained. That does not seem much of an answer. But Byles Gridley in
his Thoughts on the Universe* advises planting ideas and letting them
grow. He also uses the analogy of ideas evoluting like fishes progressing
from the crude, blind forms of the Mammoth Cave to the darting, flashing
"beauties" my partner loves to "cast" for and talk about! My need
was too great or rather the need of those whom I was upsetting for
me to wait for the slow processes of ideation by gestation. I forced the
growth by further meditation. Gradually the answer has grown and
become a Rule something to regulate my life by if only I will ; as I
may if I but so will as is true of any and all rules.

I now like to think of being on Mounted Service. I suppose all of
us who are privileged to be enrolled under the Cross have felt the cavalry
dash, and the soldierly courage of our immortal Leader, Who went so
gallantly to death that we might learn to live.

I remember the old theoretical military organization of this country.
All men between 18 and 45 were supposed to belong to and be part of the
Enrolled Militia, subject to draft in time of war. Then came the com-
paratively few men in the Organized Militia or Volunteers (National
Guard). Finally there was the little handful of men who gave their
lives to war in the Regular Establishment (the Regular Army). Is not
our Church organized on somewhat the same plan? And does it not
break down in the same way? We never felt we were of the Enrolled
Militia and is not our attitude the same in the Christian Army of the
West?

What do I mean by being on Mounted Service? The answer is the
answer given to me in my desire to better manifest the Master I would
serve; the better to wear His uniform that it may not be disgraced in
the eyes of the world :

* The Guardian Angel by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

152 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

I have said that there was an I that I knew to be good, and another
I that I and others evidently knew to be bad. I identify myself with the
better I and the other I call my "mount," to use the cavalry phrase. I
credit my friends and associates with being also cavalry. When my aunt
is tired and nervous I no longer say "cross," for the real aunt is never
cross, I say "Her mount is giving trouble, but who am I to object. Think
how she has worked that mount (body and mind) of hers for me.
Think of the strains she gave it whenever I was sick or in trouble : of the
leagues and leagues she has galloped it without mercy in the Master's
Service. How hard it is for her, so gallant and brave, so debonair a
gentle Amazon to have to use a mount so strained and worn." I find I
love her all the more. I grow more tender as I realize that it was so much
for me that she has made the sacrifice.

When my partner shows strain, I say: "Steady, my mount is biting
or kicking, or else his mount is feeling the strain. If we were mounted
together in the field on equine horses and not those of symbolism, and his
horse was restive, I would not lay to him with my crop." So I do not
say or, perhaps, more truthfully, I endeavor not to say the rejoinder
that would be like an irritating cut of a crop.

Sometimes it seems to me that Our Lord was very simple and literal
when he advised us to become as little children. Provided, always that
we act and do not merely fancy and feel, I sometimes think we would do
well to act in "make-believe" as my nephews and nieces do. I am sure
I have found that this seeming "make-believe" of being a cavalryman
with other cavalrymen takes stings out of life removes or exposes non-
realities.

Take this very day : Some of my very dearest friends have planned
to be together and have left me out. A little while ago I would have felt
hurt and neglected. Today I simply said to myself: "Wake up, old
man, you are evidently drowsy and have let your mount have its head.
It is kicking and biting. No wonder no one wants to have it 'round.
How tactful the rest of the Squad is to ride off and let you fight it out
without the mortification of a public exhibition of poor horsemanship."
For everyone who knows anything of the Army knows that to have a
badly trained mount is a reflection on the horsemanship of the rider. On
Service, there are no excuses, no justifications and is not life being on
Service ?

It gives a zest to life to recognize one's faults and vices and to
realize that they are unnecessary; not real and irremediable, but exhibi-
tions of poor horsemanship. Of course, it hurts to be told of one's
faults and it hurts yet more to know them, but in the Cavalry the
Organization is more important than the individual unit. The cavalryman
who cannot handle his mount, get the most out of it, make it work with
other mounts, teach it without his guidance to do its work well in response
to orders and in contact with its fellows or its foes (so he may fight),
may be a gallant fellow, yet he must be left behind whether it be on

"ON MOUNTED SERVICE" 153

march or in action. Who wants to be so left behind? Then master
your mount and be fitted for Service !

I like to think that as one proves his horsemanship, he will be better
mounted. Before we are mustered into the Regular Establishment, the
would-be recruit is wise to learn to ride. If all he can get is an ass, the
better horseman he may become by conquering that ass. Just one caution :
Self-taught is crudely taught, and it is the part of prudence to go to a
Riding Master to learn at least the rudiments. It not only teaches one
horsemanship, but is training in obedience against the days of drill
sergeants, squad leaders, "non-coms" and officers clear up to the General
Commanding; when, in time of war, disobedience is punished with death
as a protection to the rest of the Command. And I much more than half
believe that this analogy may be worked out in exactitude, if we dared to
study life with courage.

I like to think of St. Michael and his wondrous white steed as
symbolic of the possibilities of purification and training until that "whole
individuality" becomes the perfect mount. I wonder, too, if the impor-
tance attached to Knighthood (the mounted gentleman of an Order)
has not symbolic spiritual significance. I also wonder, in reverence,
whether Our Lord's choice of an ass to enter Jerusalem in triumph may
not have been meant far more than merely "the fulfilling of scripture."
If He could ride an ass as King, why should not we subordinate our
physical natures to mount us sons of the King that we be?

SERVETUS.
POSTSCRIPT.

DEAR SERVETUS : Thank you for letting me read your notes on one
way of striving to reach to discipleship. The analogy, as you say, is old ;
but it should be helpful. I am reminded of a comment in The Path,
I think in the first Volume of that remarkable theosophical periodical, to
the effect that the antiquity which survives is of interest not because
of its age but because of its value.

But are you quite safe in stopping where you do in your analogy?
Unquestionably we are wise to regard Our Lord as a dashing cavalryman,
a courageous soldier but why stop there? We do not believe He
stopped His Campaign with His Death on the Cross. Has He not
shown marvellous generalship ever since; and every quality a great
soldier should have such as indomitableness, persistence, patience,
untiring labor, never failing attention? Combine the best qualities of
all great generals from Alexander to Suvaroff, and see if they would
not be needed to keep alive the Christian Campaign against the Powers
of Evil for 2,000 years ; in the face of what to us must seem terrifying
discouragement yet you know you feel His Joy and Courage? Why
not bring that out?

Again why not carry out your analogy of the individual cavalryman
and his mount a bit further? Has it not seemed to you that Napoleon

154 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

expressed the teachings of the East as to human perfectability when
he said "Every soldier of France carries a Marshal's baton in his knap-
sack?" Should not each one of us try to emulate all the qualities of Our
Leader ?

You speak only of using the mount in cavalry. Has not the history
of war shown that the perfect cavalryman is ready, himself and his
mount, for any duty? Suppose there is artillery to be drawn up to the
battle line; the sick to be withdrawn, or even subsistence stores to be
brought up from a depot far in the rear would not the ideal soldier
rejoice if he and his mount were effective in whatever way the Cause
required them? Does this thought not help us to accept in gallantry
and in gay soldier-fashion the humdrum duties and dry obligations of
life as being as truly Service as the entrancing swing and thundering of
a cavalry charge ? Let us be cavalry by all means but perfect cavalry ;
so mobile a tactical unit that like a West Point cadet we can do any
part of a soldier's duty well and with dash from cooking to com-
manding !

Two other points you might bring out. One expressed by Kipling
in William the Conqueror, when he said of "Jimmy" Hawkins that if
he had to use razors to cut grindstones, he believed in using the best
cutlery.

The other point you touch on in your advice to go to a Riding
Master wise advice, which if followed will save many a bump and
bruise and even break! Do you quite go far enough? Would it not
be well to apply your analogy "with courage" and point out that when
the recruit finds he is not handling his mount he should rejoice if
someone has the kindness to jump to the beast's head; jerk back the
curb, and apply a whip until the animal is conquered? And do we not
need two spurs the one: self-restraint or humility to help us check
the beast when we draw the curb of obedience; and the other: self-
sacrifice or love when we loosen the rein and lean forward in charge ?

Do with these suggestions as you will they are offered, I hope, in
the spirit in which you endeavor to write the desire to give to others
what you have been given so generously. You have your Mentor; I
have my Director; may we not strive to give in unity their teachings
in common?

Faithfully yours,

HEINRICH KLEIN.

NOTE : Is it not better to let this letter stand as it does, rather than,
in my inexperience, seek to unite two currents, however harmonic, into
one flow? It is enough for a beginner to strive to make his daily life
a resultant of the Forces of Help and Love applied to him.

SERVETUS.

WHY I JOINED THE
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

IN 1885 my attention was first called to mental healing. Upon reading
a book on the subject which appealed to me as reasonable, I became
deeply interested and pursued the teaching vigorously going from

one teacher to another until I was landed in Christian Science.
Having a number of very near and dear friends who were ardent students
of this cult I joined with them, determined to find the Truth and to
make it, if possible, a living power in my life. I certainly tried most
earnestly and diligently to be a true and faithful follower of the Chris-
tian Science teachings.

Born a physiologist and mechanic, I very naturally was deeply
interested in that most wonderful of all machines the human body.
The idea of denying the body which Paul taught is the "temple of the
living God" was the first flaw in the doctrine. The greater the effort
to put it aside, the more it would not down. Then too, the inconsist-
encies of the teachings insisted upon looming up bigger and bigger.
The body is nothing but an illusion still it was very easy to see
that the Christian Scientists delighted in supplying the best fuel to keep
the fire of life burning in it, also in arraying it in fine apparel and in
enjoying the luxuries as well as those who made no claim to spirituality.
A generous price was asked for imparting instruction which should lead
the learner into the paths of health and wealth and all good things. Mrs.
M. G. B. Eddy appeared to be more of a despot than the Pope at Rome.
Students should not read outside of the books recommended (and
mostly written) by her. Having come into this life with a rebellious
disposition and an inclination to be free and untrammelled, and also
having learned of the Theosophical teachings which meant freedom
from all jokes except such as one might choose, I dropped Christian
Science and devoted my energy to seeking Truth as found in Theosophy.

At first the idea of reincarnation did not appeal to me simply because
I did not comprehend it. On looking around over humanity and seeing
the great majority of human beings born in misery life a constant
struggle followed by death without a ray of light life did not seem
worth the living. Why then should one desire to return again and
again simply to repeat the agony?

As an accompaniment to reincarnation Karma was presented.
Karma, the law which adjusts all effects to their causes the law that
each one receives the just reward of one's own deeds, be they good or
evil.

155

156 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

It seemed then that life must be a school a graded school in which
one may advance rapidly, from grade to grade, or loiter along the way,
because the gift of absolute free will has been ours from the beginning.
In this light reincarnation seemed an unmeasurable blessing and all
the theosophical teachings reasonable and more soul-satisfying than any
or all others.

Then too, I found the members of the Theosophical Society to be
following the teaching they were giving themselves their time their
knowledge their money, and their hearts to the work.

The Voice of the Silence, page 34, teaches "To live to benefit man-
kind is the first step." Evidently these members were earnest believers
and followers of these teachings which lead towards unselfishness.
Jesus promised (John 12-32) "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto
me."

If the teachings of Theosophy are lived, one must be lifted up
above the hurry and worry of life and thus be enabled to help fellow
sufferers.

The Bible as interpreted by Theosophy was much more comprehen-
sible and livable than it ever was before, and life itself so much more
desirable, that I determined to apply for membership and was graciously
welcomed into the fold. For twenty-one years Theosophy has been a
neverfailing source of peace and joy. I am truly thankful that it was
my privilege to learn of those blessed Masters who have made it possible
for humanity to have this wider, deeper, truer understanding of life.
They have lifted the veil that all who will, may catch a glimpse of the
light which leads to the consciousness of immortality and robs death
of its sting.

C. G.

My story is short and not nearly so interesting as many of those
that have appeared in the QUARTERLY.

About the year 1880 a very dear friend who was a spiritualist used
to let me read the "Medium and Daybreak," and I became deeply inter-
ested in reports of lectures given by Madam Blavatsky and Col. Olcott
who were then in London. I thought they were spiritualists, but were
organizing a society for the more advanced spiritualists. A little later
Mr. James Burns, the Editor, published a criticism of the everyday
life of Madam Blavatsky and the Colonel that was a surprise to me and
seemed altogether impossible, but later was confirmed by reliable wit-
nesses. The rough swearing and cigarette smoking of Madam Blavatsky
were so opposed to my puritan training that I was shocked, and con-
cluded that a society organized by such people could not serve any
good moral purpose, and although deeply interested I did not have
anything further to do with it.

WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 157

Shortly afterwards I came to America but do not remember meeting
a single Theosophist, or seeing any book or pamphlet on the subject
until the Spring of 1902. I was then living in Indianapolis and was
attracted by the title of a lecture to be given at the rooms of the
Theosophical Society. I went and was greatly pleased, got an introduc-
tion to the lecturer, Dr. Adkinson, who was president of the society. I
afterwards attended the weekly meetings of the society, read some
books and pamphlets, and had two or three interviews with the president,
who asked me to sign a blank application for membership, which I did.
The sincerity, devotion and self-forgetfulness of the man charmed me,
and the books I read seemed to tell me something I knew but had
partially forgotten. This is how and why I joined the Theosophical
Society.

JOHN SCHOFIELD.

DEAR MR. GRISCOM :

Your letter of the 16th is here. I am sorry you are disappointed
with my letter on "Why I Joined the Theosophical Society," but I
am not surprised, for it is the plain truth that I have no experiences
worth relating on this subject.

I had lived for fifteen years in America and never met a Theoso-
phist nor read a book or an article on the subject until I attended the
lecture in Indianapolis. I found what seemed to be a broadminded and
congenial set of people who were discussing subjects in which I was
interested, and inside of three weeks I signed the application for mem-
bership and joined the Theosophical Society just as I would have joined
any other club discussing similar subjects. Ideals did not count, for I
knew nothing of them, except that of Universal Brotherhood, and that
was professed by several other societies and I did not take it seriously.
To be perfectly frank I joined from purely selfish motives, first the
desire for knowledge, and second, the repeated assurances of Dr. Adkin-
son that by joining the society I would find great help for my work as
a minister. I think you will agree with me that this experience is not
worth the space it would occupy in the QUARTERLY.

With kindest regards I am, cordially yours,

J. SCHOFIELD.

I have been asked to state why I joined the Theosophical Society.
My answer is that it was an inevitable action or proceeding on my part
which could not have been avoided had I been so inclined, for I had
found that for which I had been searching from the time of my early

158 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

boyhood. I cannot say that I was born an agnostic, but from the time
of my early youth I failed to find in the religious teachings that desired
something which seemed to escape me.

My parents were liberal minded persons, but did not neglect my
religious instruction. I attended Sunday School classes, and in due time
Church meetings, and one time, when in delicate health, my parents sent
me to a Jesuit school in the mountains of Pennsylvania, more for the
improvement of my health, however, than for religious instruction. I
was then ten years of age. Being an ardent student, I always applied
myself to the conditions at hand, and while at the Jesuit school I made a
study of the religion taught and of the ceremonies of the Church, and
acquired considerable knowledge in that respect; but there was that
desired something lacking that I could not find.

I afterwards attended a school on the Hudson river, New York,
and as a young man continued my search for that undefmable something
which always seemed to be in advance of me. I was a consistent reader
of the advanced writers of the day, with liberal tendencies, and went
through many spiritistic investigations, but with no improvement and
no satisfaction.

I was in New York City in the year 1875, when Madam H. P.
Blavatsky brought the Oriental Doctrine to the West, and coming to my
attention, I made an investigation of it, and then realized that I had
overtaken that desired something which previously had been just beyond
me.

I did not then join the Theosophical Society, although I had accepted
the doctrine, owing to a particular personal condition, but subsequently
I did so. I can but reiterate that my joining the Theosophical Society
was an inevitable action.

A. L. L.

Until I read the QUARTERLY articles under the above title, it had
never occurred to me to ask, "Why I joined the Society." As I now ask
myself that question, I take a retrospective glance, and think of myself
during my girlhood days. A natural, lively, cheery girl, entering with
interest and zeal into all activities pertaining to school, home, and social
life, in a typical New England village.

When very young I joined the Methodist church, but as its require-
ments barred me from living naturally, I drifted away backsliding as
they term it. In those days I did not often express my inner thoughts
to others, and few could have imagined that the deeper problems of
life ever concerned me in the least: yet my heart was hungering for
something quite different from the external activities which absorbed the
attention of our social set. I recall now how often I questioned: what
does all this social whirl amount to ; so many misunderstandings, trials,

159

and tears, I wonder if this can be all there is to life? No answer came
from the outer life, but within I felt an assurance that somewhere,
some day, in some far-away place, may be, I should contact those
who could aid me to find what I needed but could not define.

After a time I met those who were interested in Anthropology.
I at once entered into that study with zest, and derived much satisfaction
for some time. Later I became a close friend of a very sincere lady
who was a born psychic, and learned much about phenomenal spiritualism.
Becoming convinced that one may amuse oneself upon the psychic plane,
as well as here on the material plane, I began again my search for
something that would satisfy the soul longing.

Soon I began the study of mental science, and thought that at
last I had found all any one could wish for. I discovered, however,
that, as usual, I was following a circumscribed and limited pathway.
Concluding that I had received all the help through that study I could
utilize I searched further. I realized that I might not have grasped
all there was along that line, but for me, that line of investigation and
study had served its purpose.

I attended lectures upon all topics, launched into this and that ism,
biology, etc., and learned something with every effort, but was ever
conscious of limitations, and I seemed to revolve around a small circle.
When this thought came forcefully I lost interest at once and again
looked, longed and waited. Astrology attracted my attention, but deal-
ing with events was not for me. I took up the study of character, and
learned much regarding man's relation to the planetary system, which
helped me to something of a conception of this vast Universe, and the
Unity of all manifesting life. My mind was satisfied, but that under-
current of questioning continued so persistently that I felt sure there
must be something broader, and deeper, than I had yet fathomed.

I attended a lecture where for the first time I heard of "Reincar-
nation," but could not understand it. "Karma," the law of "cause and
effect," I could see working all about, and I do not now know when I
accepted "Reincarnation." Not until I learned the need of that tenet,
to account for so many things, that I could not get along without
accepting it as true.

My quest, and long search at last brought me into contact with
some very earnest students of Theosophy, with whom I began my
investigations along that line of thought. Attending lectures, classes,
and reading many books, aided me in discovering that at last I had found
something which was not too circumscribed, and realizing how unselfishly
those students worked for the love of truth and their fellow men, I
resolved to join the Theosophical Society, that I too might help some
one who perhaps, was floundering about as I had been so long.

Today I know why I joined the Theosophical Society; because I
know that in this teaching and work I had found what my heart so

160 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

long craved. I am glad that I sought truth along other lines first, for
now I know that Theosophy embraces all that is good in every line of
thought, and more; as it teaches us the law upon all planes of life,
it aids us in discovering errors, or what may be lacking to make all
true and complete. I shall not again be seeking along side lines for truth,
for I find the teachings of Theosophy so vast and grand, that in my
present incarnation I shall not be able to fathom its depths.

I was glad to have the Bible illumined, as Theosophy throws its
light upon what I could not understand, and grasping the inner mean-
ings arouses a devotion and aspiration never realized before.

When I meet earth's sorrowing ones, I wish from my heart they
could know Theosophy, even the little I have been able to apply to life,
for they would then find a strength and solace, under all trials, and be
aided in meeting bravely what they must face.

Though I sense so much beyond me that I have not grasped, I am
so well satisfied with the teachings, that I shall remain "joined" to
the Theosophical Society, needing no side lights, while I try to follow
the "One Light," which leads on and on, until I imagine we may in
due time come into a realization of that Unity, which sees each one
a brother, all a part of one grand whole, and "The One Self" over all.

F. T. S.

"Not finding fault with either God or man saves a great amount of
time, and makes life a great deal easier."

A. F. H.

ON THE SCREEN OF TIME

WAR

THE world is at war. Everyone, if only by reason of his inner
attitude, is involved in it.
Is war of necessity an evil? Has it compensations? May it,
in certain circumstances, be preferable to peace? What are the
fruits of peace? What are the fruits of war? These are some of the
questions which confront us.

If a man, in the course of a journey, pauses to take his bearings, he
must first recall his journey's goal. With that in mind, he will pass in
review the direction he has been following and the manner in which he
has pursued his end. If, confronted by a river, he regards that as neces-
sarily an obstacle, and is blind to the bridge which spans it and is for-
getful of his thirst which the river can assuage, we may know him as a
traveller who will never arrive. We may infer also that he travels a
straight road with equal stupidity and with even less consideration of
his goal.

The world is at war. Let us pause and take our bearings. What
is the end toward which the world should be working? What is the
direction in which it has been moving? In what manner has it pursued
its end? With insignificant exceptions, the world has been at peace since
the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. What use has been made of this
peace ?

THE PROBLEM CONSIDERED PERSONALLY

If a man were asking himself such questions about his own life and
conduct, he would not find it easy to answer them. He would have to
do a great deal of thinking, and of honest thinking. He would have to
get rid of much mental rubbish before he could clear the issue and see
things as they are. He would have to examine his "Table of Values,"
for otherwise he would certainly confuse gain with loss and loss with
gain. And because, up to a certain point, it is easier to see into the lives
of others than into our own, he would, if he were wise, check his table
of values in the light of his observation and experience.

Let us imagine that he does this. He values, for instance, prosperity
and success. He admits that. Must he in any way qualify his estimate?
He remembers a friend of many years ago. The man was prosperous.
He had a nice wife and children, to whom, in a way, he was devoted.
But he drank. He was not an uproarious drunkard, but a steady drinker,
and his nerves were so irritable that he made his wife wretchedly unhappy,
while his children feared and disliked him. Quite suddenly he was left
penniless. It was a terrific blow. But he rose to the situation. He

162 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

stopped drinking instantly, and never touched a drop again. He became
gentle and kind. After two or three years of hard struggle, he developed
cancer which was operated on and removed. He never complained. His
cheerfulness and courage were extraordinary. He was the life of his
home. The cancer returned, and was again removed. The harder fate
hammered him, the kinder and more considerate he grew, and also the
more serene and quietly cheerful. His wife and children came to idolize
him, and he deserved it. Prosperity had nearly ruined him. Adversity
made him almost a saint. But it was not merely a question of virtue, of
goodness. In terms of the man's own happiness, adversity had helped
him incalculably. He had been miserable during all those earlier years.
Folly, therefore, to regard prosperity as a blessing and tribulation as
a bane.

That much decided, and the Table of Values modified to that extent,
the man who takes his bearings probably will jump to a conclusion. His
intuition will have been liberated by even that small amount of thinking,
because, though small in quantity it will have been honest in quality.
He will continue to think, but his mind will act as instrument rather than
as agent. Still, being human, his next impulse will be to expound his
conclusions to a friend, to whom he will preach, partly to clarify further
his own mind, but also, doubtless, with an eye to his friend's illumination
and improvement. So we can imagine him asking, on some pretext or
another "Have you ever thought to what end Eternal Wisdom is work-
ing?" If his friend is considerate enough to look interested and inter-
rogative, the sermon will be continued, not perhaps with great coherence,
but in any case with conviction. Given the basis we have supposed, it
would work itself out somewhat as follows.

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE

"I used the phrase Eternal Wisdom. But it is easier to think of
her many agents, some seen but most of them unseen, and then to ask,
To what end are they working? Is it for the preservation at any price
of human life, say at the price of vivisection ? Is it for the amelioration
of conditions, giving this man more to eat, that one more to wear, another
better air to breathe? Would the agents of Eternal Wisdom do this at
the price of permanent injury to souls?

"Let me make the question more concrete. If the term of your life
could be extended for three whole seconds at the cost of slowly torturing
a rabbit, would you want it done? I think not. You would feel it to be,
not a question of expediency, but of principle. It follows that you ought
to feel the same way if, as the result of such torture, your life could be
lengthened by three whole years ; more than that, if the average life of
the race could be lengthened to the same extent.

"That sounds like an argument against vivisection, and it may be;
but, for the moment, vivisection is not the point : and I must stick to the
point. I am confronting you with a question of values.

ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 163

"Suppose that you had to be shot in battle, would you rather be
shot with your face to the enemy, or in the back, running away from him ?
Why ? Suppose that no one knew or would ever know, and that example
need not be considered: would that affect your choice or in any way
modify your feeling? Again why? It will be clear in any case, I think,
that there is something in you which sees further, higher, and more truly
than considerations of utility. What are these higher values, so tremen-
dous that literally they obliterate every motive upon which the philoso-
phy of materialism and socialism is based? Self-preservation is not the
first law of nature. And although a man call himself a materialist and
may base his politics and his sociology on premises so false, he lives his
life and dies his death, if he be half-way human, in response to impulses
which are spiritual and which flow, not from his silly mind, but from
his soul.

"It is for the victory of the soul that Eternal Wisdom works, she
and her many agents, against the self-will of man. They would persuade
him into Heaven, and he, like a naughty child, struggles and resists and,
by his rebellion, makes for himself a Hell. And still the divine powers
are patient, trying this means and then that, to show man where lies
his peace ; to lead him from self, which is suffering, to love which is God
and Paradise.

"We can never see this in the world around us until we discover
something of Wisdom's purpose in our own lives. What is Wisdom try-
ing to teach me, to teach you ? From what and to what is she trying to
lead us? Look at your last disappointment or humiliation or pain; ask
yourself why self-love suffered, why self-will was checked? Eternal
Wisdom is not mean or spiteful : she is loving and very wise. It is the
cry of the soul that she heard and answered, and if at the cost of pain
to us, then, like a mother, with far more pain to herself. For Wisdom
is beautiful and infinitely tender; endlessly compassionate. Even in the
Old Testament we are told, 'In all their affliction, He was afflicted.'

"So the soul and its purposes are served, that man, triumphant over
self, may walk the skies in glory, consciously immortal, a son of God
and a second Christ."

THE DESTINY OF MAN

There, we can suppose, the sermon ends. Whether the auditor
would be convinced, we cannot tell. But the preacher in any case would
have found his own bearings and would be in a position thereafter to
steer a straighter course. His doctrine, truly, would not be new. Nor
would it be peculiar to the THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY. It has been
voiced by everyone with any knowledge of the truth. It is peculiar
only by reason of its exceeding orthodoxy ; the modern theologian, seek-
ing to justify the rags of belief still left to him, having passed over, for
the most part, to the camp of the Humanitarians. And of all beliefs,

164 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Humanitarianism, which pretends to exalt man, the most grievously de-
grades him. It has well been called the philosophy of self -stultification.
Compare its creed of comfort, of three acres and a cow, of lower death-
rate, of economic Alpha and Omega, with the narrow orthodoxy of a
man like Father Gallwey, S.J. He says : "Some saints have said that
every Christian must be a Christ. It is not less true that every Christian
must be a Jesus, a Saviour." And again: "At last the great truth will
grow upon us, that as God is become Man, Man is to become God:
that is, Man is to participate in the Divine Nature." Or there is St.
Fulgentius : "Christ, for the greater glory of His Father, labours within
us, without weariness or intermission, and with his own divine hands
shapes and kneads us, until our souls resemble his soul, and each one of
us becomes another son of God a new Christ, resplendent with sanctity."
In that high atmosphere we should be able to see in better perspec-
tive the things which make for and against the welfare of the individual
and of mankind.

THE WAY OF GROWTH

And now, with less confusion, we can consider the question of war.
The principles involved are the same, and, having dispelled to some extent
the fog of bias which too often conceals those principles when personal
or social problems are in dispute, we may hope to see more easily the
spiritual value of war.

What does war mean? Clearly it means death, it means suffering,
it means sacrifice.

It means death. Perhaps five hundred thousand men will die in
battle during the next twelve months. I do not know how many hun-
dred thousand, during the same twelve months, will die in their beds ;
but I for one, having seen many men die in their beds, would prefer for
quite selfish reasons to be shot. None the less, war does mean terrible
suffering, of heart and mind and body. To minimize that, would be to
minimize love itself. War, so far as circumstances can control, is Hell.
Only that far, however. For in the midst of Hell we can bein Heaven,
and not until we have learned that art of living will the soul have tri-
umphed over matter, or the destiny of man have been fulfilled.

The point is that until he has learned to live in that spirit from that
centre he would turn the Garden of Eden into a shambles and would
see in God Himself no more than a reflection of his own misshapen face.
Only the pure in heart can see God; only the pure in heart can see
Heaven. The impure, in the midst of Heaven, see Hell; the impure,
face to face with God, see self.

WHAT WAR DOES

How, then, can we be made pure? Only by means of self-denial.
Sacrifice destroys selfishness. Sacrifice gives life to the soul. That is
why it has been said that there is no spot on earth so near to Heaven as

ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 165

Calvary. Poor mothers, poor wives, poor sisters with your men at war
our hearts must bleed for you ; but those women who wept at the foot
of the Cross were purged of self forever. For the men, not tears, but
passion of prayer that they may have courage, magnificence of courage,
invincible, unshakeable courage courage which, for a man, is the noblest
expression of manhood, because it involves the most complete surrender
of self. For Love's sake love of country it may be, or love of honour,
or love of some man whom he follows, some woman left behind he
tramps through the dark night when he longs to sleep; he controls his
hunger when he longs to eat ; he controls his feet when he longs to run ;
he sacrifices everything which, in times of peace, he values most, includ-
ing limbs and life itself.

War compels this, or in any case gives him unlimited opportunity.
If a man is to play his part as he knows he should and as his women,
if they be true women, would have him play it, war demands of him
the exercise of qualities which are altogether spiritual. There is hardly
an axiom of the spiritual combat which he does not need to live by.
Here, for instance, is Scupoli : "This alone is thy concern, to fight man-
fully, and never, however manifold thy wounds, to lay down thine arms,
or to take to flight." Without any thought of physical warfare, except
to illustrate his principle, he defines an ideal soldier.

FINAL PERSEVERANCE

Think, too, of what is known theologically as "the grace of final
perseverance": what emphasis is laid in mystical treatises on the need
for that quality ! "Suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death,
to fall from thee." But it means more than that. It means "doing unto
the end what is commanded; doing it every day if it be commanded;
writing the last line of a page with as much care as the first; taking
the last stitch in a piece of work as conscientiously as the first; filling the
last moments of a day as well as the first." It means refusal to fall
short, if we can help it, of the highest and best we can see; never to
rest content with imperfection in little or in big. It means that in every
undertaking, whether civil or military, whether spiritual or material, it
is the last twist of the will that counts. It means that nothing is settled
until it is settled right, and that to make peace before right has been
vindicated, merely postpones and almost inevitably prolongs hostilities.
Just as regularity in meditation and in other spiritual exercises v/hen the
inclination is averse to them, is a supreme test of fidelity ; just as "three
o'clock in the morning courage" is a supreme test of courage, so the
ability to carry on a war when all the enthusiasm for it has evaporated,
tests to the uttermost a nation's moral stamina. Trade is at a standstill ;
women and children are starving: what is to be gained by "needless
prolongation?" Unhappy the nation which has no prophet then! Why
did it begin this fight? For what principles was it prepared to sacrifice

166 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

the lives of its sons? Have those principles been vindicated? Is victory
complete? Better to perish, even as a nation, than be untrue to that
ideal. Miracles only happen when all human means are exhausted. But
when exhaustion is seen as weakness and is vanquished; when men who
cannot walk will crawl to battle, then miracles do happen : man, trans-
cending nature by final sacrifice of self, lifts himself to the spiritual world,
and the powers of that world rush to reinforce him. Even God, it has
been said, has weaknesses, and He cannot resist the appeal of self-
abandonment or of heroism, any more than He can resist the appeal of
a child's simplicity. We must remember that God is very big.

WEALTH AND POVERTY

In all ways, therefore, war gives opportunity for growth as peace
does not. It is like wealth and poverty. One is not of God and the
other of the devil. Both are of God. But wealth is more severe a test.
Poverty makes virtue easier. Wealth is more easily misused. Poverty
encourages unselfishness. Wealth does not. Like illness, poverty can
sour us instead of bless ; can fill us with resentment instead of sanctify.
But is there anything anywhere which man does not corrupt! "Lo, this
only have I found, that God hath made man upright, but they have
sought out many inventions." Is not Hell itself the horrible distortion
and sacrilege of Love self-love triumphant? None the less, poverty
and illness do make for sacrifice: and so does war.

How MEN USE PEACE

Men will not sacrifice themselves, will not so much as sacrifice their
habits, except under tremendous pressure from without; except when
stimulated by some extraordinary demand. Peace, for the average man,
does not supply this pressure. To the disciple, peace and war supply
equal opportunity, because the disciple applies pressure on himself from
within, and because he responds to the pressure of Eternal Wisdom and
her agents, who hear the disciple's prayer for growth, for service. But
the ordinary man does not desire pressure ; he desires lethargy, and only
at. times does he desire as much as license to satisfy his flickering desires.
The ordinary man is very sound asleep.

Eternal Wisdom must wake him. See how he drugs himself! See
how he uses peace! Consider the years from 1871 to 1914: perhaps
it is enough to say that they culminated in the Tango ! But take this one
fact : in a Parish in one of our Eastern cities, not long before the war broke
out, it became the duty of the Rector to provide luncheon for an annual
outing of women whose husbands earn on an average not more than twelve
dollars a week. In some cases the family earnings are supplemented
by those of older children, bringing the average weekly income possibly
to as much as fifteen dollars per week. These families never save,

ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 167

and in every case, without exception, should the principal wage-earner,
through illness or other cause, be out of work for more than two weeks,
the family becomes destitute and has to be provided for, either by the
Parish, or by some one of the big charity organizations specially called in
for the purpose.

On the occasion of these outings in previous years, the women had
provided their own luncheons. This year, for special reasons, the Rector
decided that the Parish should provide. Proceeding on the principle
that if a thing is worth doing at all it is worth doing properly, he took
steps to find out the amount of food which the women, in past years,
had provided for themselves. He was appalled by the result of his
investigation, but, unwilling to seem mean or to fall short of their
requirements, he supplied, for 28 women, 4 small children and 2 babies :

100 ham sandwiches,
90 large, thick milk crackers,
7 dozen boiled eggs,

3 pounds of cheese,

4 bottles of pickles,
136 bananas,

Unlimited hot coffee.

This was for lunch. Each sandwich consisted of a large slice of ham
and of two thick slices of bread the size of the loaf. For early after-
noon tea, he supplied 108 individual cakes. Everything was eaten. Not
a crumb remained over. It is almost incredible, but it happens to be
true. It means habitual gluttony, conscienceless improvidence, inexcus-
able self-indulgence. It means that the working people of this country,
except under immediate compulsion, will not deny themselves, will not
control their appetites. And the rich, "whose God is their belly," are
not one whit better.

SELF-INDULGENCE

The annual drink bill in the United States alone amounts to
$2,336,662,338.00. Such figures are unthinkable. Others are more within
our range. Thus the city of New York spends $365,000,000 a year
one million dollars a day for drink. The Chicago saloons alone (which
excludes private clubs and the consumption in better-class homes) do a
business of over $150,000,000 annually.

In the United States, the consumption of liquors per head of the
population in 1870 was just under 8 gallons. The consumption rose
steadily until 1893, by which time it was over 18 gallons per head. It
decreased somewhat during the next two years, though still more than
double the figures for 1870. From 1895 until 1907 the consumption
increased, with oscillations, from just under 17 gallons to considerably
over 22 gallons per head. There was a slight decline until the end of

168 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

1909. The figure for 1911 was the same as that for 1907. In brief, from
1870 to 1913, the consumption per head increased from under 8 gallons
to over 22 gallons.*

The annual expediture on ice cream and candy in the United States
amounts to about $541,000,000.

In addition to such direct proof of self-indulgence, no one can have
failed to observe, among all classes of society, the most vulgar self-
seeking. Little thought of anything except of how to have "a good time,"
and the standard even under that head falling lower and lower every
year.

Europe was very little better. The rapid acquisition of wealth by
upstarts had demoralized society everywhere. Some countries were worse
than others, depending in large measure upon the extent and the new-
ness of their prosperity the more prosperous, the more vicious. Success
was accepted as cover for almost any sin. Truth and Goodness and
Beauty were dethroned, and Force was set up in their place. The
Superman was defined in terms which makes of him a devil and not a
god.

AN EMASCULATED RELIGION

At the other extreme, religion too often has been made to stand
for mawkish sentimentality. Christ, accepted by the western world in
theory as its Saviour, ought, for that reason, to have been recognized as
the ultimate splendour of manhood, as Warrior of warriors and as King
of kings ; instead of which he has been portrayed by most of his fol-
lowers as if he were effeminate, and a dreamer of beautiful dreams.
This, of course, is when he has been recognized at all, for in many
cases, although his name may still be used, there has been set up in his
place, for his people's worship, an imaginary conglomerate of needs and
griefs called The Poor. Truly the needs of the poor are many and real are
their griefs : but when Materialism thinks that it sees, it sees nothing but
itself, and only he who knows the spirit can attempt, without cer-
tainty of doing harm, to aid and comfort the body.

Life, therefore, was no longer seen as a combat, while the efforts
made in the name of religion or of brotherhood were to reduce rather
than to increase the need for effort. It was a condition which necessarily
precipitated a crisis. So long as sin exists, Eternal Wisdom must war
against it. We can either fight with Wisdom or against her, first in
our own hearts and then in the world around us. But fight we must, and
when we refuse to obey that eternal law of life it means only that, in
our hearts, we have sided with the enemy. Wisdom is not vanquished.
Wisdom grieves but fights on: fights ceaselessly for our salvation; and,

* From the Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1913, issued by the Bureau of Foreign
and Domestic Commerce, Department of Commerce.

ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 169

by reason of our refusal to fight with her, is compelled to throw out,
into objective, physical expression, the inner warfare we have failed to
wage. For that reason the world is at war.

THIS COUNTRY'S ATTITUDE

Some would say that this country so far has been "spared." What
then is the meaning of that old saint's saying "Of all bad weather what
we ought to dread most is a calm, and the greatest danger we can incur
is not from having adversaries, but from having none?" Can it be
that we, of this country, have not earned, by our effort and aspiration,
the purging which the rest of the world undergoes? Or is there laid
up for us the far more dreadful purging of class dissension and civil,
fratricidal strife? What makes us think, as a nation, that we are better
than our neighbours? Need we add the sin of the Pharisee to the list
of our other offences? The reader perhaps will say, according to his
bias, "But at least we would not do that!" The reader, in that case,
will have overlooked the fact that every nation at war today is repre-
sented in this country by many thousands of men and women, who have
not changed their spots for crossing the Atlantic. We, as a people, have
all the sins of Europe and our own sins as well. Better for us to say,
before it is too late, "God be merciful to me a sinner !"

We have not struggled, we have not fought. We have denounced
the wickedness of others while, in our own lives, we have done those
things we ought not to have done and have left undone those things
which we ought to have done, and have not repented. If ever a nation
needed purging, this one does ; yet, in face of writing on a wall as large
as half the world, all we gain from our daily papers, as an expression of
this country's comment, is that our democratic institutions save us from
Europe's fate! Such self-deception, such fatuous ineptitude, would
bewilder if it were not part of the disease. But God is not mocked,
and, if we be not doomed to perish, our time must come. Death and
suffering and sacrifice must be forced upon us by the kind, strong hand
of Wisdom.

Yet is it too late ? Might not this nation, now, at the eleventh hour,
turn from its ways voluntarily ? Must it be said of us, as by Paul to the
Jews of Rome "Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and
seeing ye shall see, and not perceive: for the heart of this people is
waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they
closed ; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and
understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal
them?"

"If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things
which belong unto thy peace."

ELEMENTARY ARTICLE

THE ART OF LIVING
IV

THE purpose of Life is conscious reunion with God. All that
prevents the attainment of this goal is self -created, and arises
from the exercise of our wills when opposed to divine Will;
we break spiritual laws, and so cloud our vision and create
limitations. These limitations contain within themselves their own cure,
which is pain. We cannot break a law of nature without paying a
penalty, but when the penalty is paid, the barrier is transformed into a
step towards union. Therefore, in the last analysis, the Art of Living
resolves itself into getting rid of our limitations, which are the creations
of our self-will.

This is the object of all the religious teaching which has been given
to the world, therefore there are as many methods as there are religions.
Each religion is a method, is another effort to express the laws of life
and to show how they must be interpreted and obeyed. Different religious
leaders and teachers lay the emphasis on different phases of the Art of
Living, just as in the Art of Painting, one school will insist upon the
most painstaking and accurate drawing, another will depend upon group-
ing and arrangement, another upon perspective and the delicate handling
of light and shade, while still another will teach that if the colours be suf-
ficiently rich and true, the best effects will be achieved. But, just as
all these elements must be present in a fair degree, no matter which one
is made the dominant feature, in order to produce a satisfactory picture,
so in the Art of Life, while the emphasis may be laid on one element,
all must be used in order to reach perfection.

Mr. Johnston, in the introduction to his translation of the Bhagavad
Gita, says that the four great methods of solving the mystery of life
are through Intellect, Will, Works, and Feeling. Generalizations are often
unsafe, and are usually inaccurate, but, perhaps it may be suggested
that each one of the four great world religions represents one of these four
methods.

Brahmanism, which has developed the philosophy of life far more
than any of the other religions, stands essentially for the intellect. The

170

THE ART OF LIVING 171

Brahman has reasoned out the way to Union, and endeavours to treat it
according to an elaborate ritual and ceremonial.

Buddhism, which teaches the worthlessness of material existence,
uses the Will to conquer the lower nature and to make a complete renun-
ciation of life. The Will is the chief weapon used by the Buddhist in
his journey towards Union.

Mohamedanism is a religion of action. Its exponents were the
greatest proselytizers known. They carried the teachings of the Prophet
to all their adjacent world at the point of the sword and by the most
enthusiastic and strenuous exertion. The Mohamedan is essentially an
exponent of the method of Work.

Christianity, on the other hand is the religion of Feeling. It places
Love on the throne and makes it the power to draw the reluctant human
soul forward on the age-long way. Christ's two greatest command-
ments are based on Love ; love of God and love of our neighbor. With
love as the motive force, however, the Christian must also cultivate
the other three methods if he wishes to reach perfection. It is only a
one-sided development which ignores intellect; will; or works.

In the Bhagavad Gita occurs the famous dialogue between Krishna
and Arjuna as to which is the better way, union through works, or
union through renunciation. Krishna replies that the goal of both is
the same, but that union through works is the better way. Sound advice
to Arjuna, and to all other human beings of the Arjuna type. Buddha,
on the other hand, taught renunciation; the worthlessness of material
life and the desirability of liberation from the Wheel of Rebirth. He
did not discountenance action, he taught that we must surrender the
fruits of all action, so as to avoid future entanglements. Life must
be so lived that all roots in the soil of human existence are cut and
withered. We must get away from life, because it is valueless, and
become pure spirit. Christ taught another Way. We must make life
valuable by bringing spirit into it. We must not avoid trials, but meet
them and make spiritual capital of them. There is something of the
militancy of Mohamed in Christianity, combined with the tenderness of
the Buddha, without his passivity. From a superficial standpoint, there
would appear to be less of the intellect in Christianity than of the
other three, but this is only an appearance, as we shall see by approach-
ing the subject from a different point of view.

We may characterize the great religions in another way. The
essence of the system of Brahmanism is a supreme effort for purifica-
tion. The whole life of the Brahman from before birth, until after
death, is one sustained effort to maintain a sacerdotal purity, or to recover
it if lost through some conscious or unconscious infraction of the
rules. It is an incredibly elaborate and complicated ritual, covering every
conceivable action in life. It is the supreme effort of the intellect to

172 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

legislate the Soul into Heaven. Its keynote is purification typified by
the monastic vow of chastity.

Buddhism, renunciation of life, and of all the rewards which life
offers, is an apotheosis of the vow of poverty, which can have no higher
expression than that complete renunciation of everything which the
Buddha inculcated.

Mohamedanism carried to an unparalleled degree the following of
a prophet, and a system. The superb obedience of the Faithful has
never been equalled by a whole people of any other race or time. The
followers of Islam have given the world its best example of the vow
of obedience.

So we have each one of these three great religions typifying and
carrying to the highest level yet reached by a whole people, one of the
age-long vows of Chastity, Poverty and Obedience. As all three are
necessary to perfection, Christ, taking Love as the greatest power in the
universe, used it as the keystone of His method, which at once becomes
sufficiently comprehensive to include the essential features of all other
systems. The sheer genius of it compels our reverential admiration.

This analysis, faulty as such generalization must be when dealing,
so briefly, with such huge subjects, makes one truth stand out very
clearly, and that is what we are working toward. That truth is that
whatever method we adapt for the imperative duty of self-conquest and
self -development, a method is necessary. We must have a Rule of Life
in order to pursue effectively the Art of Life ; in order to get rid of our
limitations ; in order to conquer our lower selves ; in order to inherit that
Eternal Life which is the reward of righteousness.

To do anything well there must be system and order. This is a
fundamental need of human nature. The race has learned this lesson in
all the common activities of life. We know that we must eat and sleep
regularly to preserve physical health. To learn effectively, we must
study systematically. To become good soldiers, we must be drilled ; that
is, made proficient in a regular and orderly way of doing everything
that relates to military matters. A successful business must have hours
and rules and system. Even correct thinking must follow certain dread-
ful laws called Logic. The same thing applies to the Art of Living.
Human nature needs the help of system of method, or it will become
irregular and slack, and so fail to make progress.

Life itself supplies a rough and ready system for most people;
an elementary rule. Nearly everyone is forced by circumstances to get
up at a certain time each morning, to be at work at a given hour, to
eat on a schedule, more or less fixed, and to return home and go to bed
to get the necessary rest for the next day's occupation. Where this rule,
as imposed by the pressure of circumstances, is slack, demoralization
quickly results. The idle rich for instance, are rarely edifying. Most
people misuse their Sundays and holidays when their "Rule" does not

THE ART OF LIVING 173

compel them. Few people resist the temptation to sleep an hour or two
longer on Sundays, not because they need the sleep, but because they
hate to get up on the other days when they have to do so, and they
wish to gratify their natural laziness, and desire to follow their own
wills.

Socialists and humanitarians wish to ameliorate the condition of the
human race, to give its members more leisure, "to cultivate their souls,"
but anyone who has made the most cursory study of how the average
human being uses his leisure, knows that he is better off in the most exact-
ing toil. So Life compels exacting toil, and will compel it, until the race
has learned some of the elementary lessons of self-control. Nor can
Providence give people leisure so that they may learn how to use it,
any more than we can give a gun to a child. It is too dangerous: we
must wait until the child has learned the lessons of carefulness and
prudence.

Fortunately we do learn: Life slowly teaches us self-control dis-
cipline obedience unselfishness the necessity for labour the danger
of any form of self-indulgence the need of restraining our lower pas-
sions and desires, that progress lies through the gateway of self-con-
quest. Then another law begins to operate, just as fast as we take over
into our own conscious direction the control of our lower nature it is
released from the iron grip of circumstances, and we are permitted to
be our own masters. This is a gradual process with infinite gradations.
Certain things where we are weakest, are still controlled by Life; other
things are in our own hands to use or abuse as we please and as our
accumulated experiences teaches us to be desirable; and there is a very
large middle ground, a sort of twilight between the two extremes,
where we are tested. We are given a little freedom to see what use
we make of it, and if that use is bad, the grip of circumstances closes
on us and we do as we must and not as we wish.

There are many examples of these three classes. Practically no one,
for instance, is permitted the exercise of unlimited power. Even the
very good man will do harm, if he is too powerful, because he is not
wise enough to use power advantageously, so Power is one of the last
gifts of the gods. Almost every one, on the other hand, has the un-
restricted use of other gifts. Our thoughts are subject to no direct control
save such as we choose or are able to exercise. The mid-point qual-
ities those of which we have a restricted use vary widely with dif-
ferent individuals, depending upon their stage of progress, but leisure is
one thing that is given and taken away, given and taken away, throughout
our lives, according to the use we make of it. Remember that these
things are judged by the Soul, from the standpoint of the soul, and not
from any human standard; and each individual's case is controlled by
and subject to his Karma.

It is, therefore, a universal problem for each person, to raise him-

174 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

self out of the common ruck who are, for their own eternal welfare, held
in a sort of necessary slavery and, to become the captain of his own soul
the master of his fate. Having learned the elementary lessons of self-
control, and being willing to take charge of his own life, he makes a
bargain with Providence, who gives him his opportunity. Of course the
first thing that happens is a series of lamentable defeats ; but he does
not easily learn that he is incapable of managing his destiny. In spite
of repeated experiences in spite of a thousand thousand falls, his pride
and vanity still whisper to him that he can do anything he chooses. It is
no uncommon thing for a confirmed and hopeless drunkard to assert
most positively that he can "cut out drink," any time he desires to do so,
and the marvel of it is that it can be done he feels that instinctively
but he cannot do it, and that he does not realize. He, plus repentance
and contrition plus a genuine and earnest appeal to the Higher Powers,
can do it, can do anything. In that sense there is no such thing as a
hopeless drunkard : in the personal sense almost all drunkards are hopeless.

Sooner or later the struggling human soul gradually realizes that he
cannot win the fight alone. Then begins real progress discipleship.
Previous to that it has been an age long gathering of necessary experi-
ence. The lower self will try every thing on all the planes of life,
before it will allow the individual to confess itself defeated, for defeat
means its eternal destruction. Indeed it never does acknowledge defeat
and never does stop its efforts to regain control, even when accumulated
experience has induced the individual to throw it over and to place his
reliance and his hopes on the side of the angels. In a thousand ways
and with infinite subtlety, it will try to undermine the slowly building
structure of spiritual life. Every weapon of evil is first used in the
combat and when they fail, then all the good qualities in turn are twisted
into insidious and doubly dangerous foes which the struggling neophyte
must learn to conquer.

This tremendous fight goes on for ages. Countless are the defeats,
countless the victories; many more the indecisive battles, but remember,
in the end the soul must win, for it is immortal, and it never gives up.
The forces of evil, self -engendered, are always limited and must become
exhausted. Therefore patience and endurance are very necessary qual-
ities in the warfare of the Soul.

Let us assume then that the reader of this has reached the point
in evolution where he wishes to leave the general stream of human life,
and, taking himself in hand, start on the short cut to Heaven. What
shall he do? First, as already indicated, he must realize fully, com-
pletely, and forever, that he cannot win the fight alone. As a matter of
fact he will need on his journey three kinds of help ; he must be aided by
those above him, by his comrades on the journey, and by those below
him whom he has helped. But the first thing that need concern him is
the help of those above him, for, getting that, all else will be well. This

THE ART OF LIVING 175

help he gets by asking for it. It is very simple. All great spiritual truths
are simple. Indeed, in some respects it is simpler even than this state-
ment. He will get the help he needs, not only by asking for it, but by
being willing to receive it. The Masters are much more anxious to
help us than we are to receive their help. They are eagerly anxious to
pour out their aid and ceaselessly hunt for opportunities to do so,
while we sullenly, grudgingly and reluctantly turn to them when we
are desperate in our need. So we cannot hope to jump from the first
stage of determination to start the Higher Life, to the second stage,
where we turn our life over to the Higher Powers to be managed for
us because we have learned that we are incompetent and incapable of
managing it ourselves. That takes a long time and there are very many
minor phases to be lived through, many simpler lessons to be learned,
much self-control to be exercised, before this important and essential
step is reached and we are capable of taking it. And this is where the
Rule comes in. No competent person will take charge of another's life
and tell him what to do, until he has taken charge of his own life and
learned thoroughly the lessons which that tremendous experience will
teach him. The elementary stages must be lived alone, or with such
help as you can get from books and comrades on the Path. It is in
this stage that we must learn the value of obedience, for we must be
obedient to a self-imposed rule before any Master will give us a Rule.
We must learn to discipline ourselves by a self-imposed Rule, before
anyone will undertake to discipline us. We must learn humility, and
drink its cup to the dregs, before our arrogance and pride will bend
before an acknowledged superior without danger of a flare-up of egotism
that would be fatal. We must conquer the cruder sins of the flesh,
before we are fit to receive direct divine assistance. There is very much
to do in this preliminary stage, and for all of this a Rule of Life is
essential. Therefore, our next section will discuss the necessary elements
of a Rule of Life.

C. A. G.

Soeur Therese of Lisieux: An Autobiography. The human nature of the
Masters is difficult for many of us to believe and understand. We could fancy
them, perhaps, as demi-gods, an extraordinary kind of being raised above all human
interests. But it is difficult for us to think of them as substantial real beings, of
a higher degree than our own, and yet, at the same time, responding to human
appeals. The Autobiography of Soeur Therese of Lisieux may remove such
mental barriers, alike from non-Christians as well as from Christians. The record
of her life shows intercourse with a human Master. Her relation with Him was
that of a child toward an elder. This book charms and fascinates. It is of intense
interest and convincing. It reveals a soul of heroic mettle. It stirs memories of
great saints in bygone times.

Therese Martin, "The Little Flower of Jesus," was born in 1873. She lived
twenty-four years, dying in the Carmelite convent she had entered at the age of
fifteen. Admission at so tender an age was against all precedent, but the determined
child had aspired from very infancy after the religious life, and by courageous
patience overcame all obstacles.

She dedicated herself to the child Jesus. Complete self-surrender to the
Divine Will represented itself to her in this simile: she would give herself as a
toy to the infant Jesus for His pleasure. Whatever life should bring her, she
would regard as an incident natural to such a toy, dropped or handled by the
Holy Child. Simplicity, naivete and consequent charm mark her relation with
her Master. St. Teresa, the valiant founder of the Carmelite order, is said once
to have prayed for the restoration of a dying brother in the following manner:
"If it were your brother, O Lord, and you were praying to me, I would grant
your prayer." It is said her Master found that simple trust irresistible. So Soeur
Therese makes her invocations. She was praying that a notorious criminal might
repent before execution. She told her Master that He ought to grant this request
because it was made for her first sinner.

Something of the great St. Teresa's humour shines also from the radiant face
of this daughter. She tells how she put up her hair for her interview with the
Bishop to make herself look old and thus gain admission to the convent. Before
her death it became her duty to direct the lives of the Novices. Many of them
wearied her with compliments and admirations. But this feast of sweets, she
writes, was often relieved by salads, full of pepper and vinegar when the irritated
novices would "speak their minds" and tell her what they thought of her.

The Autobiography (written by the order of the Mother Superior) shows a
joyful life of strict discipline. Therese was so bent upon the conquest of her
lower self that her ideal and practice was not even to write a letter unless her
lower nature were disinclined to that duty.

It has been said of Therese that she touched earth only with the tips of her
toes. She herself said she lived in Heaven. Any one who would make his own
her practical belief in the continued humanity of the Master, would soon, I
believe, come to knowledge of the reality of spiritual things. Between three and

176

REVIEWS 177

four hundred thousand copies of the book are said to have sold in France alone
in the past five years. It has been admirably translated into English and is pub-
lished by Messrs Kenedy & Sons, New York.

ALFRED WILLISTON.

Cahiers de la Quinzaine. I put aside my evening newspaper which I have
eagerly read for war news, and I take up the last Cahier that has come to me from
Paris. It is dated July 12, 1914. It is a volume of verse by Francois Porche, one
of the writers for the Mercure. It describes some of the elements of French char-
acter that often escape the eyes of tourists. The book is in no sense apologetic or
combative. It is just the author's joy because he is a Frenchman.

On medit de nous parce qu'on envie

Ce grain de sel fin,
Get esprit qui donne en France a la vie

Un gout si bon qu'on en a faim.

The last section of the volume is entitled "Derriere les Faisceaux." It is a reverie
behind the gunstacks, during some military review. The poet's imagination trans-
forms the review into a real scene of battle.

L'appel des foyers, 1'appel seculaire au-desus des vallees, de colline en colline.
Et cet appel pour la defense, 1'esprit libre et sans peur 1'agrementait d'une

chanson : el cri instinctif de la vie menacee devenait grace a lui une

apostrophe joyeuse.

Porche is one of the group who for fifteen years have been struggling with
Monsieur Peguy of the Cahiers de la Quinzaine for a revival of old French tradi-
tions. In face of the great European conflict a reader is led to query how much
of French public opinion actually finds expression in the work of Peguy and his
friends. If they are at all representative of united France, France would seem
to be returning to the Scriptural condition of righteousness. A recent brochure of
Peguy's, L 'Argent, contrasts the ideal of ancient France with the aims and results
of present day socialists. Monsieur Peguy believes the old ideal still exists not-
withstanding the havoc wrought by the socialists. Hence he hopes and works for
its revival. I subjoin a few significant passages which describe the conditions of
French peasantry under the two regimes.

"I was brought up among a people that was gay. At that period of my child-
hood a peasant's hut was a little corner of the world where people were happy.
Today it is a place where men bear grudges toward one another, where they quarrel
and fight, and even kill.

"I knew laborers who liked to work, who thought only of work. They would
get up at any early hour and really sing at the thought of setting out for work.
At eleven o'clock they would sing again on their way to a lunch of soup. They
sang as they went to and fro. Work was their pleasure, the very root of their
being, the reason for their existance. They looked upon work as an inestimable
honor, the noblest and most Christian of all honor, as the only one, perhaps, which
stands upright on its own legs.

"During that period of my childhood work was as honorably esteemed as
during the Middle Ages. It was indeed the sentiment of the Middle Ages preserved
intact. I have seen exquisite care for perfection both in details and in the work as
a whole. One might call that sentiment the religion of conscientious workmanship
maintained with scrupulous care. I used to see people put rush bottoms in chairs
with exactly the same attitude of mind and heart and with the same careful work-
manship as if they were building cathedrals.

178 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

"Along with the respect for labor there went allied sentiments a respect for
age, for parents, for the family and a true respect for children. Naturally there
was a respect for women and this is entirely lacking today a respect for women
by women themselves" CLARENCE C. CLARK.

Collected Poems of Alfred Noyes. One is always so happy to find really good
new poetry. For the poet is a herald of the King and the Kingdom not in the
body-guard to be sure, but at least a skirmisher. Noyes has been attracting special
attention during the last few years. As a pacificist, his denunciations of war have
accorded with the views of the Hague Congress and many less reputable organisa-
tions that invent plausible and unsound reasons for a world disarmament. That
side of Noyes does not interest me at all. I omit all his peace-making and war-
denunciatory verse as a mental limitation. All poets have limitations somewhere.
What I do heartily admire in Noyes is his worthy continuation of the best English
poetical tradition. As a rhythmist, he very often reminds one of that great artist
Swinburne. Where, except in Swinburne, do we find such delightful movement as
in this stanza?

The Heart of the woods, I hear it, beating, beating afar,

In the glamour and gloom of the night, in the light of the rosy star,

In the cold sweet voice of the bird, in the throb of the flower-soft seal,

For the Heart of the woods is the Heart of the world and the Heart of Eternity,

Ay, and the burning passionate Heart of the heart in you and me.

Substitute Swinburne's perverse and posing loyalty to France and Italy in place of
the natural patriotism of Noyes, and one might mistake the following lines as
Swinburne's.

There is a song of England that none shall ever sing ;

So sweet it is and fleet it is
That none whose words are not as fleet as birds upon the wing,

Swinburne's great contemporary, Tennyson, has also left his mark indelibly on
the new poet. All of Tennyson's exquisite delicacies throng vaguely about us
through much of Noyes.

Satin sails in a crimson dawn

Over the silky silver sea
Purple veils of the dark withdrawn ;

Heavens of pearl and porphyry.

"Japanese" is the adjective I have sometimes heard applied to Tennyson's color
sense. Japanese thoughts arouse in Noyes a similar power of picturing them.

There, in the dim blue death of day

Where white tea-roses grow,
Petals and scents are strewn astray

Till night be sweet enow.

* * * *

Music of the starshine shimmering o'er the sea
Mirror me no longer in the dusk of memory :
Dim and white the rose leaves drift along the shore,
Wind among the roses, blow no more !

REVIEWS 179

It is Tennyson the artist who has influenced Noyes the Tennyson of 1830 and
1842 The Lady of Shalott, GEnone, The Lotus Eaters, etc., not the philosophizing
poet of In Memoriam.

So it's here, she is here with her eyes of blue

In England, in England!
She has brought us the rainbow with her, too,
And a glory of shimmering glimmering dew
And a heaven of quivering scent and hue
And a lily for me and a rose for you

In England.

Noyes continues the tradition of a true religious meaning bodied forth in his
lovely verse. True, Chaucer had no such religious intent, neither had Shakespeare.
But Spenser had and Milton, also, Shelley and all the moderns, even Swinburne,
in spite of himself. Noyes apprehends the spiritual significance of many of the
Master's words. His loveliest long poem, "The Forest of Wild Thyme," is a deep
appreciation of the words "Unless you become as little children, ye shall in no
wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." The poem narrates the fairy adventures
of two children who set out to seek a little dead brother whose loss makes the
parents inconsolable. The children find the boy at last.

There, in one great shrine apart
Within the Temple's holiest heart,
We came upon a blinding light,
Suddenly, and a burning throne
Of pinnacled glory, wild and white;
We could not see Who reigned thereon ;
For, all at once, as a wood-bird sings,
The aisles were full of great white wings
Row above mystic burning row;
And through the splendour and the glow
We saw four angels, great and sweet,
With outspread wings and folded feet,
Come gliding down from a heaven within
The golden heart of Paradise;
And in their hands, with laughing eyes,
Lay little brother Peterkin.

If it be the poet's function to announce to men tidings of the spiritual kingdom,
perhaps it is advantageous when the poet fulfils his task by revealing new beauties
hidden in old forms. There is nothing startling or revolutionary in Noyes. He
takes the old poetic scenes of Christian story, and, as a real trouvere, uncovers new
loveliness there for our eyes.

A child was born in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem,

A child was born in Bethlehem ; ah, hear my fairy fable ;
For I have seen the King of Kings, no longer thronged with angel wings,

But crooning like a little babe, and cradled in a stable.

The wise men came to greet him with their gifts of myrrh and frankincense,
Gold and myrrh and frankincense they brought to make him mirth ;

And would you know the way to win to little brother Peterkin,

My childhood's heart shall guide you through the glories of the earth.

180 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

A child was born in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem;

The wise men came to welcome him : a star stood o'er the gable ;
And there they saw the King of Kings, no longer thronged with angel wings,

But crooning like a little babe, and cradled in a stable.

LUCY NEVILLE.

In the Hibbert Journal for the past twelfth-month there are several articles
that stand out above the average for their positive additions to our present-day
thinking. In the religious field, the center of interest has been Church Unity,
whether broadly amongst many denominations, or limited to the divisions and
factions within the Anglican and Scotch National Churches. On the last named
theme there is a very able exposition of the "revolution" in process within the
Scotch Church, by Sheriff R. L. Orr, K.C. Very noteworthy is the liberality and
even breadth of view which the author traces in recent offered publications and
utterances from the Church of Scotland's Committee. On the present Anglican
situation three articles, perhaps, deserve special praise for their effectiveness.
Foremost is that on "Kikuyu" by the Very Rev. Dean Henson, an admirable state-
ment of a liberal churchman's point of view, clear-sighted, far-seeing, and a most
adequate criticism of narrow church prejudice. "Ought There Be A Broad
Church Disruption" by the Rev. Hubert Handley is a personal statement of beliefs
that will appeal, on the same grounds as Canon Henson's paper, to a great many
readers. "The Failure Of The Church Of England," by the Rev. A. W. F. Blunt
lays its finger on the real fault alienation from the Master through self-seeking,
pride, and a man-made institution, too largely unguided by' the spirit, and depend-
ent therefore on petty human judgments.

In philosophy there have been two articles of prominence. One, "Bergson's
Philosophy and The Idea Of God," by Henry C. Corrance, is a just and careful
treatment of the subject; the other, "The Relation of Mystic Experience to
Philosophy," by Sir Frederick Pollock, is a refreshing and valuable discussion
of the latest scientific conclusions about mysticism, with a plea for open-mindedness
on the part of scientific men. He appeals to Joan of Arc as one "high among
the mystics, and yet her mission was neither religious or philosophical, and I
never read that she was exercised about her own soul at all."

Mr. Rabindranath Tagore has contributed a well-constructed essay on "The
Problem of Evil," which introduces the Eastern turn of mind, but shows also
the fundamental agreement of all religion on this point.

There are many other articles of interest; and the book-reviews are, as
usual, better than the average one reads in similar magazines. Altogether, the
Hibbert seems still to be indispensable. A. A.

In The Way Of The Saints, by Geraldine E. Hodgson; a response to the
awakening amongst church members of the call to saintship and mysticism. A
thoroughly satisfactory book, and a useful complement to Evelyn Underbill's
Mysticism, in that while the latter is purely academic and intellectual, the former
appeals to the will. Miss Hodgson quotes St. Paul in his Epistle to the Corin-
thians, where he characterizes them as "called to be saints." Eight times she
reminds us, Christ addressed himself to any man : "In any man." "There is
no limitation or qualification, no way of escape save the dark path of deaf or
callous disobedience" from this call. The first three chapters are a direct chal-
lenge to the weakness and compromise of the modern attitude, which shows itself
in its "willingness to let, in the great name of charity, evil deeds pass without
challenge." We are not tolerant, we are indifferent; we are not magnanimous,
we are cowards. We lack definiteness, strength, "enduring hardness"; we shun
responsibility, and are constantly scared by the "modern bogey the Danger of
giving Offense." She contrasts this forcibly with the courageous uncompromis-

REVIEWS 181

ing vigor and spirit of the saints. "The two signal characteristics of the great
Saints are a high degree of virile, practical efficiency, and a gaiety nothing can
stifle." The third chapter, on Love, is a sterling appeal for some ideal above the
lowest. "There is only one way to love man, and that is to love GOD first."
This generation needs to be told these plain truths about itself, and it also needs
to be shown where to look for a remedy. If the life of Jesus seems too remote,
or is too familiar, study the lives of the saints, says our author; they were the
essence of courage, and they alone of men knew how to love. From many sources
she illustrates these points; stimulating the reader's interest with vigorous appeals
to his manliness, or with penetrating disclosures of his human weaknesses. The
last chapter deals with "The Direct Vision of God" ; an achievement which the
author says is not only a present day possibility, but a positive duty. Her
definition of a mystic is worth quoting: "To the extent of endeavoring to deny
ourselves for the sake of 'the only Fair,' to that extent we are all, so far as we
are the least bit in earnest, mystics." It is a pleasure and a help to read so able
and outspoken a writer. J. B., JR.

The last numbers of the Constructive Quarterly are of unusual compass,
and exceed in interest their predecessors. The magazine may be said to have
found itself; and it fills a place that no other periodical even attempts to fill.
The articles are not critical, are not looking for weaknesses and error and
bigotry; but are opening the way for a synthesis of religious beliefs which roots
itself in Christian feeling rather than in intellection, in charity rather than in
reasoning. Church unity still holds first place. In the March number we find
an English Baptist writing appealingly of "Unity in the Spiritual Fact," and
immediately following him an exceedingly able essay by no less celebrated a
Catholic than Cardinal Mercier, which discusses modern philosophers, Bergson,
LeRoy, Blondel ; and, while noting the differences, points out in no uncertain
terms the unity of purpose and desire between these men and the Church he
represents. Another series of great interest is four articles on Faith, by a mem-
ber of the Scotch National Church, an Anglican Canon, a Jesuit, and the Russian
Archbishop of North America, the Most Reverend Platon. The contrast of these
affords an unusual opportunity for practising the Theosophic method, the ideal
towards which we feel this magazine to be working very directly. In the March
number must also be mentioned an article by Bishop Gore on "The Place of
Symbolism in Religion," which is thoughtful if unconvincing.

The June issue contains a powerful application of Christian thought to the
modern idea of a "moving, changing world," by Henry Scott Holland. We agree
with the spirit, where we cannot always agree with the narrowness of outlook,
in this essay. We do not believe that "no other religion has a message or an
interpretation to deliver to a changing world." We heartily coincide with Dr.
Holland where he states the message Christianity has to offer. Dr. King's con-
tention that Church Union must "be as wide as our Christian unity of spirit,"
and that "Where Christ has already received the church cannot reject" affirms a
truth too little conceded. His theme, "The Confession of Christ," is a valuable
contribution to the discussion of this subject.

There is a delightful article by M. Vallery-Radot on "The Renaissance of
Catholic Lyricism," which is an able appreciation of the work being done by
Charles Peguy, Claudel, and Jammes. Also a sketch of Jacopone da Dode, by
Edmund Gardner, which is full of charm and grace.

In an earlier issue Mr. Charles Johnston wrote, with his well-known originality,
on Paul and Philo.

Readers of the QUARTERLY are recommended to turn their attention to this
valuable magazine. JOHN NEWCOME.

ANSWERS

QUESTION 176. / have been permitted to read the proof-sheets of the current
QUARTERLY. Much is said in it about the spiritual "value of war. How about the
hate which war engenders?

ANSWER. Should we abolish police because they use force against criminals?
Does a policeman hate the men whom he arrests? Would it not be better for us,
and also for the criminals, if the police were to develop a fiery hatred of evil-
doing? Of two evils, which is the worse: that a policeman should be tolerant
of evil-doing, or that he should permit some of his hatred of evil-doing to run over
into hatred of evil-doers? You have a home. A burglar enters it. A policeman
passes. "Lo, the poor burglar," says the policeman ; and he continues his way,
meditating on the hard lot of burglars. Is it wicked of you to be annoyed with
that policeman? Would it not be better for the soul of the burglar if the police-
man stalked him from behind, cracked him over the head, and perhaps hissed at
him, as he dropped "You devil !"

It is only God who can hate enough, and it is incredible that He is satisfied
with His hatred. Since man first made it, God has hated sin without a moment's
pause and with inconceivable intensity. No one can hate sin unless he loves
righteousness. Does the questioner love righteousness ? Let us go further : does
he love the man who keeps his word even at loss to self ; does he love the man
who is chivalrous, noble, generous, considerate, humble? If so, he will hate the
man who is treacherous, brutal, ignoble, mean, and vain. He will hate him with
vigour proportioned to his love of the soul even of that man's soul. Because the
soul is not a sentimentalist, and the soul of a bad man cries out to God to punish
the evil which nails that soul to a cross of iron, to a bed of hell-fire

QUESTION 177. Is the doctrine of reincarnation hostile to the theory of the
effect of heredity upon character?

ANSWER. Not as I see it. According to the results of former incarnations,
one is drawn, in the new incarnation, into a family where a body will be furnished
which will provide the necessary tendencies to enable the reincarnating ego to
continue its evolution. In a sense, the ego is inheriting from his own former
incarnations, but his physical inheritance may help or hinder the speed of his
development in that one life, and possibly the character of that life. A. F.

ANSWER. It would seem that reincarnation alone justifies and proves heredity,
and the opportunity it gives for making character. My boy has certain char-
acteristics. I am going to try to place him in life where the good in him will
come out and the evil be checked. If a soul has a lesson to learn, heredity gives
the opportunity for the learning of the lesson without transgressing the Law
of Free Will. If the theosophical teachings did nothing else, they would be

i8f

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 183

worth while for the joy they bring in taking injustice out of the working of
the world. Heredity without reincarnation would be hideously unjust. Heredity
with reincarnation is a loving and paternal opportunity given to learn something
to form character to "make good." SERVETUS.

ANSWER. No, the horse is not hostile to the cart but it usually comes first.
Character determines heredity, and is then reacted upon by heredity. That
heredity and environment is chosen for the soul which will best meet the needs
of that soul. Life after life may be spent in overcoming some one besetting
sin. As it gains in strength the soul's environment will not be that which will
give it the easiest temporary victory, by default as it were. Rather will it take
that physical heredity that will compel it to meet and conquer its weakness
once for all, instead of glossing it over for a time in secret. Just as a pugilist
in his training takes, not an easy victim but the strongest antagonist he can
find, that he may be compelled to put forth his full strength, and so gain greater
power. J. B.

ANSWER. The effect of heredity upon character can, I think, hardly be doubted.
But character and its attainment may be easy or rendered more difficult by the
environment enforced by the effect of heredity. I would regard the matter from
the point of view of the Soul not from that of the body. In this way, character
is a vesture and an instrument of the Soul. As it is the Soul which reincarnates
or undergoes Re-birth, heredity and its effect becomes an opportunity by which the
powers of the soul may be increased or hindered. The Soul makes its choice. But
I should say that the doctrine of Reincarnation is not hostile to the theory of the
effect of heredity upon character but, rather, it gives the wider view which com-
pletes it. A. K.

ANSWER. By no means hostile. Reincarnation, or the Karma that governs
the reincarnation, takes carefully into account environment, heredity, race and
community peculiarities, every possible factor that will or might enter into the life
of the soul, and uses them all to develop the highest and best in the soul. Thus
a man of past bad temper might be born into a family where he would "inherit"
bad temper, and have, according to his deserts, either the opportunity to learn to
control his own under constant provocation, or be forced to suffer the consequences
and see the terrible harm that temper does, both in his family and in himself.
Through mutual suffering, and after enough of it, all the souls would learn that
temper does not pay, and would overcome it. Then, too, parents and children are
seldom total strangers to each other ; they have lived together before and their
Karma is closely interwoven. Heredity, rightly understood in any given case,
would prove a most efficient instrument of the laws determining the reincarnation.

NOTEA.

ANSWER. No. Heredity is one among the many means of Karma; the force
which Karma uses to produce bodies fitted to the needs of incoming souls.
These are attracted to the particular family by their magnetic affinities, and find
in that family just the vesture and environment that they need; the need being
always for discipline, not for indulgence. C. J.

ANSWER. One of the objects of life is to develop a proper tool and a
suitable vestment for the indwelling deity, the soul. This vestment is not man's
physical body, but his character. Character is not the outcome of physical train-
ing or activity of some special kind, but the results obtained by the soul by
degrees under its struggle through ages in matter for its final liberation. Char-
acter means then, of course, such qualities as pertain to the perfect man, which

184 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

is something quite different from that which is called character, and is admired
in a powerful man of the world. Such expressions as "weak character" and
"bad character" denote only, that the soul has as yet but to a small degree suc-
ceeded in mastering matter and the forces playing in matter. It has still to
work out the lacking part of those qualities that belong to the pure soul only.

Now, heredity means "transmission of the characters or qualities of parents
to their offspring." But according to the doctrine of reincarnation the soul is
a divine emanation ; and such outer things as titles, properties, etc., set aside
man's only inheritance from his earthly parents is certain peculiarities and
features of his physical body. What he brings of real character is a heritage
which he has himself wrought in earlier incarnations. This is the treasure laid
up for himself in heaven, the very property of the soul, which cannot be stolen,
nor consumed by moth or rust. And this treasure he brings back as the soul's
vesture at every new incarnation in matter, although it cannot always be fully
displayed, because this would perhaps interfere with, or be a hindrance for the
development of certain traits of character which are still wanting in order to make
up a harmonious vesture for the soul. In fact, there is no other effect of
heredity than the effect upon the outer circumstances in life, produced by the
weaknesses and peculiarities of the physical body inherited from the earthly
parents. And the effect of these outer circumstances upon character depends
solely on what use man is making of them for the building of his character.
But "the circumstances really do not matter, since in any we can accomplish our
destiny." We can build our character, and we do so every day to a small
degree at all events, quite independently of our circumstances. Whether king
or slave, rich or poor, healthy or weak, we can build our character and accom-
plish our destiny. The outer circumstances are just what they ought to be to him
who understands life. And they are so because of election according to a higher
law than that of election in the field of physical activity. It is the activity
of the Universal Law of adjustment, or Karma, that elects the circumstances,
not because they are the only suitable, but because Karma as the never erring
adjuster elects such circumstances as are the most suitable.

Some might say that the outer appearances in life do not confirm this theory.
How can e. g. the circumstances of those living in the slums be said to be the
most favorable? But appearances are not facts. The sun does not stop shining,
because we are unable to see it on a cloudy day; nor does truth alter its nature,
because our cloudy minds cannot recognize it as truth. T. H. K.

ANSWER. Having just been reading what Mr. Judge wrote on this point in
his Ocean of Theosophy, it would seem conclusive to his readers that the doctrine
of reincarnation alone makes the doctrine of heredity logical, sensible and
believable. G. M. McK.

ANSWER. Imagine yourself anxious to be cured of some physical ailment or
defect, and with money enough to enable you to select the best cure or hospital :
Would you not go just where you felt you could get the particular treatment you
needed? Of course you would. Apply this situation to the Ego, anxious to be
perfected in a further stage of development. Would you not choose the environ-
ment most trying and, therefore, most helpful? And, as continued association
with those one had loved (or hated) would be needed for perfecting, there
would be no separation from one's own people. If the Ego and the body be
kept as separated in one's mind, as St. Paul distinguished between them in the
noble Epistle used in the Episcopal Burial Service, the necessity for both reincar-
nation and the influence of heredity upon character would seem to be obvious.

H. K.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 185

QUESTION 178. Can we regard great disasters, involving many people, as
the action of Karma (for example the Titanic disaster) ? Can it be considered
to have been the personal Karma of each passenger and member of the crew?

ANSWER. Nothing that happens on the physical plane can escape Karma,
which has been defined as action itself. Karma is also, metaphysically speaking,
the law of Retribution, or Cause and Effect. The physical is but a manifestation,
an objectivising, of forces set going in the moral and spiritual worlds. Thus
behind every physical occurrence, be it disaster involving death and destruction
or some universal blessing, we must look for the cause that produced it in the
moral and spiritual world.

In great disasters such as earthquakes, eruptions, tidal-waves, storms, and
the like, two factors probably enter into the whole Karma of the occasion.
First, the racial or community Karma has so saturated the earth's atmosphere
with evil forces that an immediate outlet on the physical plane becomes necessary in
order to avoid a worse disaster on the higher and more vital moral or spiritual
planes. Second, the Lords of Karma, foreseeing the approach of such an occasion,
arrange that those individual souls whose personal Karma it is to undergo such a
frightful purgation, are drawn to the spot. It is also possible that innocent people
suffer at such times as a vicarious atonement for the sins of others; but I doubt
if this happens without the knowledge and consent of the souls of these people,
however ignorant their personal consciousness may have been at the time.

In the Titanic disaster we read that one family had planned to sail, all
their trunks were on board, but that they were prevented by some accident at
the last minute from sailing, missing the ship by a few minutes after having
made every effort to catch it. Another survivor told how he had not planned
to sail, but had gone on board the last moment through some sudden impulse.
He had behaved heroically, had gone down with the ship, and had been picked
up. In other words, though our view is often too limited to see with any per-
spective, we must believe that the Karma of each passenger and member of
the crew was involved, and was carefully balanced by the Lords of Karma
(together with all the reflex or indirect Karma of all relatives, friends, business
associates, and so forth) ; else there could and would be no justice in such
events, and therefore a negation of all law, all spiritual harmony, all unity of
divine purpose. J. B., JR.

ANSWER. Why can we not regard the matter in this light? But to say that
each passenger and member of the crew was bound to be drowned, would be
very wide of the mark. It was in their Karma to be exposed to "sudden death" :
in some cases, after such exposure, their lives were prolonged. But I suggest
that we attach too much importance to the matter of life and death. These
great disasters are trials which prove the courage and fortitude, moral and
physical, of those exposed to them. In this way, they are opportunities for the
Soul : and the personal Karma is dealt with very forcibly, being surmounted or
increased. The mere circumstance that so many people were involved in the
action of the Law on that one ship, does not contradict the idea that it was
the Law. There are many points of junction in lines in the spider's web: but
the spider spins it in obedience to a law beyond its knowledge. Those who
are within the action of the Law, meet at many points and the Law has many
conscious ministers. A. K.

ANSWER. An outward event, such as the Titanic disaster, would probably
have widely different significance to those whom it involved. Suppose the
case of one who after cherishing ideals has become indifferent and worldly.

186 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Inevitable sudden death turns worldly ambitions, in a moment, to ashes. The
forgotten ideals loom up again suddenly. The buried man awakes to their power.
And the moment of black death is changed into the joy of certain .truth and
power. Suppose another case a man who in daily monotonous duties and per-
plexities has acted bravely. To him the disaster comes as a great opportunity
he faces it with the cumulated heroism of all his days. We live so much under
the dominion of the civilian point of view. The civilian regards death as a
misfortune, the soldier craves it as an honor. What seems catastrophe is really
victory, defeat or neutral whatever the individual makes of it. J. W. O.

ANSWER. The noteworthy thing about the "Titanic" disaster was, the division
of passengers and crew into two classes : those who perished and those who
escaped. Surely this was the selective action of Karma. But we must not
consider Karma as a dead, mechanical force. It is an expression of Life, and,
like Life, pliable and fluent. At no moment is free-will lost in a mechanical
reaction. Thus, even of those who perished, the free-will remained the freedom
to die heroically. And many did, thus enriching the souls of all who heard the
story of that great disaster and greater triumph. These may have earned the
right to enrich the spiritual life of the world in just that way. For others, Karma
may have taken advantage of that opportunity, to enable them to pay some old
debt. But the deeper principle is, that mastery over life must include mastery
over death also ; therefore for heroic souls such a death is an opportunity. C. J.

ANSWER. Karma is "the one Universal Law which guides unerringly, and, so
to say, blindly, all other laws productive of certain effects along the grooves
of their respective causations." These other laws, which are parts or components
of the Universal Law, are themselves Karma in their own field of action. Thus
we have the Karma of our universe, of our globe, of mankind as a whole and
of races, nations, families and individuals. As a component of the Great Karma
individual or personal Karma may, or may not, act separately. In many cases
it provides only one of the many components of a collective cause, productive
of collective effects.

We have to share the Karma of our family, our neighbors, our nation, our
race, our universe and perhaps even of the whole Kosmos. Remember these
words in Fragments : "Realize fully that the uttermost parts of the universe are
different, because you are in existence." All great disasters, such as war, earth-
quake, plagues, inundations, fires, shipwreck, etc., that in some few minutes, or in
a short time sweep away so many lives, are certainly karmic effects. But only
a few of the victims that are swallowed up in such cases, may suffer this because
of some special bad karma of their own. It is their share of some collective
karmic effect, and may we not say they have the good opportunity of drinking
in a very short time a greater part of, or perhaps their whole karmic cup,
while others have to sip it slowly through many incarnations.

The Christian Master said: "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and
not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father : but the very
hairs on your head are all numbered." In view of these words we must, as
Christians, believe that nothing can happen without the will of our heavenly
Father. This is but another way of putting it. It is Karma or the Universal
Law, Divine Law, that regulates the history of the world in all its details, acting
now as personal karma, now as collective karma: as the karma of families,
nations, races and the universe, and in such cases striking seemingly without
mercy all those within the reach of the set up karmic vortex.

Is this injustice? Let him that is without blame in this or any earlier incar-
nation answer : yes ! T. H. K.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 187

ANSWER. With the "Empress of Ireland" duplication of the "Titanic" disaster
fresh in our minds, we may find a helpful hint to the answer to the first part of
this question : Recall the current bitterness of feeling over the Colorado situa-
tion and its corollary happenings. If any one of us human beings had the power,
would we not have been glad to release a countervailing wave of tender sym-
pathy? May we not consider that thus to die in sacrifice for America let us
say, so far as we may see would be a privilege. Considered in terms of individual
Karma was not opportunity thus given to the seeming victims of both the
"Titanic" and the "Empress of Ireland"? This aspect would seem to have been
recognized when even a New York City crowd stood silent and reverent as the
sailor dead from Vera Cruz were carried by with the President of the United
States as part of the Escort of Honor. G. V. S. M.

REPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE BRITISH NATIONAL
BRANCH OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

HELD AT 46, BROOK STREET, LONDON, W., ON MAY 17, 1914.

The meeting was called to order by the General Secretary at 3 P. M.
Mrs. Bagnell was elected temporary Chairman.
Mr. Clarke was elected Convention Secretary.

Messrs. T. Haddon, J. Raphael, and J. Wilkinson were appointed Committee
on Credentials, and reported seventeen members of good standing were present,
and twenty-three proxies were held.

Dr. Keightley was elected Chairman of Convention.

Greetings were read from the American members in Convention, Mr. Paul
Raatz, Colonel Knoff, Mrs. Keightley, Mr. Lincoln, and Mr. Mein.

To the Members of the British Theosophical Society in Convention assembled,
Greeting!

FELLOW-MEMBERS I am instructed to reply, on behalf of the Convention of
the Theosophical Society, to your very cordial greeting, sent to us by our highly
honoured and well-beloved fellow-member, Archibald Keightley, than whom none
is held in greater esteem among us. This I most willingly do.

Our Convention was very successful in the truest sense ; that is, it was deeply
imbued and inspired by the genuine spirit of Theosophy. And it was noted by
many, as most significant and of good promise, that we are coming to understand
Theosophy, not so much as a body of doctrines or a system of philosophy or ethics,
but rather as a life to be lived.

In measure as each one of us lives that life, we are adding to the strength
of the Theosophical movement, and confirming the foundations of the Theosophical
Society. By hearing the teachings of the Theosophic life, and doing them, we
build our house upon a rock.

Let us, then, set ourselves to understand, and live, the principles of Theosophy,
in their perfection, confident that thus we shall do our whole duty to the movement
and the Society.

With most cordial and sincere greetings for the Convention,

I remain,

Fraternally yours,

CHARLES JOHNSTON,

Chairman of the Executive Committee of the T. S.
1 88

THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY ACTIVITIES 189

BERLIN, S.W., 48, May 13, 1914.
To the Members of the British National Branch T. S. in Convention assembled.

DEAR BROTHERS AND SISTERS Some time ago I received from Dr. Keightley
the notice of the day of your Convention. On reading it, I learned that your Con-
vention is held on the same day as our Convention. As this happens without any
agreement, I am inclined to regard it as a good omen, as evidence of the unity
in the hearts of both Societies. This, of course, prevents the members of each
Society from attending the other Convention, which puts us to a disadvantage.

There is not much to report about our movement in Germany, but there is at
any rate only good to say. We are working quietly and earnestly. Most of us
believe that Theosophy can not be promulgated by words and propaganda, but by
"living the life." This life is the spiritual divine life, or in other words, it is the
life which the Master Christ lived as an example for us to follow, in order to be
his disciples. No small endeavour is necessary to do this, and progress is not
easily observed. Each endeavour, however, aids us in recognizing the chief object
of the Theosophical Society; it awakens in us love in two directions love to the
Masters and love to our brothers. As "Light on the Path" puts it "As he (the
occultist) retreats within himself and becomes self-dependent, he finds himself
more definitely becoming part of a great tide of definite thought and feeling. When
he has learned the first lesson, conquered the hunger of the heart, and refused to
live on the love of others, he finds himself more capable of inspiring love."

May the coming year show increased progress in forming spiritual centres,
which may act as magnets to draw other souls to them and revive their inner life.

With fraternal greetings,

I am,

Yours very sincerely,

PAUL RAATZ,
Secretary of the United Branches in Germany.

DAAS GT, 16, CHRISTIANIA, May 10, 1914.
To the British National Branch in Convention assembled.

COMRADES There is, in the activity of the T. S. Branches, as a rule a certain
time for work and another time for rest. From the autumn to the spring the
outer activity is going on, often with much strain for many workers, because of
their personal duties in the outer world, and they are looking forward to the
summer, when the outer Branch work stops for a time or is lessened. But the
pioneers of the T. S. do not make a mistake as to the nature of this rest. It is a
rest for the body and the brain only. The inner work never stops, never; nor does
it slacken at the times when the outer work is postponed for a while. On the
contrary, at these times of outer leisure, the inner activity is far more intense.

As in the summer the seeds, sown in the early springtide, develop, sprout,
flower, and send forth fruit, so the spiritual seeds, sown in the past season of outer
work, will, during the physical rest, develop, flower, and send forth much fruit for
the strengthening and nourishment of the soul. It is the effect upon us of the
activity in the winter season that is drawn inward and assimilated by, or woven
into the fabric of the soul-life.

But to do this is not a matter of leisure. It is a real activity, a positive work
performed consciously and conscientiously in meditation.

May we not forget this, and may we have sown many seeds of that kind, by
which the soul can be nourished.

A hearty greeting to you all from Norwegian comrades.

Yours fraternally,

T. H. KNOW.

190 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

SECRETARY'S REPORT.

During the last year the activity of the Society has proceeded with quiet
steadiness. Nine new members have joined our ranks, and we have to regret that
there have been two losses by death; but there have been none through resignation.
New Branches have not been chartered, but there is the prospect of one in the near
future. It would seem probable that our growth will be on the line of steady
strength and consolidation, and that we shall not have to regret the falling away of
members through the reaction from sensational stimulus. The reasons for this I
propose to lay before you at a later time in our proceedings.

The Treasurer's Report will be laid before you almost immediately, and shows
a satisfactory state of affairs in the balance in hand. Our expenses were slightly
greater during the past year, but the balance in hand remains almost the same as
that of the last year.

I am also very glad to tell you that the support given to the THEOSOPHICAL
QUARTERLY is larger than before, so that it is clear that our members appreciate
what is provided for them in its pages.

The Report of the Corresponding Secretary will be laid before you, and it is
with regret that I have been informed that Mrs. Graves has not met with that
response to her efforts which would prove that these efforts were appreciated.

The Report of the Pamphlet Committee will also be presented. The members
of that Committee are all with us today, and it is to be hoped that they have further
suggestions to make in regard to that very important activity.

I would suggest to the Convention that it would be well to consider what, if
any, other methods of activity might be profitably pursued. Amid the general
deepening of the religious consciousness there must be a part which can be played
by the objects of the Theosophical Society. It is not enough to evince a philo-
sophical interest in such subjects for consideration; they must have a deeper and
more living interest and be an incentive to securing a pro founder and a more
intensely vital action on the lives of ourselves and of those with whom the great
law of Karma brings us in unceasing contact.

ARCHIBALD KEIGHTLEY,

General Secretary.

The Report was unanimously adopted.

TREASURER'S REPORT, MAY 17, 1914.

June 8. 1913. s. d. s. d.

Balance in hand = 9 17 8 Convention Expenses, including

Donations by Lecture 9 Report 5 6

Subscriptions 917 C Donation to QUARTERLY 218

Subscription to T. S 2 1 8

Letter re Subscriptions 8 1

Postage 11 6

Balance . . 9 14 9

20 38 20 3 8

E. HOWARD LINCOLN.

Mr. Raphael moved that the Balance Sheet be accepted, and Mrs. Graves
seconded the proposal. Carried unanimously.

REPORT OF THE CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.

I have not much to report as regards the Correspondence work. During the
year I have received regular letters with reports of meetings and accounts of the
discussions and the work in general from the Corresponding Secretaries of the

THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY ACTIVITIES 191

Newcastle and South Shields Branches, a few letters from a Sunderland corre-
spondent, but that is about all. I should like to put on record my gratitude to
Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, and to Miss Short and Miss Spooner, of South Shields, for
their excellent and interesting letters, and to say that as long as any of the Branches
desire to continue the correspondence I think it should be kept up. But I can find
no demand or desire for letters among the isolated or unattached members, and
those which I have written have not been answered. Two of the younger members
of the Norfolk Branch have written letters which have been circulated in the North,
and of which appreciation has been expressed. But I think that the members as a
whole have neither inclination nor, perhaps, time for letter writing; they prefer
to discuss theosophical matters among themselves when they meet, and no doubt
to many this plan is more helpful than correspondence appears to be.

ALICE GRAVES.
The Report was discussed and accepted.

REPORT OF PUBLICATION COMMITTEE.

MARLBOROUGH HOUSK,
HIGH STREET, MARYLEBONE, W., May, 1914.

DEAR FELLOW-MEMBERS Very little has been done by the Committee during
the past year owing to the fact that the pamphlets have not been taken up by the
members. Only one new issue has been made, "Science and Occultism," by Mr.
J. W. G. Kennedy, and we trust the members will do their utmost to distribute this
and the earlier issues, of which there are a great many on hand. We now have
an arrangement whereby the publisher will take all responsibility and bring out as
many pamphlets as we wish if they are sufficiently supported.

We regard the pamphlets as most valuable in the work of propaganda, and
we very much hope every member will help in the distribution. Orders may be
sent to any of the Committee or to the publisher direct, and they will be dealt with
immediately.

We beg to remain,

Yours fraternally,

ESPOIR BAGNELL.

J. W. G. KENNEDY.

ARTHUR D. CLARKE, Chairman.

The election of Officers followed.

General Secretary Dr. Keightley was proposed by Mrs. Bagnell and seconded
by Mrs. Graves. Carried unanimously.

Treasurer Mr. E. H. Lincoln was proposed by Mrs. Binks and seconded by
Mr. Clarke. Carried unanimously.

Corresponding Secretary Mrs. Graves was proposed by Mr. Kennedy and
seconded by Miss Dodge. Carried unanimously.

Publication Committee The Committee were re-elected as before.

Executive Committee The following were proposed by Mr. Clarke and sec-
onded by Mrs. Bagnell, and the members were duly elected: Mrs. Raphael, Miss
Dodge, Miss Cobb, Miss Cronen, Mr. Cecil Graves, Mr. Wilkinson, and Mr. Vogler.

The date of the next Convention to be about a fortnight after Whitsuntide.

It was recommended that the Executive Committee should consult with the
local Branches as to the arrangements for future Conventions.

Mrs. Bagnell proposed a vote of thanks to the Chairman, and this was seconded
by Mrs. Graves and passed enthusiastically.

Meeting adjourned at 5 P. M.

ARTHUR D. CLARKE,

21, High Street, Marylebone. Convention Secretary.

192 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

THE KARMA BRANCH
THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN NORWAY

The Annual Convention of the Karma Branch, T. S., in Christiania, Norway,
was held on May 25th, this year. The following is an extract from the Report
of the Branch work in the past year of activity, read at the Convention:

From September 15, 1912, to May 25, 1913, the Branch has held meetings every
Thursday from 8.30 to 10 P. M., with two exceptions only. Twenty-five of these
meetings have been devoted to the study of the Gospel of St. John, which study
has been followed with the greatest interest by the partakers. At the other meet-
ings ten in all there has been public lecturing. The topics have been:

The Path, the Truth and the Life.

The Law of Duty.

The Origin and Meaning of the Rod of Mercury.

The Law of Sacrifice.

The Virgin Birth.

Everyone Saved by his Faith.

The Zodiac.

The Resurrection.

The Ascent from the Unconscious Soul-Life.

In the part of the town where the Branch is working the public interest in the
work seems not to increase, but there is a small party that are always coming to
the meetings, and whose devotion to the work is evident. Therefore we keep up
the work in this locality, knowing that no real effort is lost, and that seed sown
one day also will sprout.

Yours fraternally,

T. H. KNOFF.

NOTICE

COMMENT

JANUARY, 1915

The Theosophical Society, as such, is not responsible for any opinion
or declaration in this magazine, by whomsoever expressed, unless con-
tained in an official document.

THE INDIAN RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY

Y quarrel with the Indian teaching," said a friend, the other
day, to the writer of these Notes and Comments, "is, that
it does not press home the sense of personal responsibility.
I love the Upanishads and have long studied them; yet I
believe it is possible for a man to read them, admire them, accept
their great thoughts, and still remain without the keen sense of sin.
And what will that mean? Will it not mean that, while reading and
speaking of spiritual progress, he will fail to take the very first step
towards that progress; while dreaming of high ideals and glorious
horizons, he will fall short of the first positive act needed for the
realization of these ideals, and the glorious horizons will remain as
unreachable for him as rainbow gold ?"

Here is something to brood and ponder over. To begin with,
what might a sympathetic defender of the Indian teaching say in
reply? Something, perhaps, like this: "While you have not spoken
of Christianity, it is evidently in your mind, as the basis of a com-
parison between the religions of East and West. But, while I see
great and appealing beauties in Christianity, I always find in my
mind certain objections, certain questions, rather; and it will be
best for me to put them forward quite frankly, for consideration.
In this way, we may, perhaps, clear up some of our difficulties ; or at
least get a better view of some of the distressing facts that press
on our notice, the moment we speak of religious problems. There-
fore I shall come to the point at once.

"I will not say my quarrel, but my difficulty with the Christian
teaching is this: That it seems to live, in our day at least, in small,
water-tight compartments ; that you find intense centers of religious

14 *93

194 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

life, genuine and full of convincing power. But and it is a very
vital matter they seem isolated, cut off from the general life about
them; from the intellectual life about them, especially. At the risk
of being indiscreet, I shall venture on concrete illustrations. Take
such a writer as Pusey, with his keen, penetrating spiritual sense;
or take, perhaps better, such a book as Faber's Growth in Holiness.
It is impossible to read either, without seeing and feeling that they
are speaking of genuine experience ; nay, more, of a genuine, method-
ical science of spiritual life, based, as any science must be, on experi-
ment, on verified and verifiable truth. But it is so much a thing of
water-tight compartments, that this science seems to have almost
no touch with the other sciences. They regard each other with
suspicion and dislike, perhaps even with contempt.

"And the specifically Christian teaching seems to me not only
out of touch with the science and philosophy of our day; it seems
to me also out of touch with the general conduct of affairs, the larger
concerns of the Western nations. It is, of course, known to everyone
that the United States recognizes no special relation between itself
and Christianity. Its Constitution is just about as much Confucian
as it is Christian. But we need not go to the New World for illus-
trations. Take the Government of France and the Government of
England. Take President Poincare's recent address to the troops on
the fighting line. He expresses magnificent ideals in splendid elo-
quence; he uses terms that we consider characteristically Theo-
sophical, as when he speaks of the 'collective soul of France ;' but,
from beginning to end, he says no word of Christianity, utters no
syllable that would lead, let us say, an intelligent Japanese, to
recognize any relation between his ideals and the teachings of Galilee.

"Or take the position of the English Government. There, the
case is even stronger. For King George is, in accordance with the
terms of the Act of Supremacy, the head of the Church of England;
the official head of English Christianity; and King George's govern-
ment is closely, and at many points, identified with the life of the
Church. The bishops of the Church of England, sitting in the
House of Lords, voted on the war budget; the Prime Minister who
defended the war, who, in a certain sense, is responsible for England's
participation in the war, is also charged, as the king's representative,
with the duty of appointing the bishops and archbishops of the
national Church. Yet, in the declaration of the government, or, per-
haps it would be juster to say, in the personal expressions of its
members, it is not at once evident that they believe themselves act-
ing in defence of the ideals of Christ. If there be a close, an imme-
diate connection, between England's part in the war and the ideals

NOTES AND COMMENTS 195

of the Gospels, then that connection is somewhat carefully hidden;
or, at least, it does not 'leap to the eyes,' as the French would say.

"Again, take such a personality as General Joffre, the French
Commander in Chief. In reading of his life and character, it is im-
possible not to see in him the realization of a high ideal of self-
sacrifice and self-conquest; he has 'given his life as a ransom for
many/ in a very real sense. Yet, and it is a tragical thing, in a way,
to have to say it, there does not stand out, in his acts or words, any
clear recognition of him who first used that phrase to describe his
own sacrifice. It may be that General Joffre is an intensely religious
man, in the narrower, the ecclesiastical sense of the word. But one
coming from China or India would look in vain for the evidence of
it in his soul-stirring addresses to the army. It seems, on the con-
trary, to be the tragical truth, that General Joffre finds himself hold-
ing and upholding high spiritual ideals, and at the same time has
no defined spiritual belief or hope ; or, perhaps, holds certain abstract
and speculative views, which, even in his intimate meditations, he
does not connect with Christianity.

"Therefore, against your criticism of the Indian teaching that
it does not give the sense of personal responsibility, the conviction
of sin, I venture to put forward this criticism of Christianity: That
it does, in a singular degree, give both the sense of responsibility,
and the realization of sin; or, to speak more truly, it gives, first, the
realization of sin, in a keen and fiery intensity, and, through this
very sense of sin, develops the sense of personal responsibility; yet
it does this only within a narrow circle of devotees ; and these seem,
in proportion to the intensity of their religious experience, to be with-
drawn from the general life of their time, whether the life of thought
or the life of action. So that we have the tragical spectacle of a
whole period of scientific and philosophical thought developed within
the limits of Christendom, and yet, if not antichristian, at least non-
Christian, in the sense that Darwinism is non-Christian, or that
President Poincare's address to the troops of France is non-Christian.
So here, if you wish, is my quarrel with Christianity."

Here, perhaps, in these two views, we have matter of considera-
tion for our Notes and Comments. The first thing which strikes one
is the fact that these two criticisms do not conflict with or oppose
each other. Both may be perfectly true. They may indicate real
and genuine limitations in the Indian teaching and in Christianity;
or, shall we say, in their presentation; in the way in which they are
accepted and handed down from one generation to the next. Let
us try to see what the two criticisms come to; and then, perhaps,
we may find time to see whether there is any connection between

196 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

them; whether they indicate supplementary defects, or, perhaps,
supplementary qualities and virtues. And, since the Indian teaching
was first mentioned, let us begin with it.

The critic of the Indian teaching whom we have cited mentions
the Upanishads; mentions them with love and admiration, as among
the greatest spiritual documents of the world. And, when we think
of the Upanishads, we think, almost of necessity, of the remote
golden age, of a time long before Buddha's days; long, even, before
the days of the Great War, when the children of Pandu and Kuru
were drawn up on the holy field of Kurukshetra. And, thinking
thus, we are thereby compelled to think of the great degradation
that came upon India, in the wake of that war; so that India's
chronologies date from its inception the coming of Kali Yuga, the
Iron Age; or, more literally, the Age of Darkness, the Age of the
Devil. For Kali, in Indian mythology, is a Devil, and a treacherous
one.

Then, perhaps, historical sequence compels us to think of Prince
Siddhartha the Compassionate, known as Gautama Buddha, and of
his passionate cry: "May the sins of Kali Yuga rest on me, but let
man be saved !" The sins of Kali Yuga, the sins of the Devil's Age.
And then, if we have studied the religions of other lands, we may
think of Egypt; of her splendid archaic religion, so essentially at one
with the religion of the Upanishads; and then of the milleniums
of degradation and darkness, sin heaped upon sin, which finally
brought national ruin and extinction upon the land of the Pharaohs.

Here, too, in venerable Egypt, came the Age of Darkness, the
Devil's Age. Here, as in India : and our point is this, that the great
Upanishads, just because they antedate that fall into darkness, just
because they belong to the remote golden age, are for that very
reason not deeply concerned with the sense of sin, but allow the
heart to rise joyfully, in pure spiritual ecstasy, from one radiant realm
to another; making the burden of their teaching not the "exceeding
sinfulness of sin," but rather the exceeding splendour of the soul,
the Unborn, the Ancient, whose essential being is Joy. This, per-
haps, if not a reply to the criticism with which these Notes and
Comments open, is an explanation of the absence, in these oldest
Indian teachings, of the keen sense of sin, the piercing realization
of our own sinfulness, which is, in a certain sense, the starting point
of the Christian teaching. "If I had not come, ye had not had sin;
but now ye have no cloak for your sin. . . . When the Comforter
is come, he will reprove the world of sin. ..."

NOTES AND COMMENTS 197

Let us try to trace the further history of the archaic Indian
teachings, in search of the answer to our enigma. In their oldest
form, they were not, as they themselves declare, the spiritual pos-
session of the Brahmans, the hereditary caste of priests and students
who, for long milleniums, dominated the religious life of India. The
Brahmans received them from other hands, from another race, who
were, it seems probable, kin of the older spiritual races of Egypt.

In the hands of the Brahmans, two things befell the archaic
teachings; two things, to both of which the Buddha bears very
eloquent testimony. First, from being an inestimable spiritual
treasure, a source of splendid spiritual inspiration, they became rather
a hoarded possession, a source of spiritual self-congratulation. And
here, it would seem, is the great sin of the Brahmans, the sin which
made the Buddha's incarnation necessary: the sin of exclusiveness,
of spiritual vanity, which is essentially the same, whether among the
Brahmans, or the Pharisees, or among those modern professors of
religion who are guilty of the same great fault.

The Brahmans, priding themselves on their spiritual wealth,
on their superiority, gradually allowed the poison of vanity to work
its way into their spiritual life, hardening and narrowing them;
setting up barriers between them and other men; at the same time
setting up barriers between them and the Most High ; cutting them
off from the deep sources of spiritual life and renovation. Yet they
persisted in the study of their ancient, holy documents, in a certain
real sense esteeming these teachings the most precious of all things,
and conforming their lives to the systematic study of them, so that,
from among the Brahmans, in age after age, there have come forth
spirits of holiness and light who have added to the permanent
spiritual treasure of the world.

But from this mingling of vanity with holy things there flowed
the second of the two consequences of which we have spoken, and
against which Buddha most eloquently preached : the fatal and deep-
seated spiritual blindness, which led to a confusion between the
Higher Self, of which the older Upanishads say such glorious things,
and the personal self, of which might truly be said so much evil and
condemnation. There came to be a fatal deification of the personal
self, which shows today, as it has shown for centuries, in the attitude
of the Brahmans : they believe that they themselves, in their natural
bodies, are the privileged, the children of the gods; and, from this
vantage-point they look down on all other men, as not only their
inferiors, but as being in essence different; not so much coarser
clay, as baser metal; essentially different in nature.

198 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

We do not say this simply as a reproach to the Brahmans, though
it has been a grievous sin in them, and one bringing most grievous
punishment to them and to their nation. We say it rather to bring
out the essential nature of vanity, and above all, of vanity in spiritual
things, where it becomes the most deep-seated, insidious and dangerous
evil of spiritual life. And, without going into the details of Egypt's
spiritual decline and degradation, we may hold that some similar
sin lay at its root; a sin, perhaps, more of the will than of thought
and imagination, but in essence a sin of exclusion; shutting out the
divine will, the divine light, the divine purpose and inspiration from
the heart : in essence, a sin of disobedience.

These things have for us no mere archaeological or historic
interest ; they come closer to us than that. For, if we hold the teach-
ing of reincarnation, we shall be convinced that the sins we have
described are our own sins; that we ourselves, in earlier lives, were
guilty of the sins of the Brahmans, the sins of the Egyptians; that
through our fault, and the fault of our brothers, came about that
darkening and degradation which give to the present age the sinister
name of Kali Yuga, the Age of the Devil.

Therefore, since the great days of the Upanishads, since the large
utterance of the early gods, sin and degradation have come upon the
Western races. Or, to bring the matter home, we, the men and
women of the Western races; we, whose spiritual history is the
inner history of the Western nations, have fallen into sin : the sin of
vanity, the sin of disobedience, which carry within them the promise
and potency of every form of sin. From these, the stem, every
branch and fruit of sin can grow.

And just because the burden of sin had become so heavy, just
because the sin of Kali Yuga was so great, that even the Buddha's
supernatural strength and devotion had not sufficed to lift it, Jesus,
the Western Avatar, was constrained by the same divine compassion
to seek to lift the same terrible burden. Therefore he came teaching,
not so much the splendor and radiance of the Higher Self, as the evil
and danger of the lower self ; came with the word "sin" so frequently
on his lips; came with a teaching which does enkindle, with fiery
intensity, the sense of personal guilt, the burning sense of responsi-
bility for the evil of the world. So that from this cause, if we are
not mistaken, arises the contrast which inspired the criticism at the
beginning of these Notes and Comments.

And along the same lines we may find the causes which gave
rise to the second criticism : the criticism of Christianity, as being
shut up in water-tight compartments, as in no large way mingling

NOTES AND COMMENTS 199

with the life of our day, whether the life of science and philosophy,
or the practical national life embodied in men like President Poincare
or the Prime Minister of England. And let it be clearly understood
that we do not say that the essence of Christianity does not mingle
with the life of the Western nations for we are convinced that, in
a deep sense, it does; but that it does this unconsciously, without
recognition, and not identified as the teaching of Christ.

Two peoples were, at first, the field of Christ's experiment first,
the Jews ; then the Greeks. The first disciples record his saying, that
he sent them "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." He taught
only within the boundaries of the Jewish nation. The twelve were
all orthodox Jews. Then, when his mission to the Jews had, in every
outward sense, not only failed, but failed disastrously, in his arrest
and crucifixion, we find him saying to Paul, shortly after his resur-
rection, "I send thee far hence unto the Gentiles." And Paul, through
the limitation of language, carried the teaching only to those who
could understand Greek. Therefore the field of Christ's effort was
the Hebrew and the Hellenic world, the Eastern division of the
Roman empire.

And we must believe that, in choosing this field, the Western
Avatar chose the very best material available for his purpose; that,
among all the Western races, the races which were the roots of the
modern world, there was nothing better to be had for his purpose
than the field he chose. The Karma of humanity offered nothing
better; nothing else available at all. And at the same time we see,
not only in the tragic outcome of his effort, but in the very history
of these nations, of the whole Western world, how heavy was the
burden of sin and evil that lay upon them. Take the testimony of
the prophets of Israel; take the witness of the best of the Greeks
to the deep corruption of their fellow-countrymen, and you have at
once the measure of the burden Christ sought to lift, and the measure
of the sin of the Western races ; the measure of our own sin, since
we are spiritually a part of these races, and have been spiritually a
part of them, at every stage of their degeneration and degradation.
It is their sin and ours.

But what was the essence of that sin? Spiritual disobedience
and vanity, the root of all sin, and, as always, manifesting itself as
the evil of exclusion : the exclusion, first, of the light and will of God ;
then the exclusion of our brothers from our hearts. The terrible
exclusiveness of the Pharisees, the no less terrible intellectual vanity
of the Greeks : these were the dominating moral elements in the field
which the Western Avatar set himself to till ; the tares among which
he was compelled to sow his wheat.

200 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Therefore it befell that, as the wheat grew, the tares grew also.
So that, in the church at Rome, which followed more directly in the
path of Phariseeism, the way of the Circumcision, there was rein-
carnated, along with the purer teaching of the Master, something
of the hard exclusiveness of the Pharisees; the lusting after an
earthly kingdom which had marred and degraded the Messianic hope,
gradually grew and developed into the teaching of the temporal
power. The crown which impotent Caesarism let fall, the Roman
bishop raised and set upon his own head, as he took to himself
Caesar's title of Supreme Pontiff of Rome.

So the old spirit of exclusion was carried in the ships that
brought the men of the New Way to Italy, and found a landing there.
And it has grown grossly and potently ever since, bearing the fruit
of arrogance and intolerance; the powerful causes of the exclusion
of science and philosophy from the field of the Church, and con-
sequently the exclusion of the Church from the field of science and
philosophy, which formed the ground of the second of our two
opening criticisms. The same spirit of exclusion, working itself out
as the lust for the earthly kingdom, the temporal power, has been,
for the last four or five centuries, the efficient cause making for the
exclusion of the Church from the main channels of national life; an
exclusion which we see in its logical development in the life of France
to-day, or, to take our original illustration, in the orations of Presi-
dent Poincare and General Joffre.

And in the Greek world, and as the heritage and development
of the Greek spirit of intellectual vanity, we had the long centuries
of barren theological controversy; of fist-fights to decide the relation
of the Father and the Son, which form the terrible comedy of Chris-
tian history, and which must have been, to the Western Avatar, as
pitiful and tragical to watch, if not even more tragical, than the more
forceful aberrations of the church of the West, the lust of temporal
power, the intellectual tyranny which brought Galileo to his knees.

It is a curious and profoundly vital problem, this tenacious hold-
ing to spiritual things, while at the same time plunging deep into
dangerous sins, which we have watched among the Brahmans, the
Egyptians, the Jews, the Greeks. It would seem that the supreme
problem of the spiritual powers, the active spiritual agents behind
the scenes of the world, must be this: to disentangle the good from
the evil in such hearts as these; or, to use the Master's simile, to
separate the wheat from the tares. For the entrance to spiritual
life seems overshadowed by this danger: that only the strong can
pass in ; and that the strong are prone to carry with them the seeds
of potent sins.

NOTES AND COMMENTS 201

We come now to the practical application of our sermon. We
see that the limitations of both the Eastern and Western teaching
and they are real limitations are the result of history, of a history
beginning in India and Egypt, and passing down to us through
Palestine and Hellas ; the history which, in its essence, is the history
of our own souls. Two stages in the same great spiritual procession ;
each with its strength, its weakness. Is it not evident that the way
of salvation lies in making the long development once more con-
tinuous, and thus supplementing the virtues of the one with the
virtues of the other, and so eliminating the weaknesses of both; or,
not to speak in the abstract, to join to the wide and radiant light of
the Indian teaching the fiery intensity of the Western avatar ; so that,
learning from him the terrible significance of the malady of the will,
the sin which in its essence is the exclusion of the divine will, we
may at the same time learn from the ancient East that luminous
view of the soul and of the world which will make impossible any
intellectual or spiritual narrowness; which will thus break down the
walls of those compartments within which the spiritual life of Christi-
anity seems at present to be confined, so that it is kept apart from
the general intellectual and scientific life of our age, kept apart from
the practical life of the foremost nations. The Gospels are incom-
plete without the Upanishads. The Upanishads are incomplete with-
out the Gospels. To bring them into living touch, is a task char-
acteristically Theosophical.

"In order that intercourse with men may not be hurtful to us, in
the functions which we exercise in their regard to gain them to God,
we must observe that our life ought to be a mixture of action and con-
templation, in such wise that the former may be animated, directed, and
ordered by the latter; that among the exterior works of the active life,
we may always enjoy the interior repose of the contemplative; and that
our employment may not hinder our union with God, but rather serve
to bind us more closely and more lovingly to Him; making us embrace
them in Him by contemplation, and in our neighbor by action."
Spiritual Doctrine : Lallement.

FRAGMENTS

THERE was great War on earth ; vast armies meeting in the
shock of battle: war on land, war on the sea, war in the
upper reaches of the sky. And the Angels who, by God's
command, keep (like faithful sentinel stars) forever watch
and ward o'er men, saw and heard these things, wings folded cross-
wise, arms upon their breasts, breathing the rhythmic silences of
adoration, against which beats ceaselessly the noise of man's activity.

Then those other Angels, whose high office it is to bear in their
stainless hands up to God's throne, the prayers and offerings of men,
passed and re-passed swiftly in countless numbers ; and though many,
many of those prayers shone with the lambent light of faith and
courage and resignation (all so dear to God) ; yet others were
clamourous, crying out against God's wickedness, or moaning in
despair why things so terrible should be. And the watching Angels
saw and heard these things also. Then they counselled among them-
selves, perplexed as to what change had caused these special
clamours; wherein were things different from what they had been
before ?

God heard the Angels conferring and sent a message to them:
"Men only see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and touch
with their hands. The tumult and horror and agony of war they
can perceive ; they have yet to recognize the more deadly horror and
destruction of their cancerous 'peace', filled with blasphemy and evil,
Satan's pleasure ground, where souls are suffocated in the poisonous
gas of luxury and bodily ease and soft comfort. St. Michael pierced
the curtain with his lance, and now men see at last the conflict that
was waging all along."

The Angels murmured, understanding God, "May victory crown
St. Michael and his hosts."

CAVE.

ANCIENT COMMENTARY

God created man in His own image, and gave him the Eden of his
soul to dwell in, and the gift of Eternal Happiness. God also gave him
freedom, for without freedom man could not possess either his happiness
or his own soul. And upon this freedom, otherwise complete, God placed
one bar only; the contemplation of evil was forbidden; for in the pres-
ence of evil heaven cannot live, and man in his soul consciousness would
die. Man was intended to contemplate God alone, and in God to find
all knowledge. But through the sin of disobedience, which is the spirit
of Evil incarnate, man lost his soul consciousness and so his Eden, and
was driven down into the consciousness of the lower personality, thus
making of himself a dual creature, who previously had been unified as
the image of God.

Thus came strife and confusion upon earth, no longer a garden
producing all manner of beautiful flowers and fruits, but a desert to
produce thorns and sorrow piled on sorrow, and at the end death. For
man having made the cleavage between the higher consciousness and the
lower, had to experience that cleavage on passing from one condition to
the other, with the horror upon him that in the passage, all personal con-
sciousness might forever be lost.

So man lives in two worlds, and is happy in neither; each being
separated from the other, is, in his consciousness, false; and he finds
satisfaction nozvhere, always a hunger and longing which he strives to
still by a perpetual alternation, fondly hoping at some instant of transi-
tion to grasp them both. For the gaping wound of that old sin still sepa-
rates our hearts.

That which was caused by disobedience, can only be overcome by
obedience perfected. Knot by knot, with patient effort and toil, the
tangled skein of life can be unravelled; each man in and for himself
unwinding that tiny thread which represents his portion of the whole.

And the great Elder Brothers, as merciful exemplars, have shown
us how.

Let us be just and fair, however. God created heaven and put man
in it: man created hell and put himself there: and God ceaselessly holds
out His hand to lift man from it; and ceaselessly labours to destroy that
place of horrors man has made.

THE POETRY OF CHARLES
PEGUY*

TWO prizes that confer distinction in the world of letters have
recently been awarded to two writers of religious verse. Each
of these poets draws his inspiration from his national religion.
Their form of expression is almost antipodal. For the religion
of one, an Oriental, is abstract and general. It concerns itself with uni-
versal and cosmic laws. It has a long line of teachers, and renders special
reverence to three or four holy men, who, at critical epochs, have re-stated
and rejuvenated old beliefs. But it does not descend from any one reli-
gious leader, nor is its cult directed toward the glorification of any indi-
vidual. The Frenchman's religion is in striking contrast. It venerates
one definite, historic individual as its Founder, and it labors zealously
for self -propagation with the view of winning for that Leader recognition
as a world Saviour and Sovereign. There would seem to be no common
elements in the religious verse of Tagore and Peguy. But the two men
are alike, in much of their verse, as rhythmical stylists. Both are skilled
users of the "free rhythm" of Walt Whitman. Rhythm is the "quicken-
ing spirit" of poetry. It is rhythm that brings together and galvanizes the
disjecta membra of thoughts and feelings. That spiritual essence very
often eludes observation, hidden from us within the intellectual skeleton
and the rhetorical flesh of poetry. It is the great achievement of an
artist like Swinburne that he reveals the true nature of rhythm its vitaliz-
ing force by creating rhythmical life that is almost independent of any
intellectual body: "white rose of the rose white water." There is then
a resemblance between Tagore and Peguy in the most vital and spiritual
part of all manifest poetry rhythm. That likeness might lead one to
conjecture that, at heart, they serve a common purpose.

The prominence of Tagore and Peguy, at this time, does not seem merely
casual. A glance backward over history shows that very often men who
thought they worked against each other have been used toward one end.
Loyola and Luther are an illustration. They were two buttresses thrown
out on opposite sides of the mediaeval structure in order, by thrust and
counter-thrust, to hold up the cracking walls and crumbling roof of the
Gothic edifice. Men in their blind partisanship would have wrecked the
cathedral, Protestants by building two Luther props, Catholics, two
Loyolas. God, in true catholicity, set his little minions "head on," and
thus accomplished an end necessary for civilization and salvation. Tagore

* Monsieur Peguy was killed in September at the Marne. When urged, as a literary man,
not to join his regiment, he replied: "What I am about to do is worth thirty years of
writing."

THE POETRY OF CHARLES PEGUY 205

and Peguy appear working toward such a common end, one from the
East, with universal principles and laws, the other from the West, with
a concrete example of embodied principle. Both strike smashing blows
upon the decrepit materialism that twenty years ago entered upon its
childhood of senility.

Tagore throws a stream of light upon much that is obscure, at first,
in Peguy. Peguy and the group of which he is the focus are known as
anti-intellectuals. That epithet perplexes us, for we think of the intel-
lectual realm as ultima Thule. We would say that men who are anti-
intellectual must be crude barbarians. Yet we remember that one member
of the group, Rolland, is perhaps the most acute of modern critics, and
is a man erudite as well as cultured. Peguy and Delahache are decores
of the French Academy. We know the Academy does not award its
prix to barbarians. Evidently, then, anti-intellectual cannot mean unintel-
lectual.

The truth about Peguy, Rolland, Claudel and the whole group will
be more evident if we will consider them on the positive and constructive
side, rather than on the neutral or negative side implied by "anti-intel-
lectual." Antagonism to what passes for intellectual methods and forces
is, with them, a result. It is not their motive. The force that impels
them to action, for which they are fighting with crusading virility, is the
soul. Like Bergson they recognise the limitations of the intellect by the
use of the intellect itself. They deny the popular affirmation that intellect
is ne plus ultra. They declare that the intellect stands at the very begin-
ning almost of the evolutionary way instead of at the end. They recognize
intuition as a faculty of man's higher states. They call those higher states
of consciousness inner and spiritual. But by spiritual they do not mean
as is so often meant something vague. They mean a condition or realm
of things quite definite, quite concrete, quite substantial, quite tangible
indeed they mean a condition that for the first time in the evolutionary
process has the quality of permanent reality.

Shelley will help us to understand the attitude of Peguy and Rolland
toward the mind and toward the heart or soul. We must understand that
attitude because it is fundamental to their convictions. The closing
stanzas of the "Adonais" are household mottoes.

That Light whose smile kindles the universe,
That Beauty in which all things work and move.

But Shelley, like all other poets, often dazzles by his splendor, inducing
intoxication by his beauty ; we lose ourselves in a bewildering ecstasy and
fail to reach the poet's heart. In those celebrated closing stanzas Shelley
paints a vivid experience of Life. He sees Life divided into two parts by
a "web" that is "blindly wove by man and beast and earth." On one side
the web are the divine immortal Powers, Light, Love, Beauty; on the
other side humanity and its creatures, shut off from immortality some
burning for Light and striving to reach it, others quite indifferent.

206 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Further, Shelley declares that for him the web was worn transparent so
that through its inmost veil he caught sight of the Immortal Radiances,
and saw with them, sharing their splendor and immortality, the star-like
soul of Adonais. Shelley was not putting words together to beguile
tedium. He was narrating an experience an inner experience of his real
self, his soul an experience as vivid, definite, clear, and memorable as
one's first mountain sunrise.

If we will translate Shelley's record of his spiritual experience into
plain prose there may be less chance of losing ourselves in bedazzlement.
In the cruder imagery of prose, those ecstatic stanzas of the Adonais
mean something like this. Life is a vast and spacious hall, stately
columned, lofty domed. Its windows open upon lovely terraces. Man is
the lord of that noble hall. But across the inner wall of that pleasure-
palace man has drawn and fastened a heavy curtain. Instead of moving
about in garden and hall, as master and lord, man has made of himself
a prisoner shut out from light and life. He crawls over the surface of
the wall flattened to a two-dimensional being like a worm or insect.
His higher faculties are unused. "The sweet approach of even or morn,
or sight of vernal bloom, or summer rose, or flocks, or herds, or human
face divine" all these have no meaning for him. His is a vermin-like
existence in the gloom of the curtained wall.

Most of the poets know the misery of that prison life. The limita-
tions of time and space, stone walls of our mental life, are the dungeon
from which poets and artists long to escape. Tagore is but one of a
host when he cries :

Light, oh where is the light?

Misery knocks at thy door, and her message is that thy lord is
wakeful, and he calls thee to the love-tryst through the darkness
of night.

The sky is overcast with clouds and the rain is ceaseless. I
know not what this is that stirs in me, I know not its meaning.

A moment's flash of lightning drags down a deeper gloom on
my sight, and my heart gropes for the path to where the music of
night calls me.

Light, oh where is the light ! Kindle it with the burning fire of
desire ! It thunders and the wind rushes screaming through the void.
The night is black as a black stone. Let not the hours pass by in

the dark. Kindle the lamp of love with thy life.

Philosophers also (and saints) have vivid experience of those
dungeon walls. Bergson, who has so deeply influenced Peguy, uses a
figure almost exactly like Shelley's and Tagore's. He writes that between
nature and ourselves, nay, between ourselves and our own consciousness
there intervenes a veil. That veil is dense and impenetrable to the average

THE POETRY OF CHARLES PEGUY 207

man. But to poets and artists it becomes thin and transparent so that
they see the light shining on the other side.

The curtain or veil that so imprisons poet and saint, is woven by the
mind. The word mind, as thus conceived, is very comprehensive in its
meaning. It includes much more than the "freezing reason" much more
than mental processes usually associated with the acquisition of knowledge
and culture. Thus it includes ambitions of all kinds, emotions (which
usually are placed in contrast with the mind as proceeding from the heart),
it includes passions, lustful and refined. As thus understood, it is mind
that dominates all the activities of worldly or earthly life whether those
activities be tangible or intangible. The moment the mind ceases to domi-
nate and submits to the higher authority of the heart or soul, the passage
has been made from earth to heaven. For when the motives that impel
to action in any part of life whether in the family, in art, in government,
or in religion itself issue from the heart instead of the mind, man has
passed from under the veil. He is no longer the prisoner of time and
space. Through an act that proceeds from the heart In the family, in
science, in art, or in business, he conies to experience the larger life of
the real world; he shares its infinity and its immortality.

It may be that at this point Tagore could remove thick clouds of
misunderstanding from over our heads. In fact Tagore seems to suggest
that by Nirvana the East means not annihilation of life but annihilation
of the prison wall. The East strives to escape, often perhaps uncon-
sciously, not from life but into Life to reach the real life of the spiritual
world, by breaking down the mental web which imposes time, space, and
all other limitations upon our finite mental faculties.

A distinctive thing in Peguy is that he expresses in familiar terms of
Christian phraseology the truths which have been left abstract, general
and cosmic by many other poets and philosophers. With his constant use
of Christian terms, one must, however, remember that Peguy is a poet,
not a theologian. His religious views are largely inferential. He makes
no schematic statements of dogma old or new.

It will be easy to grasp Peguy's views from a brief statement of them,
if we recall a certain practice of St. Paul's. I mean the so-called "alle-
gorical" method of interpreting Scripture. This is said to have been intro-
duced among the Jews by Philo, the great Alexandrian scholar. It was
used, after St. Paul, by many of the Fathers, notably by Jerome, later by
the great French Abbots of St. Victor and by Dante. The "allegorical"
method is simply a method of getting two or more harmonious meanings
out of the same passage one the historical or outer fact, the other the
spiritual or inner fact. Thus St. Paul regards Hagar as a definite his-
torical person and as a symbol of the geographical Jerusalem. Sarah is a
type of Jerusalem the golden the new city. Elsewhere, St. Paul seems
to interpret the "first Adam and the second Adam" as two states of con-
sciousness in man one an earthly, finite, mortal thing, the second, the
spiritual Master of infinite life. Similarly, to Peguy Eve would seem to

208 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

be a type of the Mind. She is primordial Mind. It is she (for she is
eternal and works in each of her children) who weaves that dense veil
which divides the Temple of Life into two parts Heaven and La Foire
sur la Place.

In the fifth volume of the Jean-Christophe series, Rolland has pictured
life as he and Peguy see it, life under the veil of mind. La Foire sur la
Place is the obsolete word, Hell, made current once more. It is a vivid
and startling picture of worldly life. For as Peguy and Rolland see life
in La Foire, it bears the same relation to real life, as a cellar blossom does
to a garden flower. It is pallid, scentless. An unfortunate hyacinth bulb
that gets imprisoned under a flat stone will find enough moisture and light
there to come to a hideous travesty of bloom. No one who had ever seen
a hyacinth in a garden border could look at the blighted flower without
a shudder. Our ordinary life in the world appears just such blight to this
group of French literati. It is life deprived of light a grave-yard activ-
ity, the dead moon of the mind unsunned by the soul.

The Incarnation would seem to such a view the Advent of True Light
into the prison of darkness and pallor of death. It was the Spiritual
Principle, the Creative Logos by which the whole universe had been
unfolded, coming to regain a portion of His realm that had separated itself
from Him; coming, in other words, to redeem humanity. It was an
Advent not as an inapprehensible Principle (principium) , but as Being
clothed upon with a form perceptible to the human mind. It was the
Spiritual Intelligence of the higher realms of consciousness subjecting
itself to the limitations of matter and finite law. The Logos, as Christ,
lived and acted in the realm of three dimensional matter, yet, by reason
of His spiritual being, manifested at will His native superiority to three
dimensional limitations and laws. His miracles exhibited the normal law
of the higher world they were simply triumphs over the prison limita-
tions that the lower mental processes have imposed upon man. And
Christ's life culminated in one supreme miracle that forever gave the
lie to all conclusions reached by the intellect. His apparent defeat (death),
as seen by men's mind, was the moment of true victory the regaining of
His true spiritual condition uncumbered by limitations. At that moment
of death and victory the veil that divides the Temple of Life was rent
in twain and captive humanity was set free the prison wall of partition
was broken down, and the exile, man, was restored to his home, the
wandering prodigal to his Father. It was thus that Christ brought sight
(spiritual) to the blind; freedom to those languishing in captivity. By
reuniting earth and heaven, by making God and man at one, He made a
true Atonement.

Peguy, and with him his friends, did not in a moment come into these
intense convictions which represent fundamental religious truths. A
long and hard struggle preceded. That struggle is symbolically presented
in Rolland's novel Jean-Christophe, especially in the three volumes La
Foire sur la Place, Le Buisson Ardent and La Nouvelle Journee. Like

THE POETRY OF CHARLES PEGUY 209

Christophe, Peguy comes from the people. He was born in Orleans in
1873, of peasant stock, sturdy, both morally and physically. But his child-
hood was as happy as Christophe's was unhappy. From his peasant
grandmother, an illiterate, clever, upright and devout woman, he learned
the legends and traditions of the golden past of France. After that ideal
childhood there came a period of education that drew heavy clouds over
the sunlight. School, college, university, the world seemed to change his
golden inheritance into dull lead. Intellectual training made his religious
beliefs look absurd. The consequence is that Peguy, like Carlyle, Words-
worth, Emerson and so many others, regards with disapproval and un-
friendliness contemporary systems of education. He writes in one place :

Allez, mes en f ants, allez a 1'ecole

Et vous, hommes, allez a 1'ecole de la vie

Allez apprendre

A desapprendre.

At 1'Ecole Normale Peguy became a devoted admirer and follower of
Bergson and began his friendship with Rolland. The Dreyfus affaire
brought to a focus his immense enthusiasm and energy. He was a fervent
pro-Drey fus&rd. The affaire filled him with indignation. He felt that
France must be given a thorough house-cleaning. His magnetic fervour
drew friends. They went to work with the wrecking apparatus of
socialism. Peguy undertook the management of a fortnightly review Les
Cahiers de la Quinzaine (1900), a journalistic free lance that might be
used in defense and offence of any beleaguered post. They worked stren-
uously as civic and social reformers. Then the character of Les Cahiers
began to change. From humanitarian and reformistic it became humane
and literary. In 1904 Peguy published in Les Cahiers the first installment
of the now celebrated Jean-Christophe. That change in the nature of
Les Cahiers indicated a deeper change that had taken place in Peguy
himself. Years of reforming frenzy taught him the futility of efforts to
re-arrange outward things. He learned that out of the heart are the
issues of life. He caught a glimpse of the interior world that lay just
beyond the portal of his own heart. He entered that spiritual realm of
the heart's desire, and found himself once more in the fairy land of his
childhood the golden world of Reality,

The world's sweet inn from pain and wearisome turmoil.

Peguy's work as poet dates from the end of his storm and stress
period. Several volumes of prose mark the transition from his pamphle-
teering career. In 1910, he drew upon the legends and traditions of old
France given him in childhood and published the first volume of his
Mysteres de Jeanne d'Arc. Two other volumes of the Mysteres have
followed. This work is constructed upon the same architectural propor-
tions as Jean-Christophe. The poet's aim is to create an atmosphere of

210 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

the inner life. As that inner world of the spirit is one in which time and
space, as we know them, do not exist, the poet does not in his writing
regard those negligible temporalities. The three volumes of Les
Mysteres record a conversation of Jeanne d'Arc at the age of thirteen and
a half. There is no plot, there are no incidents. The child knits in the
field as her sheep pasture. Sometimes she stops her knitting and there are
long pauses of silence. It sounds altogether impossible and dull. But
Peguy's inspiration makes it enthralling. The three volumes overflow
with loveliness, with charm, with gaminerie, with a gaiety of humor that
is startling.

Every true poet's work is distinctive, and inexpressible in terms of
other poetic artists. Yet, to convey the impression of what Peguy writes
about children, I would say it is Wordsworth gilded with Angelico. I
mean the true Wordsworth who wrote :

The children are culling

On every side.

In a thousand valleys far and wide,

Fresh flowers while the sun shines warm,

And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm.

Gild those valleys with the ethereal gold of Angelico, add his priestly
vestments and martyrs' wreaths, and you have Peguy.

The voice of a child is fresher than the breath of the wind in a silent

valley,

Some far off sheltered valley.

And the eyes of a child are more profound than the deep of Heaven's blue ;
Milder than the milky way ;
Gentler than the light of midnight stars.

(Les Saints Innocents.)

The most distinctive quality of Peguy's verse is his humor. It is gay ;
often ironic. It will shock heavy temperaments, because Peguy makes
it appear as a characteristic of God Himself. God does a large part of
the talking in Les Mysteres. He says many things. But whatever He
says, He says with humor, laughter and irony. This humor is a very
original trait in Peguy. Yet it is not as unfathered as it may at first seem
not altogether unprepared for in the older literary achievements of
France of which Peguy is so proud and from which he would dislike to
swerve. The root of this divine humor is to be found in Moliere.

In all of Moliere's great comedies there is one silent actor. This
silent actor is an ideal spectator Aristotle's magnanimous man a per-
fectly rounded, symmetrical character in whom are harmonised and
resolved all the discords and eccentricities of the comic personages.
With insinuating courtesy Moliere suggests that this ideal spectator is

THE POETRY OF CHARLES PEGUY 211

not far off from each reader. And it is each reader's identification of
himself with this flawless spectator that gives to Le Misanthrope and
Le Tartufe their immense power. Those comedies succor many people
for whom the bottom of the universe has dropped out. Moliere is the
acme of worldly comedy. Peguy writes divine comedy. With Peguy,
the ideal spectator is God. God in his impartiality and perfection resolves
and harmonises all the errors, vagaries and sins of his comic creature, man.

Je connais bien I'homme. C'est moi qui 1'ai fait. C'est un drole

d'etre

Moi je ne suis pas si exigeant.
Parce que je sais ce que c'est que la perfection, je ne leur en demande

pas tant.

I have said there is no plot, no aim in Les Mysteres. Perhaps I may
contradict myself now, and say that one end is the training of Jeanne for
her high place in Heaven. God foresees her latent possibility and under-
takes to mould her so that when she reaches Heaven she may not bore
Him as so many other saints have done. It does not sound polite, but
Peguy must be granted a certain poetic license in more ways than one,
even, as in his use of the Holy Innocents, to the point of startling us by
what may seem irreverent. To mould Jeanne God holds up for her
emulation the Holy Innocents, the babes slaughtered at Bethlehem by
Herod. Those babes are God's favorite saints. They died before they
learned the Psalms ; hence in Heaven they cannot sing them. Peguy, to
make his point, does not hesitate to use the rather startling words : they
died before baptism, hence they have no onerous obligations against the
world and the devil. And they know nothing about mortifying the flesh.
They find themselves in Heaven with martyrs' crowns and palms. They
understand the significance of neither. But the crowns are uncomfortable
bonnets, and the children naively take them off. Then as they wonder-
ingly handle the crowns they discover that the palm branches make very
good hoop-sticks. So with a peal of infantile laughter the babes toddle
off, "one hundred and forty and four thousand" two-year olds chasing
their hoops through the gardens of Heaven.

The pastures of the blessed are decked in glorious sheen. That is
pure gantinerie.

Peguy is a great poet. But it is doubtful whether he will ever be
as widely read and as popular as Romain Rolland. He has as many
peculiarities of style as Whitman, whom in some respects he resembles.
He writes Whitman's kilometric stanzas. He leaves both Whitman and
Swinburne panting at the third mile. He goes on for fifty. Yet he is
an immense power and he marks a great advance upon Rolland. Rolland
symbolised the struggles and victory of Peguy and his adherents their
journey from darkness to light, the victory of their fiery genius. To
Peguy the victory is more than individual achievement. It symbolises

212 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

national victory. The creative energy of old France came to it from the
spiritual world. The energy of faith and hope dwindled as intellect and
reason usurped the place of the soul. But that creative power is a
spiritual force. It cannot die. St. Genevieve and Jeanne d'Arc still
summon France to battle, and will lead to glory. Faith is the source of
Peguy's patriotism. It makes his enthusiasm for France something more
than fanfare. He believes profoundly that France is the chosen nation
chosen not for self-aggrandizement and worldly prosperity, but for ser-
vice. So with his delightful combination of gamin and devot he makes
God say of the French :

Us n'ont pas besoin qu'on leur explique vingt fois la meme chose.

Avant qu'on ait fini de parler, ils sont partis.

Peuple intelligent,

Avant qu'on ait fini de parler, ils ont compris.

Peuple laborieux,

Avant qu'on ait fini de parler, 1'ceuvre est faite.

Peuple militaire,

Avant qu'on ait fini de parler, la bataille est donnee.

Peguy is convinced that France is, in some special way, needful to
God for the completion of the work of the Incarnation.

Qu'est- que je serais sans mes vielles paroisses Franchises (God

asks).
Qu'est-ce que je deviendrais?

That conviction is the inspiration and theme of all his poetry. His
subjects of predilection are St. Genevieve and Jeanne d'Arc. It is not the
picturesque and dramatic that he sees in their lives. He sees them
cooperating with the divine plan, preserving for God the instrument He
has chosen for accomplishing His own designs. There is in Peguy an
expectation something like that of the Old Testament Jews. He looks to
see God Himself on the throne of France.

Je suis bon Frangais, dit Dieu, droit comme un Frangais
Loyal comme un Frangais.
Je suis le roi de France.

Peguy is not romancing when he writes such startling beliefs. He
has authentic facts of history to support his views. He must be familiar
with the documents that record the words and achievements of Jeanne
d'Arc. At her first interview with Charles at Chinon, Jeanne told him
that if he would accept her services, he would be crowned at Rheims and
so would become "the lieutenant of the King of Heaven, who is King of
France." Doubtless Peguy learned in childhood that old legend which
the Blessed Marguerite Marie is said to have repeated when she was

THE POETRY OF CHARLES PEGUY 213

urging that Louis XIV should emblazon upon the banner of France the
symbol of the Sacred Heart I mean the legend of Clovis and his presen-
tation of France to Christ for his earthly kingdom. Peguy is convinced
that Christ accepted the gift.

Nos Frangais sont comme tout le monde, dit Dieu. Peu de saints,

beaucoup de pecheurs.
Un saint, trois pecheurs. Et trente pecheurs. Et trois cents pecheurs.

Et plus.
Mais j'aime mieux un saint qui a des defauts qu'un pecheur qui n'en

a pas. Non, je veux dire:

J'aime mieux un saint qui a des defauts qu'un neutre qui n'en a pas.
Je suis aini. Un homme avait deux fils.

Or ces Frangais, comme ils sont, ce sont mes meilleurs serviteurs.
Us ont ete, ils seront tou jours mes meilleurs soldats dans la croisade.
Or il y aura tou jours la croisade.
Enfin ils me plaisent. C'est tout dire.

Christ's acceptance of the valorous old king's gift means glory and
victory for France. Christ, the Royal Conqueror, will bring true the old
mediaeval aspiration dreamed by Charlemagne and others, of a world-
empire. And when the Priest-King carries forward his Easter banner a
step further into the darkness, His loyal aides also will bring their tasks
nearer completion. St. Genevieve and Jeanne d'Arc, living servitors of
His purpose, will share His triumph.

Comme elle avait garde les moutons a Nanterre,
On la mit a garder un bien autre troupeau,
La plus enorme horde ou le loup et 1'agneau
Aient jamais confondu leur commune misere.

Et comme elle veillait tous les soirs solitaire
Dans la cour de la ferme ou sur le bord de 1'eau,
Du pied du meme saule et du meme bouleau
Elle veille aujourd'hui sur ce monstre de pierre.

Et quand le soir viendra qui fermera le jour,
C'est elle la caduque et 1'antique bergere,
Qui ramassant Paris et tout son alentour
Conduira d'un pas ferme et d'une main legere
Pour la derniere fois dans la derniere cour
Le troupeau le plus vaste a la droite du pere.

CLARENCE C. CLARK.

LETTERS TO FRIENDS

XII
DEAR FRIEND:

IT is not surprising that you should have failed to understand
my last letter or that you should have thought it self-contra-
dictory. A truth can really be known only by living it, and

when we attempt to apprehend it with our minds, in advance
of experience, it must always appear as a paradox. The single beam
of white light is refracted by the prism into all the colours of the
spectrum, and we see and must describe them as different one from
another. Yet each is light and is comprehended in the single unre-
fracted ray. It is within the prism itself that we find the reconcilia-
tion of this unity and diversity; and it is in the experience of our
own hearts as we turn them to the Master that the paradoxes of life
are resolved.

In the spread spectrum of glowing colours, stretching far on every
side, we have an image of material life. Looking only upon it, the
concept of its unity in the white light of the spirit seems vague and
abstract. There are so many things to be desired and their variety
is so great. We desire them all. (And in this desire, if we could
but realize it, is a true witness to their oneness.) But we find that
to take one we must turn away from others, so that every gain means
a loss as well; and from this comes a divided will and vacillation of
purpose and the constant sense of an unsatisfied hunger and of hav-
ing missed the greater good. We find, too, though here perhaps I
am straining my illustration, that when we turn to any special colour
and try to make it our own, it pales and grows dim, as though a
shadow had been cast upon it which gradually grew more and more
dense and obscuring. It is we ourselves who cast this shadow, and
it must always fall on what we look upon so long as we turn our
backs to the source of light. It is the tragedy of ordinary life that
the shadow falls most darkly on what we draw closest to, so that to
possess is to lose, and to lose the very possession for which all else
was sacrificed.

There is but one escape from this. It lies in the volte-face that
constitutes discipleship. We turn around, and no longer regard the
wide mirror where the spectrum is spread, but gaze into the prism
from whence it radiates. There lie all the colours, in the undimmed
splendour of their beauty. There, as we draw near one, we draw
near all. The old conflict of desires, divided purpose and vacillation
of will, cease to have cause or meaning. Gain no longer involves

LETTERS TO FRIENDS 215

loss, and the shadow of self no longer falls upon our pathway, or
darkens and obliterates the good we crave. We face the light and
possess it, knowing that it will but grow brighter as we move toward
it, and that, in the prism itself, in the ultimate goal of our striving,
we shall possess by being, by ourselves becoming one with the
refracting medium that contains within itself and makes manifest
the effulgent glory of the pure white ray of spirit that falls upon it.
This ultimate goal is the union of the disciple with his Master. In
it is the only possibility of a possession that does not defeat itself,
the only fulfilment of the ceaseless craving of our hearts.

The life of discipleship does not have its beginnings in indiffer-
ence to the appeals of material life, but in intensity of desire for the
realities they reflect. Quite simply and literally it is only the man
who is incapable of real desire who is incapable of discipleship, and
I will go even further than this and say that, at the outset, it is of
comparatively small importance what it is that he desires, provided
only he desires it with all the power of his being. It is only he who
is neither hot nor cold who is spewed out of the mouth of life ; and,
as I know that neither you nor I can believe in the ultimate inde-
pendent existence of evil, we must both believe that behind or within
all that a man can desire lies some element of good which alone
enables it to be. The small and vacillating desire may never pene-
trate to this good ; remaining in the evil that is its distorted reflection.
But the great desire will never rest content until it has cleaved its
way to the heart of what it craves. Even through evil, and through
the suffering and long purgatory that evil entails, he who desires
greatly will be led at last to live greatly and to turn to the Master
in whom and through whom the reality of that desire can alone find
its fulfilment. Whether you desire wealth or power, beauty or love,
you cannot grasp it in the mirror where now you see its image; and
as, life after life, you try and fail, you will in time be forced to realize
the truth. Then you will turn around, and facing the reality, will
find yourself facing your own Master and entering upon the dis-
ciple's path.

1 do not know whether what I have written here will be any
clearer than what seemed to you so confusing in my last letter. I
had told you that your barrier was a misunderstood and divided
allegiance, and that only you could determine to what you wished to
give your whole and complete allegiance. That, you say, was entirely
intelligible, but that I went on, not to show you how to make your
allegiance single, but apparently to prove that, being what you are,
it must always be divided. You do me the justice to believe that
this was not my intention, and you ask me to tell you more plainly
where the reconciliation lies.

It lies in the paradox we have been discussing; in the volte-face
which must be made at the very beginning of the Way, and which

216 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

is the theme of both Light on the Path and Through the Gates of Gold.
You have read both these books, and I know how much you feel you
owe them. But you have not understood the primary lesson that
they teach, nor will you understand it until you experience it in
your own life. I can, at best, only hope to show you the direction
in which that experience must be sought, and to restate its meaning
in cruder and more concrete terms.

First, let me be quite explicit as to what I meant when I said
your allegiance was divided. Religion and discipleship are still to
you but parts of life. You want them. But so also do you want love
and health and a good name among your fellow men. You will tell
me that discipleship means more to you than these. Perhaps. But
it does not yet mean all. And the reason is that you are still gazing
at the reflections of reality, not at that reality itself. This is as true
of your view of religion as it is of your view of human love. You
are seeing them as separate colours in the spectrum of the outer life,
and are trying to possess them there, where they are separate. This
means three things. First, that you are still dazzled by the glamour
of external life and have confused the appearance with the reality.
For this reason I said that you had misunderstood your own alle-
giance. Second, it means that your allegiance is divided, for you
want not one thing, but many, and seek to follow diverging paths.
You may answer that between love and religion there is no conflict,
but that each needs and renews the other. Of their realities this is
true as I shall try to make wholly clear. But it is not true of the
desire to possess their reflections in the external .world. Bitterness
toward God is in conflict with religion ; and when I asked you to
consider how bitterly you would resent the loss of what you value,
the suffering and death of those you love, or even the loss of your
own good name, I was suggesting an experiment that I hoped might
show you what seeds of bitterness, what potentialities of rebellion
against all religion, lay in your ununified desires and craving for
possessions. And finally, it means that could you attain to what now
seems to you discipleship, that is, could you come to possess its
reflection in external life, you would find the shadow of self growing
darker day by day upon it until all its beauty faded and you were
left in the night of two worlds.

The point of this is that discipleship cannot be found in the world
of reflections, though you may have seen and desired its image there.
Discipleship consists in fronting the real; in facing the light which
all images reflect and from which all colours radiate. This light is
the Masters' light. The disciple's desire is the synthesis of all
desires. His love for his Master contains his love for all others for
wife, or brother, or friend. So long as your desire for discipleship
and love of your own Master have not this all inclusive quality, so
long, in other words, as they are but one love and desire among

LETTERS TO FRIENDS 217

many, they are not the disciple's desire, and you have not experienced
that complete reversal of your attitude toward life which constitutes
discipleship.

This is what I tried to make clear in my last letter. I told you
that you had not the disciple's desire, and that no one else could
give it to you ; but that you could gain it if you would. You ask me
how. The answer is by turning from appearances to reality, by
reversing the polarity of your life. Again you will ask me how to do
this. There is but one way I know. Turn to your own Master.
Seek him day by day and hour by hour, in meditation, in prayer, in
service, in your duties and your pleasures, in all things great or
small. Seek him and love him, and commune with him. Draw your
inspiration from him, and the strength to fulfil that inspiration. Love
with his love. Desire with his desire. Live with his life. And
if still again you ask me how you are to do this, while your will and
desires are still divided and the disciple's volte-face has not been
made, my reply will be two-fold. First, use such desire and love
as you have for your Master. They will grow by use. And second,
seek that understanding of life which will make clear that only in
and through him can you gain the reality of your other desires, or
permanently possess that which you crave. As you do this you will
be led to concentrate and transmute the now scattered forces of self-
interest, and instead of their being enemies with which you must
contend, you will find them allies in your undertaking and urging
you on to your goal. Not all at once, but little by little and desire
by desire, you will make the turning from the illusory to the real;
from the shadow of self to the light of the Master.

I do not know how far I can help you to gain such an under-
standing. For it to be effective it must be immediate and personal,
not merely theoretical and abstract. It must be your own inner
conviction before you will act upon it; and it must have been given
very direct and definite application to your own strongest desires
before there will be any real result in the unification of your will.
Therefore, if I am to write of this at all, I must write of what is most
intimate and closest to your heart. With you, as I think with all
men, this is your human love.

Let us abandon our image of the light and its many coloured
reflections. It has served its turn, even if it has not been asked to
carry more than it ought properly to bear. Let us, for the moment,
not even try to distinguish between what is true and false in our
love, but think only of that love itself and of the preciousness of the
bond in which it holds us. Let us try to conceive how it will be with
us and with our love when we come to die.

Other things we would be willing to leave behind us. It would
cost us no pang to know that wealth and fame and the enjoyments
of the flesh and many another earthly good that we have sought and

218 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

treasured, must now be laid down. But love we would wish to keep.
Without it, eternal life would be eternal emptiness. And it is not
another love we wish, but this which is our own, for these, for wife
or child or friend, to whom it binds us. What surety would we
have that in death this, too, was not to pass away?

We can answer this question only as we know whence our love
came and from what it draws its life. "That which is born of the
flesh is flesh ; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." If our
love today is of the flesh, it will perish with the flesh. If it is to live
with the spirit it must be reborn from the Spirit. Do not think that
I am writing figuratively, and am saying only that our love must be
purified and freed from evil and from self. Assume that no breath
of evil has ever touched it, still I mean quite simply and literally
that our love can live only as it is born and nourished by the Spirit,
or, in other words, as it is given us by the Master and draws its
life from him. Reread that wonderful colloquy between Jesus and
Nicodemus, the master of Israel who knew not these things. What
Christ there says of man is true of all of life. It is true of love, of
consciousness, of all things whatsoever from the greatest to the least.
"No man hath ascended up to heaven but he that came down from
heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven."

All that we have or are comes to us from the Divine, through
that descending hierarchy of divine life which some of us call the
Lodge and others the heavenly host. From the one who stands at
the head of our own ray we draw our life. Our consciousness, our
love, our power of enjoyment, or of service, are his gift to us, part
of himself, as the life of the branch is the life of the vine. And
because he is in heaven, in the world of the real and not of shadows,
this life and consciousness and love of ours, born from him and
descending from heaven, can again ascend there, and, in reality,
always is in heaven though with us it is far from it. This is our
surety that our love will live. It will live, not because it is ours,
but because it is the Master's; not as it has been cramped, misunder-
stood, and distorted in our own hearts, but in the fullness of sym-
metry that it possesses in his; and we shall recognize it as our own
in the measure of the likeness that now exists between its life in us
and its life in him. When we come to die there will be no question
of such moment to our love as that of how close this likeness has
been made. Does it not behoove us, therefore, for our love's sake
if for no other, to learn to turn our eyes to the Master, that we may
see the reality and the perfection of our love as it lies in his heart
and in his will for us, and be no more confused and misled by the
cross lights and passing shadows of appearances and of our own self-
will?

Let us remember, also, that if love is born of the Spirit, it must
be nourished by the Spirit and obey the laws of the spiritual life. If

LETTERS TO FRIENDS 219

it is to continue to live it must grow and bear fruit. Consider how
constantly all spiritual teaching emphasizes this truth. There is
the parable of the Talents. Are we, too, to bury our gift in self? If
we do we shall lose it. Or again there are the parables of the barren
fig tree, and the withered branches of the vine. We cannot keep a
love that bears no fruit; and no branch can bear fruit of itself, but
only as it abides in the vine. Surely all this teaching is clear. Our
love can endure only as it grows; and it can grow only as it is
renewed from its source in the Master. If we understand this, our
human love itself will make us seek the Master and strive day by
day to draw more and more from him; day by day to take to him
the fruits of our love; and to acknowledge that only in and through
him have we life or love at all.

I do not want to multiply illustrations if my point is already
clearly understood. But so few seem to realize that human love in
and of itself is very far from being immortal or infinite. It is such
only as it is eternally renewed from its source in the immortal and
infinite love of the Divine. Cut off from that source, it is like water
in a cistern, its amount measured by the capacity of that which con-
tains it. And our hearts are not infinite, but pitiably small. There-
fore it is that so many men exhaust their love by use, drawing on
their own hearts till they are wholly empty and they have no more
to give. It is pitiable when this happens, as it does more often than
most suppose, with men and women whose only thought was to be
true to their love and to give in obedience to its demand. They have
not understood, even as you have not understood, that love cannot
live of itself nor be nourished only from the human heart. It must
draw its life from the heart of the Divine. If we are to continue to
draw water from a cistern we must see to it that the springs which
feed that cistern are kept clear.

I have written a long letter. And I do not know whether you
will understand it. But I hope that as you yourself reflect upon the
great questions with which it deals their meaning in your own life
will grow clearer to you, and that you will see the turning which
will set your face toward your goal.

Believe me, as always,

Faithfully yours,

JOHN GERARD.

SOME ASPECTS OF THE
KINGDOM

THE Kingdom of God has now as few understanding adherents
amongst all the Christian nations as it had amongst the
Hebrew peoples nineteen hundred years ago. And this
generation has lost one belief which those ancient Hebrews
held and held with all the strength of a conviction, that the great
flux or stream of events aimed towards a definite goal and was guided
by a purposeful God. It was this belief, coupled with a great tenacity
and an indomitable national patriotism, that gave the Master Jesus
a mould into which he could pour his new teaching of an imperishable
kingdom, and put before the world a goal universal in its inclusiveness.

Many of us pray daily the Lord's Prayer, many of us desire and
work for the coming of his kingdom; most of us seem to have but
a vague if not fantastic and unreal idea of what the kingdom is.
This in part arises from the fact that the kingly ideal and the prin-
ciples upon which kingdoms are founded have largely disappeared
from our minds. In fact the whole tendency and teaching of today
is in direct opposition to such ideals. Kingdoms are no longer the
fashion, and so, without second thought, are condemned by unthink-
ing men. Limited or constitutional monarchies are the furthest con-
cession to tradition that the almost universal democratic spirit of
Western civilization will permit. In every country the idea of
growth and development has been synonymous with the increased
power and representation of the people. The aim of modern states-
men, or at least of modern politicians, has been avowedly not to rule,
but to be ruled, rather, by the majority-voice of a sovereign pro-
letariat. Only recently we find the newspapers, reflecting at least a
portion of public opinion, asserting that the present war would never
have been if the people had had their say. It is stigmatized a "King's
War"; and all predictions of the outcome assure us that imperialism
is doomed, and that monarchies will be such only in name.

Yet Christ claimed to be a King, and bade us pray "Thy Kingdom
Come."

Was he to be only a figure-head, a King in name? To be sure
he said "My kingdom is not of this world"; but this same kingdom
was to be in the world, leavening it till the whole is leavened. And
Christ also recognized an opposing kingdom over which Satan,
"prince of this world" ruled, and which is to be overthrown. Was
the Master speaking only an allegory, or are we to look for some more
direct and simple meaning? It would seem that we are to look

SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINGDOM 221

for such a meaning; at least there is much evidence of this to be
found in history, in the life of the Master whose prayer we have used
as a basis for this article, and there are in addition some hints to
be gleaned from the writings of Madame Blavatsky and other Theo-
sophic writers. For there must be some significance in this ideal
prayer, and in this body of teaching, which is not remote, but vitally
applicable to the current of our thought and experience today. This
world of ours is a real world, depending, it is true, upon the spiritual
world and not of itself permanent, but while it lasts, actual and
real. Therefore it would be a mistake to lay sole emphasis on the
purely spiritual nature of the kingdom, though an extreme such as
socialism represents, with its denial of any spiritual world, is even
more mistaken. It seems that at times, certainly, such a spiritual
emphasis has led to a picture of the heavenly kingdom which is
entirely estranged and divorced from our knowledge of this world.
These ideas belong to separate categories in men's minds, and beyond
a possible moral relation, they are thought to be in no way affiliated.
But it is in men's minds exactly that the unreality and misunder-
standing occur, because it is the fact, acknowledged now by such
a philosopher as Bergson, that the mental and psychic faculties are
incapable of at-one-ment with the worlds of matter or spirit, and are
the only unreality of existence. The seventh perfect race will not
ascend to some other planet or to some strange and far different
state of being. It will be, on the contrary, on this earth of ours
which we know and have grown to love. Nature will be the same
Nature seen through purer and clearer eyes no doubt; perhaps as
the artist sees but with the same indefinite magic of its presence
which draws all our hearts alike. The Masters are not known to
us as alien to the beauty (or even to the ugliness) of the world of
men. Instead their exquisite appreciation of its loveliness, their true
artists' joy, far surpass the comparatively feeble expressions of our
noblest poets and painters. Therefore it does not seem that we must
limit the ideal of the kingdom to a remote spiritual world, totally
unlike this creation, and entirely beyond the highest flights of fancy.
The more we do conceive of it in this way, assigning some un-
measured future time to it, so much longer, surely, will it take even
for that day to arrive.

Further than this, we believe that Christ "ascended into the
heavens," and that he and the Lodge have worked and do work
ceaselessly for the establishment of God's kingdom. But such work
cannot be limited only to inspiration through direct personal com-
munion or through churches and religions, but must also, it would
seem, avail itself of every human institution and activity. The
Author of the letters in the Occult World has suggested that the
great figures of history are but "puppets" in the hands of the Lodge ;
and if this be difficult to see in a man like Napoleon, perhaps Blessed

222 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Joan of Arc or St. Catharine of Siena bear a more convincing his-
torical witness. If every nation has its own particular genius which
gives it an individual life as unique as that of any soul, surely the
Masters are at least as much concerned with the spiritual growth of
a nation as we believe them to be with that of each soul. They
would, therefore, watch the policy of any nation, its religion, its
patriotism, its loyalty to honor, its defence of all righteousness and
justice, with a keenness of interest and a hope that men could hardly
conceive. The Masters cannot and should not be ignored in these
matters, because "he that is not for me is against me." So the
election of a President, the government of a Prince, the career and
standards of a Prime Minister, must be an affair of very real moment
to these unobtrusive and for the most part quite unseen workers for
our welfare. Therefore in looking back over the stretch of history,
we would do well to look for such signs as we may be able to detect
of the moulding of events by the spiritual powers. Perhaps we shall
find that the divine right of kings is not so outworn as present day
historians and economists would have us believe.

In the first paragraph allusion was made to the Hebrews, because
there seems to be much that we can learn today from their history.
The Hebrews held a unique place amongst the nations then existing,
and their ideal, at least, was so high as to put to shame our Christian
countries. Though only a small "artificial" sub-race, not more than
eight thousand years old according to the Secret Doctrine, their belief
that God had a purpose in history and an especial purpose for them
Which they could in part understand, prepared the way for the
greatest revelation humanity has yet received. The word artificial
quoted above suggests that perhaps special efforts were made in the
formation of this sub-race to give men an understanding of the
spiritual world. Abraham, Moses, and Solomon, adept kings accord-
ing to the Secret Doctrine, together with the long line of prophets
from the eighth to the fourth centuries B. C. would seem further to
substantiate this idea. However this may be, Israel from the dawn
of its history believed itself to be in a special sense the favorite of
God. Jehovah was their divine sovereign, and they were his subjects.
In order to know the will of their King, prophets were as much a
part of the state as lawyers or policemen today. The nation, if it
would, could wholly co-operate with God, and it was in the co-opera-
tion of man and God that the purpose was to be accomplished.

The whole scheme of a Hebrew's life and the whole tissue of his
thought, depended upon this idea. Moses gave him laws in con-
formity with God's purpose; action became good or evil as man
co-operated or failed to co-operate with this purpose.

Such was the ideal. As time went on Israel fell away from
the ideal, just as a child, grown up, too often falls away. In the
early days the nation desired other things than the spiritual gifts of

SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINGDOM 223

the promised land, and seeking a land of milk and honey, found only
disappointment and persistent evil in the world. Rising from its
disappointment, the youthful tribes united and attempted to combat
evil conditions; for many years political power and the attaining of
military prestige, thus bringing the world to the worship of Jehovah,
was the mainspring of action; and again disappointment resulted.
Finally, come to her maturity, Israel, as do mankind today, sought
to find some ritual, some course of personal devotion, some routine
that would hold her firm till the time of salvation and regeneration
should arrive. Then arose together with the Priestly Code, the
Jewish Apocalyptic literature, with its prediction and hope of a
Messiah and of a new kingdom.

But at this time also two distinct and conflicting tendencies split
the national consciousness. The nobler and more spiritual of the
two was the tendency to think of Israel as specially called to witness
for the one and only God amongst the nations of the earth, and to
work for the day when all mankind would be consciously and directly
under the divine governance. This was the early vision with a new
application and comprehensiveness ; it was held by the select minority,
and was used and built upon by John the Baptist and by Jesus. The
other tendency was to look upon Israel as the only people who were
of any account in the world, the people of God, who should domi-
nate the earth through the coercive power of a divinely appointed
King. The latter idea was mischievous in the extreme, materializ-
ing all that was good and true in the theocratic principle, and lead-
ing eventually to the downfall of the Hebrew nation under Roman
domination.

It was this desertion of the true principle of their race-life
that caused the ruin of Israel, and not the weakness or falseness of
that principle itself. Time and time again when the prophets, in
season and out of season, asserted the infidelity and treachery of
the nation, and proclaimed themselves divinely instructed as to the
policy or course of action immediately necessary to meet some crisis
with success, the heart of the people was touched, they obeyed the
call, and prosperity was invariably the result. Always this prophetic
message was religious, but with an immediate, practical application.
In no uncertain language do they assert that they are Jehovah's
mouthpieces (Jer. XV. 19), quoting his words directly (Jer. 19; Ezek.
iii. 22), endowed with his spirit and in his confidence (Am. in. XI;
Mic. iii. 8; 2 Is. XLV iii. 16; Zech. VII. 12), commissioned as his
instruments in shaping the destinies of mankind and of bringing to
pass divine operations (Hos. VI. 5; Jer. Is. VIII. I, etc.). Idolatry
more than any other sin appeared to outrage the personal ties exist-
ing between Jehovah and his people; and, accordingly, as idolatry
came into direct conflict with their firm belief in the providential
ordering of the events of human history, we find the prophets con-

224 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

trasting the love and affection of Jehovah for Israel with the dis-
loyalty of the latter to its God. Only through obedience, and finally,
only through a heartfelt repentance, could Israel avert the catas-
trophe consequent with its sins. But the nation had become too
corrupt, it had become so wilfully materialistic that obedience meant
obedience only to the letter of the law and not to the spirit; and the
Messianic kingdom, a mere earthly world-power. So the Israel of
the later prophets appeared too unworthy of regard for it to be the
mainspring of the divine dealings with it; God's voice was hushed,
the sanctuary was silent and desolate, no more prophets arose, and
the people lived in a false hope. Few, indeed, were able to appre-
ciate the Master Jesus when finally he came.

We have entered thus with some detail into the religious signifi-
cance of the history of the Hebrews because the record of their life
both external and internal is so familiar through our knowledge of
the Bible ; whereas those kingdoms of still more ancient times, which
had a similar or even higher ideal, and which are spoken of in the
Secret Doctrine or other Theosophic books telling about Atlantis,
Ancient Egypt, or pre-historic Greece, are either totally unknown,
or wrapped in a dense fog of misinterpretation and prejudice. And
yet the lesson from this chapter of human experience, the inference to
be drawn from it, is disregarded or set at naught. The theocratic ideal
has practically disappeared from the world ever since ; only in France,
amongst the modern nations, have we seen the struggle after a similar
state, as when Clovis dedicated his kingdom to God, or when St.
Louis reigned as God's direct agent on earth. Today we find the poet
Peguy turning back once more to this tradition, and voicing the patri-
otic appeal for a renewed allegiance to God and to his warrior captain
St. Michael. But the world at large is deaf to this appeal ; it has ab-
sorbed too entirely the current of thought which the decadent Jews
themselves through contact with foreign countries, had found con-
genial to the materialistic spirit of their age. It is no wonder that
a kingdom built up upon principles of injustice, physical domination,
and violence, should have been repudiated; that kings who reigned
for personal aggrandizement, or for the physical welfare of their
subjects alone, should have failed to command respect. But this was
not the kingdom of God ; it was of men. And since the age was and
is material, Christ when he preached the kingdom, emphasized the
spiritual nature and essence of the real kingdom.

The proclamation of Christ did not assume any new character,
therefore ; rather it revived an obsolete ideal ; just as John the Baptist
revived in his person the peculiar type of Jewish statesman called
the prophet. In our state today the pursuit of equality produces men
of commanding will, who, as statesmen, have a "certain skill in
quarrelling by rule," and whose highest achievement is by themselves
conducting the government, to prevent citizens from tyrannizing

SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINGDOM 225

over each other. The Jewish statesman, as we have seen, repre-
sented God, reflecting not only God's wisdom or justice, but his very
majesty and royalty in the presence of his subjects. Early kings
deserved to be called, not his servants, but his Sons. So in these
circumstances the cry "The kingdom of God is at hand" could not
be mistaken ; Christ's claim to be the "Son of Man" was but prophetic
fulfilment; it meant that the theocracy was to be restored, and that
the nation was called upon to commence a new era by falling back
upon its first principles.

Christ himself lived and taught these principles, despite the fact
that he ascended no earthly throne, and failed to restore the Hebrew
nation. The Temptation in the Wilderness, amongst other things,
shows how low and material the ideal of a hero-king, such as David
or Solomon, had fallen ; and exemplifies the conflict which Christ had
to wage against an intellectually and morally corrupt civilization. It
was impossible for him to have established a veritable kingdom at
such a time, though his heart longed to do so. "O Jerusalem, Jeru-
salem, if thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the
things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from
thine eyes." We can believe, then, that Christ might have founded
an earthly kingdom after the world's model, but that he chose rather
to work for a future kingdom, when "they shall see the Son of man
coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." But
the principles of kingship he established, and established once for
all, by his life and doctrine the true principles of all true kingdoms.

Webster, among other paraphrases, defines a monarch as "one
superior to all others of the same kind." Even the perverted minds
of men today instinctively admire a king who is a king in fact, who
leads by his inherent strength and dignity, who commands respect,
who epitomizes chivalry, who inspires enthusiasm. It is unfortu-
nate that in modern life these qualities have become too asso-
ciated in our minds with actions in themselves tainted with lower
attributes. For example, to be chivalrous today where women do not
know what to expect is truly difficult; how to treat chivalrously a
woman-suffragist has not as yet been established. But this response
of the heart to the ideal is a sign that within men lies dormant a
power to realize the kingdom. It is not only to a worldly ideal of
a king to which Christ appeals ; he, as always, placed that ideal upon
the highest possible plane. What, then, are the essential qualities
of kingship, and how did Christ fulfil them ?

On the surface Christ's pretensions to kingship were absurd.
Poor, humble, finally an outcast, he declined apparently all the func-
tions proper to a king. He paid tribute to Caesar, which as a Jew
and above all as Messiah he should not have done. He refused to
assert or maintain his realm by physical force the first duty of
every king. The ancient kings of Judah had been judges, so the

226 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Jews invited him more than once to undertake the office of judge.
Christ declined the office, in one case saying that he was not com-
missioned to exercise judicial functions. These were the principal
attributes of the ancient monarchy and of every worldly monarchy.
All of these Christ declined, and yet continued to speak of himself
as a king so clearly that those about him quarrelled for places and
dignities under him. What did he mean?

First, he appealed to the forgotten view that royalty was derived
from divinity. He spoke, therefore, of the "Kingdom of God," or the
"Kingdom of the heavens." Secondly, we find him proceeding along
lines similar to ancient history in the founding of his kingdom. As
God had called Abraham and created the nation over which, though
invisible, he was to reign, so Christ proclaimed his kingdom and
called together his disciples. God said to Abraham "Get thee out
of thy kindred, and from thy country, and from thy father's house,
into a land which I shall tell thee: and I will make of thee a great
nation, . . . and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed"
(Gen. XII. 1-3). In Palestine a voice said "There is no man that hath
given up father, or mother, or house, or children, or lands, for my
sake and the gospel's, but he shall receive an hundredfold more in
this present life, and in the world to come life everlasting." The two
calls resemble each other in form ; in substance and meaning they
are strikingly parallel.

Christ, then, announced the establishment of his kingdom; his
next step was to institute its laws. Many of the kingly functions
had been taken over by the degenerate kings of Israel, and the nation
would not yield to any higher standard. Therefore Christ calmly
abdicated those functions which the worldly spirit had usurped, and
showed that he was king in fact, despite outward form. So Christ
declined to command armies, or to preside over law courts, but the
higher work of commanding men's wills he undertook to do in God's
name. This is of the essence of kingship. But men obey their King
because they have to do so; if the king inspire willing obedience so
much the better, but the compulsion is no less there because in the
background. Christ imposes no such force or restraint, but despite
this he achieves the same result. "If a man love me he will keep my
commandments," he says. That obedience, that loyalty, that recog-
nition of the royal prerogatives essential to monarchy is to spring
not from respect for a superior force, but from the overpowering
attraction of the highest and most sublime principle of the universe.
At one stroke, so to speak, Christ has raised his kingdom from the
physical world alone to the spiritual world; and therefore his king-
dom is not perishable, dependent on cyclic law, but everlasting and
universal.

But in so doing Christ did not remove his kingdom out of the
world. His laws are necessarily moral laws because mere physical

SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINGDOM 227

law perishes with the physical organization, and Christ was legislat-
ing for an imperishable kingdom. When, therefore, he declined the
office of civil judge it does not follow that he declined all judicial
function. On the contrary, Christ entered very immediately into the
worldly, everyday lives of men, and passed judgment upon them
continually, assuring forgiveness of sins, or pronouncing severe
sentences. He built up a state within the very borders of the states
of civil society, but he threw off all external authority. There were
not to be two laws one human, one divine but, as in ancient Israel,
only one, the divine. And because Christ's kingdom is founded on
true and natural principles, there is no need to enforce the command-
ments by punishments. Disobedience cuts the bond of love and
automatically excludes the member. So also, sympathy with Christ's
aim, love for him with its consequent obedience, are the only con-
ditions of membership. This kingdom could progress side by side
with every worldly institution and yet could never be overthrown
by the latter as long as one faithful subject remained. Similarly
we can see that as this kingdom spread in numbers and gained
influence throughout the world, the establishment here on earth of
Christ's kingdom as a visible reality would become possible. Christ
himself fortells this in his predictions of his second coming, and the
Apocraphal Revelations of John contain many hints. In the mean-
time we, who desire his kingdom, and are ready to die for it, as he
died for it, as all loyal subjects should be ready to do, can find, per-
haps, a very definite and real work to accomplish, in putting the
leaven of this thought of the true nature of the kingdom into the
world, supporting such efforts as that of Peguy in France, and
preparing the way for the early establishment of this kingdom not
merely in the hearts of the faithful, but externally in the world.

If the question be asked, why did Christ proclaim a kingdom
and not a republic, we answer that Christ obeyed the laws of the
universe. The hierarchical system is at the basis of universal life
in whatever form or kind of existence. As the universal heart ex-
foliates, different planes appear, and with planes we get hierarchies
both in spiritual realms and in the more physical. Those who stand
for a broadly democratic ideal, or for a brotherhood which includes
the higher for the benefit of the lower, becoming thereby no true
brotherhood, place themselves in direct opposition to this funda-
mental law, and will find this out to their cost sooner or later.

On the other hand those who can believe in and desire such a
monarchy as we have attempted to indicate, are not merely support-
ing the purest and most ideal of any existing conception of govern-
ment, but are also working in harmony with the universal purpose
and plan. We say the most ideal of existing governments because
in this kingdom alone the obedience of the subject is in no case
reluctant or mercenary, but grounded upon a genuine conviction of

228 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

the immeasurable superiority in goodness, wisdom, and power of
the ruler. Such superiority is always supposed to exist in a king,
and to constitute the ground of his authority ; but is not this in most
cases merely a fiction that deceives no one, sustained only by the
bombastic titles and hollow formalities of court etiquette? To be
sure, kings have arisen in disturbed times from a private station, and
have won scepters by merit. Therefore, many obey such a King
voluntarily, worship in their hearts his superiority, and find their
freedom in accepting his yoke. But even in these cases there are
many whose submission is reluctant and sullen, or else mercenary
and hypocritical. There is always at least a minority whose sub-
jection is secured by force.

But in Christ's monarchy, modelled upon those hierarchies which
are a very part of existence, no force is used, though all power is at
command. The obedience of his servants is absolutely unqualified ;
an obedience not in form or by act alone, but of the whole being,
from the heart, involving often a sacrifice of life. Thus from an
absolute harmony of inward desire, from a new moral sensitiveness,
can arise a kingdom of Christ on earth that will be everlasting
because founded on the presence of the Divine Spirit within the
soul. It is for us to make this Kingdom of God not merely a daring
imagination, such as Plato conceived, but so to live as Christ's actual
subjects, that, without waiting for favorable circumstances, or for
permission of kings or people, we may gradually work our ideal into
the constitution of existing states, developing it, as it were, from
within. For the Kingdom does exist; it has already long outlasted
all the states which were flourishing at the time of its foundation.
It subsists without the help of costly armaments and military pre-
scription ; and it rests on no accidental aid or physical support, but
on an inherent immortality.

Who of us choose this for our Fatherland, and Christ for our
King?

JOHN BLAKE, JR.

WAR SEEN FROM WITHIN

1 FOUND myself walking between two rows of seats, some empty,
some occupied ; but I had eyes only for the King, who sat on a raised
dais, at the end of the hall. His long and slender figure was immov-
able, his finely moulded face looked as if chiselled out of translucent
ivory. As I approached and made by obeisance he looked up and smiled
a greeting, as with a slight gesture of the hand, he indicated my place,
to his right, and a little behind him. As I seated myself I glanced at the
others present. Some were well known friends and comrades of human
existence ; others were age-long fellow disciples, known only in the inner
world. There was an indescribable difference between the denizens of
the inner world, and those who were burdened with earthly existence.
The latter had a certain dimness about them ; signs of wear and tear, of
strain, of incompleteness.

Then the Queen entered and passed between the rows to her seat
on the dais, beside the King. We rose as she passed flashing her greetings
right and left, with luminous eyes and tender smile. Beautiful, yes, and
gorgeously gowned, with a blazing star upon her forehead, and a throb-
bing, gleaming rose pulsating upon her bosom, yet one's dominant impres-
sion was of radiance and purity, not the negative purity which we earth-
bound mortals know, but an active, living quality which contains a power.
We sat for a time in silent meditation and then, suddenly, the Master
was there. Again we all rose with that deep and ardent glow of the
heart in its uprush of utter devotion, which only He calls forth ; a feeling
which can only be dimly imagined by our earth-dulled faculties. He
returned our greeting and spoke to us. I cannot give His words, for
there were no words. It would, perhaps, be more correct to say that He
communicated his ideas ; we became aware of what He wanted us to know.
I must, however, try to put it into human speech.

"I have called you together, my children, at this time of stress and
turmoil in the world, that you may know something of the forces that
are operating, something of the problems that confront us, and so under-
stand something of the remedies proposed. Look well at that which I
shall show you." And we seemed to see the whole world spread out at
our feet like a map. Clouds of unrest and discontent rose up like swirling
smoke. We saw the lurid emanation of evil thoughts and sensual living ;
we saw the sins of man, not in their material crudity, but in their inner
effect and essence, like foetid odors and poisonous gases. And then we
saw that in the tumultous rolling and spreading of this evil influence there
was design ; we saw the Dark Powers of nature guiding and directing,
and we understood that this mass of evil, generated by mankind, was a

399

230 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

living weapon which the Dark Powers used to make more evil and still
worse conditions. We saw evil used to generate evil.

Then the vision changed. We saw streams of light, of life, of color,
shooting through the murky clouds, and we knew that these were from
the good deeds of mankind; we saw the Divine Powers of nature use
these beams of light to combat the evil ; and the picture became a battle
scene, with the whole world as its theatre between the Powers of Good
and Evil, armed by the good and evil acts of man. We saw forces for
evil massed together, as a cloud forms in a summer sky, and then directed
upon a given country ; and we knew that it was designed to enforce some
movement of unrighteousness. Then the Divine Powers would collect
their available store of beneficent force, and would oppose the onrush
of the black cloud ; a ceaseless and titantic struggle.

Again the scene changed, and we traced these clouds of evil down
to their source in detail. We saw into the horrid minds of selfish and
corrupt men and women; into the hideous hearts of the sensualist and
the libertine. We saw the forces of envy and malice, of ambition, of greed,
of lust, of gluttony, in the making, and we covered the whole dreadful
gamut of human perfidy, wickedness and sin. Sick at heart we turned
with relief to the opposite pole and traced to their sources the streams
of light. We saw prayer rise like a cloud of incense ; we saw unselfishness,
courage, faith, devotion. We saw a negro mother in a wattle hut in
Africa, thrust out her hand to save her child as a heavy water jar was
about to fall upon it ; and as she forgot her mangled hand in her joy that
her baby was uninjured, we saw a bright beam of light stream heaven-
ward. We saw the power of self-sacrifice; the potent effect of labor per-
formed with cheerfulness and love. From many a lonely farm-house
rose a stream of light that compared in intensity and brilliance with the
emanation from a convent.

Again the vision changed. Time rolled back and it was the middle
of the Eighteenth Century. We looked down on Europe and saw the
forces of discontent, of envy, of lust and greed and social unrest, concen-
trate about France. The Good Powers seemed to be confining them there.
They grew denser and denser until they burst into the fury of the French
Revolution and were dissipated in the suffering and hardship which
resulted. We saw many other clouds gather and break, and we knew
what these movements represented. We saw the evil made by man, turned
back to fructify some new form of evil. We saw socialism raise its head
and gather and spread like a stream of foulness, and we saw the efforts
made to stop it. We saw the forces of scepticism and materialsm grow
strong under the carefully nutured direction of the Evil Powers. When
the clouds of blackness would become too dense, there would be an
explosion, a war, a famine, a plague, an earthquake, some happening
that would exhaust and dissipate the accumulated evil.

But through it all, we noticed that the blackness grew, until not
merely in spots, but over the whole earth there spread a thick haze that

WAR SEEN FROM WITHIN 231

threatened to stifle the streams of light which still rose from countless
millions. We saw the blackness concentrate over Germany, and through
it we could see the dauntless figure of Bismarck, who, in spite of the
light which arose from the fine things in his personal character, was yet
a focus for the play of Satanic forces. We saw the blackness gather
and break in the Austrian war, and the Franco-Prussian war. A part
of it was exhausted, and France especially was purged of much evil ; but
the darkness as a whole rolled up, and grew and grew, and spread over
all of Europe, sending out huge shoots that met and merged with the
special clouds hanging over other countries. We saw the light grow dim
and the clouds grow blacker.

Then the vision changed again, and we saw the working of the law
of reactions, and we understood that the Bright Powers, though backed
by the illimitable reservoirs of spiritual force, were yet limited in their
efforts by the reactions which followed their activity. When some par-
ticularly vicious sally of the Dark Powers had to be repelled, and there
was no earth-created light with which to oppose it, the Bright Powers
would see their own force, or draw from the universal reservoir. But
when they did, we could see liberated a corresponding amount of power
which the Dark Forces could use, so we realized that how and when and
where the Good Powers could act was a matter of gravest calculation.
They could use without reaction all power supplied them from below, but
could not use their own power without these dangerous reactions. Some
universal law tied their hands and made their task infinitely more difficult,
and then we knew that it was the law of free-will that could not be
contravened. Humanity was what it wanted to be and what it had made
itself by its own evil living, and must not be arbitrarily interfered with
by extra-terrestrial forces, even for its own best good.

Poised, serene, ceaselessly vigilant, we saw the Lords of Light and
Life wage this unequal warfare. We saw the war-cloud form over
Europe as the darkness grew ever darker and the Evil Powers more active.
Then we saw the war break out and huge masses of men like living waves,
hurl themselves at each other. Countless souls rushed upward to the
regions of peace and quiet, while streams of the raw material of human
stuff returned to its elemental source. We saw the lights of courage and
hardship bravely born, of unselfish patriotism and heroic endeavor, rise
in a mounting tide, and we saw bits of the black clouds of evil sucked
down and disappear into numberless areas of suffering.

Understanding something of the limits within which the Divine
Powers had to work, we no longer wondered at the gradual increase of
the black clouds of evil, of the steady submergence of good. Then
simultaneously, in all our minds sprang the same question, "What is the
end? Will humanity perish in the dark sea of its own iniquity?" And
with one accord we turned to the Master. Again He spoke.

"You see the battle ; you understand the need ; and you wonder where
I will get the force to counteract the tide. Well, I have you; those of you

232 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

who are in earthly life, and those others who will volunteer to go there.
I can use you, for by your sacrifice and efforts in conquering in yourselves
those mounting tides of evil, you have earned the right to use your power
without reactions; power that I can supplement in so far as you are
in harmony with me. I need you ; the world needs you ; or poor suffering
humanity must suffer still worse torments than this well-nigh universal
war. I know that I do not ask in vain. Let each of you get ready for
his part."

Feeble, useless words to express the trumpet call of the Master's
appeal. There were no protestations, no words, but from each heart came
an instant response that made the eyes of the Master glow. He raised
his hand in blessing, said once more, "Be ready!" and then was gone.

We sat in silence for a time, too stirred for speech, and desirous of
registering in our minds the Master's words and our impressions of the
whole experience. Then the King spoke, with an intensity of feeling that
vibrated through his quiet, simple words, "We have accepted service. It
is a great privilege. There is no one here who would not die cheerfully
for the least of the Master's commands. Let us do that harder thing and
live worthily until His call to active service comes. We must return
to our several stations. Let us go back with hearts on fire. Farewell
until we meet again."

MEN-TEK-NIS.

Lord Ashley before he charged at the battle of Edge Hill made this
short prayer: "O Lord! Thou knowest how busy I must be this day;
if I forget Thee, do not Thou forget me."

DOES CONSCIOUSNESS EVOLVE?

THE ANSWER OF THE VEDANTA

TO the question, Does Consciousness Evolve ? the Vedanta answers,
yes, and no. Personal consciousness evolves, from childhood to
maturity, from surface sense-perception to the deeper levels of
mental and moral life. But there is also the Divine Consciousness,
which is perfect, complete, already embracing all things. We cannot say
that it evolves ; for what can be added to the All ?

By the Vedanta, we mean, I think, the sum of the rivers of wisdom
which rise in the Upanishads, and flow through books like the Bhagavad
Gita into the reservoir of the Brahma Sutras, made level and watertight
by the Commentary of Shankaracharya.

In that sum of wisdom, there are two great words, Atma and Brahma.
The first, Atma, is Self, as we know it, first, in the selfhood of our every-
day life, but with the thought of a deeper and more real Self above and
within. The second, Brahma, is the ultimate sum of Being, the Eternal,
the Divine Consciousness. And the central message of the Vedanta is
the announcement that the two are one. The Real Self in us is the
Divine Self ; or, to put it the other way, God is the Supreme Self of all
beings.

But in our ordinary lives we are in no wise conscious of this oneness.
We are far indeed from knowing and realizing that we ourselves, as
regards our inmost and most real selfhood, are not only at one with the
Divine Consciousness, but are in very deed one with that Divine Con-
sciousness ; and not one with a part of it only, but one with the All, with
the ultimate sum of the Eternal.

Beginning with the ordinary consciousness of every day life, we are
to grow, step by step, to a realization of ourselves as the very Divinity
of the Supreme. We do not become that ; by progressive steps we come
to realize that we already are that. This progressive realization, there-
fore, is our development. We may compare it to the consciousness of a
man coming gradually from sleep to full waking. Therefore it is called
Bodha, "awakening," and one who has attained to its perfection is a
Buddha, "an awakened one."

One of the most valuable things in the Vedanta is the definition of
the stages of this progress development, this gradual awakening of
consciousness, beginning with the ordinary personal consciousness of
everyday life. This part of the Vedanta, and perhaps it is the most vital
part, is already fully developed and very beautifully set forth in the
oldest Upanishads. Thus, in the Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad :

234 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

"The Spirit of man has two dwelling-places: this world and the
other world. The borderland between them is the third, the realm of
dreams. While he lingers in the borderland, the Spirit of man beholds
both his dwellings : both this world and the other world. And according
as his advance is in the other world, gaining that advance, the Spirit of
man sees evils or delights.

"When the Spirit of man enters into rest, drawing his material from
this all-containing world, felling the wood himself and himself building
the dwelling, the Spirit of man enters into dream, through his own shining,
through his own light.

"There are no chariots there, nor steeds for chariots, nor roadways.
The Spirit of man makes himself chariots, steeds for chariots and road-
ways. Nor are any delights there, nor joys and rejoicings. The Spirit
of man makes for himself delights and joys and rejoicings. There are
no lotus ponds there, nor lakes and rivers. The Spirit of man makes
for himself lotus ponds, lakes and rivers. For the Spirit of man is
Creator."

A very charming expression of the psychology of dreams, with a
suggestion of a deeper consciousness beyond dreams. The belief that
dreams are made up of the stuff of waking impressions, is very directly
taught a little later in the same passage: "Dream is a province of
waking. For whatever he sees while awake, the same he sees in dream."
The Prashna Upanishad puts the same thing in a slightly different way,
also adding the vital thought of the something beyond : "The bright one,
mind, in dreams enjoys greatness. The seen, as seen he beholds again.
What was heard, as heard he hears again. And what was enjoyed by
the other powers, he enjoys again by the other powers. The seen and the
unseen, heard and unheard, enjoyed and unen joyed, real and unreal, he
sees it all; as All he sees it."

We have thus in both Upanishads the suggestion that into the world
of dreams, which we may call the psychical consciousness, there enters,
besides a reviewing of the images of things seen during waking, another
element ; an element coming, not from beneath, not from waking conscious-
ness, but from above, from a deeper consciousness at the other side of
dreams. And it is in the description of this third consciousness, perhaps,
that we find the most original and valuable contribution of the Vedanta ;
because this third consciousness is the meeting-place of the personal and
the universal, the human and the Divine.

Here is one description, or rather indication, of it, very simple and
direct, from the Prashna Upanishad:

"When he is wrapt by the radiance, the bright one no longer sees
dreams. Then within him that bliss arises. And, dear, as the birds come
to rest in the tree, so all this comes to rest in the higher Self."

Fuller, and even more eloquent is the picture of the third conscious-

DOES CONSCIOUSNESS EVOLVE? 235

ness in the Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad, in the section from which we
have already taken the very vivid description of the realm of dreams :

"When he has taken his pleasure in the waking world, moving to
and fro and beholding good and evil, the Spirit of man returns again by
the same path, hurrying back to dreamland.

"As a great fish swims along one bank of the river, and then along
the other bank, first the eastern and then the western, so the Spirit of
man moves through both worlds, the waking world and the dream world.

"Then as a falcon or an eagle, flying to and fro in the open sky and
growing weary, folds his wings and sinks to rest, so of a truth the Spirit
of man hastens to that world where, finding rest, he desires no desire and
dreams no dream.

"And whatever he has dreamed, as that he was slain or oppressed,
crushed by an elephant or fallen into an abyss, or whatever fear he beheld
in the waking world, he knows now that it was from unwisdom. Like a
god, like a king, he knows he is the All. This is his highest world.

"This is his highest joy. He has passed beyond all evil. This is his
fearless form. And as one who is wrapt in the arms of the beloved knows
naught of what is without or within, so the Spirit of man, wrapt round
by the Soul of Inspiration, knows naught of what is without or within.
This is his perfect being. He has won his desire. The Soul is his desire.
He is beyond desire. He has left sorrow behind.

"Here the father is father no more; nor the mother a mother; nor
the worlds, worlds ; here the scriptures are no longer scriptures ; the thief
is a thief no more ; nor the murderer a murderer ; nor the outcast an out-
cast; nor the baseborn, baseborn; the pilgrim is pilgrim no longer; nor
the saint a saint. For the Spirit of man is not followed by good, he is
not followed by evil. He has crossed over all the sorrows of the heart."

We cannot but be touched by the beauty and inspiration of a passage
such as that. The Chhandogya, which is, after the Brihad Aranyaka, the
greatest of the older Upanishads, has a charming expression of the same
thought of the third consciousness :

"As the honey-makers, dear, gather the honey from many a tree, and
weld the nectars together in a single nectar ; and as they find no separate-
ness there, nor say : Of that tree, I am the nectar, of that tree I am the
nectar. Thus indeed, dear, all these beings, when they reach the Real,
know not, nor say : We have reached the Real."

Are we to hold, then, that, in this deeper consciousness, individuality
is lost. We have one answer from experience : We all go to sleep, and
"lose consciousness," as we say. But we wake again in the morning, not
to a brand new being, but to the old, familiar consciousness of ourselves
as ourselves ; or, as the Chhandogya more fancifully puts it :

236 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

"Thus indeed, dear, all these beings, when they reach the Real, know
not, nor say: We have reached the Real. But whatever they are here,
whether tiger or lion or wolf or boar or worm or moth or gnat or fly,
that they become again. And this Soul is the Self of all that is, this is the
Real, this is the Self. That thou art, O Shvetaketu !"

Following the same line, the Brihad Aranyaka dwells more fully and
steadily on the problem of the preservation of identity, in the deeper con-
sciousness which lies beyond dream : In this third consciousness,

"The Spirit sees not; yet seeing not, he sees. For the energy that
dwelt in sight cannot cease, because it is everlasting. But there is no
other besides the Spirit, or separate from him, for him to see. . .

"The Spirit speaks not ; yet speaking not, he speaks. For the energy
that dwelt in speech cannot cease, because it is everlasting. But there is
nothing else besides the Spirit, or separate from him, for him to speak
to. . .

"The Spirit thinks not ; yet thinking not, he thinks. For the energy
that dwelt in thinking cannot cease, because it is everlasting. But there
is nothing else besides the Spirit, or separate from him, for him to think
of. . .

"The Spirit knows not ; yet knowing not, he knows. For the energy
that dwelt in knowing cannot cease, because it is everlasting. But there
is nothing else besides the Spirit, or separate from him, for him to know.

"For only where there is separation may one see another, may one
touch another, may one hear another, may one think of another, may one
know another. But the one Seer is undivided, like pure water. This, O
king, is the world of the Eternal. This is the highest path. This is the
highest treasure. This is the highest world. This is the highest bliss.
All beings live on the fragments of that bliss."

There is here a suggestion, which we shall presently follow up, that the
third consciousness is something more than the deep rest beyond dreams,
in which we take refuge from the strife and weariness of the day, to awake
full of its essence, refreshed, in the morning; that it is, in fact, not only
within, to be reached by rising through the realm of dream; but also
beyond, to be reached by an orderly progression and development begin-
ning with the ordinary everyday consciousness of our personalities, and
going forward through steadily rising stages of mental, moral and spiritual
growth : a goal of human perfection, or, perhaps we should say, of divine
perfection, to be attained by human beings. The essence of that perfec-
tion is, that we shall realize our oneness with the Divine Consciousness,
our selfhood in the Supreme Self of all beings.

Of the nature and quality of that Divine Consciousness, which we are
destined to attain, the Upanishads have much to say, that is of great

DOES CONSCIOUSNESS EVOLVE? 237

beauty. But we must turn aside from it for the present, to consider the
matter from another side.

In the passages quoted, there is a clear indication of an evolution, a
development, from our ordinary everyday consciousness to the Divine
Consciousness of ultimate Being. What, then, is it that develops? Is it
consciousness? Or is it the vesture of consciousness, or, perhaps, a
succession of vestures?

A recurrent phrase in one of the passages suggests an analogy which
may help us : "the energy that dwells in sight, speech, thinking, knowing,
cannot cease, because it is everlasting." Here is something very like the
modern doctrine of the Conservation of Energy, as it was taught, let us
say, twenty years ago: the thought that Force is a definite sum-total,
eternally the same, from which nothing can be taken, to which nothing
can be added ; just as the sum total of matter was thought of as a constant,
which could not be added to or diminished.

With this conception there went, nevertheless, a clear idea of evolu-
tion, of development, involving both force and matter ; whether it was the
evolution of cosmic or of organic forms, developing worlds, or developing
forms of plant and animal life. Into these forms, whether cosmic or
organic, was gathered a definite part of the great sum-total of substance
and energy; and that definite part did grow, from the nebula to the star,
from the egg to the chick, from the seed to the tree. Would it be true,
then, to say that force and substance grow, when the star, the chick, the
tree, grow? Yes, and no. The vesture, the form, into which both force
and substance enter, grows ; and, as the full grown world, or bird, or oak,
that form, that vesture, holds more, both of force and substance, than did
the nebular nucleus, the egg, the seed.

So is it, in the view of the Vedanta, if I rightly understand it, with
the problem of the growth, the evolution, of consciousness. What de-
velops, is not the abstract, ultimate Consciousness, just as it is not ulti-
mate Matter or Force, as conceived by the doctrine of Conservation.
What develops, is the form, the vesture in which consciousness is em-
bodied ; so that the consciousness of the sage contains a far larger measure
of the Divine Consciousness than does the consciousness of the infant;
than did the consciousness of the sage himself, when he was a baby, to
take the simple case which is offered us by all our experience. More of
the ultimate Consciousness is now embodied in him than when he was a
baby. He is a larger incarnation of the mind and will of God.

The vestures of consciousness, in their ascending degrees, are de-
scribed in several of the Upanishads, notably in the Mandukya.

They are the physical, the psychic and the causal bodies ; correspond-
ing to waking consciousness, dream, and the third consciousness which
lies beyond dream. The consciousness of the ordinary waking self is
revealed in the physical body; the consciousness of the dream self is
revealed in the psychic body; the consciousness of the spiritual self is
revealed in the causal body.

238 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

The ordinary waking consciousness of the physical self rests, of
course, on the perceptions of the five senses, sight, hearing, touch, taste
and smell, gathered together and governed by two subjective powers,
which the Vedanta calls Manas and Buddhi. The meaning of Manas
varies between feeling and thinking, but its essence seems to be, that it
receives the reports of the senses and combines them, reporting to Buddhi,
which pronounces judgments on the grouped pictures thus formed and
presented to it. Buddhi thus contains something of intuition, something
of will. It is the "inner determiner."

The whole of this complex of the senses, Manas and Buddhi is
suffused with consciousness, thus forming the self of ordinary waking
life. The essence of the ultimate Consciousness is present in the physical
man down to the finger-tips ; just as the essence of the ultimate Force and
Matter are present; but not in their ultimate, abstract form; in such a
form, rather, as is made possible by the character of the organic structure,
the containing vesture.

The psychic body, the next in the series, is the body of dreams; of
mind-pictures, that is, regarded by the dreaming consciousness. The
Spirit of man is Creator, so far as the splendid power to paint mind
pictures goes ; whether these mind pictures be direct copies, color photo-
graphs, from nature, or composite pictures, made up of elements selected
from many color photographs. The power to paint these pictures, to view
them, to brood on them, is his; to put, indeed, such life and vigor into
them, that they may become either an inspiration or an obsession. The
power to view them, too, either framed in the things of waking life, when
we are awake ; or without their frames, when we go to sleep and dream.

Then natural man may thereupon take brush and colors, and copy
these mind-pictures on canvas or, if it should so happen, on the walls of
a limestone cavern ; or he may take sounds and embody the mind pictures
in words, and call them Hamlet or Marguerite. So, from this power of
psychic life, arises art.

Science also ; for what is a scientific generalization, but a composite
mind photograph, expressed in words? What is a scientific law, but
the same composite picture lit up by Buddhi, the determining power ; seen,
as we might say, in the light of the Divine Mind?

Science and art and history. If we look deeper, sin also. For we
may so charge ourselves with mind pictures, let us say, of the energy of
sex, that they obsess us, driving us utterly from Nature's clean and whole-
some laws. Or we may so overload our minds with pictures of self-
assertion and self-preservation, that they lose their natural use, and
become obsessing egotism, ambition, cruelty, pride.

So with the development of the psychic man and his creative power,
with the embodiment of consciousness in the psychic vesture, comes free
creative power, the possibility of glory and of shame.

This is the vesture, the Vedanta, I think, would say, which, is the
field of all mental, emotional and imaginative power, while we are yet

DOES CONSCIOUSNESS EVOLVE? 239

in the body. It is the subjective nature. And when the physical body
falls away in death, the psychic vesture is the dwelling place of our con-
sciousness. It is the psychic man thus constituted, who is active in the
whole range of experiences, well known to ancient India, which are now
the burning questions of our psychical research.

Of the next vesture, the causal body, less is said ; but enough to let
us see that it is the dwelling place of a much higher quality of conscious-
ness, a consciousness much nearer to the Divine Mind and Will.

If we take what is said of Buddhi, as representative, first in the
physical and then in the psychical man, of intuition and will, and regard
this moral determining power as the pressure of the causal upon the
psychic and physical; or, if you will, as the representative of the causal
in the psychic and physical, we shall have, perhaps, a clue to the splendor
of that high consciousness, when fully developed in its own vesture, the
causal body. We shall see in it a consciousness resting in continuous
inspiration, wide spiritual vision and spiritual power; a consciousness
drawing its riches direct from the supreme inner source, the Divine Self
of all beings.

The psychical man, therefore, is the field of our art, our science,
our human, as opposed to our animal life. In the same way, we may
say that the causal man is the field of our divine energies, making possible,
in its full development, the supreme miracle of the incarnate divine Man,
who visibly wields the powers of Divinity.

The Mandukya Upanishad suggests yet another, a fourth degree of
consciousness; but it is so far above us, it so completely transcends our
experience, that it is described only by negativing all limitations. We
can only say that it is infinite Being, infinite Wisdom, infinite Bliss. It
is the consciousness which is that final liberation, Nirvana, by the vision
of which India has been inspired for milleniums. It is the consciousness
of the Divine Man, no longer incarnate, but risen, ascended, re-become one
with the Father. It is the consciousness of the very being of God.

This, then, it would seem, is the answer of the Vedanta to our ques-
tion concerning the evolution of consciousness; an answer, both yes
and no.

The Divine Consciousness, the ultimate Being, does not develop,
any more than Space develops. Space, indeed, is one of the standing
similes of that Consciousness which, like the vast room of the Universe,
is omnipresent and eternal.

But while Consciousness does not develop, its vestures do develop;
first, under natural law, as in the birth and growth of the physical man,
culmination of so much precedent birth and growth ; then in the psychical
man, under the laws of mental and emotional growth, touched from above
by moral and spiritual law, and suffused by creative power, by free will,
the power which makes for glory or for shame; thirdly, under spiritual
law, in the causal man, where free creative will has become one with the
Divine Will, and we share the views and purposes of God. Thereafter

240 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

comes a further growth and development beyond our human ken; when
the man, in our sense, is man no longer; knowing himself at last as
Divine Mind, Divine Will, not other than the eternal Being of God
Himself.

CHARLES JOHNSTON.

"Never shall we attain to perfect inward purity until we so watch
over all the movements of our heart and all our thoughts, that scarcely
anything escapes us of which we may not be able to render account to
God, and which does not tend to His glory; so that in the space of eight
days, for example, we should perform very few exterior actions or
interior acts of zvhich grace is not the principle; and if any exceptions
occur, they should be owing simply to surprise, and last but a few
moments, our will being so closely united to God that it represses them
the instant it perceives them.

"It is seldom that we achieve a complete victory over our disorderly
movements; scarcely ever do we so perfectly overcome any single one
but there escapes something, or there remains something, either through
want of attention, or for lack of a sufficiently vigorous resistance. Thus
one of the greatest graces which God bestows upon us in this life, and
which we ought most to beg of Him, is to be so watchful over our heart
as that the least irregular movement shall not secretly arise in it without
our perceiving it and immediately correcting it; for every day we are
betrayed into a multitude of such which escape our observation."
Spiritual Doctrine: Lallement.

NORSE MYTHOLOGY

II.

THAT section of the Norse mythology, which we shall designate
as the Drama of the Golden Age, has as its theme, the unceasing
warfare waged by the gods against the Evil Powers, during the
stretch of years when as incarnate visible rulers they walked and
talked with men. Whether one reads it as solar myth, or translates it
into terms of ethics and religion, it is still an absorbingly dramatic story
in which are accurately reflected all the life and ideals of the primitive
people of the North.

Nowhere are the common germs of all mythologies, the personified
sun, moon and stars, the fruitful earth and all natural phenomena more
thoroughly imbued with local color, more definitely stamped with racial
characteristics and standards. The ever recurrent triumph of darkness
and cold, which holds the world in grip during the long winters, tended
not only to cast the nature myths in tragic mould, but also to develop,
through the enforced life of endurance and patience, a stubborn hardihood
in the fibre of the people, and an ingrained trust in a future regeneration,
so that the twin virtues of courage and faith became habits of the soul.
Furthermore, since there in the grim North men had to cling together
with a desperate tenacity, if life were to be tolerable, or even possible,
amidst the constant threat of ice-bound seas, and raging tempests, the
separate myths inevitably drew together into a centralized tragedy in
which stoic endurance was exalted, honorable death welcomed as the
door to liberation, and recompense for the bitter conditions without might
be found in an inner life of peace.

No wonder that the trend given to their thought by such conditions
diverged diametrically from that of the care-free Greeks who, surrounded
by grace and beauty, produced those separate groups of lovely, lyric tales,
each as free of all the others as were the independent Greek States ; that
we should find the golden winged fluttering Iris who paints the shim-
mering rainbow of the South metamorphosed into the Norse Heimdal,
the patient guardian of the bridge between earth and heaven which is
not merely the outer visible arc of prismatic color, but the "delicate
vibrating way" over which only the pure of heart may pass, that his chief
attributes are not beauty of form, nor loveliness of feature, but the patient
intentness which so sharpened his ears that he could hear the grass
sprouting in the fields, and the wool growing on the sheep, together with
the dauntless courage which could stand against all the Powers of Evil,
should they attempt to storm the delicate structure under his charge.

Adonis and Balder play like roles in very similar myths of the Sun ;
yet the story of the young and rosy shepherd, reclaimed from death

17 4i

242 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

for half the year by the enamoured Aphrodite, and that of the shining
hero "without fear and without reproach" who is mourned unavail-
ingly by his mother, Frigge, are the poles apart in feeling and ideal;
the Norseman emphasizing not the North, the visible outer phenomenon
of Winter's triumph over the Sun, but the inevitable destruction of
purity and innocence through the power of blind knowledge when
guided by the Spirit of Evil.

When we contrast the Norse Valhalla and its picture of the life there
lived by gods and heroes, with the familiar concept of existence on the
sunny heights of Mount Olympus, we have straightway epitomized the
essential difference in the race ideal. Here is no graceful dalliance, but
a stirring round of action. The gods partake of the miraculous life-giving
food that they may straightway sally forth to deeds of high emprise;
their hours of leisure are spent in a mimic battle one with another, a
battle of friendly rivalry that shall increase their prowess and their hardi-
hood. That there is an inner spiritual significance underlying the con-
crete stories is strongly hinted in many ways. Names used in the descrip-
tions are significant, such as that of the miraculous kettle, elementary-fire,
in which is prepared the daily feast, and that of the cook Andhrimna, or
the Spirit ; the sparkling mead which is their drink flows from the gracious
animal Shining Heath, and is the very essence of tranquillity ; while quite
evidently the gods themselves are not only the personifications of Nature
and the forces of Nature, but are the incarnation of their noblest thoughts
and purest emotions, and as such worthy of their worship, as such demand
our earnest consideration. The world in which they lived and moved is
presented to us through the medium of a direct childlike vision, which
made no hard and fast divisions between kingdom and kingdom, between
fact and fancy. The whole universe to them was essentially one, and
the field of the mythic play is transferred at will from the animal to the
human world, or from the realm of plant and mineral to the regions of
the planetary spirits.

In order to segregate and simplify the materials with which we are
specifically concerned, the struggle between the gods and the Evil Powers,
it is necessary to discard both the cosmogonical lays, which lead back into
the misty distances of abstract speculation, and the specific hero-myths
with their terra firma of semi-historical legends; legends which to the
scholars of the last century seemed to rest on the foundation of an actual
flesh-and-blood Odin, a barbarian from the Scythian forests, who fleeing
before the genius of Pompey, subsequently marched victoriously north-
ward and westward; leaving sufficient proof of his exploits and his
dominion in name and custom and folk-tale. On this basis they conceived
the entire edifice of Norse legend to have been reared, yet, at least to the
satisfaction of the present generation, this historical Odin has been proved
but a man of straw who instead of imparting life to the myths draws his
very existence from the legendary tales.

With the main body of these hero stories we have been thoroughly

NORSE MYTHOLOGY 243

familiarized through fairy-tale and picture, through poetry and music;
and under the chameleon-like variations, given by individual interpreters,
it is still quite possible to distinguish the original mastermould, and to
trace it to its original counterpart. Probably each one of us carries with
him some deep-rooted conviction concerning these Northern heroes, which
has been furnished him by one of those writers or musicians of the last
generation, who discovered in the primitive grandeur of the Eddie Lays
a mine of inspiration. We may know in our heart of hearts that a pre-
Raphaelite like William Morris must in the nature of things prune and
sweeten the rude notions of semi-barbarians past all recognition; that
his interminable flowing lines swing us into a mood vastly different from
that of the terse, staccato strophes of the old Icelandic tale ; that his pic-
tures of the joys of battle and of blood are as painstakingly elaborated,
as conscientiously embroidered with half-obsolete words, as though they
were an Arabesque pattern for a tapestry hanging, and that the heart of
William Morris honestly thrilled not to the battle-cry of a vanished past,
but to the new call of industrial betterment, and the incipient socialism of
his time. Yet despite this knowledge if it be to him we owe our first
introduction to Sigurd the Volsung, he will be indelibly printed upon our
consciousness as the fair-haired youth who

"Abideth with the Lymdale forest lords.

In mighty honor holden and in love beyond all words."
"In the woodland fray he fareth, and oft on a day doth ride
Where the mighty forest wild-bulls and the lonely wolves abide."

Or perhaps it is Matthew Arnold who has introduced us to the sun-
bright god and the mourning brothers in his poem of "Balder Dead," and
willy-nilly, we must always twine the fearless hero about with words
such as these :

"For heaven was Balder born, the City of Gods
And heroes, where they live in light and joy."
or "When thou sangest Balder, thou didst strike
Another note, and like a bird in spring
Thy voice of joyance minded us of youth
And wife and children and our ancient home."

however convinced we may be that they more nearly describe the modern
Apostle of Sweetness and Light than the fearless Norse sun-god.

Possibly if our first impressions came through a child's devotion to
the verses of Longfellow, we have really had a truer approach; though
the gentle American would have quaffed blood from skulls with as slight
a relish as either of the others, he had yet a simplicity and a directness
which permitted him to versify such joys without the intrusive egotism

244 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

of self-conscious art, and thus to keep more closely to the spirit of the
original.

But it is Wagner in his music dramas who has really rendered the
names of the old Norse gods, of their war-maids, of dragon and dwarf,
into household words holding a common significance ; and though he freely
chose his material from all that offered, or ruthlessly discarded according
to fancy, yet the result is essentially true. We feel the thread of fate
spun by the relentless Norns as inexorably as in the Poetic Edda itself ;
there is the irresistable force of primitive passions, the deification of rude
strength and of high courage all borne home to us by the power of great
music, to speak to us directly, free of time or place. To blur or blot out
vulgarity is his licence; it is his privilege and his necessity if he would
give us the essential poetic and spiritual truth and we have little to alter
or regret if our conception of Odin the Alfadir, of the Valkyries, and of
Siegfried, the predestined liberator, and of the Curse of Hoarded Gold
has been given us by his penetrating genius.

Turning from the hero myths and discarding the cosmogonical lays,
we are free to concentrate our attention on the great drama itself. It
begins with the moment when "in time's morning" the guidance and con-
trol of the created universe is entrusted to Odin and the company of his
sons; it progresses through all their hand-to-hand struggles against the
Powers of Evil, and culminates in the overwhelming tragedy of Ragnarok,
the Twilight of the Gods.

These Powers of Evil may be roughly separated into three grand-
divisions, each waging a more or less independent war against the gods,
though aiding and abetting each other as occasion demands. First and
least dangerous, there are the water-spirits, or sea-vans, who are quickly
and easily subdued and thereafter serves as allies, their permanent alleg-
iance secured by an exchange of hostages. Secondly, there are the frost-
giants, or Jotuns, Titanic beings, who typify the forces of inorganic
matter, of darkness and cold and who are born of inertia, ignorance and
sloth ; inherently inimical from their very nature to the Gentle Powers of
Light, their resistance is stubborn, unremitting, unending. It is the age-
long struggle of spirit and matter, never to be ended till one or the other
is finally slave.

In the battle with the third division of the Hostile Powers, the drama
finds its chief significance, its main interest. This is the conflict with the
god Loke, one of their own number, and an inmate of heaven, but never-
theless the very embodiment of spiritual evil. Through him the doom
of Odin's hierarchy, foretold by the Vala as inevitable because of his
partial descent from the old frost-giant, Ymer, and his consequent half-
mortal origin, is hastened and fostered. Straightway it becomes a house
divided against itself, which cannot hope to stand. The battle with the
giants is little save a steady exchange of blows, brute strength matched
against brute strength, but here the field of action is at once transferred

NORSE MYTHOLOGY 245

to another plane, and becomes the absorbing personal problem of every
man "who feels two natures struggling within him."

Loke may be regarded objectively as the Ravening Flame, humanly
as the uncontrolled passions, spiritually as the fallen angel. He is in
essence a god, a true creative power, and at first wholly good in nature.
His earliest appearance is under the name of Loder, that one of the Norse
trinity who endowed man with "the rose-red color of life and the burning
keenness of the senses," and who, his separate work accomplished, is
then re-absorbed into the one person of Odin, the Spirit of the World.
When he reappears as one of the characters in the great drama, the separa-
tion from his brother is already complete and irrevocable; he is a rebel
against the dominion of the spirit, and acknowledges no law save himself.

The other gods act either under or in conjunction with the Alfadir,
are mere attributes of his being, specialized and segregated into independ-
ent entities merely that they may more freely and fully carry out his
behests; his strength, embodied in Thor, thus becomes self-propelled,
self -transmitted, creative; eloquence and poetry are entrusted implicitly
to his son Brage, "one whose lips are risted runes ;" Forsette is the visible
personification of his justice ; Loke is not a son, but a brother, coeval
with Odin, and though false, treacherous and jealous, is yet a high-god,
a creative force, not to be spared from the ranks of the heavenly company.
He embroils them in quarrels, ensnares them with deceits, betrays them
to their foes ; but for the solution of the difficulties in which he involves
them, they are forced to turn to the author of the mischief, for he is
the embodiment of inventive cunning, and without him they are helpless.
By superior strength and by their unity, they may force him to do their
bidding, but he is endowed with the same measure of immortality as
are they themselves, and destroy him they cannot.

In the first stages of the drama, they are amply able to control the
situation, for Loke is but one against many, and though he is a constant
source of annoyance, he is not regarded as a grave danger. But with the
discovery that he is no longer alone, but that in the depths of "that forest
which is of iron, hard and barren, and through which flies the storm
eagle, playing on his harp the melody of the tempest" the hag, Angerbode,
the Anguish-Boding, is rearing him a brood of three monster children,
he becomes at once a very threatening menace. When Odin at last is
made aware of the danger, he forthwith drags them forth to the light and
passes judgment upon them. One, the Midguard-Serpent, he casts into
the depths of the ocean, where it continues to grow prodigiously till it
encircles the whole earth and tail in mouth, lies there a circle of disaster
for all who sail the uncharted seas. Not till the day of doom shall his
spell be loosed, when he shall issue forth to join forces with the host of
Evil Powers. The second monster, the pale and livid giantess, called Hel,
is relegated to the realm of shades, where she is given dominion over nine
worlds of death ; though not over those heavens of brightness and glory
whither the blameless heroes who fall in battle are borne by the winged

246 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

war-maidens. Her rightful subjects are pale shapes of fear, without
substance or reality, and those forms of sin too heavy to be borne aloft.
In the lowest pit of all is her palace, called Anguish, guarded by the dog,
Veracity, "with bloody breast and slaughter-craving throat" ; her table is
Famine, the waiter Slowness and Delay, and her bed is Care. There she
must abide till she too is summoned forth to the final conflict.

Last of all, the young Fenris wolf, a fierce, strong young thing, with
a snarling courage of bestial appetites and all the lust of animal strength,
is summoned from his lair in the iron wood; him, Odin admitted to the
sacred precincts of Asgard, to be fostered and trained by the gods them-
selves. Under the guardianship of Tyr the Strong, he grew and ranged
at will till his enormous size and strength struck terror to the hearts of
all, and he was neither to hold nor to bind ; chain after chain he snapped
in bits, till at length from the Dark Elves, the tiny creatures who tend the
fires within the earth, and tuck the metals into the veins of the rocks,
the gods obtained a magic cord. It was woven from many mere nothings,
such as the breath of fish, the roots of mountains, and the foot-fall of
cats. It was pliable and slender as a silken thread, but once it was fast
about the monster by no possible effort could he free himself, and he
was safely lashed to a rock, till the crash of doom should break his bonds,
too, asunder.

His three children, being thus all imprisoned or in chains, the gods
were free to devote their entire attention to Loke himself. From the sly
malicious tricks of the early days, he had grown in insolence to the point
of open revolt. In the palace of the storm king, he had hurled defiance
at them all, assailing each in turn with taunt and libel ; from that moment
forward, he had become an avowed outlaw, living the ever-watchful
sleepless life of the hunted, till at length endeavoring to escape, under the
guise of a slippery salmon, he was captured in a net of his own devising.
Then he too was bound Prometheus-like on the face of a precipice while
above his head was fastened a reptile to spew venom-drops on his up-
turned face; and although these drops are patiently caught in a cup by
his untiring wife, the few which do fall upon him produce such torture
that his agonized writhing convulses the whole world, and it is upheaved
in earthquake and volcano ; but free himself he cannot, till his bonds are
loosed in the final cataclysm.

Yet, despite the imprisoning and enchaining of all the definitely
embodied Evils, the Twilight of the Gods is not long to be postponed.
Ultimate death is the heritage of all the sons of the old frost-giant Ymer,
and among these sons are numbered all the company of Odin, as well as
all the Evil Powers. The gradual waning of the Asa-might, the god-
like power, is profoundly drawn throughout the entire drama. One by
one they part with their divine attributes, till in the supreme need, when
once again all the Powers of Evil are loosed against them they are but a
maimed and withered company. Balder, the blameless sunbright god, is
already dead through the blind trust of the blind Hoder in the guileful

NORSE MYTHOLOGY 247

Loke; Tyr the Strong has sacrificed his good right hand to the binding
of the Fenris-wolf, Frey has parted with his trusty sword that he might
win Gerda for his wife, and Thor's hammer of strength is inadequate
because of its short handle. There is scarce one of the company who
has not in some manner deprived himself of an important means of
defense; the seeds of disruption and disintegration lay in their very
nature and have but borne their fruit in due season.

As the day of doom draws near it is heralded by signs and portents.
There are ages of crime and terror, in which

"Brothers slay brothers
Sisters' children shed
Each other's blood.
Hard is the world,
There are sword ages, ax ages,
And men no longer spare
Or pity one another."

Then comes the dread Fimbul-winter, when snow falls without ceasing,
from the four corners of the world, and black frost holds the earth in
grip; three like winters following without a single summer, for the sun
can impart neither gladness nor warmth. Wars and rumors of wars
spread and increase till at length with the noise of thunder comes the
crash of doom. Then is the world convulsed, trees are torn from their
roots, tottering mountains fall from their foundations, sun and moon
are swallowed by Fenris, and his sister-wolf and heaven itself is rent in
twain. At the resounding blast, which Heimdal winds of the dread
Gjallerhorn, all the opposing forces rally to the fight. Undaunted the
gods and heroes rush forth to the fray, Odin riding ahead, his golden
helmet shining, his mighty spear flashing aloft. All know the end has
come, and joyously they gather to claim their right to death in glorious
combat. Over against them are ranged the Hostile Powers: the fire-
flashing Fenris-wolf, whose cavernous jaws stretch from earth to heaven;
the Midguard-serpent writhing in giant rage, filling the air with floods of
venom; the pale company of Hel, drifting aimlessly about, powerless in
the day of deeds to either help or hinder.

Through the riven sky come the Sons of Muspel, the flashing spirits
from the highest world of fire ; Suit, Angel of the Flaming Sword, rides
in advance, about him pillars of flame, his blade outshining the very sun.
The delicate vibrating Bridge is shattered to bits by the fury of the
charge, as cohort after cohort dashes to the field of battle.

A mighty battle ensues for the gods and the enemies of the gods are
meeting in a death grapple, universal, world embracing ; fire, water, dark-
ness and death fight together to destroy the order and harmony of the
world. The evil annihilates the good, the good destroys the evil, till at
length naught remains but a vast field of carnage, over which Suit, who

248 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

had "in time's morning" showered sun and moon and the spark of life
from his sword again brandishes it aloft, and flinging fire and flame abroad
destroys all vestige of his own creation. It is the complete reduction of
the visible tangible world to nothingness; it is the end of the cycle, the
tragic close of the Drama of the Golden Age, the fore-ordained moment
when,

"Smoke wreathes around the all-nourishing tree. Trembles Yggdrasils'
Ash, high flames play against the heavens, and earth consumed sinks
beneath the sea."

Nothing remains save darkness on the face of the waters, and the
imperishable forces which must lie dormant and hidden till the day of
regeneration shall usher in a new cycle ; but of that all that is told is in
the prognostication of the Vala, and we can well close once again with
her prophetic words :

"A new earth, beauteously green,
From ocean shall arise;
Again the golden tablets
In the grass are found;
Hoder and Balder
The heavenly gods
Again shall come,
All evil be amended.
Then shall another come
More mighty still
But him I dare not name.
Few further forward
Care to look
Than to that time
When Odin meets the Wolf."

ANNE EVANS.

THE TWIN DOCTRINES AND
SOCIAL UNREST

THE Twin Doctrines may seem a long way removed from such
up-to-the-minute questions as forcible picketing, women suffrage,
should children be punished, divorce and public playgrounds.
These questions are all forms of social unrest. Brought by Fate
into almost synchronous contact with these manifestations and many more,
to a student of Theosophy the query came : What would be the effect if
Reincarnation and Karma were believed by the people generally in
America to-day as they were believed in by the people generally in the days
of Egypt's greatness ? Would there be so much unrest and turmoil ?

This question was particularly emphasized when an attempt was made
to get at the bottom of a big strike one of the biggest of the past year.
The student went out to investigate it. He stayed to help end it. Thus
he was brought into intimate contact with all sides employers, strikers,
politicians, humanitarians, and the public in general. Fifteen thousand
workers men and women and children of legal age ; representing nearly
thirty national groups ; speaking a dozen or more languages had walked
out one afternoon. They had stayed out for weeks. They did not know
why they had struck. They were literally unable to give specific reasons
for the strike. They made demands, but these were advanced subsequent
to the calling of the strike. The strikers did manifest class-consciousness.
They rallied to the support of a Cause. They suffered for it. They would
have fought for it had a single leader of sufficient recklessness stepped
forward. They resorted to violence in a disorganized sort of a way.
Their violence was expressed in attacks upon people entering and leaving
the works during the progress of the strike. There was sufficient violence
to overawe local authorities. It proved necessary to call in State author-
ities. The display of force brought peace. Workers given protection
returned to work. When enough had gone back, those still out called off
the strike. They were beaten, but they do not yet understand why. They
are still feeling bitter.

During the height of the strike speakers talked eloquently of
"Brotherhood." It appeared almost in the same sentences with denuncia-
tions of other classes. Pleas to love one's brothers were coupled with
appeals to use force against members of other classes. The chief mani-
festation of class-consciousness may be said, without bias, to have been
a very definite class-hatred of all other classes. This was not surprising.
There had been more than twenty years of propaganda and political
organization. This had culminated in the organization of a "co-operative

250 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

union," cutting across trades lines. In this union a fifteen year old boy or
an eighteen year old girl had equal voice and vote with the expert
mechanic or the father of a family. The organization was avowedly that
of a pure democracy something like a New England town meeting, but
without its responsible moderator, clerk and selectmen. When the time
came for action the leaders could not handle the pure democracy. It
suddenly appeared to them as a mob. When they were convinced the
strike should be called off they were afraid to say so. They had preached
emotionally. They were afraid to advise reasonably.

It is perhaps more than a coincidence that the strike immediately
followed a great religious revival with noted evangelists, brass bands and
a tabernacle especially constructed. This building was used for the strike
meetings. It is also interesting to note that the effect of the revival was
considered to have ended when individuals expressed themselves as con-
verted. There was no direction given to the force created. There was
no immediate putting to work of the energies stimulated. The revival and
the strike were not unlike in their effect. Neither brought home to the
individual the necessity, or even the possibility, of applying aroused energy
in persistent, definite work.

The one clear, definite note of the strike was a demand for "rights."
What these "rights" were was not easily discerned by those who demanded
them. So far as the strikers expressed their ideal it savoured of covetous-
ness even of envy, hatred and malice. There was not even a comparison
of their own past lot with their present lot. There was an entire unwill-
ingness to compare their present lot with anything that could practically
be achieved. The only comparison resorted to was with the physical com-
forts of the "capitalistic class" and it was generally claimed that every
worker had a right to all these comforts.

On the other side some of the employers were as interesting in their
limitations. They too talked much about "rights." They too manifested
uncharitableness. There was no use or misuse of the word "Brother-
hood." For this was substituted as a symbol of unity "organized society."

The politicians balanced voting strength. From this count of heads
they took their stand. Publicly they talked in favor of the strike and the
strikers. Privately they tried to end the strike anyhow or anyway so
long as they were supposed to be friends of the men with votes.

The humanitarians were the most interesting of all the groups. They
were in a position to lead. Instead they talked. They sympathized
tenderly with "the poor men and women out of work." Their cry was :
"End the strike or you are cruel." Their only idea of ending it was to
give the strikers whatever they wanted. Even the employers had failed
to recognize that this particular strike was not a matter of dollars-and-
cents bargaining, but was a manifestation of class-consciousness definitely
engaged in an attack upon the social order as it is established today. The
strike, therefore, was beaten the day it started. The strikers had tried to
overthrow in a day a system built by the centuries. The business depres-

THE TWIN DOCTRINES AND SOCIAL UNREST 251

sion of the year would in itself, however, have made it impossible to yield
to the strike. It would not have been practicable for either of these
reasons to grant the demands for the restoration of men laid off; for an
eight hour day ; and for the transfer of established discipline to the union ;
for this was a legitimate interpretation of the form of the demand for the
recognition of this particular union.

The pity of it all was that there was so much good sentiment wasted
in emotionalism and false reasoning. The speeches on "Brotherhood"
were eloquent and touching. They were so biased by prejudice and
slander as to be shocking. The strikers had no sense whatsoever of duty.
The employers were equally lacking in any consciousness of obligation.
No one anywhere seemed to feel personally responsible toward another
it was "rights," "rights," "rights." The union was fetish. The strike was
a holy rite. Few of the strikers had any other religious conviction or faith.
Their leaders taught them that organized religion was a "capitalistic"
scheme to enslave them and to keep them happy slaves in ignorance of
their "rights." The humanitarians boasted that they were not "narrowly
religious." Oh! no they were narrow only in their attitude toward
others. They placed no limitations upon themselves. They placed narrow
limitations upon such others as did not do what the humanitarians thought
should be done, and done only in their particular way.

Take as an example their attitude toward one big, wise employer.
He had a fatherly feeling for his employees. Not a patronizing attitude,
but a paternal one. He felt his fiduciary responsibility to his stockholders,
but he also looked into the future to see what would be the ultimate effect
upon his employees. He knew that he could not yield victory, or even
a semblance of victory, to a cause united only to overthrow existing
society. He had his responsibility as a citizen. There might be momentary
hardship all around, but that would be better than the class-hatred which,
if surrendered to, might precipitate a bitter class war in that great manu-
facturing district, through class-hatred having proved profitable to those
practising it. This one man weighed, balanced and studied the situation,
and was unmoved by pressure or abuse.

He was a fine figure to those impartially minded, but how was he
regarded by the philanthropists, settlement house and social workers, and
the whole party of sympathetic sentimentalists ? They hated him ! They
called him "a brute, exercising brutal power." They warned him that
he was forcing his people to violence. They did not say that violence was
wrong. They merely said that if he persisted in his attitude violence
would follow.

Is not this attitude essentially the same as that of a charming young
married woman in a fashionable city suburb, who stopped a gentleman in
the street on his way to his train to say "Excuse me, but are you not
Mr. John Doe"? Receiving a polite affirmative she went on in pretty
eagerness to say : "Is it true, Mr. Doe, that you beat your little children ?"
Doe stared for a moment in amazed silence. The lady, for she is a lady

252 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

alas ! went on : "I have only just moved here and I have been told that
you beat your children. I can't believe it. You don't look like that kind
of a man." Doe rallied: "I do," he answered solemnly, "whenever I
think they need it, and I am only afraid that I am not kind enough, and
not wise enough to do it often enough."

Color flamed into pretty cheeks, clear eyes clouded with unshed tears
and a proud little head was thrown back "I cannot believe it that you,
who seem to be a gentleman, should use your great brute strength and
power to beat a helpless little, little child. But if you are telling the truth
I warn you that I shall try to get proof of it and shall swear out a
warrant against you, and I hope the Judge will send you to prison to
teach you a lesson in humanity, and to give a warning to others who dare
to strike little children."

Poor Doe is a widower and is doing his best. He admitted after-
wards that it was a mistake to have attempted an argument, but he said
"the little woman was so much in earnest that I did want to set her straight
for once." He started in telling her quite simply of his own bringing up
and how he rejoiced in its iron discipline and unquestioning obedience,
insisted upon, and enforced by whipping. He told her frankly that his
one criticism of his childhood training was that he had not been whipped
enough either as to severity or frequency. He closed the presentation of
his case by alluding to the fact that strict discipline for children was the
result of a great many centuries of human experience. The interview
was closed with the reply, "Yes, and look at the result ! It has made such
brutes out of men like you that you glory in beating little children."

Doe literally does not know at what moment he may be hailed into
court to furnish yellow journals with a sensational story of how a respect-
able child-beater has at last received his deserts.

But what has all this to do with Reincarnation and Karma? it may
be asked. Is it not fair to say that in striker, humanitarian, and paedo-
philist alike, we find an amorphous consciousness of an essential unity
yes, of "brotherhood." Each would call this a definite, crystallized con-
cept. This I challenge. There is no definite goal in what they are strug-
gling after. Analysis to fundamentals would show each works for some
form of increased physical, creature comfort. Suppose, for instance, that
the workers suddenly got five times more pay would they not soon be
twenty-five times more unhappy ? They would contrast their new lot with
the lot of others still more comfortably fixed. Disappointed in the dis-
covery that creature comfort had not brought happiness, they would not
apply the discovery, but would be more than ever convinced that still more
comfort would be the only way to happiness. There seems to be a heap
of occult wisdom in the old story of "Flounder, flounder by the Sea" and
the fisherman's wife. It will be recalled that the Flounder King desired
to satisfy her wants. She got what she wished for. Finally she lost
everything, because as her desires were filled they grew until she asked to

THE TWIN DOCTRINES AND SOCIAL UNREST 253

be God without first having earned the right even to share His conscious-
ness.

The humanitarians, the strikers, the women's rights workers, all the
forces of modern social unrest, have no real goal. They seek nothing
definite beyond the immediately physical. How can they, if they believe
in a single lifetime, or, still more usual, reject even this as untrue, while
substituting nothing else? If man has only one life out of eternity, why
blame him for trying to get what seems to him to be the things immediately
worth while. If there be only one life there is injustice in the world. We
ought to combine to fight injustice. If there be only one life the class-
consciousness expressed in class-hatred is defensible. So, too, the pretty
young woman, who wishes to prosecute a paternal disciplinarian for
whom she has no responsibility, may be excused if she has only one life
to live and wishes to gratify her unthinking love of children and her
unconscious desire to make herself prominent while there is time.

Let us suppose, however, in contrast, that the soul or ego, has chance
after chance to rise to achieve real happiness. With this would go a
system of accounting, so to speak, or a building up of results good and
bad. There might be lost ground this time on earth well next time it
could be worked off. This is Karma. The very wording of the explana-
tion may explain why the Church, by a slender majority, voted against
the Twin Doctrines. They are held today by more than a majority of the
religious people on earth. The Doctrines were generally accepted when
the Christian religion was founded. They were generally held by the
Church until officially banned. The majority which banned them con-
tained a very large party which believed the Doctrines, but which thought
they should not be taught publicly and generally. It was feared that the
doctrine of Reincarnation would make people less responsible instead of
more responsible. The threat of eternal penalty was believed to be more
potent as a driving force than the desire to please God. Personally this
savors to me of a belief in the superior efficacy of hate over love. I
do not believe it! I believe that love is, as recently described in an
"Elementary Article" in this magazine, "the power, and the only power
that rules the Universe."

Let us see how this would apply in the case of industrial relations,
and whether it would tend to prevent strikes and to give employers and
employees a greater sense of their own responsibility: Suppose the
workers accepted as a fact that right here and now, in just the circum-
stances surrounding them, they could learn the next secret of life, the
current lesson, so to speak would they not return to the old standards
of duty and obligation and faithful service? It does not seem possible
that they would then scamp work to preach hatred, if they were driving
hard to "make good" in their class. The employers, on the other hand,
would see that it was their duty and their opportunity to make good as
employers. That they today feel unconsciously this call is illustrated by
the fact that so many of them plunge into humanitarianism and philan-

254 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

thropy, not appreciating that their opportunity for learning their lesson
may well lie in the particular business circumstances in which they are
placed.

Many of the Socialists charge that the economic situation of the
present day is feudal in the relations between employers and employees.
There is some truth in this. The modern business organization is dis-
tinctly hierarchial. Where it breaks down, it breaks down at the same
point that proved the weakness of the old feudal system. When duty to
God and King and service for his Lady ceased to move the feudal lord,
he yielded to selfishness and began to oppress those below him. On the
other hand, when lack of faith in God and failure to realize that faithful
service is one form of worship of God infected the people generally,
selfishness began to dominate them and they aided in the destruction of
the feudal system. The lord found himself relieved of responsibility for
the well-being of unfaithful retainers. The retainers found themselves
relieved from the exactions and petty tyrannies of their over-lords. Each
side gained over the condition under decadent feudalism. Each side,
however, was worse off than it had been in the days of virile, God fearing,
and God serving feudalism.

Today business feudalism, so far as it exists, has all the faults of
decadent feudalism with the addition of a lack of sense of obligation on
either side.

If Reincarnation and Karma were held in faith by the people, we
would hear no more of the preaching of class-hatred. Employees would
feel ashamed of not making good in their work. Employers would feel
ashamed if they failed to keep their employees happy, contented and com-
fortable. There would be such mutual trust that the worst brutalities of
modern business could be avoided. Employers would no longer refuse
to increase pay in prosperous times, because they would know that they
could reduce pay when business was depressed. There would be a sharing
of risk and profit and it would be quite possible to maintain a force of
men year in and year out.

Each man of whatever degree would work with a sense of oppor-
tunity to do his best in his particular lot. He would no longer despise the
man below him nor feel bitter envy of the man above him. Each man
would strive to earn promotion in the service of the Master. It should
be remembered that in accepting the Twin Doctrines it is essential that
they be applied, as they were applied in Egypt, and in India today, as
merely part of the Path to the great happiness that comes from con-
sciousness of that Rallying Love embodied in the flaming heart of the
Master.

The modern rationalist advocating "pure democracy" may object
to this idea, because it involves an acceptance of class distinctions well,
what of it? Does not nature recognize class distinctions? That great
strike pretended not to recognize class distinctions, yet it distinguished
between the abilities of men to lead. It distinguished also between its

THE TWIN DOCTRINES AND SOCIAL UNREST 255

own "class" and all others. In fact it seems demonstrable that Socialism
is restoring caste to this country as nothing else has ever done, and
restoring caste in one of its worst forms.

Think of what would be gained by bowing to Nature's Law of Order
and falling into step with evolution. Your friend loses his wife: Shall
he blame God or praise him; shall he either weaken or harden; or shall
he strengthen, and fight forward to seek to fit himself for a real reunion
not some flabby, unreal, melodramatic, harp-playing without purpose in
chorus but a real reunion in work, and hope, and love? Sorrow, your
friend will ; sorrow, your friend should for that is part of the oppor-
tunity of the lesson of death. But not in bitterness, and never in self-
indulgence nor in selfish grief. He will be more tender if he realizes
that love removes all barriers and that doing his duty in obedience and
faith and courage will lead to a reunion.

Let us go back to Doe and the modern Portia and see what would
be the effect upon them if they were to believe in the Twin Doctrines.
Doe does punish his children, but he does so in love and because he is
convinced that centuries of accumulated human experience count for more
than a sudden new fad that children should be allowed to "grow un-
hampered in their temperamental development." Should not Doe credit
God with at least as much love and wisdom and firmness as he himself
displays? If he does this it would seem logical for him to expect that
God is going to give him chance after chance just as he gives his own
children, and that what he takes as hardship and sorrow and pain in his
own life is merely a variety of the same enforced guidance that he gives
his children in love when he punishes them.

Take Portia : As Doe describes her she is very fascinating when she
lets herself be a real woman instead of being a poor substitute for a male
policeman. Let us credit her with sincerity according to her present
beliefs. She undoubtedly does think that she is loving and wise when she
gives her time, and strength, and energy in the effort to mind other
people's business. Suppose Portia believed in Reincarnation and Karma,
might she not see that interfering in other people's business, and homes,
and lives is self-indulgence for her? Might she not regard the necessity
to kill down the desire to so meddle as one of her opportunities in this life.
Personally I should think that she would be afraid that God would give
her her own way next time and would separate her (for a time only
for God is more merciful than we deserve) from those with whom she
is grouped in love and set her to mind other people's business when
she does not want to !

Suppose Portia should say that this is too negative and should ask for
something more positive than advice not to interfere with other people
how about her own home her family and her own children? She
thinks she is wise enough to regulate other people's children. Is it not
possible that God is wise enough to regulate all children and that he has
given her her chance in her own home. This particular Portia happens to

256 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

have children, but there are other charming regulators of other people's
lives who have no children of their own. How would a belief in Rein-
carnation and Karma affect them? Might they not decide that for some
reason they were being given an opportunity to serve someone entirely
untrammeled and would they not look carefully for the closest duty, and
the harder it was welcome it the more?

I know a charming girl whose mother is by no means a happy woman.
This girl regrets that a sense of impelling duty to become a trained nurse
has obliged her to leave her mother to loneliness with strangers. Were
she a believer in the Twin Doctrines would she not think that her oppor-
tunity for service was in the most tender care of her mother ? It may be,
such is the modern point of view, that she does not regard her mother as
congenial! What of it? Does not that rather increase her opportunity
for making good Karma?

When I see some of those clean-faced, firm-featured, well-groomed,
and gaily-gowned ladies who preach socialism or suffrage, or demand a
place in public affairs, I wonder if they would not prefer the more obscure,
but possibly greater happiness to be found in their own homes, or in
immediate personal circumstances, if they accepted the Twin Doctrines
as laws of life. There is a stimulating side to these doctrines in making
the overcoming of temptation however subtle a victory like unto a
triumph in war and is life not a fight ?

I do not ignore the good that many of these women do. Yet it is
worth wondering if this good balances the evil done by or through, or
because of the many women trying to take the place of men. Take, for
example, the case of a woman of international reputation, regarded as
a saint by many, and recognized as a leader in philanthropic, political,
sociological, and labor circles. The side of her which is like the old-
fashioned saint has done good. She unquestionably has cared for a great
many unfortunate young women. She has helped a great many of them
to physical betterment and there is a strong chance that she has helped
many of them spiritually. But there is a would-be-man side of her which
may explain the fact that from her work has emanated more bitterness,
class-hatred, and unreasoning unrest than from almost any other single
center in this country. May it not be that she is like a locomotive with
one of its connecting rods broken loose and thrashing around like a flail
in the hands of a malignant giant. I know of no great woman saint who
has preached hatred and bitterness. Yet women saints have remade king-
doms and captained armies. Were there ever gentler gentlewomen, ladies
more feminine and dainty, than St. Catherine and the priceless, peerless
Maid of Orleans?

A young girl was soon to be married to a man to whom her father
and brothers had interposed fruitlessly strong objections. Her grand-
mother, who came on for the wedding, asked the bride-to-be if she were
not afraid to set her inexperienced judgment against that of men who
loved her dearly.

THE TWIN DOCTRINES AND SOCIAL UNREST 257

"Why no," came the answer, "if I have made a mistake I can get a
divorce."

This is a very modern and not unusual point of view. Almost all of
us have known of couples who when disagreeing have thought and talked
of divorce as a remedy for marital unhappiness. If a belief in the Twin
Doctrines were held by such young women might they not regard their
fathers and brothers as means specially designed for their protection or
training? If once married would not believers in these doctrines accept
the step they had taken and endeavor strenuously to make their marriages
successful?

Perhaps it may be found helpful to consider our modern problems
by this test of courageous, patient and loving acceptance of the exact
circumstances in which we find ourselves placed as individuals, families,
groups, and so on up to nations and races. But if we seek to limit the
Twin Doctrines to mere mind formulas we will find little satisfaction. To
get strength, power and help through them must we not treat them as
additional means of reaching to the Master? In other words is there
any other way of finding happiness in life than through discipleship ?

Applying the theosophic method, as set forth, for example, in Pro-
fessor Mitchell's "Theosophy and the Theosophical Society" will it not
help us to seek for points of agreement. If, instead of taking sides we
were to study the great social and political problems in the light thrown
by the Twin Doctrines and their logical conclusion, Discipleship, would
we not find in the obedience and effort and joy, such happiness and
peace as nothing material, whether it be money or legislation, may bring ?

G. M. MCKLEMM.

"God will fairly flood your life, with all the power He can trust you
to use wholly for Him. S. D. Gordon.

WHY I JOINED THE
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

FOR many years religion had been with me a matter of outward
form, church-going a more or less regular observance of some-
thing which it was the thing to do, prayer a succession of vain
repetitions and demands that the things which I thought I and
others needed, be granted. Sometimes there was a vague stirring of
emotion which it was easy to think of as real spiritual experience, but
there was no real inner life and no real desire for it nothing but a cast-
iron rigidity of belief in the literal interpretation of a few fundamental
facts which I had learned as a child ; nothing but a surface appreciation
of the beauty of certain words and passages and verses which had never
really held for me any deeper hidden meaning, and an absolute impatience
with and intolerance of any new interpretation or seeking or thinking.
And of course at the first great and real need of life, and under stress and
strain, the outer walls which I had built up so carefully to support such
an inner attitude, surveyed as they were with the wrong measuring-stick
and composed of the wrong materials, first cracked and then swayed
and finally collapsed.

About this time I had a great deal of experience with illness and
doctors, and finally, four years ago, the opportunity of observing the
methods of a physician who used hypnotic suggestion in the treatment of
nervous troubles, and used it in a very unusual and spiritual way in an
effort to reach truly the inner life of the patient. I became very much
interested, through the things which I saw him accomplish and through
others of which I heard, first in the whole question of hypnotic thera-
peutics, and then in the larger aspect of that whole question as to how
those inner forces worked which these doctors were always striving to
untangle and set free in order to effect their cures. I read a number of
books by French and German specialists, talked with various doctors here,
became interested in the Emmanuel Movement, and through that more
than ever in the exact nature of that inner power which brought about
these outward transformations. Then followed a period of delving into
Mental Science, and also to some extent into Christian Science and
Spiritualism, and I gradually became more and more absorbed in the
whole question of psychical research and read much on that subject.
I was very much struck with the epilogue to F. W. H. Myers' Human
Personality, containing as it did for me a first hint of a stupendous
scheme of thought, of an infinitely broad conception of the world of the

WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 259

spirit; but I was the most impressed by William James' Varieties of
Religious Experience.

This book seemed to draw together all the threads which had been
lying loose in my mind, and to begin to weave them together into some
sort of fabric. I felt then that the power behind these remarkable con-
versions must be the same power which effected the physical and mental
cures in which I had been so much interested and must also lie back of
all the psychic phemonena. But exactly how all these things were inter-
related, how to trace them still further back and to bring them all
together I did not know, and I could not seem to find out. Up to that
time all the steps of my reading and investigation and thinking had
followed along in fairly rapid and seemingly quite logical order. One
book had led through its references quite naturally to another, in what
seemed to me at the time a very remarkable way, and things in my own
life and in the lives of people near to me had all helped to aid progress
and to open up new avenues which had led to greater light. But now
I seemed to come up against a solid wall that barred further progress
along these old lines of investigation. After battering myself against it
for a while it was borne in on me that I was not meant to go on in these
old ways any longer ; that when the proper time came the road would be
clear again, and that what I was meant to do just then was to apply in
service as much as I had been able to learn ; to stop groping and thinking
and analyzing, and to learn to feel more deeply and to live more truly;
to let this power of which I was at last acutely conscious take absolute
possession of me and work out its will in me, and to trust that through
the working out still further light and growth would come.

And then I began to find new meanings in the heart of old words,
a new inspiration in the church service, a new vision of the larger mean-
ing of life and living in the words of a friend who was one of a group
of people all members of the Theosophical Society. Through this friend
came the opportunity to take part in some measure in the work which
he and this group were doing, and through him and through this work
to know others of this group. Through them came a realization of the
true meaning of brotherhood and service, an understanding of how the
doing of the little things of every day may be made beautiful and conse-
crated by doing them always as unto Him, of what the constant sense
of the presence of the living Master may mean in a life, of the heights of
self-sacrifice and helpfulness and vision to which it may lead. I really
knew very little about the Theosophical Society at that time, but it was
plainly the source from which these people all drew their inspiration, and
I wanted this same inspiration more than I had ever wanted anything in
my life before, for myself and for others. I attended five or six meetings
of the Society, became interested in new aspects of the talk and discus-
sion which went on at them, and received all the while constant help in
the ways in which I had desired it so much, and feeling at last that
through earnest effort and desire there was very much more to be added

260 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

than I had before dreamed of and that through the Society would come
the wider knowledge and wisdom which would include all the things I
had wanted over the last few years, I made my application for member-
ship. A. R. C.

I have been asked to write a short article on "Why I joined the
Theosophical Society," but theosophy has come to mean so much to me
that it is doubtful if I can separate the reasons why I joined from those
which lead to my remaining a member. Analyzing motives is also difficult
in the face of the gratitude I feel for the inspiration that has come through
its fellowship and teachings.

Theosophy was first brought to my attention by a very charming,
cultured woman, who had enjoyed the privilege of membership under
Mr. Judge's leadership. It is possible my joining the society at the time
I did was prompted by selfishness, but this selfishness, if so it can be
called, lay in the fact that it brought to my attention many things hereto-
fore unknown and undreamed of, and at that time in life I was curious
and wanted to know and find out the why of everything. This attitude of
mind, however, soon turned into one of admiration and earnestness,
admiration for the objects which the society stands for and tries to
inculcate into life, brotherhood and power for good and earnestness
in my endeavor to carry out my share in the great scheme of life to which
I had been introduced through Theosophy. For I then learned and
realized as I never had before that even so small an embodiment of life
as I represented had its place in the great whole ; that I was a necessary
part to the evolution of the world, not only for what life offers for my
own development, but to give the best that I could for help in the develop-
ment of the whole. Only by giving of what we have can we make room
for what is better.

For many years I had been hoping to find in the religion of my
family and friends the answers to questions which were puzzling me,
questions as old as the world Why does life seem to hold more for the
few than for the great majority? How can I prepare myself for eternity
in a life of the regulation three score years and ten? What is the use
of it all if some whom I know and love are condemned and lost while
others have eternal life? These questions and others were unanswerable
until worked out reasonably through the universal laws that Theosophy
revealed.

The great law of cause and effect, or Karma, answered the first
question satisfactorily to my mind. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also reap." Whatever causes I, myself, set in motion, I must be
concerned in the result; on no one else can the blame fall. The life of
each one of us is so inextricably interwoven with that of others through
this law, that we are brought face to face with our duty to our neighbor,
and the query "Am I my brother's keeper ?" becomes at once a command
to be heeded.

WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 261

Closely connected with this law is another even more beneficent
of reincarnation ; beneficent because it allows the working out of the law
of cause and effect by giving the opportunity of meeting those with whom
our lives are interwoven and allowing us to set right any wrong which
we may have done them. It also gives us time and opportunity to continue
and finish such good as we have started. This law of reincarnation
answered my second question, i. e., whether one life is not too short in
which to prepare for eternity.

The main object of the society Brotherhood contains the answer
to all three questions, for it traces its beginning to God, the Father of all
mankind, which tie binds us all together and from which we cannot escape.

In answering these questions where Christianity seemed inadequate,
theosophy did me the further service of showing that if Christianity were
rightly understood, it would in no sense be antagonistic to theosophy. It
also taught me that Theosophy would clarify and supplement the teachings
of Christianity with reasonable authentic explanations.

I joined the Theosophical Society because as I understood its presen-
tation, it seemed to me to furnish a reasonable basis for living. I remain
in it because it has taught and still teaches me that I, myself, am the
reason. This is not egotistical ; it is the great Universal Self to which I
refer. The struggles brought by life seem no longer stumbling blocks,
but rather opportunities which the clear light of Theosophy teaches me
are so many lessons to be learned and understood. They are not punish-
ments sent for misdeeds; they are rather the results of deviations from
the path of inexorable Divine law, their elimination resting with me and
such progress as I may make in following the law. When I have learned
to live without friction, accepting whatever comes with calmness and self-
control, without fear of the future, then I am becoming the law itself, and
am able to help those who may have the same troubles which I en-
countered. I am then living Brotherhood, by making Theosophy a living
power. This contains all that makes life worth living, for after all no
one, no matter how selfish or material he may seem to be or think he is,
cares to live for himself alone he must have some object to make life
worth while; and to my way of thinking there can be no object which
could take the place of working for the whole race of humanity embodied
in the word Brotherhood, which includes all lesser ethical works, or aims.

B. L. G.

Twenty-one years ago I was one of a group of seven that started an
investigation of religious questions other than those afforded by the
church. We met frequently and compared notes, turning our attention
in succession to Ingersoll, the Psychical Research Society's work, spiritual-
istic phenomena, materialistic science, and lastly to Theosophy. All of
the investigators felt benefited by their experience. Four turned to the
Eastern teachings as affording the most light, one got lost in the mazes

262 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

of Spiritualistic Phenomena, two held to their church but studied Theos-
ophy, and the writer joined the Society.

I, like all the others, during our investigations, had to face seeming
complexities in the Christian Religion and the teaching concerning the
Christian Master. My lot was not so difficult as that of the others, how-
ever, in that I had never in my life doubted the immortality of the Soul,
and from early childhood had always had a deep and abiding faith and
interest in Jesus. My objects in starting the investigation originally were
among other things, to obtain, if possible, a clearer and more satisfactory
understanding of Jesus and his teaching. Thus, while seeking for light, I
never severed my connection with my church, and found to my delight
that Theosophy afforded the key to the seemingly unanswerable things
in life and that the "Gentle Nazarene" and his story were contained in
Theosophy with a wealth of meaning and in entire completeness. For Jesus
had always been the golden thread running through my life, and with what
joy I found that Theosophy enabled me to trace that thread. By its
light was shown the wonder and glory of His mission. Certain puzzling
chapters in St. John, the prayer of Jesus connected with the Last Supper,
his relations with his Disciples, all took on a world of meaning, where
before all had been confusion. What did not the Light of Theosophy
divulge to me. It showed so plainly that all religions have the same
source and origin. How it made me long for the day when the funda-
mental truths of the Christian Religion will be more fully revealed. With
what encouragement we can view the progress that is being made in this
direction even now, as is shown in the more spiritual development of our
clergymen, the increasing liberality of the Episcopal Church, its devotional
attitude and its large humanitarian work.

Who can wonder, then, that I joined the Theosophical Society? In
all the years of my membership, its teaching has been a constant source of
helpfulness and inspiration. Criticism and contention fall away before it,
creeds cease to exist, and co-operation, not criticism, is shown to be the
need of the hour. One point which appealed most strongly to me in my
first touch with Theosophy was that which concerns the struggle within
man. Self-induced effort is a prerequisite for progress, yet man alone,
and unaided must always fail, and by the great law must turn for aid to
the beckoning and guiding hand of the Master, who for me and many
other members is none other than Jesus Christ. For me, therefore,
Theosophy spread out nineteen years ago the map of life, outlining its
complexities, its joys and sorrows, and gave the realization that the
journey's end can only be found in service, following the example of
the great Christian Master. "Freely have you received, freely give."

M. F. G.

In trying to tell why one takes a very important step in life, it is
necessary to show the trend of thought and the circumstances which led
up to it, and in doing this one must give personal history.

WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 263

I belong to a family whose members have been devoted churchmen
for generations. They admit that there are good people among the
sects, but it is hard for those who are not members of the visible Church
here, to enter the Church Eternal in the Heavens. That I have come
into the Theosophical Society shows of itself that I have been and am
a great disappointment and trial to my people. Looking back over my
life I can see that even as a child I was not the product of my family
environment. I have a "scrap book" of poetry that I began before I was
ten years old. In looking over it recently, I have been interested to note,
not only that the verses show the growth of my inner life, but that while
the clippings show a strong religious trend, there are many of them that
I still value because they express a positive faith and reliance on the law
of Karma, as I now understand it. As a child I had a firm faith in prayer,
and believed, as I think most children do, that God the Father is very
near and ready to help, if we ask Him. I remember once, as a small
child, being frightened by a horse, and in jumping out of the way, landed
in a mud puddle, I was naturally horrified to see my clean clothes spoiled,
and clothes were a bad point with me, for I was constantly getting into
disgrace because of them. I began to pray that God would take all the
spots off before I got home, and I made the trip as long as possible so
that He would have time to attend to me.

When I reached home the mud had dried and the spots had practically
disappeared. I then prayed that my mother would be kept from noticing
and punishing me, and I believed this prayer answered, for nothing was
ever said about the spots.

From my childhood until I was grown my dearest friends were chil-
dren of Methodist parents. I had no friends in the Church. I was allowed
to go sometimes to the Methodist Sunday School, but often when I was
supposed to be safe in the Episcopal Sunday School, I was with my
Methodist friends.

When I was about fourteen the Methodists had a series of revival
meetings which I attended. I was greatly impressed by the experiences of
those who were converted, and sincerely wished to share their devotion
and joy. I was "converted" before the meetings closed, but although I
was very much in earnest, I was disappointed that I had no wonderful
experience, as some of my friends had. I could see no change in myself
except a new desire and determination to overcome my faults, and grow
more like my ideal. But the Methodists appealed to me very strongly,
there was something real, warm and alive about their religion, while my
own Church seemed cold and unresponsive, and besides they believed in
answer to prayer, and prayed to God from their hearts, and not from a
book. They also believed in "Sanctification," that it was possible to have
all one's sins washed away and to lead a holy life, this appealed to me,
this seemed to me to be the goal to strive for. As I remember my under-
standing of it then, I should say that "the state of sanctification," is what is
known as chelaship in the Orient, and by the followers of Jesus the Christ,

264 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

as discipleship, and this Theosophy has taught me, is as possible for us
today as for those who lived with our Lord, and immediately after his
ascension. He told us to "be perfect as the Father in Heaven is perfect,"
but that seemed hopeless in one short life, but now with the teaching of
reincarnation, all things are possible.

When my family learned what I had done my trials began, for they
had no faith in sudden conversions, and when they found that I wanted
to join the Methodist Church they were as horrified and troubled as if
I had committed a crime. For the greater part of a year they and their
friends labored with me, while I prayed and pled with God to show me
what I ought to do, feeling sure all the time that He would want me to
join the Church that would bring me nearest to Him, and, of course, I
believed that to be the Methodist.

As the months of struggle and prayer passed, the conviction grew
stronger that I owed obedience to my mother and respect to family tradi-
tions, so that same year I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church.

From that time until I was about thirty-five I believed myself a
devoted churchwoman, and was so considered by others, but now as I
look back at that period of my life I see that there was no real devotion
in my heart, no real sincerity, and I knew really nothing of the true
spiritual teaching of the Church, I had only the outside husks. The
ritual appealed to me and it stirred emotions in my heart which I mistook
for the fervor of devotion.

Yet good churchwoman as I was supposed to be I was still the "odd"
one, and more or less of a trial to my people, for I was interested in
socialism, faith cures, living by faith, single tax, second adventists and
any other "ism" that came my way, and I always seemed to draw people
with "isms" rather than my own Church people.

During these years many sorrows and disappointments had come to
me, and although I felt life to be very hard, I can truthfully say, I think,
that I never felt life to be unjust to me for I knew my own failings so
well, and how far I was from the ideal that I had started out to attain.
But I saw what seemed injustice everywhere, especially among children.
I had a feeling that perhaps the grown people were something like myself,
and I knew I seemed better on the outside than I knew myself to be, but
children were newly created white souls, and I could not see the justice.
I suppose I was beginning to think, life was forcing questions upon me,
that my Church teaching could not answer. I was losing faith, not in God,
but in the Church, where it had never been a living faith, as I now see.

The thought of an eternity of bliss was more unthinkable to me than
an eternity of woe, for I can never remember having any fear of a hell,
but I can well remember trying to imagine an eternity of bliss, until I
felt I should go mad, and longing and praying for annihilation instead. It
was the teaching of evolution, reincarnation, and Karma, in Theosophy,
that appealed to me most strongly at first. The idea that each child born
into the world was not a new-made soul, reaping where it had not sown,

WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 265

and suffering for the sins of others, was the greatest joy and encourage-
ment to me. But when the truth, for truth I at once felt it to be, of an
eternity behind me as well as before, and that I am living in eternity now,
came to me, all the old horror fell away. But this was not until I heard
of Theosophy, and that came about in this wise.

In the midst of all this mental upheaval, an English friend gave me
Marie Correlli's books, The Romance of Two Worlds and Ardath. These
gave me the first hint of evolution, and the idea that the soul is not born,
nor can it die, but that it comes to this earth to learn the lessons of life
and to reap what it has sown in other lives, to grow, and to mount ever
higher and higher. These books impressed me greatly and gave me food
for thought for months. At this juncture I was invited by this same
friend to attend a lecture that he had heard of, on the "Astral Body."
We had no idea what that might be, but wanted to go any how. We
understood very little of the lecture, but we did get many helpful thoughts.
Leaflets were given us on Reincarnation and Karma and after going to
more lectures, thinking over all I had heard and reading the few things
given me, it seemed to me that I had suddenly found an answer to all of
life's questions. All the injustice and wrong were wiped out. Life took
on a new and more hopeful aspect, there was no horrible eternity of either
bliss or woe. I learned anew that law and order reigned and a living, all-
wise and all- just Father ruled the world.

I joined the Society six or eight weeks after that first visit, and it
was only after I had begun to learn something of its Divine teaching that
I felt I had found compensation for all the sacrifice I thought I had
made when I gave up the ideals and aspirations I had at fourteen, and
followed my dear mother's wishes.

All this and more I have found in Theosophy, and I am only begin-
ning, there is endless unfoldment before me. E. G. A.

ON THE SCREEN OF TIME

THE Recorder began: "I have friends in Germany on whose
behalf I wish to speak. There are many German readers ot
the THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY men and women whom we
respect, some of them members of the Theosophical Society,
fellow-workers with us in the cause of Masters and of humanity.
Doubtless they are protesting, as far as they are able, against the
violation of Belgium neutrality and against the hideous wrong done
that people. I should prefer to remain silent until we receive informa-
tion of their protest, and then to second it to the utmost of our ability.
But the war prevents free communication with Germany the censor-
ship is very strict and many months may pass before we hear from
our German friends again. It would be wrong for us to withhold
our protest for so long. If only on their behalf it would be obligatory
for some one of us to speak.

"Every ideal for which Theosophy stands has been outraged. If
America or France or England had done this thing, our condem-
nation would not be less severe ; our pain would be even greater. It
is because, for the moment, I speak for a cause which includes all
nations and races equally that I feel it my duty publicly to execrate
an irremediable outrage, not merely against civilization, but, in the
person of the perpetrators, against human life and human honour.
With every man of every race who loves what is honourable, respects
what is sacred, reveres what is true, and who hates what is evil
and hideous and perverted, we mourn."

The Objector spoke instantly: "Germany claims," he said, "that
the violation of Belgium neutrality was a military necessity; that it
was an act of self-preservation."

"On behalf of my German friends," replied the Recorder, "I
must beg you not to say that 'Germany claims/ Say rather that
official Germany claims, or, if that be not sufficiently comprehensive
in your opinion, say that a great majority of Germans make that
claim and thereby pretend, as against all that German Theosophists
stand for, that the end justifies the means. From the dawn of
history, that doctrine has been used by everyone who, for the time
being, has become the instrument of devils."

"After all," interjected the Philosopher, turning to the Objector,
"it is not a question of what you or I would do in given circum-
stances; it is a question of what we would wish to do. If you and
I were wrecked on a desert island, I might, at the end of a week's
starvation, kill you and eat you. I hope sincerely that I should not.
Self-preservation certainly could not warrant it. If I were to do it

266

ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 267

as soon as we landed and without even the excuse of a week's starva-
tion, it would make my action that much the worse. If I had in
some way premeditated the act, or if you were in some way under
my protection, it would again make the act more evil by just that
much. But the point is that while, on the one hand, we cannot
guarantee our own impeccability of conduct in times of great tempta-
tion, we can say what we would hope to do; we can recognize an
ideal. Therefore we must condemn a wrong act, though not the
actor, even when the wrong act is unpremeditated. In the case of
Germany and Belgium, however, premeditation has been admitted.
It is as if a man, foreseeing the probability of a fight with his
neighbour, planned beforehand to use a child next door as a club
or a shield a child he had promised specially to protect. Then,
because the child when seized by the heels, proceeds to kick and to
struggle, the man dashes its brains out and uses the dead body as
a club. He admits to his friends (as the German Chancellor ad-
mitted) that he knows he is doing wrong, but that he has an enemy
and must 'hack his way through.'

"Can such conduct need condemnation? Can it be necessary
to point out that it was the duty of that man to die a thousand
deaths but never, even at the last gasp, to do a dastardly thing such
as that? Is it not obvious that he has placed himself under the pro-
tection, not of God, but of the Black Lodge and of all the powers
of darkness?

"So terrible was the initial offence the invasion of neutral
Belgium that the mutilation which followed the murder the
destruction of Louvain and other cities might be regarded as evi-
dence of insanity rather than as cumulative moral guilt. Once you
assert that the end justifies the means and undertake to act upon
that theory, you place yourself, not only beyond the pale of morals,
but of reason. You join the ranks of the insane and everything you
do is likely to be an insane act fiendishly cruel or wanton. You
cannot unite your life with that of the Black Lodge without com-
ing, in time, to hate God, even though you continue to mutter the
name of God interminably."

"The subject is too terrible," said the Student. "Let us change
it. ... What would you regard as the fruit of your summer?"

It was the Philosopher who undertook to reply.

"A deeper conviction," he said, "that conduct, that policy, are
controlled by character; and that if we would learn to act with
wisdom and also with power, we can only do so as the result of an
all-round development of character."

"What do you mean by character?" asked the Student.

"I mean the qualities of the heart and will and imagination. I
mean that if a man have an arrogant heart; if he be vain or bad-
tempered or sensual or lacking in sympathy if, in brief, he have

268 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

any moral defect of any kind, that moral defect is going to warp his
judgment and paralyze or greatly weaken his action in everything
that he undertakes in any department of life. In other words, the
moral qualities, instead of being merely ornamental, or instead of
being desirable for reasons partly spiritual and partly aesthetic, as
many people seem to believe, are absolutely essential to the success-
ful performance of any task whatsoever, from making love to com-
manding an army, from sweeping a floor to running an automobile."

"Do you suggest this as a discovery?" It was the Objector
who spoke, and when the weather is against him, he degenerates
occasionally into sarcasm. But the Philosopher knows him and
smiles.

''Not as a discovery," he replied, "but as a conviction which has
bitten into me more deeply because of the war."

"I thought we were going to change the subject," the Student
murmured.

"We cannot change the subject. Nobody can," answered the
Philosopher. "It is bigger than we are. And in this case, as I said,
I have to thank the war for a deepened and still deepening con-
viction. The principle of which I was speaking can be seen at work
both in the diplomacy and in the strategy of the contending nations.
Their conduct is written so large on the Screen of Time, that it
enables one to see more clearly one's own mistakes and above all
one's own needs.

"It could perhaps be stated more simply in this way : that selfish-
ness, self-love, self-glorification, self-pity self in any of its innumer-
able phases while long since recognized by mystical theologians as
the supreme enemy of the soul, ought also to be recognized as the
supreme enemy of successful action on any plane and in every sphere
of life. Self invariably defeats its own ends ; invariably deprives
itself of the fruits of its own efforts; invariably blinds, tricks, mis-
leads us intellectually; invariably deflects our aim, weakens our
blow, saps our resistance."

"The logic of that," commented the Student, "is that the nation
or nations meeting with defeat in this war will be overcome by their
own moral defects rather than by the superior strength of their
antagonists. But where would you draw the line? Surely you would
not ignore the weight of numbers as a factor?"

"Certainly not. The number of men and of guns; the amount
of gold in a nation's treasury the physical fitness and 'preparedness'
of a nation these clearly are factors of immense importance. But
they are the result of moral qualities operative for years prior to
the outbreak of hostilities. My sympathies, as you know, are com-
pletely with the Allies; but neither France nor England can be held
blameless for their lack of preparation. For one thing, they failed
to recognize the character of the ruling caste in Germany of the

269

caste that has ruled its people since the war of 1870. This failure
was due to insularity, to provincialism forms of self-centredness
and of self-sufficiency. It never entered the head of the average
Englishman (probably not of the average Frenchman either) that a
caste existed in Germany which quite seriously thought itself
superior, not only to all other created things, but to the generally
accepted moral law. Yet the spirit of a dominant caste is often
expressed by poets and philosophers, and Nietzsche was poet and
philosopher in one. His Superman (read his Also Sprach Zara-
thustra) declares that the very spirit of Christianity, apart even from
its dogmas, has polluted and debased the intellectual atmosphere of
Europe. If you will turn back to the THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY for
April, 1909 (Vol. VI, No. 4), you will find an article on Nietzsche
which explains much that we witness in Europe today. ... It
is not my intention, however, to criticize Germany. My point is
that English and French statesmen ought to have forseen what was
coming what was bound to come and ought to have strained every
nerve to prepare for it in advance, instead of permitting the thought
and energies of their respective nations to concentrate on domestic
comfort."

"In a hundred years from now," interrupted the Gael, "they
will be condemned with a severity which today would seem most
unjust. Imagine a settler in this country, out West, in the days of
Apache or Sioux wars. Imagine that, instead of building stock-
ades and laying in powder and bullets and provisions, your settler
had concentrated his attention on decorating the interior of his log
cabin or on importing silk dresses for his wife or even on tasks,
otherwise meritorious, such as the proper mending of his children's
stockings. You would say that the man deserved any fate, but that
it was distinctly hard on the said wife and children ! Yet that is
exactly what the radical and socialistic politicians of France and
England did. It would be an insult to all old women to say that such
men behaved like old women. And in too many cases their motive
was a bad one. They wanted votes, and they pandered to the
ignorance of the average voter."

The Objector broke in : "There are plenty of people in France
and England, and for that matter in this country too, who have no
more use for Christianity than Nietzsche had. It would be abso-
lutely unfair to attribute to any class of Germans a monopoly of
such disapproval."

"True," replied the Philosopher. "But there is an immense dif-
ference between opposition to a Church or disapproval of dogmas,
on the one hand, and, on the other, contempt for an ethical ideal.
Further, Nietzsche did not invent a new ideal. All he did was to
voice the ideal of the caste which dominated and still dominates

270 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Germany. He was most careful not to limit his condemnation to
views distinctively Christian. See what he said about Theosophy
supposed at that time, and of course wrongly supposed, to be
emphatically anti-Christian. 'The result of Theosophy. One is most
dishonest against one's God: one is not allowed to sin!' ... If
you do not believe me, here is the German of it, from Spruche und
Zwischenspiele, vol. VII, p. 95 : 'Aus der Theosophie. Man ist am
unehrlichsten gegen seinen Gott : er darf nicht siindigen !' "

"I have heard Germans, who were Church-goers, rave about
Nietzsche. They liked his 'freedom of spirit'; they admired his
vigour. The truth is that he expressed what they wanted to be;
that his writings (not, of course, the man himself) portrayed their
hero, the German Superman. If all the powers of evil had com-
bined to express their soul in words both attractive and forceful,
the result could hardly have excelled the work of Nietzsche. My
own belief is that he was used in just that way. He claimed to be
inspired. He was mediumistic. He died in a mad-house. And in
any case he voiced the doctrine of devils."

"If you admit," said the Objector, "that many English and
French politicians were insular or provincial, and that these were
forms of self-centredness and of self-sufficiency, in what respect were
they superior morally to Germans?"

"I did not and do not say they were superior to Germans. You
must be good enough not to ignore my distinction between 'Ger-
mans' and the dominant caste in Germany. You must leave it to
the individual German to declare his sympathies. The dominant
caste in Germany had no sense of humour. The German papers that
laughed at their absurdities were conducted by clever Jews an
entirely different race. Both French and English could laugh at
themselves ; could see that they were not Supermen ; did not imagine
themselves above the moral law, or the law which ought to govern
their neighbours. They still retained, in other words, some rem-
nants of a genuine humility. Englishmen, practically without excep-
tion, had sense enough left to realize that if all the world were
Anglicized, it would become a very soggy world. They were suf-
ficiently civilized, in a theosophic sense, to value the contribution
of minds and of temperaments utterly different from their own. They
could respect much that they found in France, in India, in America,
in Germany, in Russia, in Italy, and in many other nations. And
by respect I mean they could really value much that they met with.
The same was true of the French and of the Russians. It would be
impossible to find in any French or English or Russian newspaper
of the past fifty years, an article such as that which appeared in a
recent issue of the German Kreuzzeitung, translated in the New York
Sun of November 29th. The Kreuzzeitung says :

ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 271

" 'Speaking frankly, and as true Germans, we would see
every monument, every stone that tells the history of France,
every picture, though it be a work of semi-divine conception,
utterly destroyed rather than that the glorious work that has
been given to the German race to perform in the world should
be hindered by even so much as one hour's avoidable delay.

" 'The world can be revitalized, society ennobled and refined,
only through the German spirit.

" 'The world must, for its own salvation, be Germanized.'

"Many individual Germans would laugh at such narrow arro-
gance. German Theosophists would see instantly how utterly
opposed is such a spirit to the principles upon which the Society is
founded. None the less, that article in the Kreuzzeitung speaks for
the caste in Germany which controls the policy of the German
Empire, and, as I said, there is no caste either in France or in Eng-
land which is capable of such narrow-minded arrogance, any more
than it is capable of the wild talk of a man like Maximilian Harden,
with his 'our might shall create a new law in Europe'! Psychic
intoxication if you choose, as may be said of Nietzsche. But that
which inspires it is bad; is the exact opposite of the theosophic
spirit; is deplorable."

"All that has been said so far," said the Disciple at this point,
"will impress some Germans as very unjust, and even some non-
German readers of the QUARTERLY as very unbrotherly. But having said
it, I want, if you will let me, to explain what I mean. In this country we
have had an opportunity to study each nation's record of the negotiations
which preceded the war: we have read the official documents as pre-
sented by Germany, France, England and the other allied govern-
ments. It is doubtful whether any Germans in Germany, except
Foreign Office officials, have had the same opportunity. As the
result of our study we have come to certain dispassionate conclusions.
We have a right to claim them as dispassionate, because we were not
biased in favour of England, as our history during the past twenty
years and longer amply proves. We have come to the conclusion
that Germany could have prevented war and did not choose to do
so; that Germany hoped until the last moment that England could
be kept out of it, and because self-deceived, was furious when Eng-
land, instead of submitting to the violation of Belgian neutrality,
took up arms to protect that which she had promised to protect. We
have come to the conclusion that the said violation of Belgian
neutrality by Germany, was premeditated, was unprovoked, was
wicked, was cowardly. As a people although neutral as a nation
we shall not rest content until Belgium is again independent and
has been compensated, to the utmost that is possible, for the terrible
wrong that has been done her. That, if I am not mistaken, is a

272 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

fair statement of what the average American feels. It is in any case
what I feel. And I base my conclusion upon a study of all the
official documents, Germany's White Paper included. It would be
possible to base it upon Germany's statement alone. But the average
German in Germany has been misled; does not know the facts; is
convinced that he does know them, and has concluded (because he
personally, perhaps, did not want war) that 'Great Britain started
the war for money', as the Kreuzzeitung tells him. Consequently he
would think the remarks made here this afternoon very unjust and
unfriendly. He would be wrong, but we must make allowance for
the fact that he has been misled."

"How about the peace-at-any-price people?" asked the Student.
"I can imagine their indignation if they could have heard our talk!"

"The logic of their position," replied the Disciple, "is that we
should abolish Police, front-doors, locks and keys, and any and
every form of resistance. It would be a sin, not only to defend
oneself, but to defend another, whether unjustly attacked or not.
To be logical they would have to go further and admit that it would
be inconsistent with their principles to resist temptation or the evil
in their own hearts. They will not see the logic of that, but it is
none the less the only fair deduction from their premise. Obviously,
as against their position, so long as evil exists, whether within us
or without us, it must be fought. 'Think not that I am come to
send peace on earth : I came not to send peace, but a sword.'

"But there are those who, without being 'peace-at-any-price,'
will think that the QUARTERLY is no place for the discussion of topics
which are hotly disputed, and that it is 'unbrotherly' to express an
opinion which may hurt the feelings of somebody else. If superla-
tively foolish, they might add that it is unbrotherly to judge either a
nation or an individual.

"Let us take the last, first. If my brother commits a murder,
am I to approve his act? If he steals, am I to condone his offence?
I owe it to him as well as to myself to condemn his misconduct,
once it is proved against him, and most bitterly to regret it and
for him and with him to repent of it. Was Christ unbrotherly
when, to their faces (would to Heaven I had his power of invective!),
he deriounced the Scribes and Pharisees? "Woe unto you, hypo-
crites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long
prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto
you, fools and blind! Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers! Ye are
like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward,
but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.'
No! Christ was not afraid to expose and to denounce evil. A brave
declaration of principles, a valiant defence of all who are unjustly
attacked, must for ever be the duty of the Theosophist. And I
suspect that friends of those Pharisees, though not their wiser,

ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 273

truer friends, had feelings very much hurt by such uncompromising
condemnation. They were the dominant caste in Judea. To con-
demn them was not to condemn their nation; but to condemn them
was to force a choice upon all the people of their nation.

"Was Christ 'unbrotherly' when he spoke of Herod as 'that fox/
that jackal? What queer ideas people have of brotherhood! What
vacuous sentimentality masquerades under that name! Think of
Madame Blavatsky: do you remember her editorials in Lucifer?
. . . Would you mind handing me that third volume? Just for
fun, I am going to open it at random. ... It opens on p. 3.
There is an editorial entitled "Our Third Year." Writing in the
third person Madame Blavatsky says of herself:

'If she has not held the torch nearer to certain American,
French, English, German and Hindu members of the Society,
it is because the sweet spirit of theosophical charity demands
that time should be given to these well-wishers but weak-doers
to discover their ignorance and cleanse themselves of the
ferocious selfishness, narrow-mindedness and conceit which have
made their playing at "the higher life" an almost comical
travesty/ "

All of us laughed. The extract was so thoroughly characteristic.
But the Disciple had not finished.

"Do you not remember," he continued, "how remorselessly she
attacked the clergy of that day for their narrow dogmatism? How
she assailed their hide-bound attachment to creeds, while declaring
as she always declared that 'the Christ-life is undeniably the ideal
of every one worthy in any sense of the name of a Theosophist* ?
Constantly she was reproached by friends and well-wishers for the
offence they feared she would give. They told her she was not
'politic.' Next month she would write an editorial literally scalping
them for their advice. 'The Truth' was her slogan, and speak it she
would, at all costs. 'The Editors of Lucifer are Theosophists,' she
said, 'and their motto is chosen : Vera pro gratiis.'

"Doubtless Madame Blavatsky had her faults; but she was not
a sentimentalist and she did understand Theosophy! If she were
alive today, I believe I know what she would be doing and saying.
And she would be doing it, not because she was a Russian by birth,
but because, heart and mind and soul and body, she was fearless
in her championship of Truth, passionate in her love of justice, un-
compromising in her defence of the oppressed, magnificent in her
hatred of all that dishonours manhood. She would be saying I
think that the soul which was in her is saying 'There can be, there
shall be no peace on earth until wrong has been righted; until the

274 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Divine Law is recognized and obeyed. Every man, worthy of the
name, must work for this, must fight for this. Every man, worthy
of the name, must die, when he does die, with that pledge in his
heart.' "

"It was very strange to me to discover this; and very dreadful
but I saw it to be quite an undeniable fact. The common notion that
peace and the virtues of civil life flourished together, I found, to be
wholly untenable. Peace and the vices of civil life only flourish to-
gether. We talk of peace and learning, and of peace and plenty, and of
peace and civilisation; but I found that those were not the words which
the Muse of History coupled together: that on her lips, the words were
peace and sensuality, peace and selfishness, peace and corruption,
peace and death. I found, in brief, that all great nations learned their
truth of word, and strength of thought, in war; that they were nourished
in war, and wasted by peace; taught by war, and deceived by peace;
trained by war, and betrayed by peace; in a word, that they were born
in war and expired in peace.

"Yet now note carefully, in the second place, it is not all war of
which this can be said nor all dragon's teeth, which, sown, will start
up into men. It is not the ravage of a barbarian wolf-flock . . .
But the creative or foundational war is that . . . in which the natural
ambition and love of power of men are disciplined into the aggressive
conquest of surrounding evil; and in which the natural instincts of self-
defence are satisfied by the nobleness of the institutions, and purity of
the households, which they are appointed to defend. To such war as
this all men are born; in such war as this any man may happily die;
and forth from such war as this have arisen throughout the extent of
past ages, all the highest sanctities and virtues of humanity." Ruskin's
Essay on War.

ELEMENTARY ARTICLE

A RULE OF LIFE.

THE manuals of devotion that treat of self-examination usually
follow a method that will answer our purpose in our effort to
discover the ground that should be covered by a Rule of Life.
They tell us that we have a duty to God, a duty to our neighbors
and a duty to ourselves. Therefore, a comprehensive Rule of Life must
include these three main divisions of living.

In a sense and without much forcing of the point, the three monastic
vows come into play here. We can well take Obedience as the synthesis of
our duty to God ; we can consider Poverty, i. e., renunciation, unselfish-
ness, as the keynote of a proper relation to our neighbors; while Chas-
tity Purity certainly is not a bad guide for our personal life our duty
to ourselves. There is no point in pushing this too far, however. It is of
interest as showing the marvellous inclusiveness of the three Vows. What
is necessary, is the adoption of principles of life which will cover our
three- fold relation, to God, to our neighbors and to ourselves; and to
erect these principles into a Rule of Life.

It is not a simple matter, for we have made life an enormously com-
plicated affair, and we must deal with it as it appears to us and not as
it really is. For countless ages we have been crossing and recrossing the
direct current of universal law until we have tangled ourselves up in a
maze of illusions and prejudices and ignorances through which we are no
longer able to discern the truth. With the best desire in the world we
do not know how to act, we do not know what to believe, we do not know
the direction in which to travel. It is an appreciation of this which fills
the monastery and the convent; which makes the strong appeal of the
Catholic Church, for it will take charge of the neophyte, will relieve him
of responsibility, and will tell him what to do. There are many who
will deny this need but that simply means that they do not yet know
enough to realize its truth ; they have not grown to the point where they
feel it.

To put into perfectly simple words just what this means ; we require
a spiritual guide or director when we decide to make a serious effort
to live a higher life. This is not strange or unusual or queer. We pro-

275

276 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

pose to travel into an unknown country and a guide is a matter of common
sense. We do not absolutely need a spiritual guide any more than we
absolutely need a human guide when exploring an unknown territory,
provided we are strong enough to suffer the hardships that could be
avoided by knowledge, and are willing to waste the time spent in going
wrong ways, with the resulting loss of energy and capital. A few excep-
tional human beings have gone long distances into the spiritual world
with their own resources only, but the vast majority would soon find
themselves lost in a mental forest or sunk in a psychic quagmire if
they attempted the journey alone.

Therefore one of the first things the would-be disciple must do is to
find a teacher ; one who knows more than he does and is willing to impart
that knowledge. It is, of course, the recognized function of the priest to
serve as such a guide, but unfortunately while the official representatives
of the various sects of Christianity often have a considerable knowledge
of theology, few of them have that personal experience of the spiritual
life which is absolutely necessary before he is fitted to lead others. It
is not what he knows, but what he is, that qualifies a guide in these
unknown regions of existence.

It is of the utmost importance, therefore, to choose one's spiritual
director with care ; to be sure he has the necessary qualifications, and that
his treatment of us and of our problems will be sympathetic and acceptable.
It is better to search long and to wait patiently for the proper person,
for it is almost essential that once chosen, we remain faithful to that guide.
Nothing is more usual and nothing more fatal to success than that restless
seeking for something new that makes certain types of neophytes fre-
quently change their directors. Better one poor director than several
good ones, and as a corollary of this : never under any circumstances ask
for spiritual advice from two people at the same time. Hopeless confusion
will result, and, if the relationship with the real director is a true and
vital one, it is sure to be severed by such inconstancy.

As it is not easy to find a suitable spiritual guide, as there are com-
paratively few persons in the world at the present time capable of training
souls, great care must be exercised in the search for a director and much
reflection given to those available, before a choice is made. As a rule,
anyone who offers to guide another is unsuitable. Any one who is easy
to find and easy to get, will not do : and above all, anyone who derives the
least direct or indirect benefit from such a relationship, is in the nature
of the case, a false guide, who will only lead astray. Remember that it
is a tremendous privilege to have a real spiritual guide, and in the spiritual
world a privilege must be earned. Therefore, if you seek a guide and do
not find one it may be safely taken as a sign that you do not deserve one.
But do not on that account cease your search. On the contrary, try
harder than ever, and try also to fit yourself for such a leadership so that
you may earn the right and deserve the privilege. If you do the time
is sure to come when the proper guide will "turn up" as it were, for while

A RULE OF LIFE 277

there may be nothing strange or unusual about it, nevertheless, you may
be sure that your efforts will be watched and that as soon as you are fit,
the matter will be "arranged," and the longed-for guide found. Faith is
necessary in this as in all else that relates to the spiritual life.

We have gone at some length into this question of finding a spiritual
director because it should precede, if possible, the adoption of a Rule; and
your Rule should be submitted to and approved by your guide before you
attempt to live it. This is not always possible, and these articles are in
fact intended more for those individuals who feel called to a higher life
but who have no director and perhaps think that they do not want or
need one.

Our Rule then must provide for our duty to God, our duty to our
neighbors and our duty to ourselves.

Roughly speaking, our duty to God includes prayer, meditation,
spiritual reading, religious services and observances and our obligations
in connection with our Church.

Our duty to our neighbors includes our relations to individuals, espe-
cially those with whom we come most into contact. Were we free from
jealousy, aversion, resentment or contempt? Were we uncharitable or
unkind in act or speech? Did we judge or suspect others rashly? Were
we impatient, irritable or cross ? Were we truthful ?

Our duty to ourselves includes our thoughts and feelings and acts.
Were we vain, proud, impatient ? Did we yield to sensuality, sloth or idle-
ness? Were we neglectful or careless about our work? Did we indulge
in idle, useless or impure thoughts?

If you make your Rule cover these points, and will observe, such a
Rule, it will carry you far towards perfection. For instance, fix upon an
hour for getting up each morning ; then appoint a time for prayer, medita-
tion and spiritual reading; limit your time at meals and the amount and
character of your food ; adopt principles of conduct to govern your rela-
tions with individuals; adopt principles to govern your method of doing
your daily work ; make such rules as you consider suitable to your circum-
stances to offer up little acts of prayer and recollection during the day;
regulate your leisure and your way of spending it and your time of
recreation ; do not let recreation ever become relaxation ; make rules about
going to bed and your prayers and self-examination at bed time. In a
word, carry method and order and system into your day from waking to
sleeping. Do not leave any loose time unprovided for. It were better
to make it your rule to take a nap at such periods than to have no rule
to cover them.

One caution: do not make your Rule severe or austere or difficult.
It must be easy to follow. You will find the easiest of Rules very hard
to observe conscientiously when you are not in the mood for it, and it is
almost essential that we be faithful in our observance. We are not
expected to be perfect. We are, on the contrary, expected to fail
repeatedly. Any Rule that could be kept without a failure would be too

278 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

easy to be of much value. But we are expected to try earnestly to observe
the Rule faithfully, and to do and accomplish this ought to test our
courage, our patience, and our perseverance, in a word our will ; for a
Rule is for the purpose of training our wills.

All this is pretty general and the average man or woman needs con-
crete directions as well as general rules. Therefore, in addition to these
general principles make it a part of your Rule to select for special attack
what you believe to be your worst fault and pay special attention to this.
Make it a part of your Rule to think of this fault every morning, to
devise ways and means for avoiding it that day, and each evening to
review the day with special reference to this fault to note failures and
their cause so that you may avoid similar failures in the future. After
a while you can also add the acquirement of a special virtue to your Rule,
and you should go about this in the same way, save that this work is
positive while the getting rid of a fault is only negative. In acquiring
virtues you can use your creative powers to help you, your imagination,
for instance. But do not attempt too much at first.

The main thing about your Rule, however, is not the Rule itself so
much as the keeping of it. Anyone can make a Rule; few persons can
keep one. Therefore, do not spend too much time and energy upon this
part of your task ; almost any Rule will do that does not transgress the
bounds of common sense. Bend all the energies of your soul upon the
labor of keeping your Rule faithfully conscientiously. Try it for a
month, and if you fail too often, make it easier, so that, when you really
try, really use your will, you can keep it. Then stick to that Rule until
you do it so well that you feel you can tighten up the lines a little and
add another regulation, or make those you already have a little harder, or
your time of meditation a little longer. We must never be content with
our performance, never be satisfied with our attainment.

Two effects often follow the adoption of a Rule and they must be
watched for and guarded against. One is such a revolt of the lower
nature that we turn from the whole affair in disgust. Our minds tell us
that the thing is childish, undignified and unnecessary; that life would
not be worth living under such a regime, that it is a waste of time and
energy, and many other similar things, the tendency of which is to cause
us to abandon the effort. Sometimes this pressure becomes so great as
to cause the aspirant to kick over the traces entirely, to throw off all
restraint and to seek some really harmful self-indulgence. It is because
of these effects of a Rule that a spiritual director is so desirable, for he
would see the indications of such a reaction and would know how to meet
it. He might very well tell the aspirant to stop all effort to keep his Rule
for a period until his nature has quieted down again. So you who have no
spiritual guide must watch yourself closely and if you note a growing
tendency towards rebellion, either repress it sternly, or if you cannot,
stop your efforts lest a worse disaster befall you. You are not playing a
game, remember; you are dealing with spiritual laws that have all the

A RULE OF LIFE 279

power of the universe behind them, and you have called on one of these
laws to take care of your life and development.

The other effect which often follows the adoption of a Rule is dis-
couragement. The strong nature tends to explode; the weak nature
tends to lie down under the difficulty and say "I cannot." The remedy is
prayer, courage and patience; prayer for help and strength, courage to
face the difficulties, and patience with our repeated failures and our
lack of apparent progress. I say apparent advisedly, for no effort is
actually wasted, no failure irremediable, and perseverance is bound to
wear out the elements of weakness in us and to make us victorious in
the end.

The fact is that the Rule always tests our weak points and it is by
repeated failures and by repeated beginning over again that we gain
those qualities we need for the proper rounding out of our characters.

Another thing that often results from the adoption of a Rule is the
coming into light of a hitherto unexpected quality of the nature; it may
be a virtue, a reservoir of strength or power, but as like as not, it is a
weakness. If we have some hidden fault, some rotten spot in the nature,
a Rule is sure to bring it to the surface ; and this is as it should be, for
we cannot hope to conquer and get rid of an unknown fault or weakness.

C. A. G.

Ancient Rome and Modern America, by Guglielmo Ferrero, G. P. Putnam's
Sons, N. Y.

This volume is further evidence of Signore Ferrero's very high rank as
a philosophical historian. It is a contrast and a comparison of two civilizations
remote in time. The differences as well as the likenesses seem to some readers
suggestive of the old doctrine of Reincarnation. Through unusual power of
imagination Ferrero has studied the old Roman civilization as a living reality.
So often the past is studied as if it were a skeleton. Familiarity with the past
as a living reality an organism of rounded existence enables Ferrero to detect
the great currents in modern civilization that move under the swirl of surface
eddies. Man has achieved the stupendous successes of today enormous wealth,
conquest of space by overturning all the limits which earlier civilizations had
respected. He has demanded for himself infinite achievement. But man is him-
self a creature of limits he is finite. Hence results the strange disease of
modern life : "The more blessings are heaped upon him, the more he complains.
The more he possesses, the more he thinks himself poor and needy. The fewer are
the causes for grief and the dangers around him, the more wretched he feels."
In occult terms, the deep discontent and restlessness which Signore Ferrero finds
pervading contemporary civilization is a result of wrong identification. Man has
identified his lower nature and lower desires with the infinite; whereas, it is
not the perishable lower nature but the soul which, through union with the
Divine, shares the Immortality and Infinity of God.

The book sounds a grave warning. It shows that by our self-indulgence in
every direction we are hurrying modern civilization towards "an unbridled, gross,
and oppressive orgy." There is a growing depravity of manners. Our boasted
"progress" is really retrogressive, and is carrying us backward beyond the period
of wholesome Christian discipline. "We are undoing, little by little," writes
Ferrero, "Christianity's great contribution to the chastening of our customs, by
suppressing many of the limits which Christianity had established with such
labour in the midst of the unbridled licence of the ancient world. We are
travelling, therefore, step by step back towards paganism, with all its conveniences
and all its perils."

That is a terrible charge to bring against a civilization that calls itself Christian.
It is all the more terrible in that it does not come from a theologian anxious
about professional interests. Ferrero is not an ecclesiastic. He is a scientific,
dispassionate observer of human society. T. A.

Pastoral Letter of the House of Bishops, 1913.

The House of Bishops is the permanent "upper" House in the governing body
of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Its sessions are in secret behind closed
dnors. In the earlier centuries, it is said, the Bishops assembled for delibera-
tion around a vacant chair; therein, they believed, the Master sat presiding
over their councils. From time to time, upon matters of moment, the Bishops
issue pastoral letters. Of late such letters have been rare. One such letter

REVIEWS 281

has come, however, from the Bishops assembled in the General Convention of
1913. It discusses, among other things, the subjects of education and religion.

The Letter calls attention to a certain licentiousness that marks contemporary
manners. The condemnation of our present-day life is expressed in sober
and dignified words no fanatical extravagance but the judgment is unmistakably
one of condemnation. "Refinement of manners, gentleness and reverence are
obligations of our religion, to which, we are constrained to say, the fashions of the
day show scant regard. Even good taste, and what used to be called common
decency, seem to make little appeal." The Letter sees in this decay of manners
tendencies that are a menace to civilization. It purposes to check those ten-
dencies and hinder a social and national calamity by giving a Christian educa-
tion to the coming generation. The Letter is most satisfactory in its definition
of education. It is abreast with the most advanced psychology and philosophy.
It clears itself completely from the lingering traditions of forty years ago
the materialism of an early stage of science. The Letter says of education :
"It is the means by which the whole man becomes personalized and is realized
up to the height of his capacity : the body, the intelligence or lower con-
sciousness, and the intuitive faculties or higher consciousness, must all play
their part and be given due attention. There is a process, which consists of
imparting information to the intelligence or lower consciousness, and which
is popularly called education; but it is only a part of education. The noblest
faculty of the human being is the capacity of knowing and realizing the
presence of God."

The Bishops urge our prominent institutions of learning "to proclaim in theory
and in practice that God, manifested in Christ, is the source and end of all
knowledge," by which action alone will coherence be given to our diffuse efforts.
"The one way to give to education a raison d'etre is to make the unseen or eternal
play its constant stream upon the seen or temporal. Christian creed and life
are not an adjunct tacked on to a system of intellectual training, but a founda-
tion, without which all learning is baseless and ephemeral."

CLARENCE C. CLARK.

The Praise of Glory: Reminiscences of Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity,
a Carmelite nun of Dijon, published by Benziger Bros.

My first impression of nuns and of monastic life came to me from a cousin.
My cousin's engagement was broken, she soon after became a postulant in an
Anglican order. I did not know my cousin intimately because she lived in a
distant city. She never gave us her reasons for entering the convent. But our
conjectures supplied her with motives; and we extended her supposed motives
into general principles that underlay the whole structure of monasticism. I had
always been told that my cousin was "unpractical." Then her family was
High Church while ours was Low ; we felt that ecclesiastically they were "giving
themselves airs." My cousin's act seemed to us the result of disappointment,
chagrin and cowardice, and monastic life appeared as a refuge for broken hearts
that were originally weak and selfish. The life seemed pallid, starched and sour,
like that of asylums where decrepit old women are housed. These generaliza-
tions of my family were confirmed in me by the history lectures of a college
professor. He was a Ph. D. from a German university, and looked upon him-
self as an embodiment of fairness and of the scientific spirit. He was a Con-
necticut Yankee by birth. In considering English history, he gave the impression
of an entirely unprejudiced attitude. He pictured the monastic communities of
early England as my family had done but he darkened the pallidness with lurid
and monstrous crimes that were engendered in that atmosphere of self-absorp-
tion and chagrin.

282 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Between the acrid and vicious figments of Protestant superstition and the
Carmelite convent at Dijon what a contrast! The real convent in the provincial
French town is a place of fulfilled love not a retreat for disappointed passion.
There is nothing pallid about it. It is a centre radiating joy.

Elizabeth Catez, whose life is narrated in this volume was born in 1880, the
daughter of an army officer. She entered the convent at Dijon in 1901. She
died there, after long and painful illness, in 1906.

It is difficult to name the special characteristics of those who follow a
religious vocation. They are something like foreigners to us. Their features
seem indistinguishable. Sister Elizabeth has the flaming love which marks the
Carmelite order it burned bright in St. Teresa herself, and in that other
flaming daughter, Therese of Lisieux. The words "Divine Love" were not a
metaphor to her. He was a Real Presence to her, in whose life and will she
wished her own life to be absorbed. "I give my crucifix a kiss," she wrote from
the convent to her mother who had with great reluctance permitted the girl to
follow her vocation, "for our Lord to take to you from His bride, your fond
little daughter." "I am homesick for Heaven," she often said. "For me death
would be like the crumbling of the wall." (pointing to the wall of the room)
"I should fall into the arms of Him I love." She had so firm a hold on
Recollection that she found her Master in the laundry when with the other sisters
she washed the clothes. Perhaps two characteristics are most impressive. The
first is her valiant endurance of pain. She had prayed for suffering. She wished
a succession of pain to keep her mindful of her Lover's life on earth. She
not only endured the pain but she made it an occasion of joy. The second is her
deepened interest in her family those from whom she seemed to be separated
by her religious vow. She was always affectionate in her family circle. But
the convent heightened her love. She watched (in prayer) over her sister's
babies as if they had been her own. Her letters from the convent are models
of filial and sisterly tenderness.

The book has not the great fascination and charm of Soeur Therese's Auto-
biography. It lacks the playful gaiety of the Lisieux record. But it has equal
sincerity, and the sincerity carries conviction with it.

The book encourages those who are struggling at the beginning of an effort
to lead a spiritual life. Sister Elizabeth longed for the convent from childhood.
Great fervour was granted her. But after she actually had entered, she found
herself for a long period so very cold and dry that she had to resist the impulse
to run away from the services that brought her so little inspiration. Ordinary
mortals can take heart for their own seasons of barrenness. J. W. O.

The Unknown God and Other Orthodox Essays, by Jacob Pratt Dunn. This
little book was kindly sent us for review. The author is Secretary of the Indiana
Historical Society, and the first essay assembled in easy and convenient form the
fruits of somewhat unusual reading. The second, entitled "First Heresies," is
the best sustained of the five which comprise the book. A. G.

Contemplations, by W. L. Wilmshurst. We do not know why this book
was sent us for review. If it were not written in good faith it would be a
travesty of religion and religious themes. The author writes glibly of the
heights of mystical experience and of the occult about which he knows nothing,
juggling sacred names and terms in a manner truly appalling. His obvious
sincerity and belief in the importance of his discoveries and knowledge alone
excuse its publication; but the book is a danger because it makes ridiculous
what should be the heart of the religious life. Thus a lively and sympathetic
description of the miracles of healing daily occurring at St. Winefride's Well
in Wales is vitiated by a preposterous and foolish "interpretation" of the legends of
the Saint's life. We cannot regret too deeply the appearance of such books,
which we fear do real harm rather than the good intended. A. G.

ANSWERS

Readers of THE THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY are invited to send questions to
be answered in this Department, or to submit other answers to questions already
printed where their point of view differs from or supplements the answers that
have been given.

QUESTION 179 // Karma governs all the suffering in the world, and by
Karma I understand the law of cause and effect, what is mercy?

ANSWER. Is not Karma in itself the greatest mercy? But we, who do not
know how Karma works, ought not to let the thought of Karma hinder us
from consoling and, the little that we can, easing the burdens of another. May
it not be that Karma has given us this duty just now? To love our fellows
and, "always using our judgment," to do cheerfully what love directs us to do,
is, I think, mercy. Hj. J.

ANSWER. When we are talking of "mercy" in connection with Divine Law,
we mean, of course, something very different from what is considered as mercy
among people at large. Man's selfishness and materialism are, as a rule, so
great that he can only think of mercy as something that relieves or prevents
physical and mental sufferings, or helps to make it easier to enjoy material
life. But this is far from being the object of Divine Mercy.

Karma is the law of cause and effect, of retribution and adjustment; and
the leading principles of its action are Divine Justice and Divine Mercy, these
being two aspects only of one eternal and fundamental power, Divine Love.
In this higher sense "Mercy" is the putting to rights of what has been brought
in disorder by man's mistakes, wrongdoings, selfishness, materialism, etc., so as
to promote the welfare of humanity in the best way and with as few sufferings
as possible.

Looked at in this way it must be evident that there is more mercy in suffering
than in prosperity. It is only to our lower nature that Karma seems merciless.

T. H. K.

ANSWER. Is not cause and effect a most merciful dispensation? If I am
so far away from the happiness of right action as to murder a fellow-man,
is it not "mercy" that puts me through an educational course in the school of
Karma until I learn and graduate? Indigestion seems to me a merciful cure for
gluttony. Are not some present-day advanced methods harmful and sentimental
instead of benevolent? Sometimes the aim of physicians seems to be to thwart
the mercy of the providential Nature; they try to remove the indigestion while
leaving gluttony untouched. M. D.

ANSWER. In the first shock of the war the bourses of the world closed, to
avoid universal bankruptcy a condition out of which it would have been very
difficult to extricate even legitimate business. When the Lords of Karma take

284 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

similar action, we may call it mercy, we know that if they were to demand just
payment we could not meet the demand ; and they offer us a chance to delay the
payment but not to default it. Or perhaps the most pressing debt is actually
paid for us : then we have the type of mercy that is shown by the father who
pays the debts of his wayward son. This payment costs the father, may drain
his resources, but at best it is only partial. By paying the debt he cannot give
his son the prudence and self-restraint that would keep him out of debt again ;
he gains for him freedom in which to try again, under the same laws that he
broke before. When such mercy is extended to us, I cannot believe that it falls
outside the law of that Karma that presides over all suffering and all enjoyment;
or that it is less real because we do not see and handle the spiritual coin, minted
by suffering or by prayer, with which some great soul is permitted to pay our
debt and so give us a fresh start. P.

ANSWER. What is mercy? I think strictly, Justice. I am able to conceive
a minister of justice (or Karma) who shows one and trains one how to restore
the balance of harmony one has disturbed : who guides the application of the
law, while demanding a strict account : who therefore aids and supports one in
rising to meet the application of the Law which he administered and therein
shows mercy. A. K.

QUESTION 180. How can a merciful God allow such a cruel thing as war,
which causes such awful misery and cuts short the lives of so many good and
innocent people?

ANSWER. This question was put the other day by one who has a very tender
heart for all human sufferings. If someone had answered that war is the action
of Divine Mercy, he would have thought him crazy, probably. Meanwhile, in
spite of running the risk of being thought crazy, I say that is so, and I shall try
to prove it.

Consider the following case, well-known to the surgeon : A man has got
blood-poison in his finger, and the poison runs up in the blood-vessels and cells
on one side of his arm. The surgeon is called in and has to amputate the greater
part of the arm, though only a small quantity of its cells are, as yet, infected by
the poison. This seems hard, but the sufferer, knowing it to be necessary in
order to save his life, bears it willingly and with patience. From a broader
point of view mankind is a unity, a single body ; and races, nations, families are
smaller bodies within the larger ones of which they are members. And each
individual, or member of a family and nation, may be considered as the blood-
vessels or cells of the larger bodies, the races and mankind. Now, these bodies
become often so infected from the deadly poison of selfishness, self-assertion, mater-
ialism, sensuality, etc., that an amputation must be undertaken in order to save
the race, the nation or family from entire destruction, the unavoidable result of
the adjusting activity of Karma or the Law of Cause and Effect. But "Mercy"
tries to prevent destruction as long as there is still any possibility of saving man
from the awful fate of annihilation. Then Karma acts as the surgeon and operates
on the sick body in order to save life and give man another opportunity to turn
from those evil ways that work to destruction, because they oppose Divine Love
and evolutionary Law. And just as in the case of the arm infected with blood-
poison in this operation the lives of many individuals are cut short, though they
may not yet be among those, who are infected with the virus that will bring on
death of the soul, if not checked in time.

Thus, war is at once the remedy of Karma for readjustment, and the means
by which "Mercy" tries to benefit man. But though war comes up in a certain

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 285

locality and may end in the humiliation or even loss of independence of a nation,
let us not fall to criticize and judge as to where the poison is deepest rooted.
We cannot do so, first because we ought never to judge, and next because we
are lacking the power of right judgment in such matters. One thing only is sure,
vis., where the outer loss and sufferings are greater, there the opportunity of
inner gain and blessings in the future are the better.

But what about all those good and innocent people whose lives are cut
short in the war? Shall we not think that they are well provided for? He
only, who doesn't believe in the immortality of the soul, and who, therefore,
loves his life in this world more than heaven, can really consider it to be a
great misfortune to die and to die early. Isn't it reasonable that all those killed
in war, will have so much better opportunity, if they deserve it, to develop and
grow in spiritual age and wisdom in another field, or as those that believe in
the doctrine of reincarnation may think on this earth at another time and under
far better circumstances than at the time of the war that brought their lives to a
sudden end? Truly, it would sometimes be a greater misfortune to continue to
live under seemingly happy circumstances than to have life cut short in war or
by an accident. It is our materialism only that prevents us from acknowledging
this truth.

But surely, some might say, there must be another and less terrible and
painful remedy by which to bring about the same results!

If it were, is it likely that Divine Mercy would skip over it and take to
harder and more cruel means than necessary for the purpose?

To me it seems unquestionable that the most effective and at the same time
the most beneficial operation on the infected body of a race or nation is war,
because it tends more than any other calamity to improve man, to create noble
heroism, unselfishness and obedience, these most wanted human virtues at this
present age. It tends to giving up self for the sake of the whole, to killing out
the anarchic tendencies, to destroying materialism and to bringing man nearer
to God in spite of the obvious sacrilege committed, when he in his ignorance asks
God to help him in his hateful effort to destroy his adversary. It is true that
God, for the sake of man's "hardness of heart," allows sinful things to come
to pass, but this fact cannot sanctify them. To kill another man, our brother, is
contrary to Divine Law, though it becomes the duty of a soldier in war. "It
must needs be that the occasions of stumbling come; but woe to that man (or
those) through whom the occasions cometh."

Other disasters are not so conducive to the development of these virtues.
Pestilence, for instance, though it causes awful misery and strikes young and old
as well as the innocent even more than war, makes man to flee most cowardly
before the unseen enemy. Some few brave exceptions left out, it helps very little
to bring on fearlessness and self-sacrifice, and I doubt that it has any power to
destroy anarchism in man's nature. And the prayers of people at large under
such circumstances are more the prayers of fear or panic than of devotion and
obedient submission to the will of God.

Teach man to understand that materialism, selfishness and all claims on his
own rights are as blood-poison in his life's fabric, which makes it unavoidable for
the heavenly Surgeon, in order to save his life, to perform an operation either
by war or some harder and even more terrible disaster. And when self-sacrifice
and obedience are learnt, and man strives earnestly to do the will of his heavenly
Father, then war and many other calamities will be impossible in the world,
because their real causes have ceased to be; and the forces that brought on these
terrors can work more directly and with greater effect to the uplifting of man-
kind. T. H. K.

286 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

QUESTION 181. Does the recognition of the universality of law in the universe
make it appear only as a mechanism? Does the law of Karma deny the existence
of compassion? If law and order and the principle of cause and effect rule in a
nursery, does th* Mother love her children?

ANSWER. Law and order proceed from Love. Love is creative. Hatred
destroys. Dante places God and Satan in contrast. The attributes of each are
in contrast God is Wisdom, Power and Love. Satan, Ignorance, Impotence
and Hate. S. M.

ANSWER. The Law of Karma most certainly does not deny compassion : on
the contrary, it reaffirms it in saying the Highest Justice is the Highest Mercy.
The Universality of Law is the Universality of Motion or action of the Great
Breath. If we regard the triple aspect of the Great Breath in Manifestation as
Matter, Force and Consciousness, how can we regard the universality of law
in the universe as only a mechanism? Under another guise, this is only our
old friend, the problem of Free Will. And so long as we regard the universe as
the result of the action of the Great Breath, the unconscious, the First Cause,
the unknowable call It what name we choose so long Free Will must inhere in
us as a part of the result of that action. And in the Ministers the conscious
Ministers of that Law I suggest that Free Will is shown as Compassion.

In the nursery, because the mother loves her children she makes law and
order and cause and effect the rule. Obedience to law is the only way to
govern ourselves; and the pursuit of happiness can only be followed by the con-
tinual search for higher and higher law which becomes more and more universal
with the enlargement and ultimate freedom from personal restrictions and
limitations. A K.

ANSWER. We shall endeavor to answer these questions separately.
(a) The surest proof of an answer to this question can, I think, be
found in ourselves. Are we simply mechanisms? We obey countless laws
of growth, of decay, of gravitation, of our race and civilization, and the like.
Yet we know that we are free at least at times. If any part of the universe
is free, even for an instant, can any of it in essence be mechanical; this word
being defined by Webster to describe actions done "without conscious exertion
of will; proceeding from habit, not from intention or reflection?" The univer-
sality of law, then, does not imply mechanism, but rather the superb grandeur
of the Will, free like ourselves, which formulates and sustains those laws.

(b) Without the element of compassion in the operation of Karma, I fear that
humanity would long ago have ceased to exist. For what is true compassion?
It surely is not a mere kind-hearted sentiment, which is too often weakness
springing from ignorance. Which is the truer compassion, to whip a wayward
son systematically for years till he learn to obey, or, by constant forgiveness, to
permit him to grow up wild and intractable, and finally to wreck his own life,
and the lives of his wife and children, by his undisciplined conduct? We must
look back to the purpose of Karma itself, or perhaps to the divine reason why
Karma exists. We do not realize, for one thing, the possibilities of suffering
which abandonment to sin would bring; but the loving Father does see this,
and therefore sends sickness, suffering, and sorrow to rouse our wills and to
call our wayward attention to the terrible danger we all of us are in. I think
the contemplation of the unflinching way that He performs this terrible duty
might give courage to all parents and persons in authority. Buddha was called
"the Compassionate," and Christ's life demonstrated the same quality; yet one
of the Masters has written calling his Brethren all "servants of the Great Law,"
the law of Karma.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 287

(c) Granting that the Mother does love her children, she could not better
prove her love than by so ruling her nursery. "As above, so below." She would
in her sphere be representing the Divine Order to her children, acting, as she
does for the time, as their spiritual guide, their vision of heavenly things, their
religion. Further, she could not so rule without love, because she would need
wisdom, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness as well as patience, sternness, author-
ity; and even anger. Love is never weak; it is of the essence of strength. Self-
pleasing and cowardice are weak. A. G.

ANSWER. No. The law of the will is, that it is free. Obviously, that law
does not deprive it of freedom. And the supreme law is love. But the char-
acteristic of love is, that it is always working miracles, always achieving the
impossible. C. J.

ANSWER. If the recognition of the universality of law in the universe makes
it appear only as a mechanism, then man too is a mechanism, for he belongs to
the universe and is an integral part of it. As man is an entity, so is the
universe, though infinitely larger and wiser. But the questioner is, perhaps,
thinking only of the material tool of the indwelling entity. Even then we can
neither say that the big universe nor the little universe, or man, is a mechanism
only, because a mechanism means a something that is acting unconsciously and
automatically, when put into motion by an intelligent worker. Every atom is a
life and has its own special kind of consciousness and activity. The human body
has its special kind of life and activity besides its activity as a tool for the soul.
It alters and grows, and so does everything in nature according to laws that are
universal; and the body of the universe does also alter and grow in its way
and according to universal law, which is evident because of the changes traced
in this huge body. Therefore, the word mechanism in its ordinary sense is
not applicable to the universe, even when we talk of its material part only.

Karma as a law acts blindly upon every cause whether created by Gods,
Angels, Saints, men or devils. But all these causes are as many forces, and
forces cannot disappear, but they can be transformed or made latent for a while.
Compassion is perhaps the most powerful force set in motion by any. compassionate
entity, man included. Certainly the law of Karma cannot deny the existence of
the most effective component of all the forces upon which it acts.

The first and most important principle to establish in man of the present age
is obedience, because : "if obedience were not required, what should we have,
but lawlessness, anarchy, selfishness, disbelief, despair and Death?" And the
very best time for laying the foundation of this indispensable principle is the
early childhood. Therefore, a mother that loves her children, cannot fail to have
law and order and the principle of cause and effect to rule in her nursery.

T. H. K.

ANSWER. I have no doubt my small boys regard the Universe as mechanical
I am sure I did at their age. Yet I hope as a parent that I am governed by
compassion in my endeavor to guide their little lives. Why should we deny at
least equal feeling to Those Whom so many of us believe do guide our affairs.
The latter part of the question, regarding the nursery situation and the Mother,
suggests forgetfulness of the principle of Freedom of Choice; of the operation of
Free Will. Karma gives both children and Mother the choice indeed, the
chance to love. If the Mother did not exercise her right to choose by loving
her children, I fear she would have to work off a new Karmic debt ; whereas
if to duty she added love, I believe she would have paid off an old debt. But
she must do her duty as a manifestation of the love which animates her.

SERVETUS.

288 THE THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

THE QUARTERLY BOOK DEPARTMENT

There is constant demand for the books reviewed in the QUARTERLY, and
readers are also frequently anxious to secure books that are mentioned in QUARTERLY
articles. This Department offers its services, free of charge, for the tracing and
purchase of all such books. They will be sent, postpaid, at the published price.

The Quarterly Book Department also publishes, from time to time, books
that cannot be found elsewhere. In fact its imprint on a book will indicate that
the book has lasting value for those who are, to any degree, students of "Divine
Wisdom."

Second Edition From New Plates

BHAGAVAD GIT A

TRANSLATED, WITH A GENERAL INTRODUCTION AND A
COMMENTARY ON EACH BOOK, BY

CHARLES JOHNSTON

"Faithful" and "accurate" are words used by Sanskrit
scholars as descriptive of this original translation. "Live"
and "illuminating" are the words used by students seeking
light on life's problems. Here they find "The Songs of the
Master" rendered in a form that speaks to their hearts.

Linked with this remarkable translation of the Gita are
commentaries by the translator which throw a broad beam
of light on the text itself. They put before the student the
characteristics of the Indian life and thought which form
the setting of the teaching. Equally valuable are the prac-
tical applications ; the problems brought forward by Arjuna,
in the text, are set alongside those of the soul today; the
solutions offered him are given present-day application.

The size of the new edition invites constant reading; it
slips easily into pocket or handbag; it is in clear type, easy
to read. There are two styles: in limp leather, printed on
imported India paper, at $1.50; in cloth, printed on antique
paper, at $1.00.

Sent by mail, postpaid.

THE QUARTERLY BOOK DEPARTMENT
159 Warren Street, Brooklyn, N. Y.

APRIL, 1915

The Theosophical Society, as such, is not responsible for any opinion
or declaration in this magazine, by whomsoever expressed, unless con-
tained in an official document.

wish, in
thus:

CHRISTIANITY AND WAR

HERE is a wide-spread feeling, which has found eloquent
expression in many places, that the great world war, in the
midst of which we find ourselves, marks the failure of Christi-
anity. The feeling is as well expressed, perhaps, as one may

a poem entitled Brotherhood, in a quarterly review, which opens

What's become of the Star in the East?

Has battle-smoke of wars
Obscured its beam in the crown of night,
While doomed men in red darkness fight
(With a groping sense of wrong or right)
And clench and die, by the lurid blight

Of the bloody eye of Mars?

The writer goes on to speak of the manger of Bethlehem, where the
Prince of Peace was born, the fire of Pentecost, the Virgin Mother,
as though the very naming of these things were a stinging rebuke to
the thought of war; as though armed combat were the polar opposite
of the message of Jesus. And this is but one of many expressions,
passionate, sincere, convinced, which one has heard or read since the
great war began. Is the view embodied in them true? Is it true that
the mere fact of war, regardless of aim or principle, is a violation of
the message of Christ? That he who fights, by that very act is sin-
ning against the light?

There is so much that is appealing in the vision of universal peace,
as a foretaste of the Great Peace, that one understands the passion of
these appeals, as one grants their entire sincerity; yet it may be held,
on the other side, that they rest on a deep-seated confusion of prin-

.89

290 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

ciples; and therefore that, while ostensibly defences of Christianity, of
the message of Jesus, they are really hostile to that message, and, if
accepted and acted on to the full, would render the spiritual effort and
work of the Master of no avail. One may say, indeed, that these pro-
tests rest neither on a spiritual nor on a material basis; that they sway
between spiritual and material laws, and draw their support, quite illog-
ically, first from the one, and then from the other. For if we take
our stand on the sheer materialism of biology, it becomes evident at
once that war, contest, conflict, is the universal law; that through the
pressure of conflict all development has been gained; that, where con-
flict is lessened or withdrawn, all development flags, ceases, changes
to retrogression. Or, if we take our stand on spiritual law, we shall
see at once that the appeal to the material advantages of peace, the
growth of wealth and comfort, the avoidance of pain, is not in essence
a spiritual appeal, but a material one; that the defence of peace breaks
down on this side also.

But let us go rather to the heart of the matter. Did Jesus bring
a message of peace? The belief that he did, a belief so widely accepted
that it has become almost axiomatic, is founded, seemingly, on the title,
and it is a singularly beautiful one, of the Prince of Peace. But this
is not a title that Jesus applies to himself ; nor is it applied to him any-
where in the New Testament, by those who, as his immediate disciples,
could best judge of the essence of his message. The title comes from
the addresses of the first Isaiah, about the middle of the eighth cen-
tury before Christ, a time when Jerusalem was in the midst of a fierce
struggle against the Israelite power to the north, supported by the
armed forces of Syria. Isaiah paints a beautiful picture of a time of
peace that shall contrast with this time of war, when a Prince of
Peace shall sit on the throne of David, as king of Judah at Jerusalem.
It is one of those many forecasts of a triumphant earthly kingdom,
with Jerusalem as its metropolis, which gradually took concrete form
as the Messianic hope.

Did Jesus fulfil that prophecy? We can answer that best by ask-
ing whether he did, in fact, found an earthly kingdom with Jerusalem
as its metropolis, and himself reigning as king, on the throne of David.
He was crowned, it is true, in Jerusalem. He was hailed as King of
the Jews. But we have only to remember how he was crowned, and
by whom he was hailed, to realize how far his life and mission was
from the ideal painted by the first Isaiah. More than that, we may
even think that one of those who heard his teachings asked the Master
himself, in so many words, and quoting the prophecy of Isaiah, "Art
thou that Prince of Peace?" and that it was in direct reply to that
question that the Master answered, "Think not that I am come to

NOTES AND COMMENTS 291

send peace on earth : I came not to send peace, but a sword." The
cognate passage in the third gospel is even stronger, "I am come to
send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? . . .
Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay;
but rather division." . . . The Prince of Peace, come to spread
fire and sword. . . .

But let us turn aside for a moment, to consider what the move-
ment of peace, if carried to its logical conclusion, would mean. The
principle affirmed by the advocates of peace at any price is, that all
violence, all use of force, is necessarily wrong; that righteousness must
win its way purely by pacific influences; by its own attractiveness; by
radiation and induction; by a spiritual force of gravitation only. If
we push this thought to its logical conclusion, then the use of force,
not only in war, but in peace also, is wrong and indefensible. The
police power is as indefensible as the machine gun. For although the
presence of the police power, as the defence of our pacific activities, is
not always visible, it is, nevertheless, always effective ; and a withdrawal
of that power would be the signal for open plunder, as has been made
evident time and again in revolutions and temporary dislocations of
judicial force. It is true that the advocates of peace at any price often
assert that men are all by nature moral; that our crimes are the result
of unjust laws, which create such injustices and inequalities, that men
are driven in despair to seek to rectify them by force ; that the complete
cessation of law would mean the complete cessation of crime; that all
men, if left to do what is right in their own eyes, would do good only.
But in the first place, the whole of human experience disproves this
enticing theory ; and, in the second, this doctrine is not Christianity but
anarchism.

The wholly logical anarchist is compelled, if he follow his doctrine
to the inevitable conclusion, not only to use no force, but to make no
resistance to force, when used by others against him; not only to suf-
fer wrong, when directed against himself, but to look on without inter-
fering, when wrong is inflicted upon others. He must not only accept
outrage and violence aimed at him personally; he must likewise accept
outrage and violence when directed against other men, accept outrage
and violence when directed against women and children. Nay, more,
if the anarchist gospel be true, neither man nor woman has the right
to resist violence and outrage, whether it be violence directed against
person or property. We must not shirk the conclusions of our prem-
ises. If war be necessarily wrong, because all use of force is wrong,
then self-defence, or defence of another, by man or woman, is equally
wrong, equally opposed to ideal righteousness. Anarchists profess to
believe this. It is doubtful if any of them would be courageous enough,

292 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

or cowardly enough, to put it in practice. But it is not doubtful at all
that, if put in practice, this rule of action would speedily reduce human
life to a condition of squalid slavery, where the better and more con-
scientious, as well as the weaker and more helpless, men and women
alike, would be the degraded slaves of the brutal, the lustful, the unscru-
pulous.

It is doubtful whether anyone, driving this principle of complete
non-resistance, whether for oneself or for others, to its logical and
inevitable conclusion, would have the courage to advocate it, to put it
into practice. Yet there are people, perhaps a great many, who still
believe in their hearts that this, or something like it, is ideal Christianity,
the final purpose of Jesus, the logical outcome of the Sermon on the
Mount. Therefore it is now pertinent to inquire whether this be true:
.whether Jesus did in fact, by precept or by practice, teach such non-
resistance as amounts to an unconditional surrender to the powers of
evil, with the hope that the powers of evil will thereby be converted to
good.

An unconditional surrender to the powers of evil. There is the
kernel of the matter. And it is evident that the advocates of the anar-
chistic theory we have described either shut their eyes to the existence
of active, purposeful evil in the world, or hold that, in fact, no such
active evil exists in human nature; that men are naturally good, except
where unjust laws make them wicked. We may, therefore, ask our-
selves at the outset whether Jesus recognized the presence of active
forces of evil, as distinct from the merely natural forces, such as flood
and fire, storm and earthquake, which are so often fatal to human hap-
piness. Did Jesus recognize and teach the existence of active evil?

The most direct answer is found in the story of his own tempta-
tion in the wilderness, a narrative which must come direct from the
Master himself. In that temptation, he not only recognized, but met
and conquered the power of evil, in a conflict which was unquestionably
real and of tremendous moment. Let us suppose that, listening to the
voice of the Tempter, Jesus had accepted the bribe of "the kingdoms
of this world, and the glory of them," as payment for worship of the
power of evil; what a terrible result on the world's history must have
followed. And it must be remembered that, time and again, during his
mission, the same temptation came back to him. Enthusiastic and
patriotic Jews were willing, not only to recognize in him the Messiah,
the Anointed One, but "to take him by force and make him a king," the
leader of an anti-Roman revolution in Palestine. Can we doubt what
would have been the result? Given the Master's power turned to this
end, acting through the instrumentality of war and politics, and world-

NOTES AND COMMENTS 293

empire would have been inevitable. We can find no leader in history,
no leader of armies, who could have competed against him. Even in
his parables, he thinks and speaks as a consummate general : "Or what
king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first,
and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that
cometh against him with twenty thousand?" Can one doubt the result,
if the Master himself, with his piercing insight, his powers of organiza-
tion and discipline, his sway over multitudes, had been in the place of
the king in his parable?

Not only in the narrative of the temptation in the wilderness, but
everywhere throughout his teaching, the Master explicitly recognizes
not only the existence of active forces of evil, but the constant opera-
tion of these forces in human life. It is he who gives to the conscious
direction of this evil power the title "the prince, or, principle, of this
world." And one may say with justice that not only was the whole
mission of Jesus, from his baptism by John to his crucifixion, a con-
scious war against the active forces of evil, but that it was, further,
a war carried on with precisely those powers which make a great gen-
eral : the foresight, the patience, the endurance, the audacity, of a great
military genius.

There is wonderful beauty and pathos and dramatic force in the
opening of the campaign, immediately after the temptation in the wilder-
ness, as recorded in the third gospel: "And he came to Nazareth,
where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into
the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there
was delivered unto him the book of the prophet -Esias. And when he
had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach
deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set
at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the
Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister,
and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue
were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is
this Scripture fulfilled in your ears. . . ."

To heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to captives, and
recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And what was the instant
result of this appeal of fiery love? What response did the men of his
own city make to it, they who had known him from childhood; in
whose synagogue, it would seem, it was his custom to read the lesson,
week after week? What was the response, on the testimony of the
same recorder ? This was the response : "And all they in the synagogue.

294 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up, and
thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon
their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong . . ."

There is no more tremendous scene in history than that; no event
which so clearly marks the line between the two views ; on the one hand,
the anarchistic fancy that all men are innately good, and that righteous-
ness has only to show itself, to be accepted ; and, on the other, the stern
and terrible truth that righteousness, when it does flash forth clear as
the sunlight, has this result : it lashes the active forces of evil into fury.
That is what we see in the whole course of Jesus' mission: not an
unbroken victory for gentleness and mercy, but, on the contrary, a cease-
less raging against him of active forces of evil. We have quoted an
instance from the opening of his ministry. Here is one from the central
period of his mission: "Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know
that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou
sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. Art
thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead, and the prophets
are dead: whom makest thou thyself? Jesus answered, If I honour
myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of
whom ye say, that he is your God: yet ye have not known him; but I
know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like
unto you : but I know him, and keep his saying. Your Father Abraham
rejoiced to see my day : and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the
Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen
Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before
Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at him. . . ."

One more example, this time from the closing act of the majestic
tragedy: "Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus
which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified.
And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried
out the more, saying, Let him be crucified. When Pilate saw that he
could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water,
and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the
blood of this just person: see ye to it. Then answered all the people,
and said, His blood be upon us, and on our children."

Is it not clear that the role of the pacificist was played, in this
splendid and sombre drama, not by Jesus, but by Pilate? It is he
who, having the physical force at his disposal, refused to use it ; refused
to interpose, in protection, not of himself, but of one whom he held
to be innocent, and who was threatened with violence. Pilate held his
hand, put into practice the principle of non-resistance, and thereby
gained a fame that is undying. And we may hold that the part played

NOTES AND COMMENTS 295

by Pilate is the part played by every one who, whether in the name of
principle, or through cowardice masquerading as principle, refrains from
protecting, if necessary even to the shedding of blood, any innocent
person threatened with violent wrong. To such will directly apply, in
every such case, the Master's penetrating words : "Inasmuch as ye have
done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it
unto me."

It is Pilate, therefore, not Jesus, who is the exemplar of the pacifi-
cist doctrine. Jesus must have recognized, and did recognize, that the
effect of his teaching was, not to fill the hearts of those who heard it
with peace, but, so far as they hardened their hearts against him, to
lash them into frenzy; to arouse in them such impulses of violence as
led them to try to stone him, to cast him over a precipice. Here, then,
comes the test of the pacificist theory, as applied to Jesus. When he
was forced to recognize the clear fact that his teaching had this provo-
cative effect, that it lead instantly to violence, to attempted murder, did
he hold his peace? Did he take refuge in prudent silence, trusting that
his virtue would make its way by radiation, by induction, insensibly
winning all hearts by its inherent loveliness? For we must look the
question squarely in the face. To follow a course which inevitably
provokes violence, when one knows that violence will result, is to use
violence. It is an act of war.

The answer is, that, through the whole course of his mission, Jesus
used words that he knew were provocative; worcls absolutely certain
to arouse hate, and to lash that hate to frenzy. Take. this speech, recorded
by the apostle of love: "Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's
children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill
me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God :
this did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said
they unto him, We be not born of fornication; we have one father,
even God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would
love me : for I proceeded forth and came from God : neither came I
of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech?
even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the
devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do : he was a murderer from
the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in
him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a
liar, and the father of it. ... Then answered the Jews, and said
unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?"

It would be impossible to conceive of language more provocative
than that which the Master here uses. It is war and nothing less than
war. We hold that he is here but putting into practice the words

296 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

so startling in the mouth of him who is called the Prince of Peace
already quoted, "I came not to send peace, but a sword ... I am
come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kin-
dled?" This is war, an active, aggressive war against active forces of
evil, and, as has been said, the Master's whole mission was planned
and carried on aggressively, like a campaign. None the less a cam-
paign, because he himself did not draw the sword. The soldier who,
in an attack upon the trenches, throws himself upon the bayonets of
the enemy, so that the second line may attack the more effectively, is
not less a warrior than he of the second line who profits by his sac-
rifice. And precisely such a sacrifice as this, was the death of the Mas-
ter. It was an act, not of peace, but of war; an act, not of submission;
but of aggression, of daring valour against active forces of evil.

What then of the Sermon on the Mount and the message of peace?
The Sermon on the Mount is likewise, if we can see it, a forward
move in that campaign against evil; a manual of discipline, teaching
the soldiers of the Master certain lessons, without which they cannot
fight effectively. It is impossible to conquer others, unless we have
first conquered ourselves. It is impossible to command, unless we
have first learned to obey. These very lessons, self -conquest and obedi-
ence, are the subject matter of the Sermon on the Mount. Then, as
now, they are indispensable to the discipline of the soldier; not only,
be it understood, the "soldier of the Cross," in the more conventional
sense, but the soldier of regiment and battalion ; the soldier of rifle and
bayonet. He must positively give his life, to the uttermost, before he
can rightly take his place on the battle-line; before he can rightly join
in a charge. And, far from unfitting men for conflict, the Sermon on
the Mount is an unsurpassed manual of training for the soldier. At
this moment, in the great world war, they are the best soldiers, who
have best learned its lessons, and who follow them, not in word but
in deed and in truth, whether they have the least inkling that they are
in fact the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount or no. Indeed, we
may fearlessly say that those who believe that the precepts of that
Sermon lead to pacificism, have never tried to put them into effect.
A little practical experience of them will demonstrate that they are
the rules of war.

Even by their position in the first gospel, the precepts of the Ser-
mon on the Mount are evidently the preparation, the drill, for the
active campaign which was shortly committed to the Twelve; that cam-
paign in which their password was, "I send you forth as sheep in the
midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as
doves" the beginning of an injunction which ends thus : "The brother
shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and

NOTES AND COMMENTS 297

the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be
put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake:
but he that endureth to the end shall be saved." The Master clearly
foresaw that, for his disciples, as for himself, the immediate result
would be, not peace but the sword, the fire kindled upon the earth. And
the most courageous of the disciples frankly applies to himself and his
fellows the terms of war: "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a
good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth him-
self with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath
chosen him to be a soldier. . . . For I am now ready to be offered,
and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."

It seems evident, then, that, however great, even infinite, his power,
the Master could not use that power, throughout his mission, except
in accordance with the laws of human life. He could not compel men
to be holy, just and good; more than that, his very persuasion, his
most touching and penetrating appeals, where they were not obeyed
with answering love, did not fall ineffective, but on the contrary lashed
those who heard them into murderous fury. And in the face of that
steadily growing fury, the Master carried on his war, and to that
fury he sacrificed his life, exactly as does the soldier who throws him-
self upon the bayonet of the enemy. Neither the Master's death nor
his rising again from the dead, altered the conditions of his warfare,
or made it possible for him to wield his power, except in accordance
with the laws of life. And never for a moment, from the hour of
the Crucifixion to the present hour, has the conflict ceased, the war
waged incessantly against the active forces of evil.

It has often been said, by many who share the opinion of Count
Tolstoi, that the primitive virtue of Christ's teaching was corrupted
by the Emperor Constantine, when he gave the Christian religion a
place in the state; when, in fact, he allied it with military power. It
may, on the contrary, be maintained that, in doing this, Constantine
brought Christianity closer to the Master's ideal ; that he openly infused
into it something of that soldierly spirit which the Master so conspicu-
ously represents. But that spirit had never been absent. The spirit
of the martyrs was not pacifist but warlike; martyrdom is an act of
violence, an act of war. And we cannot doubt that those who fought
to defend Christendom against organized attempts to destroy it, whether
at the battle of Tours, or in the hundred combats with militant Mahom-
etanism, were but putting into practice the same martyr spirit, with
just such change and adaptation as the new circumstances required.

The ideal of the Master is not passivity and supine non-interfer-
ence, in face of wrong and violence to others; it is, on the contrary,

298 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

tremendously active, creative, virile, soldierly. And we are profoundly
convinced that, at each stage of world history, and this is true of the
present hour the Master's ideal may, and should, be defended by fire
and sword. The active forces of evil, of bare-faced treachery, of brutal
cruelty, of malignant destructiveness, are as furiously opposed to his
work now, as they were before the Passion. Where these forces of
evil embody themselves in human form, and take up fire and sword to
destroy, then the Master's cause is best served by fighting fire with fire ;
by sword and bayonet and quick-firing gun. These, at such a con-
juncture, are the true armour of righteousness.

"It is very true that men write and say often what a curse war is.
But they ought to consider how much greater is that curse which is
averted by war. Briefly, in the business of war men must not regard
the massacres, the burnings, the battles, and the marches, etc. that is
what the petty and simple do who only look with the eyes of children at
the surgeon, how he cuts off the hand or saws off the leg, but do not see
or notice that he does it in order to save the whole body. Thus we must
look at the business of war or the sword with the eyes of men, asking,
Why these murders and horrors? It will be shown that it is a business,
divine in itself, and as needful and necessary to the world as eating or
drinking or any other work."

MARTIN LUTHER.

FRAGMENTS

There is but one way that a man shall live, and it is this : To face
the circumstances of his life, whatever they may mean of sorrow, pain,
or renunciation, and in the midst of them courageously and cheerfully to
fulfil his duty and carve out his destiny. Upon the footsteps of such a
man the angels wait, and all the divine powers of the universe acknowledge
his commands. When a man has been able to master his own heart, and
at the behest of duty has put aside that which is dearest, that man has

conquered the world.

********

As that star blazes out on the night sky, so should your life shine
in the material world about you ; pointing the way, for those who can see

it, to where the Christ may be found.

********

"Drop all this anxious turmoil ; drop this seeking and striving. Fix
your eyes on me and be at peace.

"The gift of the heart is the supreme gift the gift which I desire.

"Turn from the lesser things which bewilder and distress you in
their multitude and complexity, and quiet your mind and emotions in
this supreme act of concentration, in this outpouring of love, in whose
light all life shall be illumined.

"Life is simple and sweet, O beloved child ; hold fast to that faith.
Let no complexity of outer things, no suffering of the heart, turn you
from this faith. At times you have realized this in much fullness : these
times will come again if you make them possible. The mind turns its
spiral, revolving upon itself, as night follows day. Accept these changes
in peaceful trust, as part of the great universal plan which evolves to
higher conditions ; as part of what you are. Accept circumstances as you
find them. Accept the changing moods of your mind and heart. But
keep yourself still in them all, and at their center. There is the fountain
of eternal youth, the spring of immortality, and life and peace forever.
You must feel and know and express them all."

CAVE.

*99

WHY I JOINED THE
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

ONE of my American friends has told me that shortly after the
late Professor William James had published the penetrating
series of Gifford lectures which he delivered here upon the
Varieties of Religious Experience, his colleague at Harvard
College, Professor Santyana, congratulated him upon having performed
his task so thoroughly that further "religious slumming" would be
unnecessary for decades to come. James accepted the congratulations
with the genial urbanity that never failed him, but, as they parted, he
said to the friend who was with him: How characteristic that was of
Santyana's "white marble mind."

This little incident typifies more than two sharply contrasted tem-
peraments. It is indicative of the attitude of each of the two chief
schools of religious inquiry toward the work and methods of the other:
the ever present contrast between the immanent and the transcendent
view of the infinite Spirit of Being. Perhaps the greatest intellectual
achievement of the last half century is the conclusive demonstration that
these two views, sharply contrasted though they are, are yet so far
from being contradictory as to be mutually dependent and supplementary,
so that whatever is infinite must be marked by these two inseparable
characteristics of immanence and transcendence. Yet when men come
to think about the spirit, it is rare that they are able to preserve the
broad and balanced mind that gives equal recognition to each of its
great aspects. One or the other is given dominance. Their thought
focusses upon some world to come, upon a "light that never was on
sea or land," upon the life of the transcendent spirit, unclogged and
uncoloured by matter or by the weaknesses and passions of our com-
mon humanity; or else they become immanists, and look for the eter-
nal only in the temporal, for the Spirit of Being only within the walls
of one of its dwellings, in external nature, or in the emotions and
experiences of the heart and mind of man.

In the Theosophical Society, more commonly than elsewhere, the
value of each method of approach is recognized. We should have
missed the central significance of the Christian teaching of the Incar-
nation, and of the eastern doctrine of the existence of Masters, if we
fancied that we could know the full life of the spirit by studying only
the life of unillumined and unperfected humanity; and, on the other
hand, we should have failed as wholly to grasp the lesson of evolu-
tion if we fancied that we had any other means of entering this full

300

WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 301

life,, and of giving reality and expression to our vision of the ideal,
than by the growth and development of the life that is already ours.
Therefore, side by side with our study of the great of soul, of the
free movement of the spirit, and of all that we should like to be, we
have need to study the first conscious stirrings of the soul within our-
selves, not in the "white marble" courts of clear, cold logic, but in the
cluttered, homely cottage of our hearts, and in the clogged and ham-
pered movement of our wills. "Religious slumming," as Santyana called
it, can never be completed or made needless.

It was for this reason, among others, that recently, when I had
occasion to write to the editor of the THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, I took
advantage of the opportunity to express the very high value I set upon
the series of personal experiences which were being published under
the title of "Why I Joined the Theosophical Society." They gave the
original material, the first hand testimony to the workings of a spiritual
vitality, which are as priceless to the genuine student of religion as are
private journals and contemporary letters to the historian. In each
case the material may have been coloured by personal temperament and
bias, or by ignorance of what was actually taking place behind the
scenes; but in each case also, the documents are unquestionably first
hand and genuine, and represent honestly the facts as they were seen
and interpreted by the writer. After having testified to the interest and
help I had myself received from these articles, I was in no position to
refute the editor's argument, which I received with characteristic prompt-
ness by the next trans-Atlantic post, that I should at least try to give
to others what they had given me. The editor's requests are never easy
to refuse if they were, I doubt whether the QUARTERLY could have
secured such a series and so I, too, have now to look back over many
years, and try to trace the awakening of the consciousness and the
workings of the spirit that led me to the Theosophical Society.

If I am to begin where others have, as it seems to me of value to
do, I must go far back. I had been brought up in the Church of Eng-
land, as a child attending its services as a matter of course, and being
confirmed at a fairly early age largely because it was expected of me;
our Vicar representing that it was time I relieved my parents of the
obligation of my baptismal vows, which must rest either upon them or
upon me. It seemed to me only fair that, of the two, they should rest
upon me; and this was the reason I gave my mind for taking a step
whose seriousness I felt but shrank from facing. It is obvious that it
was not a religious attitude, and looking back upon it now I can see it
as the mental pose it was. Inwardly I blamed the Vicar for putting
what I instinctively felt to be so momentous, upon such a low basis. Yet
mentally I welcomed the excuse for letting it mean no more to me than
this: the taking upon my own shoulders of a responsibility that had,
without will of mine, been incurred in my name. Presented in this way,
it seemed to leave me no choice as to what I should do; and I think

302 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

that, without this sense of compulsion, I should never have been able
to take the confirmation vows. I did not want to be religious, and the
Church had never drawn me.

But if religion, in its ordinary meaning, was something which I
wished to escape rather than to embrace, it was at least partly because
of my recognition of the sacred and solemn obligations that it entailed;
and if my parents had not succeeded in making me desire these, they
had given me something which was not a wholly bad substitute. They
had imbued me with a very real devotion to the ideal of chivalry and
noblesse oblige. Holiness was a word which left me cold, for I knew
no more of its meaning than do the majority of boys. But loyalty and
honour were living realities: realities which I at least wished to prefer
to my own life or anything which that life could bring; and when, in
little or in big, I turned or fell away from my own concept of them
as day after day I did in one thing or another I was ashamed and
miserable. I doubt whether any memory of my childhood is more per-
sistent than this of constantly recurring shame and the repeated renewal
of my resolve to be true to my ideal in the days ahead.

I read and reread all the stories of chivalry that I could find, and,
as a child will, identified myself with one or another of the great figures
of knighthood, trying to feel as they felt, to live my boy's life in its
circumstances as they lived their man's life in their circumstances. It
led me into many Quixotic situations, laughable enough in retrospect,
but sometimes painfully embarrassing to the supersensitiveness of a boy.
Yet I count it one of the great blessing of my life that this ideal should
have so early gained its hold upon me, and sustained that hold through
all the restless cravings of adolescence. It was the load star to which
the oscillating needle of my imagination always returned: the standard
by which all that was mean or low or cowardly or unclean in my desires
or actions was revealed in its true light, so that I could not rest or
crystallize around them.

As I grew older, and my mind began to question, I remember won-
dering why, in this reading of chivalry, the Quest of the Grail made
so small an impression upon me, and how I came to choose my heroes
as I did. From all the circle of the Round Table it was not Sir Galla-
had or Sir Percival that I wished to be, nor yet King Arthur or Launce-
lot though all my heart went out to Launcelot. It was Garwaith of
the White Hands that I became, when, through the long summer days,
I played at knighthood: Garwaith or Bayard or Ogier the Dane or
Roland or Oliver. But of them all Oliver was the closest to me. It
was something more than play to play at being Oliver. There was the
sense of his honour being in my hands, and, curiously persistent, the
sense that his faults must be corrected in me. I never saw or thought
of the faults of Ogier or of Bayard. I doubt whether I even now know
what they were. But Oliver's faults I saw, even as a boy; and though
I never spoke of them, and would have denied them hotly had anyone

WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 303

else spoken of them, they seemed to rest on me for correction. Many
years later it was a matter of no small interest to me to discover that
my experience here was not unique, but that among my fellows in the
Theosophical Society there was quite literally "a Roland for my Oliver."

From my tenth to my nineteenth year I think it would be difficult
to overestimate the part played in my life by this ideal of chivalry. I
could not and did not talk of it. But perhaps it was all the more effec-
tive for having to operate in silence. Side by side with it, inextricably
interwoven with it, was the feeling that somewhere there was waiting
for me a cause or a person, a task or an ideal, in which or in whom I
would find the meaning and fulfilment of my life, and to which all I
was or could become must be given and was due. I did not know
what it would be or what it would mean. But I was possessed by the
conviction that it would demand the best of me, and that I must come
to it strong and with clean hands. It made each act of weakness or
littleness seem treachery.

I cannot now tell when this feeling first became associated and sym-
bolized for me in the vision of a face, of which I had been recurringly
conscious from so early in my boyhood that I cannot trace its beginning.
I could then never see it wholly clearly. Its features seemed wrapped
in the dusk of twilight, though they brought a sense of familiarity as
close and ancient as with my own soul. Only the eyes and the expres-
sion were luminous and clear. I do not know how to describe this, and
perhaps it is of small value to try, but I have thought of it when I have
seen a friend's face and eyes light suddenly with a smile or with some
new formed purpose. It is as though the face of flesh were but the
shadow of an inner face of living, luminous feeling. Almost at will I
could bring this face before my mind's eye, and so I came to think of
it, or to explain it to myself, as a product of my imagination. But often
it would come to me without any conscious act or will of mine. I would
see it in my dreams at night, or find it with me when I rose from
studying. Always it was the same face; always it seemed to call and
wait for me; sometimes smiling, but more often with a depth of sad-
ness that I could scarcely bear to see. No power of my imagination
could change this expression. It was what it was. So that, though my
mind told me it was but fancy, in my heart I knew that it was not,
but that somewhere in God's wide universe there was one who was as
the soul of my soul, and in loyalty and love for whom my life must
find its meaning and its purpose.

This is the best picture that I can give of such inner life as I
had while a boy: imaginative, supersensitive, lonely; endlessly falling
from the ideal which possessed me, shamed by weakness and a sense
of treachery that I could not explain, yet ardently desirous of being
strong and true; constantly, eagerly seeking for I knew not what, but
for what I knew must sometime come; emotional and impulsive, but
with a certain inner touchstone and point of fixity that prevented my

304 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

being long deluded by their glamour or swept away by their tides. I
have tried to draw this picture and to draw it with a frankness that
would be as impossible as it would be indecent, if to my readers I were
to be anything more than exhibit 17 in a long series of human docu-
ments because in it may be traced the early movement of those forces
which drew me to the Theosophical Society. As Krishna promises to
Arjuna, in the sixth book of the Bhagavad Gita, "Even without any
wish of his own, will he be taken in hand by his former effort," so was
I led through my boyhood.

But true though this picture is, it needs to be further supplemented
if it is not to be misleading. Over against this inner life stood my
mental and outer life. Of the outer life I need say little. I had the
high spirits and eager zest for living, as well as most of the likes and
dislikes, of other healthy boys, save that, neither at school nor later at
the University could I be one of "a set." I could play with my school-
mates and work with them, but I could never be one of them. I never
could feel we belonged together, and I found more real companionship
with my horses and dogs than, as a boy, I ever found with my fellows.
Mentally my tastes, and such aptitudes as I possessed, ran to science,
in which I had given some signs of promise and had early obtained
some small success, as both botanically and geologically our neighbor-
hood had unusual features of considerable interest. My mind was
cold, logical and argumentative, and I could lose myself in its problems
for days or weeks at a time. It was the one opiate I had found which
could still the restless craving of my nature, and I used it as such. Like
other opiates, the habit grew with use and cut both ways ; so that my
mind became my refuge from both the greater good and the greater
evil in my nature.

So far as I can remember, I had never heard of Theosophy, or
known any member of the Society, until I met the one who has been
friend and teacher to me from that day to this. There are some dreams
through which we pass as with a double consciousness. We are both
actor and spectator, and look upon the scene with our own proper
level gaze and also as from a height, seeing the personal self as exter-
nally and impersonally as we see the setting of the stage. My memory
of that first meeting is marked by the same sense of dual consciousness.
I see myself drawing aside the portiers and standing for a moment
looking into the room where my hosts sat with two others, who, as I,
were paying a social call upon new neighbors. After more than a quar-
ter of a century I can still see each detail of that room, the shaded
lamps, the glowing fire, the play of shadow on the walls. I can see
my host turn and rise, and can feel again the sudden leaping forth of
something in my heart or soul as my eyes met those of the one who
has led me the long road that I have travelled. Quite literally it took
my breath away and I did not in the least understand it. The
situation was in no way extraordinary. Those before me were but

WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 305

new neighbors, friends of my friends; yet after that first uprushing in
my heart, there seemed to fall such a silence as should precede the
judgment and the doom of nations. I know there was no silence,
no pause of more than the fraction of a second, no gaucherie. Yet
in feeling then, and in memory now, it is as though time had stopped,
and this cross section of it held static and unchanging, till some unknown
judgment and invisible work should be passed and wrought.

Of the remainder of that call I have little recollection. I know
I enjoyed myself, and that I found myself much drawn to my new
neighbors. Finding, also, that we shared certain hobbies, that after-
noon was but the first of many that we spent together.

After some months I heard that my new acquaintances were "theos-
ophists." I do not recall how I gathered my first impressions of what
this word meant, but they were concerned chiefly with "astral bodies,"
table rapping, spiritualism, and psychic phenomena. It was all very
vague and hazy, and I was content to leave it so; though, my attention
once called to Theosophy, I began to notice newspaper and other refer-
ences to it. Almost always it was referred to with ridicule. From my
new friends, for such my neighbors had now become, I heard nothing
of Theosophy. They did not speak of it, nor did I. I think my atti-
tude would have been the same had I heard that they were Seventh Day
Adventists, or Mahomedans. I should have wished to have respected
their faith and not to have trespassed with impertinent questions.

It was fully a year before it occurred to me that there was any
special or direct connection between Theosophy and that intangible
sense of deeper reality which I found in my friends' presence, and
which drew and held me far more strongly than I at first realized. Our
common hobby, and their unusual personal charm and kindness to me,
seemed so much more than sufficient to account for the pleasure their
hospitality and friendship gave, that it was some time before I
looked any further or deeper. But again and again, as I left their
home, or passed it on my rides, there would come to me a feeling that
I can only describe as homesickness so sharp and poignant that it
could bring the tears to my eyes. My mind, being quite sane, told me
that this was utterly asinine. I was not an hysterical school girl, but
a grown man; and to wish to cry and not to know what one was
crying about was as ridiculous a performance as anyone could be guilty
of. Nevertheless, I was guilty of it; and it was the same feeling that I
had known many times from my boyhood when I would let my heart
open to the indescribable haunting call in the eyes of the face that
seemed to rise unbidden from my memory or imagination. In my later
reading I have seen it described as the nostalgia of the soul : the home-
sickness that wells up overpoweringly in the heart of an exile when
some unexpected chord awakens the memories of his own land, and
which nature itself can give us when we are alone with it, under the
stars at night, or watching the last dying colours of an autumn sunset

306 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

across the brown of silent fields. I began to question, and to wonder.
What was it that so drew and held me? Why did I feel for these
comparatively new acquaintances a closeness and intimate "at-home-
ness" as though I had known them always, and which I had never felt
for anyone? With them I was myself, and my best and whole self.
With all others I was but some part of myself. Why? I had no answer
then. But the question remained.

In the two years that followed, our friendship deepened. I told
them of my ignorance of Theosophy and began to ask about it. They
lent me books. Light on the Path was the first. In it I found the same
inner claim upon my heart and self that I had felt and accorded to
my friends. I did not understand it, and it told me little of what I
thought I wanted to know, but it compelled a deeper assent than any
which the mind alone can give. I wished, however, that I knew more
clearly what it was to which I was assenting. The Voice of the Silence
I could scarcely understand at all, and I thought its meter mostly bad,
though there were isolated sentences which seemed to me both beau-
tiful and profound, and which would haunt me for days together, till,
little by little, they came to mean much to me. Then there were Mr.
Sinnett's two books, The Occult World and Esoteric Buddhism, and Mr.
Judge's Ocean of Theosophy. These three were interesting enough, but
they aroused nearly every mental and scientific prejudice I possessed;
and if there were any which these books left still sleeping they were
later waked to life by Madame Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine, which I
simply could not read, and which, I should say in justice to my friends'
perception of my limitations, they had not asked me to read.

Despite this, however, I found myself attracted by the two fun-
damental doctrines of Karma and Reincarnation. They seemed to me
very interesting hypotheses. The more I thought about them, the more
interesting they appeared; though I deemed them both unproved, and,
in my initial conceit, unprovable. The theory of the perfectibility of
man, the existence of a hierarchy stretching as far above us as we con-
sider ourselves above the beetles, seemed to me wholly reasonable and
probable, as a corollary to the theory of evolution. A priori, however,
it did not appear more likely that such beings should communicate
directly with us than that we should communicate with the beetles, and
the evidence here adduced for such communication seemed singularly
trivial and unconvincing. It was this, perhaps more than anything else,
which offended me in Mr. Sinnett's books : the mass of assertion unsup-
ported by what seemed to me adequate evidence, the many breaks in the
logical chain, and the almost vulgar triviality of some of the phenomena
which instantly awakened suspicion.

It must be remembered that at this time I was wholly ignorant of
the great body of mystical literature, and of the records which, from
every age and race, and with a unanimity unequalled in the evidence
for any other fact in history, testify to the intercourse between man

WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 307

and the divine life above him. All of this was unknown to me, so
that I had nothing with which to supplement Mr. Sinnett's deficiencies.
I also then lacked the experience, as painful as illuminating, of having
had what purported to be my own views and opinions retailed by
another incapable of either appreciating or understanding them. In
consequence, I did not distinguish between Mr. Sinnett's report and
what was there to be reported; and so these presentations of the intel-
lectual and philosophic side of Theosophy repelled rather more than
they attracted me. They roused my mind to question, argument and
opposition. But beneath my mind, acting directly on my heart and on
some inner seat of my truer self, there was a constant, silent appeal,
or, perhaps more accurately, a constant silent pressure like the pres-
sure of the vital forces acting within a planted seed which little by
little grew in power and dominance.

The more I reflect upon the three years that intervened between
my first meeting with these friends and my joining the Theosophical
Society, the more grateful I am for the wisdom and patience of their
reticence. They never attempted to "convert" me; and though I know
now that their inner recognition of me was as instantaneous and far
more conscious than my recognition of them, they were content to wait
till I should grow into myself and until my time of wakening should
come.

Difficult as it has been to describe the early, submerged workings
of the spirit in my life, I find it still more difficult to tell of its rise to
clear consciousness. In my outer life, new and serious responsibilities
had devolved upon me; and the path which I had thought to follow,
and which at first seemed open and clear, had become confused and
doubtful. I had reached a parting of the ways and could not go on
until I had faced myself and made my choice. It was a choice which
meant everything to me, outwardly determinative of all my future,
inwardly involving all I understood by loyalty and honour, yet in an
issue so dark to my understanding that even loyalty and honour seemed
arrayed against themselves. Here, in what had been the very citadel
and stronghold of my moral being, I found myself suddenly at war.
It was the eternal battle between the spirit and the form, the reality and
the appearance. But it was hard to see it so at first; and though,
through God's mercy, I chose aright, I had to choose in darkness and
in doubt, and only later gained the light to see it as it was.

One effect of the decision to which this crisis led, was that I did
not go up to London as I had expected, but remained in the country,
devoting myself to some scientific papers I was engaged upon, and
spending much of such leisure as these left me with my "theosophist"
friends. In the course of the next few months I completed the work
I had in hand, and was more free than I had been to spend my time as
I chose. What put it into my mind I do not know, certainly it was
wholly foreign to all my former habits, but I laid out a definite regimen

308 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

for myself, covering regular hours of sleep, reading, and physical exer-
cise. For perhaps a year past, I had tried intermittently to add a brief
period for meditation to my morning and evening prayers, but had
obtained little result from my efforts. Now I determined to give more
time, not to what I understood by meditation, but to reflection, and to
the attempt to become acquainted with the reality of my own being and
the depths of my own heart, still troubled by the crisis through which
I had passed.

For some weeks, following out this regimen, my life was as regu-
lar as though I had been in training for the Olympic games or had
been living in a monastery, save that for an hour or two each evening
I gave myself the pleasure of being with my friends. For my read-
ing I had chosen the American philosopher, Emerson, whose teaching
is so often pure Theosophy that I could even then recognize it, and we
would talk over together one or another of his essays, or, more inti-
mately, some of the new things I was beginning to discover in my own
consciousness. Many times as I walked home at night from such
talks as these, it seemed to me as though some dead weight were lifted
in my mind some rock rolled back from the entrance to the tomb of
self and a passage opened through which my life was flooded by the
great, silent, breathing life of worlds and planets and interstellar space.
I seemed to be drawn close to the brooding heart of Being: to some
vast region, so still, so sacred, that all thought was silenced, and even
the prayer of my own heart was hushed in waiting unison. All this
was above or beyond my mind: in the quiet of my mind. But when I
came back to ordinary mental consciousness and activity it was with a
sense of having touched not only deeper reality, but also truer knowledge.
It is a task beyond my power, to describe this as I know of no way
of describing a sense, whether of touch or taste or vision, save in its
own terms. And this was a sense of knowledge, not a thought; not a
definite thing known, but knowledge itself contacted. Perhaps its near-
est analogue in my x ordinary experience is when I have worked long,
over days or months, on some complicated problem in my science, and
finally have hit upon the key, the simple, un formulated law, which
brings harmony from discord and order out of chaos, then, though
there is at that moment no conscious application of this key to a sin-
gle detail, there is yet the sense of the solution, the sense of knowl-
edge. Here, where the mind was left behind, where no thing was
known, was the sense of life itself. As with my problems, the work-
ing out of details, the transmutation of knowledge into consciousness
of things known, had to be a later labour.

Little by little however, this transmutation was taking place, and
without conscious labour on my part. Elements of feeling long sub-
merged; passages from the Gospels, from Light on the Path, the Gita,
or Voice of the Silence; points from the conversation of my friends, and,
even more markedly, the contagion of their general outlook upon life:

WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 309

these things which my mind had rejected had nevertheless been claimed
and nourished by some deeper center of myself, and now rose to con-
sciousness in new groupings and with new significance, no longer in
their first strange and foreign guise, but with the seal and signet of my
soul's assent. Intermingling with these, and bearing the same curious
sense of having risen from my own inmost being, as memories of a
forgotten past, there would come to my mind pictures and impressions
of places, people, and events that I had certainly never seen or experi-
enced in the waking consciousness of this life. Something of the same
sort I had, as I have said, been familiar with from my childhood, and
I have mentioned, also, the inexplicable sense of "at-homeness" which
I had felt with my friends from the very beginning of our acquaintance.
But now these phenomena became more marked and persistent. The
pictures of scenes and of places began to fit one into another, like the
elements of a dissected map or the pieces of a picture puzzle. And
though I had no clue to their total, collective significance, and there
were great gaps that I could not bridge, yet here and there they would
interlock, and I could trace, beyond some break, the same recurring
lines. With my friends, also, again and again as we sat and talked, or
rode together over our northern moors, which I had known as the palm
of my own hand since I was a toddling boy, I would wake to a sudden
sense of contrast, as of the presence of some strange and unfamiliar
feature in what was otherwise as old and familiar as life itself. And
the startling thing was this: in the consciousness of that moment, that
which was familiar and old was not these moors of mine and my fam-
ily's for generations back, but was that I should be riding so, bridle
to bridle, with these friends, of whom I had not heard a short three
years before; and what was unfamiliar and strange were the clothes
we wore, and the very look of land and sea and sky that I had looked
out upon from the day that I was born. Under the pressure of a deeper
and more ancient tie than that of home or race or country, the center
of my consciousness was shifting, and the soul's memories waking into
life.

Up to this point the process of my waking was, as I have tried to
indicate, a very slow and gradual one, taking place, for the most part,
beneath my mind and against its opposition. I can only liken it to the
slow and reluctant rousing of yourself to consciousness from the late
half -sleep of morning, when you have continued dozing through the
growing light, and the mind, though clinging to its dreams, is still
vaguely conscious of its surroundings. If tired, or slothful, you may
continue in this state for many minutes provided there be no unusual
movement in the room. But if someone enter unexpectedly, you instantly
find yourself awake; perhaps still drugged by sleep, but certainly fully
conscious of your own identity. This is what now happened to me.
Into the room where my soul dozed so unconscionably late, one entered,
and woke me to consciousness of self.

310 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Though in this analogy, I have, of course, likened my ordinary
personal consciousness to the consciousness of dreams, and the vague
memories of my soul to the dim, intermittent awareness of material
realities that penetrates our dreams, yet it was actually through physical
sleep and dreams, or, more truly, through what lies beyond dreams,
that the waking of my soul occurred. On the night of one of the
major anniversaries of my life, I became suddenly aware, from deep
and dreamless sleep, of one standing by my bed and looking at me. It
was dark night, midnight or after, yet the whole room was luminous
with his presence, so that I could see him, and all that the room con-
tained, with noonday clearness. But it was his eyes which drew and
held mine, and which I instantly recognized. Then he smiled and spoke
to me. But in the morning I could remember no word of what he said.

In the nights that followed I had a series of dreams, bridging time
and space to an ancient age and land. I moved familiarly along the well
known way to meet the one I knew awaited me, the one whose face
and eyes had called me from my boyhood. Only now the features
were no longer obscured in shadow, but were shining with the same
light that used only to irradiate their expression; and it was no longer
only a face, but the full and perfect presence of the one closest of all
souls to my soul, save only the Master. In these dreams I lived over
again event after event of that long past life, in which, as in the prelude
to one of Wagner's operas, were struck the motif chords of all that
was to come. And I recognized this. I recognized the scenes and
places of which distant memories had risen to my waking consciousness.
I recognized my age-old comrades, with a recognition that was some-
times only of the past, but which, in other instances, was also of the
present; so that of these ancient friends of my soul I knew who some
were in the outer life today, and among these were my "new" friends,
who had introduced me to Theosophy. There were, perhaps, at that
time, some five or six different dreams of this character, all dealing
with the same incarnation, and fitting into the gaps and supplying miss-
ing pieces in the puzzle-picture of my memory. But more than this,
running through them, as some Greek chorus telling of the meaning
of the scene that was enacted, was the consciousness of their appli-
cation to my present life. The prayer that I had prayed in that old
time was still the deepest truth of my soul. It had not died or been
forgotten, but here despite the many thousand years, was still granted
me in sovereign generosity.

These dreams were spread over a period of something like a week
or ten days. Then again, as at the beginning, there came a night when
I woke from dreamless sleep to the presence of the one who had first
visited me. All was as before, the room made light as noonday, and
as before, he stood beside my bed and looked at me. But now he bore
under his arm a rather large book, bound in some rough hide from
which the hair had not been wholly removed. Again he spoke to me,

WHY I JOINED THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 311

and bending down opened the book and held it before me so that I
could read. I thus read several pages, he turning over the leaves as
I finished each; and what I read made clear to me the whole course
of my life and the meaning of the crisis through which I had passed,
and of the ancient prayer that I had prayed and prayed again through
many lives, and of what lay before me in my life in the world today.
Then there came a passage to which he pointed with his finger; and
as he pointed I saw that the writing here was italicized and stood out
boldly from the rest of the page. Almost it seemed as though this hap-
pened as he pointed, and that it had not been so before. But I at least
knew that this was italicized for me, and that I was to note it well and
remember, for it concerned the path I was to travel. Yet in the morning,
though the feeling of this passage remained, I could not remember its
words nor formulate its meaning in words of my own. But my way
had been made clear to me ; and my memory retained, in broad but true
outline, the course my life must follow, and which, through the more
than quarter of a century that has elapsed from that day to this, it has
followed and is still following.

I joined the Theosophical Society because in it I found those to
whom the love, the loyalty, and the service of my soul were due ; because
through it lay the Master's answer to my soul's prayer, the way of his
appointing, the life for which I had been born, and the work that I had
come to do. I joined the Theosophical Society because I belonged in it,
and because it was impossible for me, once wakened, to do otherwise.

K. C. M. D.

That which was best for us in the past moment is no longer best
for us, for it is stripped of the will of God, zvhich has passed on to other
things from which it creates for us the duty of the present moment;
and it is this duty, under whatever appearance it is manifested, which
will now most perfectly sanctify our souls. Abandonment: Rev. J. P.
de Caussade, S. J.

GENGHIS KHAN

IT is a striking fact that in the majority of works on thirteenth
century history almost no mention is made of what one writer
declares to be "the most stupendous fact of the century" the
activity of the Mongol tribes of central Asia under the leadership
of Genghis Khan. With the history of Europe at the time we are all
more or less familiar; St. Francis is perhaps the best known figure of
the period ; the war against heretics and the work of the Inquisition, the
darkest blot. Four of the crusades had been unsuccessfully waged, bring-
ing to the Pope, who had exercised the power of summoning all Christen-
dom to his banner, the virtual suzerainty of Europe both spiritual and
military. Indeed, the Papacy under Innocent III. had reached, at the
beginning of the century, the summit of its power, and Frederick II.
was already beginning to carry out his schemes of aggrandizement which
led ultimately to the death-struggle between Church and state. The his-
tory of the time, regarded from a politico-religious aspect is complex
in the extreme and forms a striking contrast to the conditions in that
distant quarter of the globe, among the hitherto unknown Tartars
through whose agency the trend of European events was soon to be
vitally affected.

Shortly before the close of the preceding century, the chief or khan
of an obscure tribe among this people, died, leaving as his successor
his son, then only a boy; and the few clans hitherto subject to him,
immediately renounced their allegiance. The boy, known as Temuchin,
spent his early life in a struggle for power, sometimes with a few fol-
lowers at his back, and sometimes hunted from place to place in peril
of his life. His fierceness and bravery, together with his genius for
conquest soon won him control of his own wild tribesmen and within
the first decade of the century he had subjugated all the surrounding
tribes and taken his title of Genghis Khan or khan of khans. We find
in him a man splendid for his brute strength, his tremendous energy, his
indomitable will, and his military genius, a man worthy, in many respects
to be classed among the greatest conquerors of all time. But opposed
to these qualities, his violent deeds, his ferocious cruelty, his wanton
treachery, reduced to abject terror people by whom deeds of more than
ordinary violence were accepted as a matter of course. Indeed, so darkly
is he painted in history, that he seems, of necessity, wrongly rated, his
fame blackened by the bias of historians, or distorted through the long
lapse of years. But there remains the fact that all his work was destruc-
tive, that he carried ruin wherever he went, and in explanation, one
must remember that the ruling power of his life was the love of con-
quest, that all his energies, the animal and intellectual energies of the

GENGHIS KHAN 313

barbarian, converged to this one point, and that to him conquest meant
devastation.

The hordes of wild mounted herdsmen over whom he ruled were
of like stamp. A glance at their mode of living will make clear the
qualities and characteristics which would be natural to such a people.
Theirs was a loose confederacy of nomad tribes, holding their ground,
the vast grassy plains of Central Asia in common, living in tents and
moving about with all their household-goods and their vast herds of
cattle and horses from one good pasturage to another. They practised
polygamy, their government was the patriarchal form and their religion
was Shamanism. We are told that they were remarkable for their relig-
ious tolerance in an age of religious fanaticism, but this was because
of their complete indifference to religious questions. Theft, whether
of cattle, of women, or of pasturing ground, was common among them,
and the resultant warfare most frequent. They were accustomed to
hardships, fatigue and privation, skilled in the most desperate fighting,
bloodthirsty, ferocious and cruel beyond belief, treacherous to a degree,
asking and giving no quarter ; and as they shared in their leader's desire
for conquest, indeed were bound to him largely by this desire, such
characteristics, together with their untold numbers, made of them a
host which was not merely a terror to the civilized world, but which
was regarded as invincible. Such was the material which composed
his armies, when Genghis Khan, now the acknowledged ruler of all the
Mongols, turned his attention to China, attacking first the tribes to the
north and soon passing beyond the Great Wall, which had been regarded
up to this time as adequate protection for the country. China was then
enjoying a high degree of civilization and considerable military power,
but Mongol tactics and Mongol strength swept all before them and in
an amazingly short time, their conquests extended on the east to the
China Sea and south to the Yellow River beyond which ruled the Sung
dynasty. After a brief time spent in establishing his power in the new
acquisitions, Genghis Khan and his armies withdrew to direct their
energes to the eastward.

The Kwaresmian Empire, one of the Mohammedan countries in
the southeast of the continent, near the Persian Gulf, was the first to
receive the inrush of the horde of barbarians, which swept down upon
it almost unheralded. The story of their being invited hither, an
invitation brought about through the struggle for power between Caliph
and Sultan, though historical fact, is not of great importance, for the
conquering march of such a host stays not for invitation and needs but
little pretext. Kwaresm had originally been under Seljuk rule, but at
this time, 1219, was governed by Alai-ud din Mohammed (descendant
of a Turkish slave) who was openly warring and secretly intriguing
against the Caliph at Bagdad. One battle sufficed to show Mohammed
the awful power of the invaders and he withdrew from the open field.
In this unequal warfare, Genghis Khan had as generals, his four sons;

314 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

also as aids, many vassal khans who owed absolute allegiance to him.
All were accustomed to iron discipline and had blind confidence in their
leader ; all gave him unwavering loyalty and implicit obedience. On the
opposing side, the leader, Mohammed, was wavering and vacillating;
he had intrigued against his associates till he feared to meet his victims ;
he had as councillors men, warring among themselves, and as generals,
men whose faith he had strong reason to suspect. To withhold from
open warfare then, seemed his only safe course and he divided his armies
and his generals among the walled cities of the Empire. His idea in
so doing may have been that after plundering and pillaging the open
country the Mongols would withdraw, but this was not the Mongol way
of fighting.

Genghis Khan, after dividing his great army into four parts, assigned
one to each section of the country, choosing himself the region in which
Mohammed had taken refuge. It is unnecessary to follow the whole
campaign, a story vitally alive, alive with the energy of an attacking
swarm of ants or bees, or perhaps, for its pages drip blood, it calls
to mind rather the hot fury of wolves. Wild, lawless brutality, merci-
less cruelty are everywhere. The tale of one city is virtually the tale
of all : a long siege frequently lasting for months, the gradual despair
of the citizens, followed either by surrender, or by success of the
Mongols in scaling and breaking the walls ; then pillage, plunder and fire,
and almost invariably the slaughter of every inhabitant, man, woman
and child. In one instance we find a troop of the besieged deserting to
the Mongols only to be put to the sword on the ground that men false
to one master could not be true to another. On several occasions cities
surrendered without resistance, but because of some previous injury or
insult to Mongol envoy or general, the same fate, death to all, was
meted out to them; frequently all the citizens numbering many thou-
sands, being marched outside the gates and several days being spent in
deliberately cutting them down. A river, in one case, was turned from
its bed and directed into a plundered city, that the work might be the
more complete. Women were frequently spared for slavery, skilled
artisans sent back to Mongolia, and young, strong men taken with the
armv to do heavy siege work ; except for these, none escaped.

Bokhara and Samarkand were taken, both trading and commer-
cial centers, the seat of learning, arts and science; city after city lay
in ashes, the whole country stripped and desolate. Mohammed its
sovereign, fled, overcome by despair and a detachment of the Mongol
army started in swift pursuit. From province to province they hounded
him, and he, like a wild beast, continued his headlong flight, until, with
only a few followers at his side, and still in peril from friends and
kinsmen of victims of his past treachery, he died of an illness on the
shores of the Caspian Sea. Of his three sons, one, Jelal ud din, offered
splendid resistance to the Mongols, so much so that even the great
Khan himself expressed admiration for his bravery. But the whole

GENGHIS KHAN 315

country shared the despair of Mohammed, as province after province
was taken. Jelal ud din's armies were soon annihilated, their leader
fled the country and the empire lay helpless, depopulated and in ruins.
Meanwhile a secondary campaign was being carried on by the
pursuers of Mohammed, who, when deprived of their quarry, turned
their attention to the devastation of Eastern Irak, and the country
between that and the Caspian, also parts of Armenia and Georgia. With
reinforcements from the main army they next attacked the Polovtsi,
a nomad people who had carried on for centuries an intermittent war-
fare with Russia. After making a truce with these people and ruin-
ing with their aid a number of towns in the Caucasus foothills, they
treacherously turned on them and began the usual slaughter ; the Polovtsi
fled, some to Macedonia and Thrace and some to Russia with the
result that an alliance was formed with the latter country. During the
warfare which followed the Mongols penetrated to the Dnieper, threat-
ening Poland, Moravia and Hungary, for, though they met with brave
resistance, here as elsewhere they were victorious and for three cen-
turies Russia lay under their yoke. It is interesting to note, and this
is true of all their conquests, that during their occupation they made
no attempt to introduce their own institutions into Russia, or to force
their subjects in any way to become Tartars. In the southeast sec-
tion of the country, the great grassy steppes, the Mongols were quite
at home, but the rest of the land, boggy and thickly wooded, they
found not at all to their liking. They soon withdrew then, leaving
behind them Mongol tax collectors and returning the land in fief to
the Russian nobles, who in their turn became vassals of the great khan,
obliged to pay tribute and furnish a military contingent on demand.
The chief rulers or kniazes were appointed by the Khan and given des-
potic power, and the tyranny which they exercised over their subjects
was but a reflection of their own servitude under the Tartars. Russia
retained then, her dynasties, her religion and her nationality, but to
this day, in her autocratic government she bears the stamp of Mongol
domination.

In 1223, Genghis Khan decided to return to the plains of Mon-
golia. Various reasons are suggested for this move, the most probable
being that, after the death of the general whom he had left in com-
mand of the Chinese occupation, the conquered people had become
increasingly active and hostile and he felt that his personal super-
vision was needed. He accordingly marched in 1225 to make war on
Tangut and the fact that he did this with his customary thoroughness
is witnessed by one or two passages from a Chinese annalist :

"Men strive in vain to hide in caverns and in mountains. As to
the Mongol sword, hardly two in a hundred escape it. The fields are
covered with the bones of slaughtered people." "Since the beginning
of time no barbarous people have ever been so mighty as the Mongols

316 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

are at present. They destroy empires as a man plucks out herbs by
the roots, such is the power in their possession."

Just before the completion of this new conquest, however, Genghis
Khan became ill and died. For reasons of state it was best that the
fact be kept secret for a time, and to this end all persons were killed
who met his funeral cortege as it passed in solemn state to his burial
place in the north of his own country. And so ended, in the twenty-
second year of his reign, the activity of a ruler who is regarded by
one authority as "one of the greatest characters in history, perhaps
the greatest that has appeared in the world to the present day. A man
who, never hampered by conscience, advanced directly toward the one
supreme object of his life, power. His executive ability was won-
derful as was also his utter disregard of human life. Beginning with
a few huts on the Kerulon he drew in tribe after tribe, country after
country, till at his death he was master of more territory than had
ever been ruled by one sovereign. He stands forth also as the greatest
manslayer the world has ever known. From 1211 to 1223 in China
and Tangut alone, Genghis Khan and his assistants killed more than
eighteen million five hundred thousand human beings."

Passing without question the assertion that a man whose work
was almost wholly destructive was "perhaps the greatest character that
has appeared in the world to the present day," let us turn from the
deeds of the man, the work he strove to do to what he actually
accomplished. He himself had declared as he added victory to victory,
that Heaven had given him "the Empire of the Earth, both the East
and the West of it," and so nearly did this prove true that the very
magnitude of his success worked to its own undoing; the empire was
too vast to have strength; genius for military organization had out-
stripped administrative ability. And when to this fact was added a
lack of harmony among his successors, and the absence of any one
truly great man, it became inevitable that the empire should fall to
pieces, a disintegration which occurred not long after the death of the
conqueror. Then became apparent the results of the upheaval upon
the Mongols themselves; or perhaps we might equally well say the
causes of the upheaval, for when the matter is viewed from a slightly
different aspect it becomes evident that this people after centuries of
barbarism had earned their opportunity and that those who were pre-
pared took the next step forward. Many of them, it is true, returned
after the invasion to the plains of Tartary where they are living today,
in much the same state as in the time of the great Khan. A large
number, however, adopted Mohammedanism, settled permanently in
western Asia and soon came to hold an important place among the
nations fighting under the Crescent. According to one historian
howbeit opinions differ radically on this point such is the civilizing
effect of Islam on her semi-barbarous adherents, that they were no
longer the ferocious creatures they had been so short a time before,

GENGHIS KHAN 317

though they lost none of their martial valor. Even a more marked
advance in civilization was made by a third contingent who marched
into India at a somewhat later date, adopted Buddhism, and estab-
lished the splendid Moghul Empire, the rise and fall of which is a his-
tory in itself.

In the southeastern countries where the scourge fell most heavily,
we find, instead of a people who were ready for the next step forward,
a people who had abused every privilege, turned from or distorted the
message which their prophet had given them, and evolved a civiliza-
tion which, in proportion as it became outwardly more and more
perfect, grew more and more rotten at the core. Within but a few
generations after the death of the prophet a rapid degeneracy enfeebled
the victorious Moslems; the vast wealth which they accumulated from
their world-wide conquests was spent for the most part in sensual
luxury, and inevitable loss of strength and energy resulted. Further-
more, in the course of their victories they had conquered and taken
prisoner many Turks from tribes to the north of their own country.
These men were distinguished for their strength and courage, and
among a people grown effeminate from luxury it was but a step from
the king's slave, to the king's favorite and thence to the power of the
throne itself and the choice of its occupant. By the time of the Mongol
invasion the state was a seething mass of corruption; treachery and
party strife had reduced the power of the Caliph to a minimum; prov-
ince after province had renounced its allegiance and the dominion of
the Commander of the Faithful once stretching along the whole diam-
eter of the civilized world had become limited to the city of Bagdad
and the neighboring territory. The utter weakness of the state, and
its vileness as well, are most apparent when we read that in its midst
there arose and flourished the Kingdom of the Assassins. This so-called
kingdom, named from the terrible work which it performed, was a
secret order, impregnably established in mountain fastnesses, preach-
ing outwardly to its thousands of innocent adherents a Mohammed-
anism which secretly it denounced; and proving, when eventually
unmasked, to adhere to a code of lawlessness and license almost unheard
of in the history of mankind. It had its agents in every court and
center of power, practised assassination on high and low alike, some-
times for pay, sometimes for the accomplishment of its own evil ends,
overturning kingdoms and shaping the destiny of almost the whole
civilized world. That such a condition of affairs should precipitate
a war a scourge of Heaven sent to punish, as Genghis Khan styled
himself was naturally to be expected, and the work of purgation begun
by the great Khan was ably carried on by his successors until a grand-
son, Hulagu, some years later destroyed the Kingdom of the Assassins
and in 1258, with cruelty equal to any of his predecessors, accom-
plished the utter ruin of Bagdad and the extinction of the Caliphate.

318 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

This crushing blow to Islam, the downfall of her power and great-
ness, suggests the world-wide significance of the Mongol invasion, its
place in the great plan of human evolution. For this was not the
mere combat of tribe against tribe, or of kingdom against kingdom;
it touched in its far-reaching results the entire known world of the
time and the future of two continents was at stake. When, in the early
days of Islam, the Moslems, filled with martial energy and religious
zeal, had undertaken to convert the world to Mohammed, victory had
been theirs, not only at home, but further and further afield, till their
conquering banner floated over all the land from the banks of the
Sihon to the farthest promontory of Portugal. Europe lay at her feet,
a Europe undeveloped and unformed and having as its incentive and
inspiration, a religion of love, peace and submission. In the face of
this menacing danger, a new order arose, Europe became welded
together, her great national divisions gradually took shape, and most
noteworthy of all, Christianity was transmuted into a religion of war,
at first defensive and later on, during the Crusades, offensive. This
was the work Islam was to do. Yet in the early XIII. century, Europe,
now grown strong in her own conceit, lay torn and dismembered by
internal strife, too absorbed in her own struggles even to heed the
dread news of threatened destruction from without ; and while Christen-
dom lay thus at the mercy of the Saracen, the wave of conquest was
by no means spent, Islam still carried her victorious banners. But, as
it proved, Islam had accomplished her mission. It was not a part of
the great plan that the eastern continent should overwhelm the western
and efface its newly developing civilization; and at this juncture the
Mongol host effected the deliverance which Europe was unable to
accomplish for herself, striking blow after blow at the base of the
Saracen power till it lay but a wreck of its former grandeur.

One other result of the work of the great Khan shows to an
interesting degree the immense value of apparently small and unim-
portant details. As the Mongols advanced on their westward march,
they displaced from their original home in western Asia, the present
Ottoman Turks. This led to an invasion of Bithynia by the latter
under Othman and ultimately to their advance into Europe under
Amurath I. The resultant history is known to all: their conquest of
Constantinople in 1453, the flight of the scholars gathered there, the
scattering of the precious learning through all Europe, the consequent
awakening or Renaissance and its effect on every element of our civi-
lization even down to the present day. And these vast and far-reach-
ing results came from the unrest of one obscure tribe among the Tartars
and the dislodgement of another equally obscure among the Turks
from this, and from one other cause, namely, the fact that Genghis
Khan gave, as but few great souls have given, his whole being in
undivided allegiance and devoted service to what was doubtless the

GENGHIS KHAN 319

highest, noblest and best principle of his life. And in the giving, he
made of himself an instrument through which could be accomplished
the destinies of two continents, the fate of millions of people.

To those who care to look behind so great a work in search of a
correspondingly great source, it will be of interest to know that there
is another view of Genghis Khan. In a volume of Lucifer, an unsigned
article entitled The Romantic Story of Genghis Khan, identifies him
with a Japanese hero, Yoshitsune, immortalized in many a poem and
folk-tale. This warrior was of royal birth and during his early life
in his native islands of Japan passed through the same vicissitudes as
are elsewhere attributed to the boy-chieftain of Mongolia. As his
power increased, jealousy and treachery on the part of his associates
drove him to the northern island of Yezo whence he vanished, soon
to reappear, under the name of Temujin (Temuchin), on the main-
land of Asia, where he began the career of conquest well known to
history. But the significant point of the narrative is that it declares
him to have been, from his early years, an initiate of the mysteries,
as were also a small but devoted band of followers who shared his
every change of fortune. He was, we are told, "the son of a gifted
race, the favored pupil of the all-knowing sages of the innermost
recesses of the remote mountains . . . His connection with the
priests of Thibet, and intercourse with the Lamas is matter of his-
tory. His antecedent training in the fastnesses of the mountains,
whither he was miraculously conveyed nightly, for long distances, as
it is related and credited in the land of his birth, prepared him for
admission to the inner circles of the Ri-shi and communication with
the Arhats of the age whom doubtless he sought and met in his travels
and the regions he subdued. There is no doubt of the identity, and
there can be no question of the special peculiar circumstances of his
instruction, Yuen Ye Ki, of the Chinese, Genghis Khan, the con-
queror, and Gen-ji-Kei, otherwise Minamoto Yoshitsune, are one and
the same Buddhist Acolyte, Japanese Prince, and student of the Occult,
Magician, Conqueror, Hero, Revered Divinity of the North East of
Asia." Reference is made to a number of histories on the subject
the majority of them Japanese. Among historians writing in our own
tongue, Ho worth makes mention of a similar view, referring to a History
of the Mongol Khans written by a Mongol, Ssanang Setzen in 1662.
In this work the Mongol royal stock is traced back to that of Thibet
and thence to the royal line of Hindostan. Whether reference is also
made to other of the points mentioned above, Howorth neglects to
say; he dismisses the matter with the statement that Ssanang Setzen's
account is a confusion of two legends neither of which rightfully belongs
to the Mongols. But whichever be the accepted view, whether or not
Genghis Khan be regarded as a specially instructed agent, working
consciously and purposefully, nevertheless, in reviewing his life in the

320 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

light of subsequent history there comes to us with renewed force the
truth of those words :

"That which lives when all else has passed away is the desire
with which the man was working, not the results he accomplished. The
good he loved and served endures forever; the good he strove to do
more often dies. . . . that which lives in action is the motive and
the desire. The form it took passes, as all form must, but the soul of
it reincarnates and fills with power and radiance all other forms that
spring therefrom."

JULIA CHICKERING

Perhaps if there were more of that intense distress of souls that
leads to tears, we should more frequently see the results we desire.
Sometimes it may be that while we are complaining of the hardness of
the hearts of those we are seeking to benefit, the hardness of our own
hearts and our own feeble apprehension of the solemn reality of eternal
things may be the true cause of our want of success. Hudson Taylor in
Early Years.

ST. VINCENT DE PAUL

IN the concluding chapter of the Key to Theosophy, Madame Blavat-
sky sketches for us the possible future of the Theosophical Society,
and its effect for good upon the world if the living truth it has in

trust be kept clear of sectarianism, short-sightedness, and prejudice.
She says, "It will gradually leaven and permeate the great mass of
thinking and intelligent people with its large-minded and noble ideas of
Religion, Duty, and Philanthropy." There has been no recent article in
the QUARTERLY directly bearing on the last of these three spheres of
human activity; so that a new book on Vincent de Paul, the "Father of
Modern Philanthrophy" as he is popularly called, suggested that a con-
sideration of this man's life might help to clarify our own ideals on this
important subject. Those of us who love the Theosophical Movement,
and who desire to see its principles permeate the world, cannot fail of
opportunity to apply those principles in so widespread and popular an
occupation as our many modern charities and philanthropic undertakings.
Never before in history, does it seem, has there been so universal a
realization that "the poor ye have always with you." But while this
realization springs in large measure from an impulse of brotherhood
which in itself is a result achieved by the leaven of Theosophic truth, yet
it has brought with it also many new problems and dangers. Socialism,
with its perverted ideas of brotherhood, has subverted much of the
original purity of this ideal and turned it towards purely materialistic
ends. Organized charity has become mechanical; the motive back of it
is too often merely the removal of an eye-sore and a blot, rather than
the transmutation of an evil into good; the individual sacrifice and per-
sonal touch have given place to a systematic bureaucracy with paid
employees and an almost arbitrary routine of "relief-work." We are
all familiar with the man who feels that the regular sending of a cheque
each year, with perhaps an extra gift or two during special times of
stress or disaster, has entirely established his charity and fulfilled his
obligations to his less fortunate neighbors. So familiar has this idea
become that an actual divorce has occurred between the root-meaning
of the word, charity or love, and its present connotation. It now means
at the lowest money-giving; at the highest generosity; and more than
one child has been teased and puzzled by St. Paul's famous passage.

What light, then, can an application of Theosophic principles
throw on this peculiarly modern problem; and how can the undoubted
good that lies back of this many-sided human enterprise be made even
more effective than it now is?

At the time when Madame Blavatsky was writing there was no
such "social self-consciousness" as exists today; and so comments on,

22 s

322 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

or advice directed towards the proper administration and application of
philanthropy are not often found in the literature of that period, but
exist rather potentially in the general ideal of Universal Brotherhood.
It is here that the life and achievements of St. Vincent de Paul are of
immediate and practical helpfulness; and an attempt will be made to
illustrate the, what we might call, cardinal principles of philanthropy by
a brief sketch of this great man's work. The interested reader will find
very readable and sympathetic the recent biography of Vincent de Paul,
by E. K. Sanders; while more detailed works by L'Abbe Maynard and
Mgr. Bougard are to be found in translation in the New York Library. In
the original French the priest Abelli's Vie still remains the basis for all
recent research, being written but four years after the Saint's death.
Collections of his letters (numbering over thirty thousand) have also
been edited ; as have his Conferences with his religious sons and daughters.

The key to the success of Vincent de Paul's life is to be found in
the sureness and solidity of his foundation. Not until he was absolutely
ready did he attempt any new work ; and being ready for him meant not
only careful preparation in the ordinary worldly sense, but a religious
preparation, an absolute knowledge that God wanted him to do just
that thing in just that way. In the acquirement of this spirit he had
learnt the underlying lesson back of his earlier life; for his actual work
did not begin until he was past fifty years of age, and it was in the faith-
ful performance of his routine duties, and in the little obediences in
unimportant affairs, that at last made him a fit instrument to reawaken
the Church and people of France at a time of terrible corruption and
degradation.

The popular view of Vincent de Paul recognizes his practical abili-
ties, and credits him with a "combination of inspiration and experience"
by which in the sixteenth century "he arrived at conclusions which are
regarded as discoveries in the twentieth." But little more is known of
him ; and the fact that a humble peasant boy became a saint while living
in an almost unbroken solitude as far as mystical or religious companion-
ship or guidance is concerned, does not meet with any attention even
amongst his biographers. But such is the fact, as his own letters bear
witness. He was born in 1576 on a small farm near Dax, south of Bor-
deaux, and not far from the sea-coast. In a worldly sense he had no
advantages of fortune, though his early life reads like a romance. Good
birth was almost a prerequisite for any advancement in Church, State,
or Army at that time; and one of the early struggles recorded of the
boy Vincent at the College of Dax is his reluctance and shame when
he had to acknowledge his thrifty peasant father before his more aristo-
cratic schoolmates. In later years M. Vincent "never wearied of remind-
ing those who treated him with reverence that he was a peasant, and the
son of a peasant."

His education began at the Franciscan Convent at Dax when he
was twelve, and at twenty he received the tonsure. He completed his

ST. VINCENT DE PAUL 323

education at the College of Saragossa, and later at Toulouse. During
this time he supported himself by tutoring. In 1600 he was ordained
priest. We fail to understand the Saint unless in some degree we see
the man who made himself a saint in spite of personal faults, and in
spite, also, of the worldly currents which are always in conflict with
those who set their hearts and wills heavenwards. The priesthood during
the religious conflicts which centered around Henry of Navarre and the
Guises had reached a degree of depravity which has perhaps no equal
in the history of France. All the old abuses which had in such large
measure precipitated the Reformation were still unremedied; and to
these were added the inevitable disorganization and corruption that came
from incessant civil war, and the gross materialism of the age. Later,
under Cardinal Richelieu there commenced a great religious revival, and
the spirit of Vincent de Paul, of St. Frangois de Sales, of Cardinal de
Berulle the founder of the Oratorians, of the Ursulines, of Fenelon, and
of the Port Royalists quickened anew the spiritual ideal amongst the
mass of religious people, who respond with pathetic readiness to any
genuine spiritual leadership. But even after this revival some of the
most flagrant abuses went unchecked, such as the non-residence of
bishops or priests in their cures ; plurality of benefices, which necessitated
non-residence; abbeys and priories in lay hands; the charging of lay
pensions on ecclesiastical revenues; and the employment of rich and
unscrupulous Cardinals and Archbishops in military commands. Riche-
lieu became chief minister in 1624; so Vincent de Paul was ordained
several years before any reform; had started either within or outside of
the Church, and when men were raised to the priesthood directly from
the laity, without any preparation or qualification being required of them,
and with all the prescribed intermediary steps dispensed by an arbitrary
ruling. Further than this the actual immorality of living amongst the
priests had become so shocking that for a time few respectable and
decent men entered the Church. As a result hundreds of parishes were
destitute of any religious observances; the peasantry in many large dis-
tricts grew up practically in ignorance of any Church discipline; and
even in the towns there were insufficient numbers to carry on the services
or to administer the simplest rites.

As a young man we find Vincent de Paul struggling between a true
ideal of devotion and loyalty to his Church, and the seemingly inevitable
compromise necessary for the fulfilment of any of his ambitions. On
the one hand we find him so awstruck at his own new privilege that he
celebrated his first Mass in the solitude of a little mountain chapel, with
only a priest and server as witnesses. On the other, we find him perpetu-
ally and deeply in debt, partly from a too ready generosity with other
peoples' money, partly from the attempt to live beyond his means or
station; we find him imprisoning a man for debt and exacting the last
crown from him while in prison; and we find him also hoping, planning,
and scheming for the appointment to a lucrative bishopric. In pursuit

324 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

of this last interest his own letters show that he eagerly sought to further
its success by means neither kind to rivals nor scrupulously honest; yet
even so his chief recommendation in the eyes of others was his piety and
devotion.

But destiny, and it seems a real destiny, had planned otherwise.
While sailing from Marseilles to Narbonne he was captured by Turkish
pirates, wounded by an arrow, and in this miserable condition taken to
Africa where he was sold to a fisherman, and by him to an aged alchemist
"a man of great gentleness and humanity . . . who had devoted
fifty years to a search for the Philosopher's Stone. My duty was to
keep up the heat of ten or twelve furnaces." He was sold again several
times, and finally after two years captivity full of adventure, escaped in
a skiff to France. During these years of very real suffering Vincent de
Paul's faith and innate strength of character came to the fore, and he
no longer drifted with the tide. Once home we find him seeking to pay
off his old debts, and to obtain "some honest benefice in France." A
diplomatic journey to Rome, and contact with the brazen licentiousness
throughout the ecclesiastical hierarchy there, sowed the seed for his later
idea of reforming the clergy as a first step towards any real improvement.

After a year's further study at the Dominican College of La Sapi-
enza in Rome, he returned to France. But the prospect before him was
very gloomy. The ordinary steps of advancement in his own parish had
been estopped by his period of slavery, and his peasant origin left him
unsupported by family interest. Though thirty-three years old, he was
yet unrecognized, and had no opportunity to employ the fine abilities
and gifts which he must by now have felt that he possessed. Perhaps
the instinct which made of him finally the humble drudge and true min-
ister to all the children of men made him at this critical time of vacilla-
tion offer his services to the Hospital of Charity in Paris, founded by
Marie de Medici. Certain it is that from this point the course of events
bore him steadily on towards the fulfilment of his great mission. Almost
immediately he was chosen as almoner for the once profligate, now
neglected Marguerite de Valois; and perhaps helped to salve the con-
science of that unfortunate Queen by administering her charities to the
greatest advantage.

This connection opened a new and important field to Vincent de Paul,
for by no other ordinary means, except indeed by just such a happy
chance, could a man of his position ever have touched that sphere of
society. Today we have lost all of the distinction which existed then
between royalty and the whole remaining portion of mankind. These
ladies lived on a different plane from other human beings ; and any con-
sideration for, or even reference to, the lower orders of society was
considered vulgar and disgusting. Peasants were beyond the pale, mere
anim'als, devoid of moral sense, held of no more account than flies.
Later, in his influence on Anne of Austria and on the ladies of her court,
we can appreciate the marvellous inspiration and awakening which led

ST. VINCENT DE PAUL 325

these same high-born women themselves to walk the streets of the slums,
searching out and ministering to its wretched and filthy inhabitants. This
was the invariable demand that the Saint made, and there were many
who followed his compelling leadership. In the absence of a religious
motive, how many philanthropic workers today could be made to do
even this much in the way of personal charity?

For the next fifteen years, until 1624, Vincent de Paul grew rapidly,
and amongst a small circle his capacity in action and in judgment were
held in the highest estimation. Outwardly his life was the commonplace,
toilsome existence of the faithful priest. It is only in retrospect, in the
light of what he became, that we can see how wise was the guidance that
led him through so long an apprenticeship. That he was faithful to the
light he had, that he made much if not the most of every opportunity
that offered itself, can be illustrated by two striking incidents, which
reveal also the zeal and temper of the man. But it must always be remem-
bered that Vincent de Paul had many real faults, had done many wrong
things, that he was in all ways a human man amongst men, and that no
miracle accomplished either the canonization which officially proclaims
him a saint, or the more objective achievements of his last years of fruit-
ful service. It was the slow conquest of self, the daily obedience to duty,
the hours of labor and the nights of prayer that through long years bit
by bit brought him to a close communion, and to an effective co-operation,
with his Master.

The first and earlier of these incidents illustrates the power over him-
self which Vincent de Paul was acquiring. He was, in 1610, sharing
his lodgings near to the Hospital of Charity with a lawyer. One day
while the latter was out and Vincent de Paul sick in bed, the doctor called,
bringing with him a boy to carry his medicines. While the attention of
doctor and patient were mutually engaged, this boy extracted from an
unlocked drawer a large sum of money left there by the lawyer. It was
not missed till some time later ; and Vincent de Paul was held responsible.
The impoverished lawyer had no proof of his guilt, and after one simple
denial Vincent de Paul refused to make any further protestations of his
innocence. The irritated and suspicious lawyer spread the story on all
occasions, especially seeking out Vincent de Paul's friends and acquaint-
ances, and treating him as the real culprit. Of insignificant origin, with
the memory of past slackness in money matters behind him, and without
the support that close and admiring friends can give, Vincent de Paul was
indeed in a difficult position ; and his calmness in the face of it is remark-
able. "God knew the truth," he said ; but not for six years, till the con-
fession of the real culprit establish his innocence, did the stigma of dis-
honor leave him. Not once in this time did he attempt to defend him-
self. Years later in the "Conferences" at S. Lazare he illustrated a prin-
ciple by reference to this incident, and closed with following words:
"If the offence of which we are accused has not been committed, let us
remember that we have committed many others, on account of which

326 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

we ought to welcome disgrace and accept it without justifying ourselves,
and without the smallest resentment against our accusers. Let us
acknowledge, my brothers, that in ourselves we have capacity for all evil,
and let us leave to God the charge of declaring the secrets of guilt and
of innocence."

Complete resignation, self-effacement and a virile humility these
are the qualities demanded of every Christian, but which few can pro-
duce to meet the exigency of an unexpected test and these were the
qualities which during many years Vincent de Paul had set himself to
acquire. His failures are not recorded, his striking success is; but we
can safely supply the failures, as we can also the patience and persistence
which finally achieved so thorough a triumph that in maturer years the
root of all his life and teaching was founded in just such principles of
absolute self-surrender.

The second incident, occurring about seven years later, illustrates
the power over others that this slow upbuilding process was surely de-
veloping. Vincent de Paul had for a short while stayed with de Berulle,
who had just received the Papal Bull sanctioning the establishment of
the Oratorians, in Paris. De Berulle had acted as his spiritual and tem-
poral guide, and this is the only occasion that we hear of Vincent de
Paul receiving any spiritual direction from one at all his equal, let alone
his superior, in such matters. It is from this time that Vincent de Paul
adopted a life of strict personal austerity. De Berulle obtained for him
first a cure in the little town of Clichy, and then the position of tutor
in the household of Philippe de Gondi, General of the Galleys, and one
of the richest and most influential families at court. De Gondi was
devoid of real religion, though a youthful training in Catholicism had
implanted the familiar superstitious attitude which is too often passed
for religion. But his life was of a piece with the times and with the
society in which he moved; "coarseness of speech matched depravity of
morals ;" and yet there were in addition all the dashing and noble touches
that made the French aristocrat of those times the superb and often
attractive person that he is in contemporary memoirs. Somehow the
peasant priest had learned to meet these accomplished and flashing
worldlings on their own plane. Already he was learning to be humble,
and his clients may have seen that he would never presume to trespass
on their sovereign rights. But gradually the strength of his personality,
the authority that represented the Church, and not merely the ecclesias-
tical heirarchy which was universally despised, but the traditional Mother
who provided her children with spiritual energy, above all the calm and
steady purpose and example of his life, had their inevitable effect. A
contemporary writes of him "il demeurait dans cette grande Maison
comme dans une Chartreuse"; and his own maxims lay down the rule
that he must choose silence and retirement whenever choice was pos-
sible, and that his room was to be to him as the cell of a Religious.

First he converted the servants of the household, assembling the

ST. VINCENT DE PAUL 327

scoffing lackeys, and reminding them, of their Catholic duties. Then
Madame de Gondi was approached, converted, and became at last a true
devote. De Gondi himself was a noted duellist; and though four years
of pressure from wife and chaplain had drawn him to religious obser-
vances, his manner of life was in no way changed. With the "childlike
inconsistency" which distinguished Catholics of that period, he went to
Mass on a morning when he proposed to fight. M. Vincent, hearing of
this in advance, approached his master at the rail, and admonished him
that his act would bring upon himself and his family the judgment of
the Saviour whom he pretended to worship. Here was the dependent
rebuking the seigneur, whose imperious will could instantly dispossess
and arbitrarily punish. Yet Vincent de Paul succeeded; M. de Gondi
refused the dual; and not long afterwards he became a sincere and
whole-hearted follower of the once insignificant peasant-priest.

Another conversion, still more striking, occurred but shortly after.
The great seigneur of the district, the wealthy and magnificent Balthazar
de Rougement, Baron de Chandes, chanced to hear Vincent de Paul
preach. He was one of the most notable of duellists, and was celebrated
far and wide for his wild life, his utter disregard of all principle, and
for the brilliant daring of his enterprises. After the sermon he sought out
the preacher, and little by little he was drawn away from the old life.
The estates of Rougement were sold with characteristic recklessness,
and given to charity; the festivities of the Chateau ceased, and the only
guests were the needy. It is related, in the spirit of truth at any rate,
that after he had deprived himself of all his possessions, he discovered
that he was still deeply attached to his old and trusty sword, so without
delay he went out and hacked it to pieces on a rock.

The man who could inspire such case-hardened sinners with repent-
ance and the love of Christ must himself have felt the depth and genuine-
ness of a true and complete conversion. No longer was he seeking self,
or following the ways of the world. Life had become not merely a
personal adventure, but the fitting of the personality into a larger whole,
with Christ at the head, and the great mass of unredeemed sinners as
the field for his labours. And thus putting himself consciously under
Christ's leadership, his powers and sphere of influence grew rapidly, until
literally he reconstructed the religious fabric of France, not only in its
priesthood, but in all its types and assortment of people, from court to
peasant, and from hard-headed artizans to the criminally insane.

Events now began to shape themselves rapidly towards the com-
mencement of his great charitable enterprises. Contact with the poor
peasantry, and notably the dying confession of a man who all his life
had shielded the grossest evils under the veil of the Sacraments, awakened
Vincent de Paul to a realization at once of the great need of the common
people and the equal immensity of his opportunity. He left the de Gondi
household abruptly; and only returned for a short while at Mme. de
Condi's earnest entreaty. In fact the fuss made by that rather sensitive

328 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

lady at this sudden departure of her spiritual director only succeeded
in calling the attention of his superiors to Vincent de Paul's abilities and
determination; and M. de Berulle among others did much to further his
aim at establishing a mission. After some months of negotiation, the
College des Bons En f ants was made over as the headquarters of a new
congregation ; Mme. de Gondi gave 16,000 livres ; or a little over $6,000
in our money, towards its upkeep; and on September 4, 1626, a formal
Act of Association was drawn up between Vincent de Paul and his three
first companions. They bound themselves to renounce ecclesiastical per-
ferment (it must be remembered that men sought ecclesiastical positions
at this time purely to obtain the accruing revenues) ; to devote their lives
to preaching in villages, avoiding big towns; and to work nine months,
from October to June, and to retire during three mnoths as a preparation
by prayer and fasting for their labours in the world. They lived in
obedience under a superior, of whom Vincent de Paul was the first.

In 1632 the company had so far grown in numbers and reputation
as to receive formal recognition from Pope Urban VIII, and was known
as the Congregation of the Mission. The example which its devoted
members set before the corrupt priesthood, then living in careless security
and indifference, awoke the whole of whatever righteousness lay buried
in the hearts of its individual members. A reform wave, a desire for a
greater purity of living and honesty of intention, arose amongst the priests
themselves. A Bishop wrote of his own diocese that "there are nearly
7,000 drunken and lewd priests who daily ascend the Altar, and who have
not the least vocation." Monasteries, many of them ruled by married
laymen, were "centers of license and disorder" ; priests of gentle birth
prospered in proportion as they entertained society with their wit and
scandalous intrigues; the humbler men were excluded from the few
schools, and were so ignorant that Mme. de Gondi records that one of
her confessors did not even know the words of Absolution, and that he
simply mumbled beneath his breath until she gave him a paper from
which to read the real formulary.

Vincent de Paul responded to the appeals from all sides to spread
somehow the spirit of his Mission Priests into the main body of the
Church, by organizing Ordination Retreats. He realized quite clearly
that spectacular and drastic reforms, even if successful in the face of
an opposition sure to be aroused, would lead to no permanent good, and
would inevitably bring about a reaction. His plan looked rather to the
future ; and he determined that any reform under his guidance would be
founded on enduring principles. Drunkenness alone was so widespread
that only a new generation could hope to maintain a proper standard. So
his first endeavor was to arouse in those entering the priesthood some
realization of their responsibility, and to sober them into a break with
their old lives of vice, or else to win them to renounce the priesthood
altogether. The Archbishop of Paris heartily seconded this effort, and
ordered that every candidate should make a Retreat with the Company

ST. VINCENT DE PAUL 329

of the Mission before his ordination. The Directions for Ordination
Candidates require the strictest kind of life, and are of a most search-
ing completeness. Entire consecration to the service of God was de-
manded, to be proved by a scrupulous ruling of every hour; obedience
to the Bishop; and, further, submission to a Director, who was to be
given knowledge of every spiritual difficulty. Thus the careless, indolent
youth; the weak, who hopefully believed that the future would some-
how be better than the past; and the calculating, for whom the priest-
hood was but a step in the realization of worldly ambition all were
tested by the power of M. Vincent's own depth of conviction, and either
rejected or approved. To many it was more than a mere warning, as
the letters and records show : it was a rending of the veil that hid the
deep things of the inner life; it was the revelation of a real vocation.
Amongst the 300 members enrolled in Vincent de Paul's lifetime were
Jean Jacques Olier, Bossuet, and M. Tronson; each to become in his
turn a center of inspiration. The Saint, for we now begin to think of
him as one, also founded and organized the first Seminaries, which long
before had been ordered by the Council of Trent, but which had never
succeeded or lasted for any time in France. These had attempted to
train boys from twelve years up ; but the youngsters once grown, reflected
the spirit of the age, revolting from any discipline ; and the whole system
had collapsed. St. Vincent separated the boys from those actually com-
mitted, and while providing the latter with every assistance from teaching,
association, and influence, had insisted also on separating the steps of
promotion, making them systematic and unabridged. Thus a candidate
worked three months before being ordained sub-deacon ; while six months
and a year separated the deacon and priest respectively, from the sub-
deacon.

St. Vincent himself referred to his results in this work as miraculous.
Well it might be under such a leader. The letters and records of his
talks, or conferences, with his Seminarians and Mission Priests, show the
hold that St. Vincent himself had on the spiritual life. Nothing that he
preached but was backed by the daily example of his life; and his
humility, his capacity for work, his resourcefulness, merely grew with
increased reputation and demand for his assistance.

We have entered thus with some detail into the early and less
spectacular part of Vincent de Paul's career because in it we learn to
see the man, with all his homely naturalness and weaknesses and wavering
purpose. These years in the school of life, watched over, it would seem,
by a masterhand, were but the preparation for the real accomplishments
of his later years. And it is exactly this preparation which is so totally
lacking in all our modern charitable and philanthropic work today. The
utmost now asked of the volunteer is some technical knowledge of the
laws of hygiene, of cooking, or of tenement regulations. St. Vincent
de Paul demanded a very different preparation of his workers; because
his own early life had taught him that only a truly good man and an
absolutely unselfish man could raise the pauper from his wilful degrada-

330 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

tion, stir diseased wills by the force of a living example, or explain their
suffering to the many inmates of his numerous hospitals and asylums.
His reasoning was simple in expounding this principle. God the Father,
when He wanted to redeem His children and save them from their
misery and sin, sent a Perfect Man to do it. No better Example can be
found anywhere in the world, nor any more entirely effective, both at
that time and now. Christlikeness was to him the essential ideal; and
until his children had grasped the need for this ideal, and had embraced
it with their whole heart, devoting their lives utterly to the attempt, St.
Vincent would not admit them to his orders. He found place, it is true,
for lay-volunteers of various kinds and degrees; but they were never
given responsibility, never relied upon, were a source of constant anxiety
and disquietude to him, and never received the recognition which they
themselves wished to receive. Often and often he told such half-hearted
supporters that they did more harm than good; and that their charitable
ministrations but palliated the ills of the body at the expense of the soul.
The record of the next thirty years is the statement of an endless
round of activities connected with an ever increasing number of enter-
prises and of people. The court, Richelieu, Mazarin, Anne of Austria ;
hospitals, asylums, Missions; Retreats, "Conferences," letter-writing;
out of this mass of activity rises the ever stronger figure of St. Vincent,
humble, persistent, prayerful; now rebuking, now encouraging, now
exhorting; always labouring indefatigably till at eighty-four he passed
peacefully to a well-earned rest with the Master he had known and loved
so long. Details are full of interest, but they cannot further serve the
purpose of this article. It was with ideals and a life such as these that
St. Vincent's work has lived; and his practical methods as well as his
spiritual regime have come down to us through all the changes of the
centuries. Can any of us think that the methods which are today
practised by our Charitable Organizations will be the same three hundred
years from now? Let us indeed hope not. Yet today the identical Rule
that St. Vincent gave to his Mission Priests, and to his Sisters of Charity,
is lived and put into daily operation by thousands of devoted men and
women. The demands he made were unconditional, uncompromising,
and in all particulars reached to the heart of the spiritual life. The
secret of success lay in self-sacrifice ; the source of strength lay in prayer,
which meant direct communion with the Master. St. Vincent himself
set the example. None worked harder than he. His Conferences are
filled with revelations which could only spring from the heart of a
disciple. At eighty-one years of age he wrote, "Tout le mat qui se fait
a la Mission, dites que c'est Vincent qui le fait." His constant reminder
was that "because you are Sisters of Charity (or Mission Priests) you
are bound to aim at perfection." Servants of the Poor is the name he
gave to those who set no limit to the extent of their vows, and it signified
the ideal toward which they must work. "Toujours se sacrificier?" asked
one weary postulant; and his simple reply "Oui, toujours," never varied.
He readily acknowledged that their task was a far harder one than that

ST. VINCENT DE PAUL 331

of even the average religious ; but this only called for a more heroic and
complete self-sacrifice. Once this is thoroughly realized and acted upon,
strength will be given ; and there is no limit to the work that can be
accomplished. "If you ever want to know why you have failed in any
undertaking, you will find it is because you relied upon yourself. If
a preacher or a Superior or a confessor trusts to his own wisdom and
learning and capacity, you will see how God deals with him. He will
leave him to himself, and, however much he works, there will be no
real result until he sees his own uselessness and understands that all his
experience and all his cleverness are nothing unless God is working with
him" (Lettres, vol. 1, No. 272).

How this contrasts with our modern social workers' ideal, and how
pitiful the latter seems in comparison. No wonder modern Charity has
to organize a special bureau to advertise its results in order to raise funds.
St. Vincent never had to waste money in any such machinery of organiza-
tion. During the Fronde rebellion, when the country, already impover-
ished, was plunged in a new civil war, he raised in addition to the regular
expenses of his previously established charities, 12,000,000 livres, or
$4,567,680 of our money. In one year, 1658, he raised $456,768 additional
to redeem Christian slaves from their Mohammedan captors. I quote
from his own estimates which are much less than those of his biographers.
Louis XIII gave him $1,522.56 a year; Anne of Austria $4,567.68, and
sold jewels worth $9,516.00; Parlement voted $5,709.60 a year for the
upkeep of Orphan Asylums and Hospitals; while individual ladies liter-
ally sold all their possessions before taking the vows one lady, Anna-
Maria Martinozzi, giving 200,000 francs, or $36,600 a princely fortune
for those times.

St. Vincent de Paul was a rare man for any age, and he makes an
especial appeal to our own. He dealt with the whole range of human
misery and suffering; from the care of foundlings to poverty-stricken
old age, from the instruction of children to the patient surveillance of the
insane. He organized women of the highest class, of the middle, and
of the lowest. His Rule is the model for the upper classes in their deal-
ings with the poor. He was one of the chief reformers of the clergy;
he initiated the visitation of captives and prisoners; and his organiza-
tion of hospitals is still followed in many of its important details. But
these achievements were all the outcome of his real aim and endeavor
the establishment, through the life of self-sacrificing discipleship, of the
kingdom of Christ in the hearts of all mankind. He is a living witness
of the superiority of religious over materialistic ways and methods of
helping our fellow men; while at the same time his stalwart figure is
not so great as to leave this generation utterly out of touch with his
teaching and example. There is the bond of a mutual ideal and of a
mutual interest, vital to ourselves as to him; and a study of his life
reveals the source from which true charity springs a charity not limited
to the things of this world, but founded on the principles which underlie
the life and destiny of the soul. JOHN BLAKE, JR.

LETTERS TO FRIENDS

XIII
DEAR FRIEND:

BY all means, since you insist upon having it so, let us grant that
you are an ass. But why announce it with such vigour of pained
surprise? You are an ass. Good. But there is no need to be
a mournful ass. And you are neither the first nor the last of
the species. An ass is an extremely useful animal, and, in certain settings
though these are rarely those of his own choosing may even be
decorative. If his speaking and singing voice is not exactly musical, his
floppy, furry ears are soft as silk; which suggests that in general he
should listen and not try to talk back. But on occasion he may see
angels to whom prophets are blind, and, even when dead, his jaw bone
can be used to work great havoc among the Philistines. Moreover he
possesses, if a well bred ass, a long and most edifying list of virtues.
He is humble, patient, uncomplaining, faithful; spends his days bearing
his master's burdens, and thrives upon nettles, for which he has a most
amazing relish. The more I contemplate his qualities the more I am
at a loss to account for the tone of depression and melancholy that runs
throughout your letter, after its first explosive statements of your dis-
covery. Rather do I envy you your ability to take to yourself so high
a title, your proud conviction that you are "fust a thoroughgoing, unmiti-
gated ass." Alas, most asininity among men is forever being compromised
with the many-eyed peacock's tail of human wisdom and vanity. It is
an awesome beast: an ass with a peacock's tail. Be thankful for the
rope-like appendage with which you now switch your sore sides. It is
far more becoming, as well as more effective in keeping away the flies.

You ask me what you can do. Surely you must see that you have
answered your own question. You can be an ass, a "perfect" ass. Stop
striving to strut around on your two hind legs. You were never meant
to walk like a peacock, and the attempt can only lead to more falls and
bruises. Thank God that you have four good, sturdy, and withal very
shapely limbs on which to move surely and evenly on solid earth; and
give over this foolish democratic notion of yours that an ass falls short
of his birth-right if he does not become President. Be an ass for the
love of God, who made you what you are, and not from ambition, which
cannot make you other than you are.

Dear Friend, have you not even yet learned that humility is the
source of all wisdom, "the virtue without which all virtues are spurious,"
and that the beginning of the Path lies in acceptance of ourselves ? Your
trouble is not that you are an ass, but that you are not content to be

LETTERS TO FRIENDS 333

an ass. Humility, patience, uncomplaining fidelity in daily drudgery and
the bearing of homely burdens, the extraction of nourishment from
nettles and the cultivation of a taste for them, these things seem too
low an aim for your flashing genius. Yet the reason that you despise
them as beneath you is that they are above you; and the lack of them
makes ineffective all you do.

You have yourself complained to me of this in past days. Indeed
your present letter is just such a plaint. You feel you have brilliant
gifts, valuable experience in many diverse directions, and an unusual
record of achievement. But on the one hand you complain that all this
has profited you nothing, that something has always occurred to rob you
of the fruits of your accomplishments; or you confess, in moments of
rarer intellectual honesty, that the very qualities that brought you your
successes dissipated their rewards as soon as you had gained them. So
I have watched a swirling November wind sweep dead leaves into great
piles, only to scatter them the next instant far and wide over the ground
from which they had been gathered. Where there is no constancy of
purpose, no fixity of direction in accumulated labour, the end must be
as the beginning. Yet on the other hand, and despite this intermittent
and retrospective perception of the futility of your own undisciplined
activities, you are mortified and surprised, and at times even somewhat
resentful, that, in your new associations, the proffer of your services to
the Master's cause has been met with so slight an apparent recognition
of your abilities. Instead of the way being opened to you to contribute
and to utilize what you consider your obvious gifts, you have been set
at tasks which you deem any office boy could do as well.

It is true that you yourself have not done them very well ; not, per-
haps, even up to the standard of the office boy who hopes to keep his
job. You have been late many times when he would have been con-
strained to punctuality. You have not infrequently absented yourself
altogether, when matters of greater interest claimed your attention;
whereas the office boy has at least to bury a grandmother in order to
go to the baseball game. Again and again you have first postponed, and
then forgotten all about, things that you had undertaken to do; and as
a consequence someone else has had always to follow up whatever was
assigned to you, and hold himself ready to step in whenever you fell, or
stepped out. I doubt whether you have ever really been aware of these
incessant failures, for they concerned things that you deemed trivial,
and which you thought rather beneath the dignity of your capacities and
zealous wish to serve. But in truth, dear man, they are not trivial at
all, either in their effect upon the work or as indicative of your needs.
Such irregular, unreliable service is no service at all, and would disrupt
any organization less firm and elastic than that into which you have been
admitted; and while you are dreaming of the great things you wish to
do, and busying yourself with schemes for the reformation of everyone
else's activity, and flying off first on one tangent and then on another,

334 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

you are spreading such confusion and litter of disorderly thought and
fragmentary endeavour as require the full services of the proverbial
"seven maids with seven mops" to clear away. Yet it is only when some
one of your grandiose castles in the air comes tumbling down about your
ears that you wake from your dreams and lament that you are an ass.

I have agreed not to dispute the term with you. Your use of it is
but one of the many instances, which the philosopher or etymologist might
find interest in examining, where our instinctive recognition of the wis-
dom of Providence and the beneficence of Karma leads us to ascribe to
the disease the name of its cure. Similia similibus curantur. You may
translate it: The cure for asininity is asshood. Meditate more assidu-
ously upon the virtues of that excellent animal, and through emulation
add them to your own. But in case you should be misled by what I
wrote earlier in this letter, I beg that you will remember three things:
First ; it is only when ridden by a prophet that history assures us an ass
may see angels. Second ; it is not because of the ass, but because of the
prophet that the angels are there to be seen. Third ; there is a distinction
to be observed between a live and a dead ass in the matter of the use of
its jaw bone. This is one of the Greater Mysteries, with which St. Paul
has dealt. But for the ass it means that while he lives to himself his
jaw bone is for the munching of nettles, and that only when he has died
to himself can it be, in the hands of one greater than he, an instrument
for the slaying of enemies. Therefore, if you would see angels and
slay enemies, cleave to your prophet, submit your fat sides and sturdy
back to the bearing of his burden, learn to relish your daily mead of
nettles, and die to yourself in cheerful, humble fidelity. So much, dear
ass, for your asininity, the divine gift of heaven's mercy that makes
mere brilliance forever futile, and leads us back to the solid substance
of patient labour and to the sure way all the saints have trod.

Now for the two other matters in your letter. Life and truth can
only be described in terms of paradox. We no sooner make one state-
ment than we are compelled, if we are to tell the truth and not mislead,
to add its opposite. The reconciliation of these opposite and apparently
contradictory statements, through which alone we can describe any
spiritual principle or fact, lies in the fact or principle itself, and is found
as we experience that fact or embody and put into practice that principle.
It can not be found by any process of reasoning or any method of com-
promise; neither in choosing one horn of the dilemma, nor in endeavour-
ing to pass between them, but rather by courageously impaling ourselves
upon both do we arrive at the truth. Truth, whatever else it may be,
is a very solid thing, and the peculiarity of solids is that from what-
ever standpoint we view them we can see but a portion of their surface.
We can, of course, by shifting our view point, see and describe first
one aspect and then another, and by adding them all together gain some
concept of the whole. But to touch all sides of a truth at the same time,
we have to circumscribe it, and this is precisely to take it into ourselves,

LETTERS TO FRIENDS 335

to embody it and mould ourselves upon it. We think of the mind as the
Knower, but it is not. It is the heart, the soul, the Self, alone that can
know. The mind is but an instrument of vision, showing us aspects of
things which it would be well for us to know, or guiding our will in
the application of our knowledge to our daily tasks. We know, not by
seeing, but by being; not by analyzing our perceptions, but by obeying
them.

If you can understand and remember this, you will not be disturbed
and puzzled, as you have been, by the apparent contradictions which you
discover in your reading. It will be very rarely that you will find any
opposition in the maxims given you to guide your action. Almost always,
as is clearly the case in the instances you quote, the appearance of con-
tradiction that so excites and troubles you is in the description of matters
that really do not concern you at all, that can make no possible difference
to your present life, and upon which your will cannot as yet act. Leave
them alone therefore, until they do concern you, until you have to do
something about them. But, you say, what am I to believe? Believe
both, if you can, was it not the White King who practised himself in
believing ten impossible things each morning before breakfast? neither,
if you cannot. Belief is only of value as a guide to action, as leading us
to the experience from which knowledge is born. Where action is impos-
sible, is it, therefore, of such tremendous moment that you should not
know what to believe ? Consider the vast, the infinite upon infinite extent
of your ignorance. How does the addition or subtraction of this small
item affect the whole?

But whatever else you do, do not let your mind fuss and fume the
way it has been doing over these questions that are beyond you. When
you fall into this "Kama-manasic stewing," shut up your books and put
them away. It is simple vanity, and outrageously impertinent vanity,
for your mind to assume that because it, forsooth, cannot reconcile these
paradoxes, therefore there must be something wrong. If it could itself
reconcile them there would indeed be something wrong, and you may
be quite sure that whatever thing your mind believes, or can believe of
itself, that thing has all the falseness of a partial truth. But it is of the
essence of the mind to be presumptuous and impertinent, as are all
upstarts and usurpers until they are put back in their place, and if you
listen to it, you will end by believing nothing at all, or else entertain that
most impossible and most false of contradictions: that the truth, which
has nourished your life and sustained your heart and brought you un-
scathed through a thousand trials, is but a figment of your fancy. "The
mind is the slayer of the real. Let the disciple slay the slayer."

The answer to your other question is brief. There is only one way
in which we can help any of our fellows, and that way is by contagion
from our own spirit. Love spreads this contagion. But it cannot spread
what we have not got. Therefore we must be what we would give. If
you would have another patient, be patient and love him. If you would

336 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

have another faithful, be faithful and love him. If you would have others
know and love and serve the Master, know and love and serve him your-
self, and, in his love, love them. There is no other way than this.

Faithfully yours,

JOHN GERARD.

Viewing the present crisis in the light of this Divine foreshadowing,
problems otherwise inscrutable are readily resolved and events which
apart from their Divine significance would have a most sinister meaning
are seen as part of a great purpose of ultimate blessing. Moreover,
the present unparalleled upheaval and overturning of world systems
should bear to the Christian heart the most convincing testimony con-
cerning the true source and ground of national greatness and Christian
progress.

Foremost among these perhaps is the truth, made daily more evi-
dent, that true progress can have no other basis than that of Christian
character. The much heralded social awakening with its ramifications
in the spheres of politics, diplomacy, peace propaganda, etc., is so soon
proved to be an iridescent dream. The attempt to establish world peace
on a foundation of mere altruism has borne the same fruits as similar
movements in the past and the sudden convulsion which has caused
statesmen and social reformers of all nations to stand aghast with terri-
fied amazement proves anew the futility of all advance in civilization
and culture which is not grounded on individual righteousness. Hugh
R. Monro.

GEORGE MACDONALD, MYSTIC

ONE who looks back over 19th century literature finds an
incident that is common in the lives of many writers. Brought
up in what was accepted as Christian civilisation, many men
and women of that century found themselves disputing the
facts of Christian tradition. Many of them broke from the traditional
teaching, and, led by the cravings of their own souls, worked out a
form of belief that brought greater satisfaction. The new-found belief
inspired their best writings. It has influenced for good thousands of
readers, perhaps. The new convictions are, in most cases, deeply relig-
ious, and to a student of culture they give the impression of an earnest
moral tone pervading the best life of the century. But in many cases
those religious beliefs, though sincere and deep, did not come to expres-
sion in terms sufficiently conventional to be acceptable to the cham-
pions of established orthodoxy. There was thus throughout the cen-
tury something of a breach between culture on one hand and orthodoxy
on the other. Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, Ruskin and George Eliot in
prose, Wordsworth and Shelley in verse, represent many who, though
religious, are not recognised by average orthodox people in general
as sound.

George Macdonald is one more of those who struggled to work
out their own salvation. He succeeded. He succeeded also in express-
ing his new beliefs in old terms. Perhaps what he did was to discover
the real meaning of the old formulas the exhaustless truths protected
within their words. The result is that he is less of an anathema to
the average uncultivated clergyman and reader than many other literary
men are. It is true that at the beginning of his career Macdonald was
asked to resign his pulpit because his congregation thought he gave
them an insufficient amount of "doctrine." But there was no trial for
heresy. Macdonald's character was good enough to fill in the breach
of "little doctrine." There was no recrimination, and he has appeared
with no unpleasant light about him.

Macdonald was born in 1824, a descendant from an old High-
land family. He prepared himself for the dissenting ministry, but his
career ended in 1853. Without an income, he had to provide a main-
tenance for his family. Delicate health increased the difficulty of his
situation ; he was unable to stand the English winters and had to recup-
erate in the Riviera. He gave lectures, public and private. He began
to publish. His published writings won generous friends. The gen-
erosity of these friends and the proceeds of books and lectures were
his sole provision. He died in 1905. After the resignation of his Con-
gregational pulpit, he entered the Church of England. He was never
ordained, but continued a lay preacher.

23 337

338 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Besides sermons, essays and poems, Macdonald has written a dozen
or more novels, and several books for children. The novels are, some,
romances, others, plain tales of common life.

Macdonald's novels differ from what is generally understood as
fiction in this respect: they concentrate interest upon the development
of a soul. Ordinary fiction is concerned with external events, with
the manipulation of certain given persons and incidents so as to bring
about the "happy ever after." Fiction writers of talent often give
accurate and fascinating psychological studies, but only rarely does
fiction enter the spiritual realm. It does so with George Eliot, for one
exception. Her personal life was one of religious postulancy. She
longed for religious knowledge and sought it, but never quite found.
Her ardent and genuine search makes itself felt in many of her char-
acters, Maggie Tulliver, preeminently. We feel them as souls, more
or less dimmed, nevertheless souls not psychological subjects. In other
novelists such as Miss Austin and Thackeray, the spiritual is felt as
the substratum under the society that is depicted. The charm, the gay
good sense of Elizabeth Bennett are graces and refinements that make
themselves manifest on the surface of that society only which has in
some measure been subjected to the discipline of the religious life.
The mellow virtues which grace some of Thackeray's heroes, Colonel
Newcome or Henry Esmond, represent a world code of honor and
courtesy that has been drawn up by religion alone. Carlyle thinks that
something of the same kind is true of Shakespeare : that in Shakespeare
we have the body of which Dante is the heart. If that were true, it
might explain the spiritual element that is so often read into Shake-
speare's plays. Thus one actor of my acquaintance has long desired
to stage Hamlet as a sort of Matthew Arnold-Cardinal Newman struggle
between infidelity and Catholic doctrine. He would surround Hamlet
with the emblems of the faith. He would represent him gazing on a
Crucifix during the corrider scene with Ophelia startled at first to the
exclamation, "Nymph," then, in recollection, kneeling at her feet and
beseeching that in the prayers she is reading from her Breviary his
own misdeeds may be remembered. This actor would set the final
tableau in a cathedral the dead bodies sleeping peacefully under the
compassionate arms of the Rood. That is an interesting conception.
But did Shakespeare have it? Do his other plays warrant us in believ-
ing that Shakespeare was writing spiritual history? Is it not rather
psychology? Lear, Coriolanus, Othello take no step forward. They
learn, for the moment only, that in the set of circumstances by which
they are surrounded, self-will means hell and destruction. They learn
that lesson with great difficulty as the result of smashing blows from
circumstances. But do they really learn the lesson permanently? What
is the result of the incarnation to the spiritual Hamlet, Lear, Othello?
Have they apprehended and assimilated any principle? Place them
again in similar situations, would their course be much different?

GEORGE MACDONALD, MYSTIC 339

Granted that they recognise the mistake made in the one instance. Have
they recognised the fundamental flaws in character from which the mis-
take proceeded?

Macdonald's aim in his novels is to lead the soul to recognise itself
as the agent that acts through the personality. The novels thus pic-
ture many grades of discipleship. The best of the novels are Sir Gibbie
and David Elginbrod. Both are Scotch. In both the influence of Words-
worth is strong. Macdonald knew the justness of Wordsworth's posi-
tion in regard to the peasant that the soul can function as actively
in an unbooked laborer as in a mentally trained scholar. Wordsworth
did not of course discover that truth, but he stood so firmly for it
against a world already committing itself to "progress of the race,"
"education," etc., that it is easy to connect it with him. Macdonald's
peasants have two teachers the Master Himself, and the Master's spirit
vivifying the natural world. Janet, the shepherd-wife in the book Sir
Gibbie, and David Elginbrod we may look upon perhaps as candidates
for sanctification. Both pray fervently, passionately. Both have
brooded over the Scripture story until, in process of meditation, it comes
out of the past, and becomes present history. Janet went scrupulously
through her round of duties, alive to the Master's humanity and friend-
ship, expecting to see Him alive in His body there on the Scotch moun-
tain. So simple and confident was her belief that, on the sunset even-
ing when the tiny Sir Gibbie came running toward her cottage, his
clothes torn off by his persecutors and his back crossed by the whip,
she received him as the Divine Child scarred afresh by the sins of the
world and appearing to her under that form as most likely to win
entrance to her mother's heart.

David Elginbrod, the devout and wise farmer, dies soon after the
novel of that name gets well launched. But Macdonald pictures David
as living conscious of his soul; David had made the transfer of con-
sciousness. Notwithstanding the death and disappearance of David's
body and personality, his spirit is definite and vital; it presides over
and guides the whole course of after events. I do not mean that David's
spook intervenes. No such phantasm appears. The real spirit of the
man directs, though invisible. David planted and waited for growth.
He saw the ideal potential within the youth, Hugh. He pointed out
the way. When reaction followed, and Hugh turned away forgetful,
David waited in cheerful confidence of the end.

In the novel David Elginbrod there is a very dramatic scene that
marks the conversion of a soul from evil to good the girl Euphrasia.
Her intense selfishness had made her a victim of black magic. The
two pupils of the departed David see the divine possibilities in her and
long for her deliverance. But they know that can result only from an
act of her own will. A feverish and weakened bodily condition accom-
panies her paralysis of will. Their prayers at last lead the girl to pray
for herself to pray for deliverence from the selfish man who had

340 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

obtained power over her. To watch and assist the dying girl in her
effort, David's daughter sleeps in the room with her, while Hugh,
David's friend, knowing that the combat is drawing close, watches in
the house porch. In the middle of the night the dying girl becomes
aware of a concentrated effort of her evil master's will upon her. She
creeps from bed to respond but, recalling her resolution, prays passion-
ately for help. David's daughter, Margaret, is awakened. She hastens
to the aid of the struggling lady and passes between her and the evil
tormentor. As if conscious of Margaret's magnetism crossing and dom-
inating his own the man runs off defeated. The victorious struggle
wrecked the dying girl's body. But Margaret and Hugh had antici-
pated that result of their affectionate interest. They risked the death
of the lady's body and personality for the sake of bringing her will, her
soul, to birth.

There are some novels that describe the collision between com-
placent orthodoxy and persons who are truly seeking religion. These
novels are interesting because we feel they are to some extent autobiog-
raphical. But they are far less satisfactory than Sir Gibbie or The
Marquis of Lossie. Robert Falconer is the best known of this class.
The early part of it, Robert's boyhood with his stern intense loving
grandmother, promises well. But it is a shocking disappointment to
have that poetic boy grow into nothing better than a settlement worker.
Noble, unselfish, Falconer undoubtedly is. But he is the slave of a
fallacy, the fallacy of the suffering poor. Most clear-headed people
who spend any time with the poor and gain first-hand knowledge of
them come to see that their conditions (poverty, physical hardship, dis-
ease, etc.) are providences of benign law. The conditions which seem
unjust to a sentimental eye are paternal checks that in some measure
restrain the headlong rush to destruction. Extravagant, reckless, unre-
strained poor ! What but iron necessity could even slightly rein in your
wild licence and folly of self-indulgence? Falconer's conversation with
the titled lady who has an emotional stirring to assist him in his slum
labors is a very wise piece of counsel. It might well be studied by all
who rush around with sentimental offers of their service.

In the novel Robert Falconer a mystery surrounds the boy's birth.
This mystery of birth is such a frequent device in Macdonald's plots
that I am inclined to accept it as symbolical like Gneschen Teufels-
drockh's. Cumbermede, Malcolm, Sir Gibbie and others are nobles in
exile, knights incogniti lost sons. The spiritual divinity is in them;
and it works out in splendid manifestation through all the layers of
reputed vile birth, foul associations, and evil machinations. These novels
are full of romance and adventure, thieves, villians, black magic and
cataclysms of nature. It is notable however that Macdonald's heroes
arrive by none of the horridly selfish and ludicrous designing that marks
the romanticism of post-revolutionary France Hernani and Ruy Bias.
Macdonald's heroes are disguised gentlemen, not lawless bandits and

GEORGE MACDONALD, MYSTIC 341

ambitious lackeys. They succeed because they esteem service an immense
privilege. Their ambitions go no further than a faithful and excellent
performance of their assigned duties. They have learned to a notable
degree the meaning of obedience. Perhaps nothing is more misunder-
stood in the modern world than the old virtue of obedience. We hear
so much talk of rendering obedience to those who are worthy of it.
But one is tempted to ask in Scripture terms "If ye obey those who
deserve, what reward have ye?" Modern objectors miss the point alto-
gether. Obedience is a spiritual force. Its value is in no way con-
nected with the Tightness of the command or the merit of the one who
gives the command. Some act quite bad from any standpoint of pure
morals may be imposed by one in authority. According to present-day
opinion, if the thing commanded seem wrong (or ill-judged) to the
one whose duty it is to do it that one is thereby released. But that
is taking one's own will and inclination as guide, whereas the principle
of obedience is the surrender of one's own will and judgment to another.
Obedience in the performance of a morally wrong act is a cleansing
fire which purifies the doer from the consequences of the act. With
him there lay no responsibility of Tightness or wrongness. His sole
responsibility was giving obedience where due. It is Macdonald's clear
recognition of obedience as the divine method to knowledge that enables
him to write with such authority about the spiritual life. He comments
in one place: "In respect to great truths investigation goes for little,
speculation for nothing ; if a man would know them, he must obey them.
Their nature is such that the only door into them is obedience."

It is obedience to the personal duties of their place in life that fits
Sir Gibbie and Malcolm for the higher obedience that takes a man
out of the worldly multitude and prepares him for discipleship. Think
of a present-day Child Welfare Reformer with a case like Wee Sir
Gibbie the drunken father to lead home nightly and the other drunk-
ards similarly tended by the child in affectionate memory of his father.
That filial respect to an unworthy father was the foundation of Sir
Gibbie's success in the world and in the Kingdom. So too, with Mal-
colm, the Marquis of Lossie. When Macdonald has to explain to aver-
age religious people the extraordinary spiritual wisdom of the Marquis
who was born and bred a fisher lad, he writes: "Understanding is the
reward of obedience. Peter says, 'the Holy Ghost whom God hath given
to them that obey Him.' Obedience is the key to every door. I am
perplexed at the stupidity of the ordinary religious being. In the most
practical of all matters he will talk and speculate and try to feel, but
he will not set himself to do. It is different with Malcolm. From the
first he has been trying to obey. ... If you had seen, as I have,
the almost superhuman struggles of his will to master the fierce temper
his ancestors gave him, you would marvel less at what he has so
early become. I have seen him, white with passion, cast himself on
his face on the shore and cling with his hands to the earth as if in a

342 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

paroxysm of bodily suffering: then after a few moments rise and do
a service to the man who had wronged him. Were it any wonder if
the light should have soon gone up in a soul like that?" When one
contrasts the true spirituality of Malcolm and Gibbie, their radiant joy
and victorious power, with the noble but sad philanthrophy of Falconer,
one cannot but trace the unhappy difference between joy and sadness
to Falconer's boyish disobedience. Many readers will start at such a
statement. His boyhood of manly sympathy and admiration is so poetic,
his brave acceptance of his stern grandmother's Puritanical rule. But
he did not wholly accept it. He resented it and slipped from the yoke
sought the consolations of wider life as represented by Mary St. John.
That effort to widen his horizon, to make his life fuller of brightness
and color, was an impulse of his mind and was opposed to obedience
which is a thing of the heart. His later life in London was the har-
vest. He reaped a noble unselfishness, a wide sympathy with men and
women. He had the moral virtues. But he did not reap the fruits of
the spirit, "Joy," etc., which come from religion alone.

The novels are interesting. They leave one with memories of truly
religious people. The lives of Malcolm and Gibbie and David are as
inspiring as many biographies of actual men and women in the relig-
ious life. But Macdonald's books for children are better even than
his best novels. Like many books for children they are appreciated most
by mature men and women most of all, perhaps, by those men and
women who are little children of the new Kingdom. Macdonald him-
self admits that he wrote them not so much for children as for the
child-like of all ages whether of five, or fifty, or seventy-five. The
best way to describe these books, At the Back of the North Wind, and
the Curdy volumes is to call them fairy stories. Fairies do not come
into all the stories, but elements of the marvellous and supernatural do.
Usually there is allegory also. I do not mean that the books are alle-
gories; they are full of allegorical touches. Thus one does not read
as if the story were a picture puzzle, in search of adjoining parts ; one
reads and gets many deep suggestions as he reads. Macdonald explains
a fairy-tale as a sort of bee or butterfly: "It helps itself on all sides,
sips at every wholesome flower, and spoils not one." The aim of his
tales, Macdonald wrote, when he was once asked to explain their sig-
nificance, is not logical conviction but the awakening of conscience. They
assail the soul as the wind assails an aeolian harp. If music is in the
soul it may awake to the magic breath. The tales are fire-flies that
now flash, now are dark, then flash out again.

Many people who read the tales think they find the deepest truths
of religion in them not logically or sermon-wise set forth, but florally
as it were, in the speech of birds and shells and blossoms. What a
graphic picture of the Ladder of Perfection he gives us the ladder of
life up which we climb one duty at a time, the task of the moment : "He
tried the key. It fitted. It turned. A great clang and clash, as of iron

GEORGE MACDONALD, MYSTIC 343

bolts on -huge brazen caldrons, echoed thunderously within. He drew
out the key. The rock in front of him began to fall. He retreated
from it as far as the breadth of the platform would allow. A great
slab fell at his feet. In front was still the solid rock, with this one
slab fallen forward out of it. But the moment he stepped upon it, a
second fell, just short of the edge of the first, making the next step of
a stair, which thus kept dropping itself before him as he ascended into
the heart of the precipice."

There are still other people who find many occult teachings in these
children's stories even doctrines of the theosophical philosophy. Curdy's
real hand is an example of what I mean. Curdy is told by the Fairy
princess that what he looks upon as his hand is only a hairy-glove cov-
ering the real hand inside. And she tells him that as the result of his
bravery, he will now use the real hand. The real hand will reveal to
him the true individuality of every creature he meets the individuality
hidden within the disguise of personality and body. It is thus that he
discovers the snake and fox-like egos of the King's courtiers. Another
example is the "land of shadows." Where else does one find so sug-
gestive a description of the psychic realm? "Looking down, they
could not tell whether the valley below was a grassy plain or a great
still lake. They had never seen any space look like it. The way to
it was difficult and dangerous, but down the narrow path they went,
and reached the bottom in safety. They found it composed of smooth,
light-colored sandstone, undulating in parts, but mostly level. It was
no wonder to them now that they had not been able to tell what it
was, for this surface was everywhere crowded with shadows. It was
a sea of shadows. The mass was chiefly made up of the shadows of
leaves innumerable, of all lovely and imaginative forms, waving to and
fro, floating and quivering in the breath of a breeze whose motion was
unfelt, whose sound was unheard. No forests clothed the mountain-
side, no trees were anywhere to be seen, and yet the shadows of the
leaves, branches, and stems of all various trees covered the valley as far
as the eyes could reach. They soon spied the shadows of flowers min-
gled with those of the leaves, and now and then the shadow of a bird
with open beak, and throat distended with song. At times would
appear the forms of strange, graceful creatures, running up and down
the shadow-boles and along the branches, to disappear in the wind-tossed
foliage. As they walked they waded knee-deep in the lovely lake. For
the shadows were not merely lying on the surface of the ground, but
heaped up above it like substantial forms of darkness, as if they had
been cast upon a thousand different planes of air. Tangle and Mossy
often lifted their heads and gazed upwards to descry whence the shadows
came ; but they could see nothing more than a bright mist spread above
them, higher than the tops of the mountains, which stood clear against
it. No forests, no leaves, no birds were visible.

"After a while, they reached more open spaces, where the shadows

344 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

were thinner, and came even to portions over which shadows only flitted,
leaving them clear for such as might follow. Now a wonderful form,
half bird-like, half human, would float across on out-spread sailing
pinions. Anon, an exquisite shadow-group of gambolling children would
be followed by the loveliest female form, and that again by the grand
stride of a Titanic shape, each disappearing in the surrounding press
of shadowy foliage. Sometimes a profile of unspeakable beauty or
grandeur would appear for a moment and vanish. Sometimes they
seemed lovers that passed linked arm in arm. Sometimes father and
son, sometimes brothers in loving contest, sometimes sisters entwined in
gracefullest community of complex form. Sometimes wild horses would
tear across, free, or bestrode by noble shadows of ruling men. But
some of the things which pleased them most they never knew how to
describe.

"About the middle of the plain they sat down to rest in the heart
of a heap of shadows. After sitting there for a while, each, looking
up, saw the other in tears: they were each longing after the country
whence the shadows fell."

It might be equivocal praise to say that Macdonald's greatest suc-
cess is that he arouses in us longing for the country whence the shadows
fall. So many dreary novelists do that by driving us in reaction from
the sordid world they reproduce in their books. Macdonald makes us
wish for Heaven through the beauty and charm that grace it. Like
Angelico he shows it as a flowery mead where saints and angels play
in rosy ring.

ALFRED WILLISTON.

God is more anxious to bestow His blessings upon us than we are
to receive them. St. Augustine.

PATANJALI AND HIS DISCIPLES

DR. J. HAUGHTON WOODS prints, in the November number
of the Journal of the American Oriental Society, a translation
of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, as illustrated by the Commen-
tary entitled The Jewel's Lustre. And we have to thank Dr.
Woods for giving us, in this translation, a singularly excellent piece of
work. At first sight, one would say that there is nothing of himself in
it, that he completely conceals himself behind his author; neither intro-
duction nor comment nor personal view of any kind; so that we cannot
say, from any express declaration of his, whether he holds the philosophy
of Patanjali to be good, bad or indifferent, of little value or of high
worth. Yet, when one goes into his work a little further, one finds at
every point the signs of most careful judgment, of a weighing and con-
sidering of the weights and values of words ; a long and faithful prepara-
tion, admirably thorough, admirably comprehensive; and a very high
standard of excellence, consistently lived up to, from the first page to
the last; so that, in this, which is, perhaps, the best of all ways, Dr.
Woods allows us to learn very much of him, of the high cultivation of
his gifts, of the keen and penetrating quality of his mind.

In parenthesis, let us say that, for a worker with such high standards,
there must be something peculiarly painful, excruciating even, in the acci-
dents which, through no fault of his, have befallen this fine piece of
work; accidents which no one could have foreseen, and which no care
could have guarded against. As we interpret the signs, the matter fell
out thus: Since the American Oriental Society contains many scholars
learned in remote and difficult tongues, the type-setting of which presents
peculiar difficulties, its Journal is, by an arrangement of long standing,
set up and printed in a country of Europe esteemed most erudite. That
country happened, during the course of the period when this number
of the Journal was being printed, to enter a state of war. As a result,
many things, including the mails, were thrown into confusion, and many
documents came under unusual and in some cases, hostile scrutiny. It
would appear, from internal evidence, that the revised proofs of this
translation came under this category ; they were either held as conditional
contraband, or they were seized by the agents of the General Staff, as
documents in cypher or in code. This is our conjecture. At least, it is
certain that they did not reach the printer in time to be embodied in the
text as we have it before us. As a result, we have a large number of
very disconcerting misprints. For example, the third sutra of the third
book reads thus:

"Concentration is the same (concentration) appearing as the object
only, and, as it were, emptied of itself." This is puzzling; but a careful

346 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

study of the Comment shows that the second "concentration" should be
read "contemplation." The meaning, therefore is, that "Concentration
(samadhi) is contemplation (dhyana) appearing as the object only, and,
as it were, emptied of itself." Even then, we find the Comment describ-
ing how "concentration 'trobs' forth as the object and nothing more,"
where the revised proof, confiscated by the General Staff, as we infer,
undoubtedly read "throbs."

Again, the eighteenth sutra of the first book is introduced by a
sentence which, as printed, reads thus: (Patanjali) "now describes the
(concentration) conscious (of an object) and the method (of attaining
it)." But the translation of the sutra itself makes it clear that we are
dealing, on the contrary, with "concentration wwconscious of an object."
In the Comment on the fifteenth sutra of the first book, we have a similarly
confusing omission, "There are four forms of consciousness," when we
ought to have "There are four forms of passionless consciousness," a
wholly different idea. But the most heart-breaking blunder of all, per-
haps, is the translation of the twenty-seventh sutra of the third book,
which is made to read as follows:

"(As a result of constraint) upon the moon there arises (intuitive)
knowledge of the arrangement of the stores." If one be sufficiently
malicious, one may try to divine what meaning this would convey, let
us say, to the hyper-ingenious mind of that member of the General Staff
whom we suspect of holding up Dr. Woods' revised proofs. A knowl-
edge of the arrangement of the stores, to be arrived at how? As a
result of constraint upon the moon! Surely, a disquieting sentence, in
itself enough, perhaps, to account for the detention of the whole docu-
ment. The solution is, that "stores" is a misprint for "stars." Patanjali
has in mind the heavenly bodies, and not stores, whether military or
departmental. Again, if one were malicious, one might suggest that a
yoga practice, which gave one an intuitive knowledge of the arrange-
ment of department stores might, indeed, be a valuable possession, in
these hurried days of ours.

The truth is, these misprints are so exasperating, that one's only
hope is to take them good-humoredly. In many cases, too, they can be
corrected in virtue of that peculiar habit of Indian Commentators, who
almost invariably repeat word for word, in the Commentary, the sentence
which they are about to elucidate. So that we have a double chance of
escaping the printer's machinations.

We spoke of these sutras as giving the impression of being in cypher,
or in code. And, on reflection, it seems to us that there is a great deal of
validity in the comparison. These sutras, like the even more famous
Vedanta Sutras, were not meant to be generally intelligible. They are
mnemonics, rather than literature. We must remember that, at the time
when they were composed, as for very many centuries before and after,
spiritual knowledge was not taught broadcast, was not democratized, as
it is in our day. It is the great honour of the Buddha, that he tried to

PATANJALI AND HIS DISCIPLES 347

make his teaching accessible to all. But, for most of India, spiritual
teaching was as much a matter of divine right, as royalty was, in France
before the Revolution. One was born with, or without, the right to cer-
tain teaching. Even then, for those born to knowledge, there were rigid
qualifications, as well of moral character as of mental force. Nor did
the matter end there. By a rule, which was eminently wise, the student,
the disciple, was compelled to make good each step, before the following
step was revealed to him. He must learn to say A, before B was dis-
closed. The teaching was uncovered step by step, one step at a time.
And it was given to him, not in a written treatise, though writing seems
to have been well known at a very remote period in India, but orally,
the Teacher explaining the thought, or revealing the moral idea, or
directing the action, which the pupil must then master, and carry out. It
was, in a way, more like our practical training in physics or chemistry,
than like modern schooling in philosophy. Now, the sutras, in our com-
parison, like the formulae of chemistry or physics, are very difficult to
understand without the accompanying oral teaching ; intentionally obscure ;
therefore to be compared not inaptly to a cypher or a code.

And, in a code, everything lies in the exact interpretation of the
words. In considering this, a few general considerations may be held
in mind : The first is, that, in different schools, the same Sanskrit word
may come to have very different, even seemingly contrary, shades of
meaning; take for instance the word buddhi. It may mean almost any-
thing from an opinion to spiritual illumination. Yet we shall always find,
if we search closely, that the fundamental, etymological meaning remains.
In Sanskrit, more, perhaps, than in any other language, words go straight
back to their elements. And this is the more true, the further back we
go in the sacred literature of India. Words, as they drift down the ages,
become narrower, more technical, more the catchwords of this or another
school or sect. They become, as it were, dried up, flattened out, desic-
cated. And so with philosophical thought. It is full and deep and rich
in the great Upanishads; somewhat less rich, yet luminous and of high
value, in the Bhagavad Gita; drier, more technical, more a matter of
ingenious mental analysis, when we come to the Vedanta sutras, as ex-
pounded in the long commentary attributed to Shankaracharya.

It always seems to me that the Yoga Sutras went through a some-
what similar flattening and desiccating process, as they came down the
centuries ; that what began as moral and spiritual, tended to end as mental
and analytical. And, from the present Commentary, The Jewel's Lustre,
one gets, I think, the same impression; it has become so much a matter
of mental analysis. One wonders whether the undoubtedly learned and
really very able and lucid Commentator ever tried to put the system into
practice ; or, as has happened in other lands, was he satisfied with analyz-
ing Grace and Works, without seeking grace to perform works. Patanjali
composed the sutras, it would appear, about the time of the Buddha. It
has even been said that much of Buddha's thought implies, if not the

348 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Yoga Sutras, at any rate a system very similar to that expounded in the
Sutras. And Patanjali did not create his system out of the blue, so to
speak. It is not a new invention, but rather the development, the prac-
tical application to moral ends, of the so-called Sankhya, or Enumerative,
System, which tradition attributes to the sage Kapila, who must have
lived a good deal earlier than the Buddha, since the Buddha was born in
Kapila's City, which was already of old renown. Perhaps we may say,
then, that Patanjali was a contemporary of Plato and Confucius. But
the present Commentary, The Jewel's Lustre, appears to date from the
time of Shakespeare. And, in the ages between Plato and Shakespeare
there is room for a great deal of that flattening and desiccating process
which we have suggested; and, to speak frankly, we get the impression
that the process has taken place. One feels the atmosphere to be mental
rather than moral, analytical rather than spiritual; though, it is true, it
is full of admirable lucidity, a lucidity rather of the head than of the
heart. And this analytical quality the translator has faithfully adhered
to, and indeed he was bound to, by the canons he laid down for himself :
a version of the Yoga Sutras, "as illustrated by the Comment entitled
The Jewel's Lustre."

So that it seems to me that, in this admirably lucid and exact trans-
lation, something which was in the original teaching of Patanjali is
missing; it has evaporated. Something of high value, very inspiring,
speaking to the heart rather than the head ; something able to move the
will ; something which, in translating and commenting on the Yoga Sutras,
I have tried to preserve ; reading the Sutras, not so much with the eyes
of one or another Commentator, as in the light of the whole body of the
spiritual thought of India, beginning with the Great Upanishads. For
it seems to me that to this great body of spiritual thought Patanjali's
teaching undoubtedly belongs. But at the same time, while suggesting
this difference of standpoint and method, I must not fail to express my
feeling of indebtedness to Dr. Woods, for a closer understanding of a
number of technical points, which I hope to take advantage of, in revis-
ing the version of the Sutras I have alluded to.

In interpreting a cypher or a code, as has been said, much, nay,
almost everything, depends on the exact values of words. And each
of the systems of spiritual thought in India has its special, character-
istic words, a right comprehension and a sound translation of which, are
of the utmost moment. Of Buddhism, for instance, the characteristic
words are Karma and Nirvana ; how to free oneself from Karma, thereby
attaining Nirvana. And we know what difficulties beset the translation
of Nirvana; so much so, that it is almost always left untranslated. Of
the Vedanta, the characteristic word is Atma; the whole system is bent
toward the discovery of Atma in oneself, and the final identification of
that Atma with Brahma: the Self with the Eternal. Of the Sankhya
and Yoga systems, the characteristic words are Purusha and Prakriti,
which mean, in their simplest form, Man and Nature, as standing face

PATANJALI AND HIS DISCIPLES 349

to face with each other. But in a deeper sense Purusha means Spirit,
or, perhaps the Heavenly Man, as in the great Vedic Hymn to Purusha :
"The Heavenly Man has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand
feet," the Hymn which goes on to tell how the gods immolated the
Heavenly Man, binding Him to a stake, and how, from that universal
sacrifice, the worlds and the races of men came into being.

The word Purusha occurs again and again in the Great Upanishads,
in meanings varying between man and the Heavenly Man, or Universal
Spirit. For example, in a famous passage in the Brihad-aranyaka Upani-
shad, King Janaka asks Yajnavalkya, "What is the light of the spirit of
man?" The word here used is Purusha, and it is clear that, at first, it
means little more than "man," since it is a question of the man being
guided by sound, when it is so dark that he cannot see his hand before
his face. But there is one very celebrated passage in the Katha Upani-
shad, almost at the end, where the word Purusha has decidedly a cosmic,
a macrocosmic, meaning. The passage is this :

"Higher than the powers (indriya) is manas; higher than manas
is the most excellent sattva. The Atma which is great is higher than
sattva ; than the Great, the most excellent Unmanifest is higher. Higher
than the Unmanifest is Purusha, far-reaching, formless ; knowing Whom
a being is set free and goes to immortality."

Here is the kernel of the Sankhya and Yoga systems, which have
as their aim just that liberation and immortality, to be gained by a knowl-
edge of Purusha. The Sankhya system seeks to bring about a knowledge
of Purusha through analysis; the Yoga system seeks the same end
through practices. It is, if you wish, the conflict between Faith and
Works.

Purusha, then, is the central word of the Sankhya and Yoga systems,
just as Atma is the central word of the Vedanta system. And I must
confess that I doubt the expediency of translating the Sankhya- Yoga
word as though it were the Vedanta word ; the expediency of translating
Purusha by "Self," as Dr. Woods does throughout this version. This is,
perhaps, to lose a valuable distinction, a distinction of colour, if nothing
else. And its use almost leads one into heresy; for example, in the
twenty- fourth sutra of the first book, where it is said that "Ishvara (the
Lord, or Master) is a special kind of Self," this is undoubtedly unortho-
dox from a Vedantin standpoint, as there can be no such thing as "a
special kind of Self," seeing that the Self is universal. And one may
go further, and question whether Purusha, in the Sankhya- Yoga system,
covers the same ground as Atma does in the Vedanta system. Here is
a fundamental difference: According to the thought of the Sankhyas,
there are innumerable Purushas; as many men, so many Purushas; nor
does there seem to be any necessary union or unity underlying this infinite
diversity. But while, in the Vedanta, one may, perhaps, say that there
are as many selves as there are men, yet the whole purpose of the Vedanta
is, to show, and to bring to practical consciousness, that all these selves

350 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

are but the one Self, just as the images in bubbles are reflections of the
one Sun. So that it seems to me that it would be safer and clearer not
to translate the great Sankhya-Yoga word as though it were the great
Vedanta word, as Dr. Woods does, throughout this translation.

The little text we quoted from the Katha Upanishad shows the
attainment of liberation through the knowledge of Purusha. The Sankhya
system postulates a fall into bondage through an inverse process. Puru-
sha, face to face with Prakriti, Man face to face with Nature, sees him-
self reflected in Nature, and takes the image for the original ; by iden-
tifying himself with this image in the substance of Nature, he becomes
subject to the mutations of nature, falls into bondage to mutability, to
change and pain and death. It is the Sankhya version of the Fall of
Man, and the Sankhya tells man how to work out his salvation, not
so much with fear and trembling, as with detachment and wisdom,
finally recognizing himself as that Purusha which is free and immortal.

But there is, perhaps, a further objection to translating Purusha
by the word Self. It is this: There is good reason for believing that,
throughout the Yoga Sutras, we are not considering the ultimate Self,
the infinite, unconditioned One, but rather something much more indi-
vidual and personal ; something much lower and earlier, if one may
use the expression; something, in fact, which is described by Paul, in
his first letter to Corinth, as "the celestial body," a term which did not,
for Paul, mean the last and highest reality, the Logos, but a degree of
spiritual life to be attained by men individually, by men remaining in
a certain definite sense personal, though of a higher and purer per-
sonality than that which is experienced in ordinary worldly life.

So that, having in view this much more individual being, this per-
sonal, though celestial life, I have translated Purusha by the phrase "the
spiritual man," which is, indeed, rather Paul's than mine, and which,
I believe, rightly suggests a close analogy between the teaching of Paul
and certain sides of the Indian teaching. For example, when Paul
insists on salvation by Faith, that is, by a certain state of spiritual con-
sciousness, he comes very close to the Indian schools which, opposing
the Vedic way of Works, declare that salvation is to be attained
through spiritual discernment, or illumination.

In the choice of another word, I think Dr. Woods might, per-
haps, have fallen on a happier equivalent of the Sanskrit. It is the
word which expresses the final goal, the liberation attained, when
Purusha, self-recognized, stands forth free and perfect. The Sanskrit
word is Kaivalya, a noun derived from the adjective kevala, the sim-
plest meaning of which is "alone." Dr. Woods has chosen the word
Isolation, to represent the noun, and Isolation is, therefore, held up,
as the supreme goal of spiritual effort. But I must confess that, as
a goal of effort effort to be carried on, perhaps, through many lives,
Isolation leaves me cold. After all, it means, does it not, being "left
on an island," which suggests rather loneliness than attainment. There

PATANJALI AND HIS DISCIPLES 351

is, in the word, no suggestion that, among the rewards of the supreme
spiritual attainment, there may be communion with the Divine, com-
munion with the souls of those we love. Yet both these ideas are undoubt-
edly in the mind of Patanjali. On the other hand, it is true that the
word Isolation does echo what Emerson has so beautifully expressed :

"The soul gives itself, alone, original and pure, to the Lonely, Orig-
inal and Pure, who, on that condition, gladly inhabits, leads, and speaks
through it. . . ."

But for the most part Dr. Woods is as happy as he is thoughtful
in his choice of words. Take, for example, the definition of Yoga, in
the second sutra of the first book:

"Yoga is the restriction of the fluctuations of the mind-stuff;" the
word translated "mind-stuff" being chitta. In what is, I think, the
earliest, or one of the earliest versions of Patanjali, this sutra was
rendered thus: "Yoga is the suppression of the transformations of
the thinking principle." But, for English readers, the thinking prin-
ciple is hardly distinguishable from pure consciousness; and to sup-
press its transformations looks very like deadness, sheer unconscious-
ness. But Patanjali has in view, not pure consciousness, but that part
of Nature, as distinguished from Spirit, which, under the illumining
and warming rays of Spirit, forms the personal man, the field of emo-
tion, passion, analytical reasoning, all that mental and emotional activ-
ity which makes up the personal life. This part or fragment of nature
is the personal sattva, or being, a word probably taken from the text
we quoted from the Katha Upanishad. The sattva is not spirit. It is
rather thought of as material, though in a finer sense. It is inflamed by
passion, or rendered inert by darkness ; and these phases form the misery
of ordinary life. But the darkness is to be driven away, the passion
is to be stilled, and then the sattva will reflect the pure light of Spirit,
and that alone. This is the first step towards recognition of oneself
as pure Spirit, as Purusha, that recognition being final liberation,
what Dr. Woods translates Isolation. Therefore the choice of the phrase
"mind-stuff" seems singularly happy; it is at once sufficiently material,
to show that we are not dealing with Spirit; sufficiently immaterial, to
show we are not dealing with sheer materialism.

The sattva is conceived of as filled with the impresses of past experi-
ences, thoughts, emotions. The Sanskrit word used is Sanskara, the
history of which is somewhat as follows : Literally, it means an adorn-
ment, an ornament, and especially the ornaments which the potters make
on the wet clay of their water-jars, before they fire them. These are
rough patterns, roughly cut or pressed in the clay, when it is still soft,
so that "impress," or "impression" comes very close to the original
thought. The name Sanskrit, the "adorned" language, is another form
of the same word. Sanskara, then, Dr. Woods courageously translates
"subliminal-impression," a rendering which, for the most part, seems
admirable, though it may be questionable whether the sanskaras are

352 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

always subliminal, always "below the threshold" of consciousness. In
one case, however, that of the eighteenth sutra of the third book, the
use of the phrase is nothing short of illuminating: "As the result of
direct-experience of subliminal impressions there is the (intuitive)
knowledge of previous births." Here is a singularly suggestive bring-
ing together of ancient and modern psychology.

The word tapas, which Dr. Woods translates "self-castigation," 1
am not so sure of. Tapas does, it is true, mean penance, but that is
not, I think, its original, its fundamental meaning. It comes from a root
meaning "burn," or "warm," and is used, in the oldest Upanishads, to
indicate the power of the Spirit which "dove-like, sat brooding o'er
the vast abyss;" the power which, in so many symbolic cosmogonies,
warms the world-egg into life. I have quoted Milton's word, "brood-
ing," which he himself took from Genesis, because, like the Sanskrit
word tapas, "brooding" means both physical heat and a mood of the
mind, the purpose of which is, to hatch new ideas. And I believe
that tapas, the warming and enkindling fire of the mind, very often
means "aspiration," or "fervour," the heat of the spirit, which brings
forth new life.

But tapas has its penitential meaning too, the burning and pur-
ifying power of self-sacrifice; typified, in India, by that very severe
penance, still practised by ascetics, of standing in the midst of a group
of four fires, with the tropical sun beating down on one's head. But it
seems to me that to translate tapas always by "self-castigation," which
suggests a bodily scourging in the most literal sense, is, perhaps, to
limit its meaning too much. The idea is, without doubt, that of Paul,
"I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection:" perhaps "mortifi-
cation" would be a good rendering. Yet this penitential meaning is
not the primary one; "fervour," some word suggesting creative spiritual
heat, seems to be the primary meaning.

One more verbal criticism. Dr. Woods translates the thirty-second
sutra of the third book thus: "(As a result of constraint) upon the
radiance in the head (there follows) the sight of the Siddhas;" and
renders the Comment thus: "As a result of constraint upon that aper-
ture which is in the skull, the so-called opening of Brahma, and which
after there is a conjunction (of this light) with the Sushumna and after
there is a conjunction of the jewel's lustre of the mind-stuff resident
in the heart becomes resplendent as the radiance in the head (as a
result of this) he beholds the Siddhas, although they are invisible." Now
that leaves one who is unacquainted with the Sanskrit term very much
in the dark. Who or what are the Siddhas? They are the possessors
of Siddhis, or magical powers ; or, better still, they are those who have
"attained," to use another of Paul's phrases. They are those spirits
of just men made perfect, who have been called Adepts or Masters.
It is the vision of the Masters that at this stage rewards the disciple.
It is, perhaps, too weighty a word to leave untranslated, as Dr. Woods

PATANJALI AND HIS DISCIPLES 353

leaves it; the more so, as the word "adept" is exactly parallel to it
etymologically.

But these are verbal matters about which it is possible to hold very
divergent views. One translation appeals to one student, another to
another. And it is always quite manifest that Dr. Woods has chosen
thoughtfully and carefully, seeing very clearly the difficulties which arise
from the fact that none of our words fit exactly the words we are trying
to translate. It is like fitting a pentagon over a square; we can get
most of it covered, but the corners will never match.

But the value of Dr. Woods' work lies in its faithfulness and its
lucidity, and in the thorough-going way in which it has been done. Per-
haps this sutra, with its commentary, will illustrate these qualities as
well as any other :

"The yogin's karma is neither-white-nor-black ; (the karma) of others
is of three kinds:" "White karma is to be attained by voice and by
central-organ and its sole result is pleasure; it is found among those
who are disposed to study and self-castigation. Black karma has its
sole result in pain ; it is found among the base. White-and-black-( karma)
has a mixed result in pleasure and in pain and it is to be affected by
outer means; it is found among the devotees of the soma