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                         Universal Brotherhood




                         Universal Brotherhood

                               A MAGAZINE
                 DEVOTED TO THE BROTHERHOOD OF HUMANITY
                       THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT
                       PHILOSOPHY SCIENCE AND ART

             Founded in 1886 under the title of THE PATH by
                            WILLIAM Q JUDGE

                          VOLUME XIII. No. 11.
                            FEBRUARY, 1899.




                                CONTENTS


           Henry Clay           Alexander Wilder,         585
                                M.D.

           Richard Wagner’s     Basil Crump               593
           Prose Works

           Alphonse de          Alexander Wilder,         596
           Lamartine: IV. Poet, M.D.
           Diplomat, Traveller

           Passage to India     Walt Whitman              607
           (_Extracts
           Selected_)

           The Human Cell       Arthur A. Beale,          609
                                M.B.

           The Sokratic Club    Solon                     614

           Students’ Column     Conducted by J. H.        621
                                Fussell

           Young Folks’
           Department:

           The Weston Ten       Margaret S. Lloyd         623

           Brotherhood                                    627
           Activities

         Editors:—=Katherine A. Tingley=, =E. Aug. Neresheimer=

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                            Copyright, 1899.




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ANNOUNCEMENT.

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also the value of studying other systems than our own.

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A U M

    “The Theosophical ideas of charity mean _personal_ exertion for
    others; _personal_ mercy and kindness; _personal_ interest in the
    welfare of those who suffer; _personal_ sympathy, forethought and
    assistance in their troubles or needs.”—H. P. BLAVATSKY, _Key to
    Theosophy_.

    “To help men and women to realize the nobility of their calling and
    their true position in life.”—First Object of the International
    Brotherhood League.

UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD




                              HENRY CLAY.
                       BY ALEXANDER WILDER, M.D.


[Illustration: Henry Clay.]

The illustration of “Henry Clay addressing Congress” exhibits, with
almost the exactness of portraits, the likeness of the prominent members
of the American Senate at that time. It is to be regretted that a key is
not given, as several of them, and these not the men of less importance,
are not at this late period easily recognized. Yet as we look upon their
faces here delineated, we feel as if we had known them all.

Naturally our attention is first directed to the figure of the one
addressing the Senate. The United States will have to pass through
another Civil War as destructive of former memories as this one has
been, before Henry Clay can be forgotten. Making his mark upon the
history, legislation and diplomacy of the country, that mark cannot be
removed except the heart of the Nation is torn out with it.

The presiding officer we recognize as Millard Fillmore, once a favorite
son of New York, and Vice-President in 1849 and 1850; then succeeding to
the presidency at the death of General Taylor. Growing up from poverty
and his few opportunities, he became an accomplished lawyer, a diligent
legislator, and a statesman of recognized ability. Comely of person,
graceful in manner, and generous in his impulses, he was at the time one
of the most popular men of Western New York, and continued to be till he
signed the measure that operated more than any other to estrange the
citizens of the Republic from one another—the Fugitive Slave Act of
1851.

We also observe near the speaker General Lewis Cass, then the foremost
man of the Democratic Party, whose nomination for President in 1852 Mr.
Clay desired and hoped for as most likely to avert the crisis which he
foresaw. He then lay dying, but to the last the welfare of his Country
was at his heart. But General Cass was passed over, and the current
moved with renewed force to the final event. For years as Senator and
Cabinet Minister he put forth his energy to arrest its progress, but was
compelled to give way overpowered.

On beyond is John C. Calhoun, with head bent forward, listening
intently. His, likewise, was a career of remarkable significance in the
Nation. He had entered Congress almost at the same time with Mr. Clay,
and both in concert with Langdon Cheves and William Lowndes, who seemed
to have been elected for that purpose, put forth their utmost efforts
with success, to procure a declaration of war with Great Britain. The
measure was regarded essential to the continuance of the Republican
Party in power, and Mr. Madison reluctantly acceded to it, regretting
his compliance soon afterward. The next turn of the wheel made Mr.
Calhoun a Cabinet Minister, and an aspirant for the presidency, for
which he had the support of Daniel Webster. Falling short of that
ambition, he became the champion of State Rights and nullification,
bringing his native commonwealth to the verge of civil war, and himself
into personal peril. Thenceforth he set about educating his people for
mortal conflict. The attempt to add new territory to this country for
the extending of the power of the Southern as against the Northern
States, had brought nearer the crisis which Mr. Clay was striving to
avert. It seems almost anachronism to place Mr. Calhoun in this picture,
for he died in 1850.

Daniel Webster, however, is the figure soonest recognized. The artist
has placed him in a row a little way behind the orator, sitting in a
thoughtful mood, but leaving us at a loss to surmise whether he is
attending to the subject under discussion, or meditating upon some topic
which he may esteem to be of profounder importance. He was translated to
the Cabinet a second time by President Fillmore, but found himself
without supporters except personal friends and admirers, and estranged
from his political associates. He quickly followed Mr. Clay to the grave
in 1852.

The other faces in the picture seem familiar and are carefully depicted.
We do not find, however, the “new men” who had already come as
precursors of the next epoch in American history. John P. Hale and
William H. Seward are left out, and we fail of finding Daniel S.
Dickinson, John Davis or Stephen A. Douglas. Those whom we do see there
were undoubtedly regarded as more notable, belonging as they did to an
era that seems to have passed almost completely into oblivion. For it is
true however discreditable as it may seem, that the events of that time
and the men of that time are almost as little cognized by Americans of
the present generation as though they had been of the period of Magna
Charta and the Conference of Barons at Runnymede.

The war with Mexico resulting from the annexation of Texas in 1845, had
effected the addition of New Mexico and California to the jurisdiction
of the United States. Legislation was required to provide for the
exigency. An issue had been introduced by the “Wilmot Proviso,”
declaring that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except for
crime, should exist in the new territory. This issue had decided the
election of 1848 giving the Whigs the National Administration. The
organizing of Oregon with this inhibition had created an alarm. There
were fifteen states with slavery and fifteen without, so that each
region had an equal number of Senators. This arrangement was now
imperilled. The contest was very sharp. Mr. Clay apprehending danger to
the Union, procured the appointment of a joint Congressional Committee
to devise measures of pacification. This Committee reported what was
known as the “Omnibus Bill,” providing for the admission of California
as a State, the organization of territorial governments for Utah and New
Mexico, and more effective measures for the rendition of runaway slaves.

It is apparently in support of this measure that Mr. Clay is speaking.
The prominent senators, the supporters of this legislation, are
listening. It may be well to add that it did not pass in this form, but
that the several propositions thus massed together, were afterward
enacted in separate bills.

[Illustration: Henry Clay Addressing Congress.]

Mr. Clay was always a conspicuous character in American History. His
marked personality, his impressive manner, his profound sincerity, his
unquestioned patriotism, his unblemished public career, his loyal
friendship, his ardent sympathy for the helpless and injured, all
combined to make him the idol of his party. He was like Agamemnon, a
“king of men.” Even when defeated, he never lost prestige, but gained in
the affection of those who knew him. Ambitious, he certainly was, for he
aspired to the chief office in the Republic, but he stubbornly refused
to employ unworthy means to secure the prize. When the place was within
his grasp, and his supporters were buoyant with assurance of success, he
put it out of his reach by exuberant frankness. Yet the disappointment
never weakened his love of country, and his last efforts were put forth
to secure harmony in our public councils and to preserve the Nation
undivided.

He was the architect of his own fortunes. His early opportunities were
limited, and he had never been able to obtain a liberal education. His
father was a Baptist preacher, at that time of no account in Virginia,
and there was no relationship with “first families.” Henry Clay was
strictly of the people and a son of the people; his blood was intensely
red, without any tinge of patrician blue. Early left an orphan he ate
the bread of poverty, and at a tender age was taught to work for a
livelihood, to plough, to dig and labor in the harvest field. He was
generally known in the region as “the Mill Boy of the Slashes.”
Fortunately for him when he was fourteen years of age, his mother
married a second husband, a man quick to perceive the ability of the
youth and to find him opportunity. He was placed for a year in a retail
store in Richmond, and afterward in the office of the clerk of the High
Court of Chancery.

A biographer describes him at this period as raw-boned, lank and
awkward, with a countenance by no means handsome, and dressed in
garments home-made and ill-fitting, with linen starched to such a
stiffness as to make him look peculiarly strange and uncomfortable. As
he took his place at the desk to copy papers, his new companions
tittered at his appearance, and his blushing confusion. They soon
learned to like him, however, and he was found to be a faithful and
industrious worker. He read incessantly during his hours of leisure but
unfortunately acquired a habit of cursory perusing, a “skimming over”
which he never conquered, and which seriously interfered with
thoroughness. This became afterward to him a source of profound regret.

His diligence at work attracted the attention of the Chancellor, George
Wythe, who selected him for amanuensis to write out and record the
decisions of the Court. This was the turning point of his career. Wythe
was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and member of the
Convention that framed the Federal Constitution. He believed in what he
promulgated, emancipating his slaves and making provision for their
subsisting. Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall had been his students.
The four years thus spent there decided Clay to become a lawyer, and he
entered the office of Robert Brooke the Attorney-General as a regular
student. A year later he received the license to practice. At the age of
twenty he set out for Kentucky to seek his fortune, making his residence
at Lexington then styled “the literary and intellectual centre of the
West.”

He became, like all Southern men of note, a politician, and quickly
gained distinction as a speaker. In 1797 a Convention was held to revise
the Constitution of the State, and he labored assiduously, but without
success to procure the adoption of a system of emancipation. He saved
his popularity, however, by vigorously declaring against the Alien and
Sedition Laws of Congress. So much easier is it to resent and deplore
the wrongs that others commit than to repent of those we commit
ourselves. Mr. Clay was from this time a champion of the helpless and
the wronged. It required personal as well as moral courage. There were
men in Kentucky who regarded themselves as leaders in Society and above
being held to account for unworthy and lawless acts. Colonel Joseph
Daviess, then District Attorney of the United States and a Federalist,
perpetrated a brutal assault upon a private citizen. Everybody feared
him but Mr. Clay. He took the matter boldly up. Daviess warned him to
desist, but was unable to frighten him even by a challenge to a duel.
With like sentiment toward a man that he conceived to be wronged, he
became a defender of Aaron Burr, but on learning of deception he refused
further friendly relations.

After a period of service in the Legislature, Mr. Clay was chosen to
fill an unexpired term in the Senate at Washington and took his seat in
December, 1806, when under thirty years of age. He seems to have paid
little heed to the unwritten law of reticence, but took active part in
speaking and legislating. He advocated the projects of a bridge across
the Potomac, and also roads and canals to facilitate communication
between the Atlantic Seaboard and the region west of the Allegheny
Mountains. A monument near Wheeling commemorates his support of the
Cumberland Road.

Political opinions then current have a curious flavor now. Many
questioned the constitutionality of such legislation. The establishment
of a Navy was opposed. The Barbary States received tribute year by year
for abstaining from piracy on American Commerce. Great Britain, claiming
to be mistress of the seas, took some six thousand seamen from merchant
vessels to serve in her Navy, and confiscated goods that were shipped to
European markets. France, likewise, issued decrees of forfeiture; and
all the defense attempted was an embargo forbidding American vessels to
leave port. Spain pretended that her possessions in West Florida
extended to the Mississippi River, and the Federalists in Congress
denounced the action of President Madison to hold that region as being a
spoliation of a helpless and unoffending power.

Mr. Clay had just come again to the Senate. Although the youngest member
he was foremost in sustaining vigorous action. “I have no commiseration
for princes,” said he; “my sympathies are reserved for the great mass of
mankind, and I own that the people of Spain have them most sincerely.”

Then he turned upon the great sensitiveness exhibited toward Great
Britain. “This phantom has too much influence on the councils of the
Nation,” he declared. “I most sincerely desire peace and amity with
England; I even prefer an adjustment of differences with her before one
with any other Nation. But if she persists in a denial of justice to us,
or if she avails herself of the occupation in West Florida to commence
war upon us, I trust and hope that all hearts will unite in a bold and
vigorous vindication of our rights.”

Mr. Clay next appears as Speaker of the House of Representatives in
1811. The House was more to his liking than the Senate; it was at that
time a debating body not dominated as it is now by Committees appointed
by the Presiding Officer. He was vehement in demanding preparations for
war with England, and talked of terms of peace to be dictated at
Halifax. The President was timid, and the North and East opposed; but a
declaration was made, and Mr. Madison proposed to make Mr. Clay
Commander-in-chief. This he declined. There was a likelihood of cabals
in Congress like those which assailed General Washington in the
Revolution. The Navy saved the credit of the Nation, which the Army
failed to sustain, and with that it averted a peril of disunion.

Negotiations for peace were held at Ghent. Mr. Clay, as one of the
Commissioners, yielded a reluctant consent to the treaty. He would not
visit England till he heard of the Battle of New Orleans, but he went to
Paris.

In an interview with Madame de Stael, she spoke of the exasperation in
England and the serious intentions of sending the Duke of Wellington to
America. “I wish they had,” said Clay. “Why?” she asked. “Because,” said
he, “If he had beaten us we should only have been in the condition of
Europe, without disgrace. But if we had been so fortunate as to defeat
him, we should have greatly added to the renown of our arms.”

This conversation was repeated to the Duke, who at once remarked that he
would have regarded a victory over the Americans as a greater honor than
any which he had ever achieved. He also praised the American Peace
Commissioners as having shown more ability than those of England.

Henceforth, Mr. Clay remained in his own country. Mr. Madison tendered
him the mission to Russia but he declined. He then offered him the
portfolio of the War Department. But Mr. Clay chose rather to return to
the House of Representatives and was again elected Speaker.

He was now himself a leader; the men who had been at the head of the
Republican Party from the time of Washington, were passing from
supremacy. The war had developed new necessities and new views of
political subjects, and new men were taking hold of public service. What
had been denounced in 1810 became the policy of 1816; the Federal party
passed away, for its leaders had offended the nation, and the new
Republicans had adopted their principal measures. We now find Henry Clay
and John C. Calhoun still hand in hand, with Daniel Webster the
Union-lover and John Randolph the Union-hater in opposition, and the
President still holding the old traditions.

The conditions of affairs in South America was the occasion of a bill
for more strict enforcing of neutrality. Mr. Clay dissented from the
measure. The ignorance and superstition imputed to the people of the
Spanish provinces, he insisted, was due to the tyranny and oppression,
hierarchic and political, under which they groaned. Their independence
was the first step toward improving their condition. “Let them have free
government if they are capable of enjoying it,” said he; “but let them,
at all events, have independence. I may be accused of an imprudent
utterance of my feelings on this occasion. I care not. When the
independence, the happiness, the liberty of a whole people is at stake,
and that people our neighbors, occupy a portion of the same continent,
imitating our example and participating of the same sympathies with
ourselves, I will boldly avow my feelings and my wishes in their behalf,
even at the hazard of such an imputation.”

He had exulted at the victory of New Orleans by a Western General in a
Western State. But when General Jackson in the Seminole War, enlisted
volunteers again without civil authority, invaded Florida, decoyed
Indian Chiefs into his camp by a flag of truce and put them to death,
besides executing two British subjects, Mr. Clay denounced his acts as a
disregard of every principle of honor, humanity and justice. He was,
however, again in advance of popular sentiment.

The proposed admission of Missouri to the Union as a Slave State became
an issue for several years. It was a question whether there should
continue as before an equal number of Free and Slave States, so as to
assure the latter a safeguard in the Senate. It was interest on one side
and sentiment on the other. The excitement was so intense as to threaten
the Union itself. Dissolution was actually considered. The matter was
finally determined by a vote to admit Missouri but to exclude slavery
from all the region west of it and north of its southern boundary line.
In this controversy Mr. Clay acted with the Southern Congressmen, and by
his sagacity as Speaker, the measure was made sure: the conflict,
however, to be again renewed a third of a century later, transforming
the politics of a Nation.

None of Mr. Clay’s speeches on this question were published. He had been
constrained by the voice of his State and fears for the safety of the
Union, but he was not willing to appear before his countrymen and
posterity in the lurid light of sustaining slavery.

The revolt in Greece enlisted the sympathy of all America. Meetings were
held to declare the prevailing sentiment. Albert Gallatin even proposed
to aid with a naval force. Mr. Webster offered a resolution in Congress
authorizing a Commissioner to be sent to that country. Mr. Clay
supported the motion in his Demosthenean style. After portraying the
situation, he added the challenge: “Go home if you can; go home if you
dare, to your constituents, and tell them that you voted this
proposition down; meet if you can, the appalling countenances of those
who sent you here, and tell them that you shrank from the declaration of
your own sentiments; that you can not tell how, but that some unknown
dread, some indescribable apprehension, some indefinable danger, drove
you away from your purpose; that the spectres of cimiters, and crowns,
and crescents, gleamed before you and alarmed you; and that you
suppressed all the noble feelings prompted by religion, by liberty, by
national independence, and by humanity.”

Mr. Clay had been already placed in the field as a candidate for
President, and this temerity astonished his supporters. He had enemies,
likewise, to take advantage of his excitable temper, to irritate him to
personal altercation. John Randolph was conspicuous. He taunted Mr. Clay
for his defective education. “I know my deficiencies,” Mr. Clay replied.
“I was born to no patrimonial estate; from my father I inherited only
infancy, ignorance and indigence. I feel my defects; but so far as my
situation in early life is concerned, I may without presumption say they
are more my misfortune than my fault.”

There were no political parties in 1824; all were Republicans, and the
contest was simply between men. Mr. Clay was approached with
propositions such as would now be considered legitimate. He refused to
enter into any arrangements or make any promise or pledge. There was no
choice effected by the Electors. In the Legislature of Louisiana,
advantage was taken of the absence of members to deprive him of the vote
of that State. He was thus deprived of the opportunity of an election by
the House of Representatives. It so happened, however, that the decision
was in his hands, and he gave his vote to John Quincy Adams. The two had
differed widely and with temper, but of Mr. Adams’ superior fitness
there was no possible question. In political matters he never rewarded a
friend nor punished an adversary. He administered every trust
conscientiously. Mr. Clay became his Secretary of State. It was an
administration which the Nation would like to witness again. The honor
of the Nation was sustained; the country was prosperous beyond former
periods. What may now appear incredible, there were twenty-four states
in the Union, yet the public expenditures barely exceeded eleven million
dollars a year.

The endeavor to effect a friendly alliance with the new Spanish-American
Republics was unsuccessful. When Bolivar wrote Mr. Clay a letter
acknowledging his good offices, he replied with a gentle remonstrance
against the establishing of an arbitrary dictatorship. He was
disappointed in his hopes and expectations. Mr. Adams had judged those
men better than he. In diplomacy Mr. Clay aimed at reciprocity in
commercial matters. He advised the recognition of Hayti likewise, as a
sovereign State.

He also became one of the chief supporters of the African Colonization
Society. He believed it possible to remove a sufficient number of free
negroes to reduce sensibly the number of the colored population, and
bring about gradual emancipation. “If,” said he, “I could be
instrumental in eradicating this deepest stain upon the character of our
country, and removing all cause of reproach on account of it by foreign
nations; if I could only be instrumental in ridding of this foul blot
that revered State that gave me birth, or that not less beloved State
which kindly adopted me as her son, I would not exchange the proud
satisfaction which I should enjoy for the honor of all the triumphs ever
decreed to the most successful conqueror.”

In 1828 a new administration and a newly organized political party were
chosen. Mr. Clay returned to Kentucky. But defeat never lessened his
hold upon his friends. In 1831 Daniel Webster, voicing the sentiment of
them all, wrote to him: “We need your arm in the fight. It would be an
infinite gratification to me to have your aid, or rather your lead.”

Reluctantly he obeyed. He took his seat in the Senate more heartily
welcomed by his friends, more bitterly hated by his enemies, than ever
before. From this time he was more conservative. He was henceforth the
opposer of aggression, the pacificator for the sake of the Union. He was
again nominated for President by the Republicans in 1832. Some years
later the opposition united to form the Whig Party, but although he was
its acknowledged leader, the anti-masonic influence gave the nomination
in 1840 to Gen. Wm. H. Harrison. He was, however, again nominated in
1844 and apparently certain of election till a letter was published in
which he spoke of the proposed annexation of Texas in ambiguous terms
which disaffected anti-slavery voters enough to defeat him. He had
retired from the Senate two years before, but came back under the new
administration. He foresaw peril to the Republic, and now hoped to be
able to stay the tide. But it was only temporary.

His personal appearance, as represented in the picture, was unique. He
was tall and thin, though muscular; and there was an entire absence of
everything like stiffness or haughtiness. His manner was cordial and
kind, inviting rather than repelling approach. His eyes were dark gray,
small, and when excited they flashed with striking vividness. His
forehead was high and broad. His mouth was large, but expressive of
genius and energy. His voice was silvery, deep-toned, and exquisitely
modulated. When speaking, he threw his soul into the subject, carrying
along the souls of the hearers, making them assent or dissent as he did.
He spoke as the patriot warrior of a thousand battles would speak; and
despite the enmity and rancor which pursued him with fiendish
bitterness, the men opposed to him mourned with his friends when he was
no more a denizen of earth.




                     RICHARD WAGNER’S PROSE WORKS.
                            BY BASIL CRUMP.
                               VOLUME I.


The world knows Richard Wagner as a daring musical genius; a few know
him as a poet who wrote the poems for his own dramas; fewer still know
him as a writer, philosopher and mystic. His voluminous prose works are
being translated into English by Mr. W. Ashton Ellis, of the London
branch of the Wagner Society, and the work will be completed by the end
of the century. When these writings become familiar to the reading
public, Wagner will be much better understood than he is now; the vast
scope of his work, and its harmonious relation to other universal
schemes of work which make for the elevation of the human race, will be
more fully recognized. Then the narrow and ignorant criticisms of a
Nordau or a Tolstoi, will have no foothold in the mind of an enlightened
public.

In the previous series of articles entitled “Richard Wagner’s Music
Dramas,” my purpose was to throw some light on the inner meaning of
those dramas. In doing this some quotations were made from the prose
writings, where Wagner has made actual explanations or thrown out hints
of his meaning. In dealing with the prose works themselves, my aim will
be to show the basis of Wagner’s reform in the field of dramatic art,
and the great motives which led him to strike out a totally new path.
And here at the outset let me say that no brief review of these volumes
can possibly convey any clear conception of their contents; it will
therefore be necessary to devote several of these articles to the more
important essays. The volume with which I am about to deal opens with an


                         AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCH.

Wagner wrote this in 1843, at the request of a German editor. In it we
see the germs of his future genius, and I will select such details as
serve to indicate them. Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born at Leipzig on
May 22, 1813, and learnt to play a little on the piano at the age of
seven. Two years later, when the family migrated to Dresden, he used to
watch Weber “with a reverent awe,” as the composer of _Der Freischütz_
passed to and fro to rehearsals. Thereupon his piano exercises were
speedily neglected in favor of the overture to _Der Freischütz_ executed
“with the most fearful fingering.”

“But this music-strumming was quite a secondary matter: Greek, Latin,
mythology and ancient history were my principal studies.” At this time
he wrote some prize verses on the death of a schoolfellow. “I was then
eleven years old. I promptly determined to become a poet, and sketched
out tragedies on the model of the Greeks.” He also translated twelve
books of the Odyssey, and learnt English in order to study Shakespeare.
“I projected a grand tragedy which was almost nothing but a medley of
_Hamlet_ and _King Lear_. The plan was gigantic in the extreme;
two-and-forty human beings died in the course of this piece, and I saw
myself compelled in its working out to call the greater number back as
ghosts, otherwise I should have been short of characters for my last
acts.”

Being removed to the Leipzig _Nikolaischule_ he there for the first time
came into contact with Beethoven’s genius; “its impression upon me was
overpowering.... Beethoven’s music to _Eg-mont_ so much inspired me,
that I determined—for all the world—not to allow my now completed
tragedy to leave the stocks until provided with suchlike music. Without
the slightest diffidence, I believed that I could myself write this
needful music, but thought it better to first clear up a few of the
general principles of thorough-bass.... But this study did not bear such
rapid fruit as I had expected: its difficulties both provoked and
fascinated me; I resolved to become a musician.”

Thus far we see the embryo poet-musician. In his sixteenth year the
mysticism in his nature was roused by a study of E. A. Hoffmann: “I had
visions by day in semi-slumber, in which the ‘Keynote,’ ‘Third,’ and
‘Dominant’ seemed to take on living form and reveal to me their mighty
meaning.” These visions are curiously confirmed by the scientific
phenomena of Chladni’s sand figures and the sound forms of Mrs. Watts
Hughes. The fact that sound is the means through which all form is
produced is a very old teaching. Pythagoras, who brought the art of
music from India to Greece, taught that the Universe was evolved out of
chaos by the power of sound and constructed according to the principles
of musical proportion.

About this time Wagner seriously studied Counterpoint under Theodor
Weinlig. In less than six months he was dismissed as perfect. “What you
have made by this dry study,” he said to his youthful pupil, “we call
‘Self-dependence.’” In 1832 he composed “an opera-book of tragic
contents: _Die Hochzeit_”; his sister disapproved of the work and he at
once destroyed it, although some of the music was already written. _Die
Feen_ (The Fairies) followed in the next year and was the first of his
completed operatic works. At the age of twenty-one he tells us: “I had
emerged from abstract Mysticism, and I learnt a love for Matter.” The
result was _Das Liebesverbot_ founded on Shakespeare’s _Measure for
Measure_, in which “free and frank physicalism” prevails over
“Puritanical hypocrisy.”

This wild mood soon ceased under the pressure of petty cares; in 1836 he
married the woman whose devotion helped him through so many years of
bitter struggle. The following year he began his first large work,
_Rienzi_, and became musical director at the Riga theatre. The poem was
finished in 1838, and in 1839 when the music was nearly completed,
Wagner embarked with his wife and his beloved big dog on board a sailing
ship bound for London _en route_ for Paris. His object was to get
_Rienzi_ performed there, but despite the influence of Meyerbeer he was
doomed to disappointment and found himself stranded there in the utmost
poverty. This, as we shall see from an essay later in the volume, was
the turning-point in his life; but we have now to consider the next
essay, the famous


                          ART AND REVOLUTION.

The main theme of this fine article is the relation of Art to the
Universal Brotherhood of Man. It is prefaced by an introduction written
in 1872 which begins with Carlyle’s trenchant words on “that universal
Burning-up, as in hell-fire, of Human Shams.” Wagner goes on to explain
how the essay was written “in the feverish excitement of the year 1849.”
This was the revolution which cost him so many years of painful exile at
Paris and Zürich. He says he was guided by an ideal which he thought of
as “embodied in a Folk that should represent the incomparable might of
ancient brotherhood, while I looked forward to the perfect evolution of
this principle as the very essence of the associate Manhood of the
Future.”

After some explanations of certain technical words which might be
misunderstood, Wagner introduces us to the essay itself. He begins by
saying that the essence of Modern Art is only a link in a chain of
causes started by the Ancient Greeks. The Grecian spirit found its
fullest expression in the god Apollo: “It was Apollo,—he who had slain
the Python, the dragon of Chaos ... who was the fulfiller of the will of
Zeus upon the Grecian earth; who was, in fact, the Grecian people.”
Proceeding then to connect Dance and Song, as inseparable elements in
early Greek Art, he says: “Thus, too, inspired by Dionysus,[1] the
tragic poet saw this glorious god; when to all the rich elements of
spontaneous art ... he joined the bond of speech, and concentrating them
all into one focus, brought forth the highest conceivable form of
art—the DRAMA.”

That this Drama was a religious teacher connected with the Mysteries is
very clearly brought out, and Wagner draws a fine picture of one of
those great sacred days when thirty thousand people assembled to witness
“that most pregnant of all tragedies, the _Prometheus_; in this titanic
masterpiece to see the image of themselves, to read the riddle of their
own actions, and to fuse their own being and their own communion with
that of their god.”

How fell this glorious Tragedy? “As the spirit of _Community_ split
itself along a thousand lives of egoistic cleavage, so was the great
united work of Tragedy disintegrated into its individual factors.” For
two thousand years since then Art has given way to Philosophy; but “True
Art is highest freedom” and can only arise out of freedom.

Then follows a splendid description of the brutal materialism of the
Romans which hangs to this very day like a pall about her ruins: “They
loved to revel in concrete and open bloodthirstiness.” Mutual slavery of
Emperor and people was the result, and “self-contempt, disgust with
existence, horror of community” found their expression in Christianity.
But this Christianity of Constantine Wagner is careful to distinguish
from the teaching of “the humble son of the Galilean carpenter; who,
looking on the misery of his fellow-men, proclaimed that he had not come
to bring peace, but a sword into the world; whom we must love for the
anger with which he thundered forth against the hypocritical Pharisees
who fawned upon the power of Rome; ... and finally who preached the
reign of universal human love.” In short, one might say that Jesus and
his teaching stood in the same relation to the later Christianity as
Dionysus and the early pure mysteries to the later degraded and
materialized Bacchic mysteries.

Then in a very fine passage Wagner indicts Modern Art, based, as it is,
on fame and gain and serving all the lower needs of a debased public
taste. The Drama is separated into Play and Opera; the one losing its
idealizer—Music,—the other, its dramatic aim and end: “What serves it
us, that _Shakespeare_, like a second Creator, has opened for us the
endless realm of human nature? What serves it, that _Beethoven_ has lent
to Music the manly, independent strength of Poetry? Ask the threadbare
caricatures of your theatres, ask the street-minstrel commonplaces of
your operas: and ye have your answer!”

Think of it! This was written half a century ago, and in spite of it the
Music Hall more than ever sways the masses, and the cheap inanities of
the comic opera are the rage with the rest of the community. I shall
review the remainder of this essay in the next article.

(_To be continued._)

Footnote 1:

  Dionysus was the productive or bountiful power of Nature, and the
  earlier and pure conception of him was of a beauteous but manly
  figure, attended by the Graces and presiding over dramatic
  representations of Nature’s mysteries. It was only in later times that
  he appeared as Bacchus, the God of wine and intoxication, attended by
  Bacchantes, and presiding over sensual and drunken orgies.




                         ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE.
                     IV. POET, DIPLOMAT, TRAVELLER.


Lamartine spent two winters at Paris after the Restoration. His former
acquaintances were scattered, and he had new ones to make. He was for a
time solitary and little occupied. He was, nevertheless, resolute in his
quest for an opening into public life. His friend Virieu and others
introduced him to persons of distinction and one step led presently to
another. The passion for literature served to place him on a friendly
footing with others of similar tastes, and he became able after a while
to enumerate among his acquaintances Chateaubriand, the “Napoleon of
French literature,” Lamennais, the French Savonarola, Rocher, Aimé
Martin, De Vigny.

The epoch of the Restoration was also the epoch of the Revival of
Letters in France. The Revolution had sent scholars and literary men to
the scaffold or driven them into exile, and Bonaparte had attempted to
level all learning and philosophic culture to the plane of physical and
mathematical science. Whatever might elevate the human soul was not
tolerated. He aspired to restore the Sixteenth century at the end of the
Eighteenth and required literature to be adapted to that end.

Louis XVIII. was always broad and liberal in his sentiments, and even
before the Revolution he had cherished familiar relations with literary
men and men of learning. His long term of enforced leisure, during his
absence from France, and a weakness in his limbs which compelled him to
sedentary life, had tended to deepen his interest in such pursuits. He
was emphatically a king of the fireside.

The emigrants that returned with him to France, had but imperfectly
apprehended the change. Those most bigoted formed a coterie around the
Count D’Artois; others endeavored to qualify the action of the King.
Hence the court was a combination of old royalty with a new order of
things.

A galaxy of stars of the first magnitude was now shining in France.
Naturally Lamartine was dazzled by them when he came to Paris. Observing
that several young men were recognized in the literary world, he again
cherished the notion of publishing.

While himself without employment he conceived the plan of a long poem
and actually wrote several cantos. It was to be the history of a human
soul and its migrations through successive terms of existence and forms
of experience till its eventual reunion to the Centre of the Universe,
God.

He also projected and began several other compositions. He labored
incessantly to perfect his style, till it became, though diffuse, a
model of elegance, energy and correctness.

He had from time to time written verses to which he gave the title of
_Meditations_. Friends slyly pilfered these, and gave copies to ladies
of their acquaintance. These passed from hand to hand till they came to
the table of Talleyrand himself. The prince greatly admired them and his
praises were repeated to the Marquise de Raigecourt. This lady had been
an intimate friend of the Princess Elizabeth. Lamartine had been
introduced to her by the Count de Virieu, and she took a motherly
interest in his welfare. Yet he could not bring himself to go to the
Court. “I was born wild and free,” he says for himself, “and I did not
like to bend down in order to rise.”

From 1815 to 1818 when at home, he composed several tragedies—Medée, one
relating to the Crusades, and Saul. He had a hope that by them he might
gain some celebrity and perhaps contribute something to the fortune of
his parents and sisters. He completed them in the spring of 1818, and
having copied them in a plain hand hurried with them to Paris. He
solicited an interview with Talma who granted it at once.

On invitation, he read extracts from the tragedy entitled Saul. The
great tragedian listened attentively, and was for some time silent. His
first words were: “Young man, I have desired to know you for twenty
years. You would have been my poet. But it is too late. You are coming
to the world and I am going from it.”

He then requested Lamartine to tell him frankly, as a son to a father,
his personal history, his family relations, and his wishes.

This he did and told how he had desired to work, to come out of his
obscurity, to produce something that would be an honor to the name of
his father and a comfort to the heart of his mother. He had thought of
Talma. He had written several tragedies, of which this was a specimen.

“Will you be good enough,” he implored, “to hold out your hand and help
me succeed by the stage?”

Tears stood in Talma’s eyes. He praised the work, and declared that in
the reign of Louis XIV. it would have won applause. But now, tragedy had
been superseded, in general estimation, by the drama. He counselled
Lamartine to study Shakespeare, to forget art and study nature.

When Lamartine came again to Paris the next winter, he asked him to
write for the stage. But Lamartine coveted a public rather than a
literary career, and applied to M. Pasquier, the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, for a diplomatic appointment.

He was now present at the _salons_ or drawing-room parties of the
Duchess de Raigecourt, the Duchess de Broglie, Madame de Stael’s
daughter, Madame de Ste. Aulaire, Madame de Montcalm, the sister of the
Duke de Richelieu. At these he was introduced to persons of distinction.
Madame de Sainte Aulaire, who had a divining faculty for discerning
young persons who were destined to achieve a career, took a warm
interest in his behalf. She invited him to read several pages of his
unpublished verses, and afterward encouraged him to print them. He was
then recovering from a severe illness. Booksellers, however, objected to
the novelty of the style, and he was able only by obstinate perseverance
to induce one to undertake the risk.

Now Lamartine was harassed by a new apprehension. The book, whether it
broke like an egg by falling to the ground, or proved a successful
venture, was liable, although anonymous, to be a source of perplexing
complications. The notion of specialties in work was current, and the
fact of being an author and writer of verses, might be an obstacle to
his hopes.

Madame de St. Aulaire was a relative of the minister, M. Decazes. She
and her husband put forth their influence with the Government in his
behalf.

About the same time, M. Jules Janin, then at the beginning of his
career, finding a copy of the _Meditations_ at a book-store, purchased
it out of curiosity. He found to his astonishment, a new style of
poetry; that it admirably depicted the sentiments of the soul and
passions of the heart, the joys of earth and the ecstasies of heaven,
the hopes of the present and apprehensions of the future. He wrote a
long review, which served to arouse the attention of the literary and
book-reading public and to create a prodigious demand. Forty-five
thousand copies were sold in the next four years, and its author was
speedily ranked with Byron, Goethe and Chateaubriand, then the
distinguished poets of the period. He had originated a new style of
poetry.


                         DAY-BREAK OF FORTUNE.

Meanwhile Lamartine was sadly awaiting events at his modest quarters and
fearing for the fate and effects of his little publication. As he was in
bed one morning in the first month of spring, the janitor’s daughter, a
girl of twelve or fourteen years, opened the door of the room. It was
too early for the morning newspaper. Smiling intelligently, she threw on
the bed a little billet having an enormous seal of red wax. There was
upon it, Lamartine remarks, “an imprint of a coat of arms that ought to
be illustrious, for it was undecipherable.”

“Why do you smile so knowingly, Lucy?” he asked, as he broke the seal
and tore off the envelope.

“Because,” said she, “mamma told me that the letter had been brought in
the early morning by a chasseur all laced with gold, having a beautiful
feather in his hat, and that he had urgently desired that the note
should be delivered to you as soon as you awoke, because his mistress
had told him: ‘Go quickly; we must not delay the joy and perhaps the
fortune of the young man.’”

There were two separate epistles. One was written by the Polish Princess
T.... She was a sister of the unfortunate Prince Poniatowski who was
drowned while directing the retreat at the battle of Leipsic. Lamartine
did not know her and the letter was not addressed to him but to M.
Alain, his friend and physician. M. Alain had been for six years the
physician and friend of M. de Talleyrand, and during Lamartine’s illness
he had cared for him like a mother rather than as a medical attendant.
He is depicted as being as tender as learned. Lamartine describes him as
most true, good, and generous.

The letter of the princess had been written and despatched before
daybreak, and was as follows:—“The Prince de Talleyrand sent me at my
waking this note. I address it for your friend, in order that the
pleasure which this impression of the great judge will bring you shall
be doubled. Communicate this note of the Prince to the young man[2] and
thank me for the pleasure which I am giving you, for I know that your
sole delight is in the joy of those whom you love.”

Lamartine opened the second note. It was written upon a scrap of paper
about five fingers in dimension, spotted with ink, and in a hand
evidently hurried and showing signs of fatigue from want of sleep. It
began as follows:—“I send you, princess, before I go to sleep the little
volume which you lent me last night. Let it suffice you to know that I
have not slept, and that I have been reading till four o’clock in the
morning so as to read it over again.”

The rest of the note was a prediction of Lamartine’s success, in terms
of the most fulsome character. Talleyrand was often oracular, and his
foreknowledge seemed almost infallible.[3] “The soul of the old man has
been said to be of ice,” Lamartine remarks, “but it glowed all one night
with the enthusiasm of twenty years, and this fire had been kindled by
certain pages of verses which were by no means complete but which were
verses of love.”

“I read the letter of Prince Talleyrand twenty times over,” says
Lamartine. “The young girl meanwhile was waiting and watching me as I
read and read again, and she blushed with emotion as she beheld it in my
face. ‘Come, my little Lucy, and let me kiss you,’ said I. ‘You will
never bring me a message equal to this. In the lottery of glory children
draw the successful lots. Tell your mother that you have brought me a
_quine_.’”[4]

Lamartine’s book was thus placed in the lottery of fortune, and the name
of Talleyrand had been called. The great statesman was not in public
life at that time, but he was far-seeing, and his scent of public
matters was well-nigh infallible. He had no interest to flatter the
unknown writer, and Lamartine accepted his assurances as a favorable
augury.

Surely enough, little Lucy, a quarter of an hour later, brought another
letter in a large official envelope. Lamartine’s friends had been
successful in their pleadings, and this was his nomination, signed by M.
Pasquier, to the post which he desired on the Legation to Florence.

At the reading of this document, Lamartine was for a time unable to
restrain his emotions. He leaped down from the bed, he tells us, and in
other ways exhibited his delight. He was not content, however, to exult
in his actual good fortune, but immediately began to extend his
imagination further.

“I experienced what the shackled courser does when the course is
opened,” says he. “I had little mind for the glory of verses, but I did
have an unbounded passion for political activity. Already I began to
look beyond the long years that separated me from the tribune and field
of higher statesmanship.

“This was my true and entire vocation, although my friends think and my
enemies say otherwise. I felt that mine was not the powerful creative
organization that constitutes great poets; all my talent was of the
heart only. But I did feel in me an accuracy of view, an effective power
of reasoning, an energy of honest principle, which make statesmen. I had
somewhat of the quality of Mirabeau in the reserved mental forces of my
being. Fortune and France have since decided otherwise. But Nature knows
more than Fortune and France; the one is blind, the other is jealous.”

Nevertheless, Lamartine continued to write verses, and his prose
publications are more or less interspersed with poetic productions. He
praised his friends, he commemorated those whom he loved in poems. Years
afterward in his story of his journey to the Holy Land, he made this
declaration: “Life for my mind has always been a great poem, as for my
heart it has been love. GOD, LOVE and POESIE, are the three words which
I shall desire to be engraved alone upon my monument if I ever deserve a
monument.”

While he was sitting in a mystic reverie one evening at Florence, he
heard a melodious voice murmur in his ear some lines from the
_Meditations_, which are rendered as follows:

                  “Perchance the future may reserve for me
                    A happiness whose hope I now resign:
                  Perchance amid the busy world may be
                    Some soul responsive still to mine.”

He was also a member of the Legation to England and afterward became
Secretary to the French Embassy at Naples. In 1824 he was appointed
Chargé d’Affaires to Tuscany, and remained in that position five years.
He made the acquaintance of Louis Bonaparte, the former King of Holland,
who was a scientist and philosopher rather than a statesman. Queen
Hortense also attempted to have an interview with him, but this he
carefully evaded. His mother, however, was a relative of the wife of
Lucien Bonaparte and he met several members of that family under
circumstances somewhat romantic. Pierre Bonaparte was with him at Paris
in the Revolution of 1848.

His older uncle died in 1823, and he became heir of the estates. This
uncle was known as M. de Lamartine de Monceau and was by seniority the
head of the family. He had never married because his parents opposed the
choice he had made. He was thrifty and had increased the value of his
property. Lamartine now took his uncle’s designation.

The marriage of Lamartine took place during this period. The bride was
Miss Marianne Birch, an English lady of beauty and fortune. She was of
amiable disposition and Lamartine’s mother became warmly attached to
her.

Neither the accession of wealth, his aristocratic rank, nor diplomatic
engagements deterred him from literary composition. In 1823 the
_Nouvelles Meditations_ were published, and two years later, _The Last
Canto of Childe Harold_. Lamartine afterward described this latter work
as a servile imitation in which his enthusiasm as a copyist and its
success were alike “mediocre”—a punishment for feigning an admiration
which was not altogether sincere. He had, likewise, another penalty to
encounter. Two lines in it are versified in English as follows:

             “I seek elsewhere (forgive, O Roman shade!)
             For men, and not the dust of which they’re made.”

For this apparent slur he was involved in a controversy leading to a
duel and dangerously wounded. At his solicitation to the Grand Duke of
Tuscany, his antagonist, Colonel Pepé, was not prosecuted.

Louis XVIII. was succeeded in 1824 by the Count d’Artois as Charles X.
The attempt was now made to reinstate the Government as it existed
before the Revolution.

In 1829, at the instance of Chateaubriand, then a member of the
Coalition Ministry, Lamartine was recalled. He never ascertained the
reason, but attributed it to the influence of Madame Recamier, with whom
Chateaubriand was intimate. That lady, however, took an early
opportunity to set the matter right by visiting the mother and sisters
of Lamartine and inviting him and them to a drawing-room entertainment.

The reactionist Ministry under M. de Polignac was formed in the autumn
of that year. It was the final separation of the men of the former
century from the men of the time. A portfolio was offered to Lamartine
but declined. He was attached to the dynasty, but he had the prescience
of its overthrow. “I had seen it coming from afar,” says he. “Nine
months before the fatal day, the fall of the new monarchy had been
written for me in the names of the men whom it had commissioned to carry
it on.”

He was sent on a special mission to Prince Leopold, then Duke of
Saxe-Cobourg, and afterward King of Greece;[5] and had received the
appointment of ambassador to that country when the Revolution of July
overthrew the dynasty. The ministry of Louis-Philippe then offered him
his choice of the embassies to Vienna and London. The King visited him
to solicit his acceptance, but he was inexorable. The title of
Louis-Philippe was legally defective; he was not the next heir to the
throne, and he had not been placed on it by the choice of the people of
France. For these reasons it was important to him that the supporters of
Charles X. should accept places under him and thus strengthen his
pretensions. But says Lamartine: “One should not take part gratuitously
in a fault which he did not himself commit.”

M. de St. Aulaire was at that time Minister at Vienna, but greatly
desired to be transferred to England. He also waited upon Lamartine,
anxious to find out which place he was going to accept. Lamartine
quickly assured him.

“If,” said he, “I had the ambition to be ambassador to London, I would
instantly sacrifice it without hesitation, in remembrance of the good
offices which you did to me at the time of my entrance into the great
world. But you can go to London without any indebtedness to me, except
good will.”

The same year Lamartine was elected one of the “Immortals,” in the
French Academy.

The same year he visited England. He there made the acquaintance of
Talleyrand. The old statesman received him cordially, and in one
interview predicted his career. Lamartine, he remarked, was reserving
himself for something more sound and grand than the substituting of an
uncle for a nephew upon a throne that had no stable foundation. “You
will succeed in it,” he added. “Nature has made you a poet; poetry will
make you an orator; tact and thinking will make you a statesman. I know
men somewhat; I am eighty years old. I see farther than the objects in
sight. You are to have a grand part to perform in the events which will
succeed to the present state of affairs. I have witnessed the intrigues
of Courts; you will see the movements of the people deceptive in other
ways. Let verses go; you know that I adore yours. They are not for the
age in which you are now living. Improve yourself in the grand eloquence
of Athens and Rome. France will yet have scenes like those of Rome and
Athens in her public places.”

From this period Lamartine spent much of his time abroad. He never
forgot that he was a citizen of France, but he entertained a strong
dislike for the Orleans dynasty. Yet his mother had been educated in the
family with the King, and this somewhat increased his perplexity.

He writes of her death pathetically, as the saddest event of his life.
He had been loved and cherished by her with a devotion made sublime by
its absolute self-abnegation. His first lessons in books and knowledge
had been given by her, and he was endowed personally with her most
prominent characteristics. She had seemed to know instinctively when and
why he suffered, and she possessed a power of divination to foresee his
career. Her death, the result of a terrible accident, was to him like
the rending violently away of a vital part of his body.

“I hardly thought that I could survive the shock,” he wrote in the
_Souvenirs_. “I was absent from home when the accident occurred which
cut short her days. I came back in haste, arriving in time to follow the
coffin in which her remains were enshrouded, to the cemetery of the
village where we had lived during our infancy.”

The weather was bitterly cold, but this he did not feel. He returned to
the house at Milly, now empty for the winter and a thousand times more
empty since she who had given it life and soul was sleeping the eternal
sleep. Overcome by his grief, he made his way to the little room where
the papers of the family were kept, and threw himself down on the floor.
There he lay for hours in an ecstasy of woe. The moaning of the wind and
the ticking of the clock seemed to be repeating the funeral hymn.


                          JOURNEY TO THE EAST.

One desire that the mother of Lamartine had instilled into him was that
of visiting the East. As she read to him, a boy of eight years, from the
Bible about the places where wonderful events had taken place, he
resolved that he would some time behold them with his own eyes. Now that
he was disengaged from public life there was an opportunity. There was
much, however, to persuade him to remain at home; his father and
sisters, and besides, he had a beautiful residence at Saint-Point with a
wife and daughter to whom he was fondly attached. But he felt that
imagination had likewise its necessities and passions.

“I was born a poet,” he pleads. “When young, I had heard the word of
Nature, the speech which is formed of images and not of sounds. I had
even translated into written language some of those accents that had
stirred me, and that had in their turn stirred other souls. But these
accents did not now satisfy me.”

“Besides, I was, I had almost always been, a Christian in heart and in
imagination; my mother had made me such.” This pilgrimage though not as
of the Christian, at least of the man and the poet, would delight her in
the celestial abode where he saw her, and she would be to them as a
second Providence between them and dangers.

His duty to his country was likewise considered. He had sacrificed to it
this dream of his for sixteen years. There was need for heaven to raise
up new men; the present politics made man ashamed and angels weep.
“Destiny gives an hour in a century for humanity to be regenerated; that
hour is a revolution; and men let it pass to tear one another to pieces:
thus they give to revenge the hour given by God for their regeneration
and progress.”

All was duly made ready for the journey. He set sail from Marseilles, in
the brig _Alceste_, on the eleventh of July, 1832, expecting to be
absent two years. His wife and daughter and three friends, one of them a
physician, composed the party. The voyage was full of incident, and his
journal abounds with adventures and predictions. Lamartine was what
imaginative persons term a visionary. He was really oriental and
tropical in temperament, and ready to catch the spirit of the region to
which he was sailing; for Syria, Arabia and Palestine have always been
renowned for mystics, seers and prophets.

As the vessel passed the coast of Tunis, he wrote his impressions. He
had never loved the Romans nor taken the least interest in behalf of
Carthage; but he sympathized with Hannibal. “I love or I abhor, in the
physical sense of the word,” says he. “At first sight, in the twinkling
of an eye, I have formed my judgment of a man or woman for always.” He
adds that “this is the characteristic of individuals with whom instinct
is quick, active, instantaneous, inflexible. What, it will be asked,
what is instinct? It is to be cognized as the highest reason—the innate
reason, the reason that does not argue, the reason such as God has made
and not what man finds out. It strikes us like the lightning without
which the eye would have difficulty of searching it out. It illuminates
everything at the first flash. The inspiration in all the arts, as upon
the field of battle, is as this instinct, this reason that divines.
Genius also is instinct and not logic and labor.”

Nevertheless he sets aside much that is often regarded as original, or
inspired. This utterance is fit for the book of _Ecclesiastes_: “There
is nothing new in nature and in the arts. Everything that is now being
done has been done before; everything that is said has been said
already; everything that is thought has been thought. Every century is
the plagiarist of another century; for all that we are so much, artists
or thinkers, perishable or fugitive, we copy in different ways from one
immutable and eternal model,—nature, the thought, one and diverse, of
the Creator.”

He had little to say in favor of the Greeks. “For me,” says he, “Greece
is like a book the beauties of which are tarnished, because we have been
made to read it before we were able to understand it. Nevertheless, the
enchantment is not off from everything. There is still an echo of all
those great names remaining in my heart. Something holy, sweet,
fragrant, mounts up with the horizons in my soul. I thank God for having
seen, while passing by this land, the country of the Doers of Great
Deeds, as Epaminondas called his fatherland.”

He felt keenly a sense of isolation that he had no one to participate in
these sentiments. “Always,” says he, “when a strong impression stirs my
soul I feel the necessity to speak or to write to some one of what I am
experiencing, to find in some degree a joy from my joy, an echoing of
that which has impressed me. Isolated feeling is not complete: man has
been created double. Ah! when I look around me, there is yet a void.
Julia and Marianne fill everything for themselves alone; but Julia is
still so young that I tell her only what is suited to her age. It is all
future; it will soon be all present for us; but the past, where is it
now?

“The person who would have most enjoyed my happiness at this moment, is
my Mother. In everything that happened to me, pleasant or sad, my
thought turns involuntarily to her. I believe I see her, hear her, talk
to her, write to her. One who is remembered so much is not absent;
whoever lives so completely, so powerfully in ourselves is not dead for
us.”

“Empty dream! She is there no more; she is dwelling in the world of
realities; our vagrant dreams are no more anything to her; but her
spirit is with us, it visits us, it follows with us, it protects us:
_our conversation is with her in the eternal regions_.”

He goes on to describe his condition.

“Before I had reached the age of maturity I had lost the greater part of
those here below whom I most loved, or who most loved me. My love-life
had become concentrated; my heart had only a few other hearts to take
voyage with. My memory had little more than graves where it might rest
here in the earth; I lived more with the dead than with the living. If
God were to strike two or three of his blows around me, I feel that I
would be detached entirely by myself, for I would contemplate myself no
more. I would love myself only in the others; and it is only there that
I can love.”

“One begins to feel the emptiness of existence from the day when he is
no more necessary to anybody, from the hour when he can no more be
dearly loved. The sole reality here below, I have always felt, is love,
love under all its forms.”

“To us poets, beauty is evident and perceptible; we are not beings of
abstraction, but men of nature and instinct; so I have travelled many
times through Rome; so I have visited the seas and the mountains; so I
have read the sages, the historians and the poets; so have I visited
Athens.”

On the fifth of September the brig arrived at Bayreuth. Lamartine
engaged a house for the season and established his family there while he
travelled over the country. He had for a long time entertained grave
doubts of his daughter’s health, and had brought her with him in the
hope that a residence in Syria would restore her.

Ibrahim Pacha was at this time making his conquests, and at his orders,
the French travellers were everywhere received with courtesy and the
most generous hospitality.

The heat was too great for setting out at once, so Lamartine addressed a
letter to Lady Hester Stanhope, asking permission to visit her. This
lady had been the confidential secretary of her uncle, William Pitt, the
famous minister, and was supposed to be betrothed to Sir John Moore.
After their deaths she left Europe and made her home in the East. She
had gained a certain authority over many of the Arabian chiefs who
venerated her as an inspired person. She received Lamartine cordially,
saying that their stars were friendly and in concurrence. He declined
her offer to cast his horoscope or to have any discussion on matters of
religion. “God alone possesses the truth,” said he, “we have only
faith.”

“Believe what you please,” said she. “You are one of those men
nevertheless that I expected, whom Providence has sent to me, and who
have a grand part to perform in the work which is preparing. You will
shortly go back to Europe; Europe is finished. France alone has as yet a
grand mission to fulfill, and you will participate in it, I know not
how.”

She added that he had four or five stars, and explained further: “You
ought to be a poet; that is legible in your eyes and the upper part of
your countenance. Lower down you are under the influence of different
stars that are almost in opposition; there is an influence of energy and
activity.”

She asked his name; she had never heard it before. She predicted that he
would soon return to Europe, but would come back to the East, insisting
that it was his fatherland. He acknowledged that it was the fatherland
of his imagination.

Lamartine and his friends were hospitably entertained but she would not
regard his departure as being more than for a season.

Forming a caravan at Bayreuth he set out on the eighth of October. At
Jaffa or “Yaffa,” the governor had received letters from Mehemet Ali and
Ibrahim Pacha, then masters in the East, commanding all the officials to
aid him in his journey, to furnish escorts, and to supply him with every
convenience that he required. When the caravan reached the “village of
Jeremiah” it was met by Abu Gosh, the brigand chief. He demanded of
Lamartine whether he was the Frank Emir, whom his friend, Lady Stanhope,
the Queen of Palmyra, had placed under his protection, and in whose name
had sent him the magnificent garment of cloth of gold in which he was
then arrayed. Lamartine knew nothing of the gift but assured the chief
that he was the man.

Abu Gosh at that time had the whole region of Southern Palestine in
subjection clear to Jericho. He now provided a strong guard for the
caravan.

Lamartine found no difficulty in identifying the places around
Jerusalem. “Almost never,” says he, “did I encounter a place or object
the first sight of which was not to me as what I remembered. Have we
lived twice or a thousand times? Is our memory simply an impression that
has been obscured, which the breath of God brings out again vividly? Or
have we a faculty in our imagination to anticipate and perceive in
advance before we actually do behold?”

The monks of the Convent of St. John the Baptist, in the wilderness of
that name, received the travellers with sincere cordiality. Lamartine
left there a part of his caravan, going on only with the Arabian and
Egyptian guard. They confined their movements to visiting places in the
suburbs, made historic by traditions of the New Testament.

He pays a deserved tribute to the Turks for their management of the
“Holy Sepulchre.” Instead of destroying it, they had preserved
everything, maintaining strict police regulations, and a silent
reverence for the place which the Christians were far from manifesting.
While the intolerance of the various sects would lead the triumphant
party to exclude its rivals from the place, the Turks are impartial to
them all.

The Mussulmans are the only tolerant people, he stoutly affirms. Let
Christians ask what they would have done if the fortunes of war had
delivered to them the City of Mecca and the Kaaba.

On the thirtieth of October, the caravan set out for the river Jordan
and the Dead Sea. On returning to the neighborhood of Jerusalem,
Lamartine received a letter from his wife that determined him to forego
the extending of his journey into Egypt. He went back to Bayreuth,
arriving the fifth of November.

Autumn in that country has the warmth, the renewing of vegetation and
other conditions, like spring in the northerly climates of the temperate
zone. Lamartine had purchased Arab horses of superb quality while in
Palestine, and one for his daughter. It was at the end of November that
he took her out for her first excursion with the animal. The air was
exhilarating and the mountain scenery in its most attractive guise. In
an ecstasy of excitement the young girl declared it the longest, most
beautiful, most delightful ride that she had ever taken.

It was also the last. On the second of December she was taken suddenly
ill and died the next day. The parents were overwhelmed with grief. The
last hope of their house was thus cut off in the glad days of
adolescence.

They remained at Bayreuth through the winter. On the fifteenth of April
they set out for their return homeward and sailed for Constantinople.

Lamartine interspersed his narrative of this voyage with reflections
upon what he observed and meditated. “I would like to sail all the
while,” says he, “to have a voyage with its chances and distractions.
But what I read in my wife’s eyes goes deep into my heart.[6] The
suffering of a man is nothing like that of a woman, a mother. A woman
lives and dies in one sole thought, or one solitary feeling. Life for a
woman is a something possessed; death, a something lost. A man lives
with everything that he has to do with, good or bad; God does not kill
him with a blow.”

On the subject of travelling and sojourning abroad, he speaks
philosophically:

“When a man is absent from his country, he sees affairs more perfectly.
Details do not obstruct his view, and important matters present
themselves in their entireness. This is the reason why prophets and
oracles lived alone in the world and remote. They were sages who studied
subjects in their entirety and their judgment was not warped by the
little passions of the day. The statesman, likewise, if he would judge
and foresee the outcome, must often absent himself from the scene in
which he performs the Drama of his time. To predict is impossible, for
foreknowledge is for God alone; but to foresee is possible, and
forethought is for man.”

Lamartine analyzes closely the doctrines of Saint-Simonism, and what he
considers their weak points. “We must not,” he says, “judge new ideas by
the derision which they encounter during the period. All great thoughts
were first received in the world as aliens. Saint-Simonism has in it a
something true, grand and beautiful; the application of Christianity to
civil society, the legislation of Human Brotherhood.

“From this point of view I am a Saint-Simonian.

“What has placed this Society under an eclipse, though not under death,
is not the want of an idea, nor the lack of disciples. In my opinion it
wants a leader, a master, a manager. If there should be found a man of
genius and virtue who was religious and at the same time prudent, who
would bring the two horizons into one field of vision which should be
placed under the direction of the nascent ideas, I have no doubt that he
would transform it into a potent reality. Times in which there is an
anarchy of ideas, are favorable seasons for the germinating of new and
heroic thoughts.

“Society, to the eye of the philosopher, is in a state of disorder. It
has neither direction, object nor leader; and it is reduced accordingly
to the instinct of conservatism. A sect that is religious, moral, social
and political,—that has a creed, a watchword, an object, a leader, and
mind, if it were to advance compactly and directly at the midst of the
disordered ranks in the present social order, would inevitably gain the
victory. But it must bring safety and not ruin, attacking only what is
injurious and not that which helps, and calling religion back to reason
and love, prudence and Christian Brotherhood, having universal charity
and usefulness as its only title and only foundation.

“A law-maker requires young men ardent in zeal and on fire with the
hunger for faith, from which however, senseless dogmas have been
rejected. The organizers of Saint-Simonism have taken for their first
article of belief: war to the death between the family, property and
religion on one hand and ourselves on the other. They ought to perish.
The world, by the force of speech is not conquered; it is to be
converted, stirred, wrought into activity, changed.

“So long as an idea is not practical, it is not presentable to the world
of society. Human nature goes from the known to the unknown, but not
from the known to the absurd. That will be held back in the subordinate
effort. Before great revolutions, the signs are to be seen on the earth
and in the sky. The Saint-Simonians have had one class of those signs:
they have broken up as a body, and they are now more slowly at work
making leaders and soldiers for the new army.”

The vessel and its convoy arrived in the Bosphorus on the twenty-fifth
day of May. Lamartine, his wife and friends now took up their residence
at Buyukdéré, for the next two months. During this period they were
recipients of the most friendly attentions. The Grand Seigneur himself,
and the principal officials at Constantinople extended courtesies and
cordial demonstrations, exceeding any that had ever before been bestowed
to “Franks.” This was in recognition of the substantial help which had
been given to prevent the further dismemberment of the Ottoman empire.
Lamartine had been heralded everywhere as a personage of distinction,
and his reception was warm and cordial, almost as if he had been a royal
prince. His opinions were treasured, and his advice eagerly sought by
the ministers and representatives of the Government. He was admitted to
places from which other Europeans had been excluded, and so long as he
remained in Turkish territory, every necessary provision was made for
his safety and honorable recognition.

His journal of the voyage records minutely the occurrences and
observations which thus came within his notice.

Footnote 2:

  Talleyrand did not know Lamartine at this period. When some of his
  verses were recited to Lamennais he sprang from his chair, exclaiming,
  “Eureka! we have found a poet!”

Footnote 3:

  Edward Gibbon, the historian, who had known Lamartine’s mother in her
  girlhood, spent a year at a house near her residence. He greatly
  admired the child Alphonse and predicted his future career.

Footnote 4:

  The concièrges and porters at the large mansions in France were
  allowed to keep a lottery. A _quine_ consisted of five prizes.

Footnote 5:

  Leopold declined the crown of Greece and became the King of Belgium.

Footnote 6:

  The body of the daughter, at her dying request, had been embalmed and
  sent directly home for interment at Saint Point. The mother was in
  many respects like her husband’s mother, a devoted wife and indulgent
  parent, as well as the kindest of neighbors.

                  *       *       *       *       *

“Whoso takes good advice is secure from falling; but whoso rejects it,
falleth into the pit of his own conceit.”

_Gems from the East._




                           PASSAGE TO INDIA.
                          (Extracts Selected.)
                             WALT WHITMAN.


    (Curious in time I stand, noting the efforts of heroes,
    Is the deferment long? bitter the slander, poverty, death?
    Lies the seed unreck’d for centuries in the ground? lo, to God’s due
       occasion,
    Uprising in the night, it sprouts, blooms,
    And fills the earth with use and beauty.)

    O Thou transcendent,
    Nameless, the fibre and the breath,
    Light of the light, shedding forth universes, thou centre of them,
    Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving,
    Thou moral spiritual fountain—affection’s source—thou reservoir,
    (O pensive soul of me—O thirst unsatisfied—waitest not there?
    Waitest not haply for us somewhere there the Comrade perfect?)
    Thou pulse—thou motive of the stars, suns, systems,
    That circling, move in order, safe, harmonious,
    Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space,
    How should I think, how breathe a single breath, how speak, if, out
       of myself
    I could not launch, to those, superior universes?

    Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,
    At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,
    But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me,
    And lo, thou gently mastereth the orbs,
    Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
    And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space.
    Greater than stars or suns,
    Bounding O soul thou journeyest forth;
    What love than thine and ours could wider amplify?
    What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours O soul?
    What dreams of the ideal? what plans of purity, perfection,
       strength?
    What cheerful willingness for others’ sake to give up all?
    For others’ sake to suffer all?

    Reckoning ahead O soul, when thou, the time achiev’d,
    The seas all cross’d, weather’d the capes, the voyage done,
    Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim attain’d,
    As filled with friendship, love complete, the Elder Brother found,
    The Younger melts in fondness in his arms.



    Passage to more than India!
    O secret of the earth and sky!
    Of you O waters of the sea! O winding creeks and rivers!
    Of you O woods and fields! of you strong mountains of my land!
    Of you O prairies! of you gray rocks!
    O morning red! O clouds! O rain and snows!
    O day and night, passage to you!

    O sun and moon and all you stars! Sirius and Jupiter!
    Passage to you!

    Passage, immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins!
    Away O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!
    Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every sail!
    Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?
    Have we not grovel’d here long enough, eating and drinking like mere
       brutes?
    Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough?

    Sail forth—steer for the deep waters only,
    Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,
    For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
    And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

    O my brave soul!
    O farther, farther sail!
    O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?
    O farther, farther, farther sail!

To determine the real relations that exist between man and God is my
thought. It is the need of the times. We need to convince ourselves that
man is the object of all earthy resources if we ask ourselves if he is a
means to an end. If man is linked to all, is there nothing above him to
which, in his turn, he is bound? If he is the last of the unexplained
transformations which reach up to him, may he not be the tie between
visible and invisible nature? The action of the world is not an
absurdity; it leads up to an end, and this object cannot be society
constituted as ours is. There is a terrible gap between us and the
heavens.

In reality, we cannot ever enjoy or always suffer. To gain either
paradise or hell an enormous change must take place in us; without
either place, the masses can conceive no idea of God at all.

Is not the idea of motion stamped on the systems of worlds, sufficient
to prove God to us? We busy ourselves very little about the pretended
nothingness which precedes birth while we fumble in and ransack the dark
gulf that awaits us, that is, we make God responsible for our future and
we demand from him, no record of the past. To get out of this difficulty
the soul has been invented, but it is repugnant to our feelings to
render God obligated for human baseness, our disillusions, our decline
and fall. How can we admit in ourselves a divine principle over which a
potent liquor can get the advantage?

Can we imagine immaterial faculties which matter may utterly subjugate
whose exercise a grain of opium can prevent? Is not the communication of
motion to matter an unexplored abyss whose difficulties have been rather
displaced than resolved by Newton’s system? Motion is a _great soul_
whose alliance with matter is quite as difficult to explain as is the
production of thought in man.—BALZAC, _Louis Lambert_. (Translated by
Harriett Green Courtis.)




                            THE HUMAN CELL.
                       BY ARTHUR A. BEALE, M. B.


“To demonstrate that Brotherhood is a fact in Nature; to investigate the
laws of Nature and the divine powers in Man.”

When we fall away from the path of duty, when torn by the storms of
passion we forget that there reposes within the complexities of our
nature a divine spark—much more, perhaps, that we ourselves are a
universe, nay, a universe of Universes, a Great Eternal God,
controlling, energizing and creating worlds that live and have their day
and cease to be. But it is so. Hour by hour worlds are falling away and
with them ebb the vital forces of our being. Take a flake of scurf from
the head and put it under the microscope,—a new vista is opened up. And
yet, this is only a type of millions of like or dissimilar entities,
which are so bound together as to compose the mighty universe of man’s
body,—the least important of his constitution. These little lives take
different shapes to suit different necessities, but they agree in
certain essential features which we learn to call _the cell_. And
looking lower still this cell is of the same type as those found in the
animals and again in the plants. How very little difference, too,
between these and the monads of the mineral kingdom!

But keeping to man, these cells form themselves into societies, which we
call tissues, these into others we call organs, and the organs form
together a corporate organization, the body, which in a healthy state is
subservient to the synthesizing forces emanating from the Heart, where
lives the source of life, the divine Ruler. So the organs work together
in harmony. If any organ begins to absorb more attention and life than
is due to it, not only does it suffer itself, but brings discord into
the whole.

But as long as it observes its own duty and fulfils its place, so does
it maintain its own status, and receive its own benefits; for thus, and
thus alone, can it participate in the higher impulse, that comes from
that sacred centre.

As of the organs so of the cells of which each is composed, they must
act in accordance with the unified impulse of the organ, but so must
each cell be true to the heart of its own tiny body—whence, as I shall
try to show, comes the true impulse, by which it evolves,—that centre
where are played the divine harmonies and where stands the God directing
his forces in the building of “the temple not made with hands.”

This is a Universal Activity. It is the same process going on through
all the kingdoms of the Universe, from the tiny crystals to plants, from
plants to animals, and animals to man.

But specializing the cell we note not only that all the body is composed
of cells or the deposit of cells, but that one type of cells develops
from another type, and ultimately all cells result from one single cell
“into which,” in the words of Darwin, “life was breathed by the
Creator”—of course always understanding that we have not specified the
nature of the Creator.

If this is so, and no one in these times will dare to dispute it, it
begins to dawn upon us that this curious complex body of man is, as it
were, a tremendous society of entities, the separate individualities of
which, whilst retaining their place as such in the great body, are
swamped in the individuality of that one. Not only so, but as it will be
our endeavor to show later on, the healthy existence of each part
greatly depends on its maintaining its loyalty and subservience to the
supreme Chief, from which it gets its daily source of energy and
inspiration.

What is true of the part is true of the whole and _vice versa_. For in
its turn the body of man must be subservient to that of which it is a
part, and answer to the call of that which represents the corporate body
of bodies, and to the divine light within, “that lighteth every man that
cometh into the world,” which is one with the Father, the Divine over
soul, of which we are all dim reflections. So also of the part, the tiny
microcosm of man, the cell, it is in its turn a universe, a universe so
grand that the many revelations that scientific investigation has
unveiled makes that science stand aghast; but these, we may venture to
prophesy, are nothing to the occult secrets that still lie waiting for
revelation.

All that the magnificent symbolism of the Gnostics has taught us
concerning The Man Iesous and his relation to Ichthys the fish, the ark
and the ship, can be well applied to the _cell_, which is a veritable
Ark with its Holy of holies in which sit and meditate the holy ones, the
_prajapati_ of the Hindus and the Christos of the Gnostics. Veritably it
is _par excellence_ the Astral Vehicle, the ship floating on the watery
ocean, veritably it is the Dagon, the fish-man, the new teacher coming
from the unknown regions of the Silence, the boat of Vishnu carrying the
God-Man into the world of Manifestation. We may well exclaim: O God, how
manifest are thy works! how sublime are thy powers! And when we
contemplate the tiny vehicle of life under the microscope we may well
close-to the doors of the senses, take off the sandals and worship, for
are we not at the very altar of the Temple—the temple of the Almighty;
are we not face to face with the Creators? He that hath eyes to see let
him see!

Amongst the great contributors to the Science of the Cell perhaps none
has approached nearer the Holy of Holies—none so nearly tore aside the
Veil of Isis, as H. P. B. has practically told us, than Professor
Weissmann in his contribution on the Germ Plasm and the New Problem of
Heredity as handled by him. Under the guiding hand of this savant we see
the cell in a new light, we begin to see kingdom within kingdom; and had
he but recognized the other side, had he but explored the dark side of
the Moon, much more might have been written, many more mouths might have
gaped and many more sceptics have smiled. Professor Weissmann however
has found a mare’s nest. He has raised the devil, but forgotten to give
him something to do, and as of old we cannot help exclaiming, what next!
The cell of Weissmann like the cell of most other students, is a tiny
ball of protoplasm with a central nucleus (the Holy of Holies, Fish Man,
etc.) but unlike that of other writers, instead of containing more
differentiated protoplasm, taking the forms of meaningless and
accidental rods, our revered professor has discovered a Nest of
Creators. He tells us that the greater portion of the cell does not in
any way participate in the process of hereditary transmission. Nay,
further still, not only does he regard the nucleus as the all important
particle but to quote his own words: “The law that only a certain part
of the nuclear matter is to be regarded as the hereditary substance
appears to me to receive fresh support from all the more recent
observations.”

Now the parts referred to are a series of minute rod-like structures
called _chromatin rods_ that are very active and manifest all kinds of
changes according to necessity, especially at that critical period in
the history of a cell called cell-division, when it is about to
propagate its species by _making itself_ into two by equal distributions
of its substance between its two selves. For you must know that when a
cell divides (and this does not refer to human cells alone, but all
vegetable and animal cells from the simplest to the most complex) the
products are two so-called “daughter cells,” but they are daughters
without a mother. It is one of the most mystical processes in existence
and contains much secret knowledge for it contains the mystery of the
birth of two from one. In this process, called in scientific parlance
_Karyokinesis_, these little rods play a most important part, nay, the
_all-important_ part, for the whole process commences with them and
proceeds from the centre outward. There is at the commencement of the
process a disturbance, a series of vibrations throughout the nucleus.
These little rods immediately form into a kind of reticulum or network;
then this network arranges itself into an indefinite spiral, at which
instant two mysterious bodies issue from the mass at opposite poles, and
take up a position in the cell, at some distance from the coil of rods;
then the spiral breaks up into two opposing sets of loops.

Ultimately these two sets of rods settle down in the neighborhood of the
two little bodies (_centrosomes_) shot out, or, I should perhaps say,
are attracted separately to the two poles of the cell by the
_centrosomes_. Then a cell wall forms between; the one cell becomes two.

There are some very occult forces at work behind all this, and they
generally are referred to, to cover our ignorance, as the law of
polarity, albeit that this law, whatever it is, involves the most occult
of the creative forces, in fact of all manifestation.

To go back, Dr. Weissmann does not consider these rods which he calls
_idants_ as the essential units, but states that in their turn these are
themselves composed of more minute bodies he calls _ids_.

In this respect, however, he considers protoplasm as a whole as
composed, not of so many chemical compounds, having an indefinite and
uncontrollable action on one another, but of collections of “molecules
united into a single group.” These molecules he calls _biophors_. The
biophors, as bearers of vitality, possess the power of growth and of
multiplication by fission. But the biophors which go to make up the
rods, have a more specific character of their own, and are the carriers
of those minuter bodies still which this savant speaks of as the real
creative units, or what he calls “_determinants_.” These ultimate
determinants, smaller than microscopic, hold within their tiny hearts
the ideal shape of the part which they are destined to control, carried
and distributed in the process of evolution of the creature by the
process of cell division.

This conception, enormous advance as it is on the previous materialism
of Huxley’s protoplasm, is yet so pregnant with the taint of the
materialistic age, that it requires modifying before it can even be
admitted as a logical hypothesis. For one must ask; if the cell gets its
impulse from the nucleus, the nucleus from the rods that inhabit it,
these rods from the little biophors of which they are composed, and
these from the determinants, where on earth do the determinants get it
from? We are reminded, moreover, that there was a time, not far away,
when this particular cell had no separate existence of its own. And if
we are directed back to the ovaries, and from them to the germinal
layer, and this from the cell again, still there is no escape, for we
may well ask with the Duke of Argyle: “What then! Whence the first?”

But the thing has a more definite and easy solution, for if these
material units are the Creators, and if as it is stated, the ingredients
of matter, especially sentient matter (so-called) are constantly
undergoing motion and change, by displacement; what about these units
when the time comes for them to play their part, has not their substance
been lost and replaced over and over again.

So we come back to our philosophy and we realize what our Chief, W. Q.
Judge, taught us, that the cell only has an existence as an _idea_.
Thinking of this word for a moment, looking it up in the dictionary we
find the following _verbatim_ (Gr. idea, from _idein_, to see) “one of
the archetypes or patterns of Created things, conceived by the
Platonists to have existed from eternity in the mind of the Deity.”[7]
Now look at the words used by Dr. Weissmann, _idants_ and _ids_. Is
there not something very suggestive here. We are then dealing not with
matter alone, but with ideas; nay, more, what is matter but an idea or
congeries of ideas? For as has been well said we know nothing of matter
_per se_ but only the manifestation of matter. It is the idea not the
matter that takes form. Now we must surely recognize that ideas as
_things_ are not causes but effects. So our professor all this time has
been dealing with effects and gets these mixed up with the causes. If
cells and the contents are ideas containing ideas, and if idea means
that which is seen, then there must somewhere be a Seer, and such a seer
without any sophistry must be a magician—not because we associate the
word Seer with magician, but quite independently.

Now we have realized that the body of man is composed of many minuter
entities, over which stands the supreme ruler. Each organ is composed of
many entities, over which rules the conscious governor of that organ,
and so on to the little cells which in their turn are composed of
minuter creatures each having a conscious existence of its own, whilst
that Consciousness is composed of the consciousness of all its component
lives. That consciousness is in each case part of the Divine
consciousness that pervades all things and acts in direct proportion to
its plane of activity.

This Divine Consciousness in man which is the real man—real in the sense
of permanency—is quite on a par with the Creators, though that real self
is perhaps not known to any of our personal selves. But then stands that
real Self at the commencement of each New Birth. As the process of
evolution goes on each step in the meditation of this mighty Self as he
contemplates existence, finds a responsive thrill in the tiny ovum,
bound to himself by the strong bonds of Karma. As he emerges in
contemplation from the mineral to the vegetable and on to the animal, so
the sensitive plasm of the germ responds. Page after page of the history
of man is retold till once more the story is complete to the point where
the previous incarnation ended; then the child is born to carry on the
history as best he may.

So in the cell the determinants are the little bundles of ideas coming
from the Magician (ourselves) and being instilled bit by bit into the
heart of each of those groups of molecules and ensouling it, so the tale
is told and this side of manifestation opens out into the beautiful
blossom of Humanity, moulded also in part by the parental influences
which can make or mar the impulse as it comes straight from the
Creator’s mind. Make or mar, and yet how few women think of the real,
sacred and holy duty of parentage. How hellish the times in which any
dares to point the finger of scorn and shame at a blessed pregnant
woman. But as we are beginning to understand, soon shall we be able to
reverence them all as the sacredness of motherhood is understood.

This little picture contains the whole of our philosophy, and it must be
left more or less to the intuitions of each. But in closing we can say
this much. The study of the cell teaches that Brotherhood is a fact in
nature. It teaches that that brotherhood depends on the harmonious
coördinate activity of many entities, working together united by the
recognition of the one source of life and inspiration. It also teaches
the great Divine mystery that hangs about every new birth, and that the
real seat of that Divinity is in the Hearts of all Creatures.

There is one more lesson that we ought not to miss. We have seen the
magnificent results of harmonious action which is always synthetical and
finds its highest expression in Love and Compassion issuing from the
heart.

Sometimes the same force becomes converted into Hate, when once the
centrifugal disintegrating force is set going and gains the ascendancy,
selfish in nature, self-centred, it cuts away the bonds that bind man to
his fellows; he tries, but in vain, to carry on an existence of his own,
but he soon finds that he has no existence, no meaning, no life apart
from the whole. The foolish virgins repent too late, their light has
gone out, they have no oil of life with which to kindle their lamps
anew. In their own blind conceit they are lost. Nay, but look! Have not
some demons, spooks and malignant fiends got hold of them and, having
gained an entrance, are now without their consent messengers of Disease
and Death. Is this not so of the cells? Some little impulse causes them
to pursue a course contrary to the interests of the whole; for a time
they are centres of discord; and neuralgia, rheumatism, indigestion,
etc., are the result. But anon the cells fall away and, as entities,
die. The smaller containing entities, the Chromatin rods, little
pregnant particles of life are set free. Losing their parental
protection and cares, they go on with the impulse given them, till some
malignant breeze sweeps over them and they become the victims and
servants of hate, disease and Death. Are these not the germs of disease
that science is fighting about just now? Verily! verily! who shall deny?
These little escaped convicts, the rods, previously servants of Love,
become now the free agents of disease. They are none other than the
bacilli, associated with so many pestilences; and a further
disintegration produces spores—the ingredients of bacilli. These are not
the diseases, nor yet the cause (primary), they are merely the vehicles
of disease. Can we not see how well this applies to every organism and
organization as an entity? Poor lost bacilli, how hardly have ye been
used by your masters!

Footnote 7:

  _The Library Dictionary._

                  *       *       *       *       *

“He who does not recognize bread and salt is worse than a wild wolf.”

_Gems from the East._




                           THE SOKRATIC CLUB.
                               By SOLON.
                             (_Continued._)


So much interest had been aroused by the conversation on Art and the
Drama as an Educative Factor which I have already recorded, that there
was a larger attendance than usual at the next meeting of the Club.
Everyone was glad to see Madam Purple who it was known to all had
established a school to revive the ancient wisdom and to teach the laws
of physical, moral and mental health and of spiritual development and
for the purpose of accentuating the importance of Music and Drama as
vital educative factors had already reproduced one of the old Greek
Tragedies in such a way as to arouse the attention of the public and
astonish the critics, touching a new chord and awakening new
possibilities for the influence of the stage on the lives and characters
of the people.

Dr. Roberts had evidently not yet been convinced of the importance of
this work though he had seen and even praised the production of
Æschylus’ Eumenides, for he still reiterated his old objections. The
discussion so far had been on general lines, but now it turned more
particularly on the Drama.

_Dr. Roberts._—“I cannot see how the performance of Eumenides or any
play you may take from the ancients can have any such effect that you
claim it will have. The people who attend will see no more in it than in
any other play. Of course it will have its own characteristics and no
doubt its classical beauty, but will not these peculiar features appeal
only to the very few? How will you make it a factor in the education of
the masses?”

_The Professor._—“I do not think you understand the real character of
the ancient drama, Doctor. Probably, also with the exception of the
recent production, you base your ideas of the attractiveness of Greek
Plays upon the presentations which are occasionally given at one of the
Universities. Classical these may be in a sense, I admit, but certainly
they are severe.”

_Dr. Roberts._—“How can they help but be severe. I remember when at
college that one of these plays was acted by some of the students, but
for my part I saw nothing particular in it.”

_Mme. Purple._-“Was not that possibly because those who produced the
play and enacted the parts, themselves saw nothing in it beyond the mere
incident as told in so many words?

“The most beautiful things remain invisible to those who have not eyes
to see. Look at the hundreds and thousands in every large city and,
strange to say, more particularly in country districts, who know nothing
of the beauty and sublimity of the heavens and nature around them. Many
a farmer looks at the sky simply to note the changes of the weather. The
magnificence of cloud effect, the glory of the sunrise and the quivering
of the eternal stars, he never sees. And even those who profess to be
lovers of nature, how little more than external beauty do they see? Do
they indeed see any deeper than the surface of things and but rarely
pierce the veil to behold with awe and wonderment the reality?”

_Dr. Roberts._—“But, Madam Purple,....”

_The Professor._—“Ah! Doctor, it is always, ‘but’. Isn’t it all true,
with no ‘but’?”

_Dr. Roberts._—“Yes, I grant you that what Madam Purple said about the
appreciation of nature is true, and even that the same thing applies to
the appreciation of art and music and the drama. But—I was going to
say—it seems to me your illustration is too lofty for the case under
consideration. It is true one may rise to the greatest heights of
consciousness under the influence of music and poetry and the
contemplation of high ideals and if I understand you aright, Madam
Purple, you hold these are the same high feelings that may be aroused by
the grand harmonies of nature and by what perhaps is meant by the music
of the spheres. Do I catch your meaning?”

_Madam Purple._—“Yes, Doctor, you have caught the idea in part, but
music and poetry and the harmonies of nature too often exercise only
what I might call an unconscious and transitory influence—not
deep-seated in any sense—because men will not open their eyes and lend
their ears. The great anthem of nature is ever being sung; life is joy
and harmony; but alas, there are so many who will not open their hearts
to the song and the sunshine. But I see you wish to say something more,
Doctor.”

_Dr. Roberts._—“Yes, I grant this may be true, no doubt it is true, but
to return to the old Greek tragedies, although there may be lofty ideas
in them, I fail to see that they will produce the effect you anticipate.
There is no music in them and they are altogether too cold and bare.
Besides, what meaning do they hold, deeper than that which may be seen
by the ordinary reader?”

_The Professor._—“A meaning that the mere student of languages and
literature will never find, but one that to the student of life, to one
who recognizes that there is an inner life, will ever unfold more and
more and reveal such beauties and harmonies that will thrill the very
soul.”

_Dr. Roberts._—“I do not see it, though I grant that high moral lessons
may be contained in the old Greek poetry and tragedies, but at the same
time there is so much that is mere fancy. We have passed the age of the
childhood of the race when the mythological tales of the gods and
goddesses were seriously taken. I do not deny that there may be many
valuable lessons in these, but I certainly think that you are reading
into them a great deal that is not there. Pardon my frankness, but I
really wish to understand your position.”

_The Professor._—“It is not a question of reading a meaning into them,
but of being able to draw the meaning out, and to do this requires a
master-hand. No modern scholar who is not a mystic will find it, and it
is no wonder it has been lost to the ordinary reader.”

_Madam Purple._—“Doctor, you thought my illustration of the beauties of
nature too high, but after all the beauties which we see in nature are
but the reflection of the beauties in the soul, and do not exist save to
him who has developed some beauty of soul. The old Greek tragedies, and
particularly those of Æschylus, are portrayals of the life and struggles
of the soul.”

Just then Dr. Wyld came into the room. He had been present at the
performance of the Play, and had expressed himself so pleased with it
that the Professor had asked him to visit the Club.

The Doctor came over immediately to where Madam Purple and the Professor
were sitting, and these meetings being more or less informal, the
conversation was interrupted for the exchange of greetings.

Dr. Wyld is a very tall, broad-shouldered, spare man, I should judge
about seventy years old, but carrying his age gracefully. He is one of
the best known Greek scholars, of a keen and vigorous intellect.
Dignified, yet with a keen appreciation of humor and fond of a good
story as well as able to tell one. Not only is he a profound scholar of
Greek and Neo-platonic literature, but of the world’s literature,
ancient and modern. He is at once a mystic and a keen observer of men,
and had led a very active life, especially in the literary world, as an
author, and had also written for some of the leading newspapers of the
metropolis. In this way he had met very many of the prominent public
men, both literary and political, of the past half-century. It had been
my privilege to spend many a delightful hour with him and in that way I
have gained a clearer conception of the history of the United States
than from any reading I have done, and also of the beauties of the
writings of the old philosophers, especially the Neo-platonists.

His tall figure and dignified bearing would attract attention in any
gathering, and as he entered the room with his long stride, all eyes
were turned towards him.

The Professor rose to receive him. The room was beautifully yet simply
decorated with hangings of harmonious colors, and the Doctor noticed
these immediately and addressing Madam Purple:

_Dr. Wyld._—“What a pleasure it is to come into a room where there is
such harmony of tone and color. I can well understand what the Professor
told me that your meetings here are always delightful. The very
atmosphere seems conducive to harmony of feeling and the awakening of
high thought.”

_Madam Purple._—“That is true, Doctor, I hold that color ought to be
made a very important factor in life, and that the harmonies of sound
and color are essential features of true education.”

_Dr. Wyld._—“And I think you have already struck the key-note of this in
your production of the Eumenides, and I wish to tell you of the rare
treat it was to me to witness it and the opportunity it gave me of
really judging what a Greek play is like—such as could never be gained
from reading. It had all the aroma of ancient Athens. One of my friends
remarked that it had the beauty of a Greek statue, but I would go
further, for it had also the grace and beauty of life. I do not mean
that the performance was perfect but it was the spirit that pervaded it
that gave it this great charm. And after seeing it I do not wonder in
coming here that you also carry out your ideas of harmony in the
decoration of your Club-room. It is a further carrying out of what you
teach and which I fully agree with, that what is most needed in our
educational system and in life generally is a sense of harmony and of
the due proportion of things.”

Here the Rev. Alex. Fulsom, who had come in a short time before Dr.
Wyld, and had listened more attentively than usual (without going to
sleep) to the conversation, moved his chair a little forward as if to
speak, but waited a moment. Although he always expressed himself as most
sensitive to harmonious shades of color and adored—as he expressed
it—Greek statuary, though he equally adored a pretty bonnet,
nevertheless did not in any way support Madam Purple in her revival of
the ancient Drama.

_The Professor._—“Well, Alec, what is it now? Another objection? I’m
beginning to think you belong to some objection society, whose main
purpose is to object to everything on principle and for the sake of
objecting. Come, tell us now, haven’t you pledged yourself to the
following:—‘I pledge myself to always object to everything that may be
proposed by anybody?’ But for once, Alec, put your objections on one
side and enter into the spirit of the subject.”

_Rev. Alex. Fulsom._—“No, Professor, I am not to be turned aside from my
opinion by any method of badinage or ratiocination. And what is more, I
think it my duty to express my views. As I have said before, it appears
to me altogether beneath the dignity of a Leader and Teacher in such a
cause as ours to be concerned in the production of a play—whether Greek
or not—or to spend so much time and the energies of the Club in mere
philanthropic work. The latter, doubtless, is laudable enough but the
Club has other aims to pursue, and it seems to me to have departed from
its time-honored methods of study. Indeed, the study of the philosophy
seems to be almost completely overlooked nowadays.”

_The Professor._—“Having delivered yourself of your objection, I trust
you feel a little relieved, my friend, but you have not hit the nail on
the head, Alec. Study is not overlooked, but on the contrary, our
students are learning how to study and the true value of study as the
precursor of right action. Thanks to Madam Purple, the study of
philosophy is no longer looked upon as the end and aim of life.
Theoretical study is good and necessary, but our students realize that
Brotherhood is more than a theory, that it is an actual fact to be
consciously realized and that they must seek to make Theosophy a living
power in their lives.

“You know well the scriptural saying which I will slightly paraphrase,
‘Let your light so shine before men, that they seeing your good works
will glorify the higher law and follow it.’ It behooves us to practice
Brotherhood as well as to profess it. But it is the things they don’t
like that the objectors see but they fail to see that the study which
they are crying out for is still pursued though on higher and broader
lines than heretofore, become possible by the advance made by the whole
Movement. The inner work and the real study have never ceased but have
taken on a deeper meaning. Thank the gods, instead of the members
seeking to have or to become special _gurus_ and imagining themselves
better than others, the whole organization moves along in touch with the
life of the world, all striving ever to put into practice that which
they preach. The time-honored methods of which you speak were fast
becoming time-honored ruts and you ought to thank your stars, that here
is an opportunity to get out of the ruts and enter upon a broader field
of life and activity as well as of study. And so far as the Play is
concerned you seemed to have missed entirely its purpose and the wide
influence which can thus be exerted in the world.”

_Rev. Alex. Fulsom._—“There may be some good in it no doubt, but there
are so many other things that are needed in the world. I certainly think
a teacher would have a higher work to do. There are enough
philanthropists and elevators of the drama, whereas our philosophy is
unique, and surely we ought to carry out the original plans of the
Founder.”

_The Professor._—“And you assume, I might say, _presume_, to know what
those original plans were, but your conception of them admits of no
growth, but only stagnation or the continuing in ruts which so many have
formed for themselves through their misconception and limited knowledge
of, if not deliberate indifference to those plans.”

I often wondered how it was the Professor did not lose patience
completely with the Rev. Alec., always so pessimistic, trying to tear
down. But then we all knew that his moods depended on his digestion, and
upon that subtle disease—the love of approbation and prominence.

_Madam Purple._—“Mr. Fulsom, do, I beg of you, try to rise a little
above your pessimistic fears and let a little of the sunshine of hope
and trust come into your heart. Students of Theosophy above all others
ought to be able to take a larger grasp of the problems of life and
perceive that the greatest truths which will ultimately bring the
grandest results and happiness to all mankind must necessarily be often
at first obscured; that to help the masses we must begin where they can
appreciate the work, and so move out gradually along the lines of least
resistance. Thus will all those who seek the Light be attracted and
helped, whatever their development. Our grand philosophy must be
presented in various ways if the many different minds are to be touched,
for you well know that all men are not built alike—to use a common
expression. Babes need to be fed as well as strong men. For some the
teaching must be given in parables and there are some truths that but
few can bear to hear. As for the original plan of the work, H. P. B.,
the great artist, spread the canvas and sketched the outline with a bold
hand, then the second Helper put in the colors of the background thus
making clearer the design upon the trestle board, but do you think you
have been able to see the whole of the grand design and have grasped the
harmonious proportions of the noble edifice in all their beauty and
grace.”

Then turning her head for a moment with her wonderful smile, Madam
Purple continued after a short pause.

“Imagine for one moment that when H. P. B. began her work in the world
she could have shown what is now being done, or that it could be shown
to you what will be the outcome of her efforts two hundred years hence,
would it not be entirely beyond belief, can you even imagine it? There
must be a _gradual_ growth and unfoldment suited to the comprehension of
the people. How then dare anyone say that the present activities are
contrary to the plan of H. P. B. Ah! Mr. Fulsom, is not such a position
evidence of retrogression and not of growth?

“But, pardon me, Dr. Wyld, this is somewhat of a digression from the
subject of the Greek play which you were discussing. Let us come back in
thought to the old Greek Drama. There, at least, the gods wait for us
and call to us to rise above this XIXth Century materialism into the
realm of the beautiful, the ideal and the true.”

_Dr. Wyld._—“An almost unknown land to so many, but I hail with joy the
prospects that once more the geography of that celestial country shall
form part of the education of the race and lead us further back in the
history of humanity into that greater and more ancient land of the
pyramids and the silent sphinx.”

_Madam Purple._—“And from there further back still to prehistoric
America, which was in the early days the ancient Land of Light when
Egypt was yet young and whence Egypt derived her wisdom and her
science.”

_Dr. Wyld._—“That is indeed interesting, though to me it is not
difficult to believe. It opens out a new chapter in the life of humanity
and I doubt not that if it can be shown to be so, it will solve many
problems in the history of man’s development. But will you not tell us
further on this subject.”

_Madam Purple._—“Time would not permit of going into it at any length,
Doctor, but I will say this. Time will bring the proof of what I say.
Archæological research started at the right time, which is not far
distant, in this country and in Central America will supply clear
evidence of the truth of this statement.” She paused a moment, then
continued:

“My friends, with all these grand possibilities in view, when such
momentous questions are involved that will bring such priceless
knowledge to the human race, can you wonder that the real workers find
time all too precious to be frittered away in useless argument. It is
work, work, work, that our glorious cause demands of us.”

Madam Purple spoke with so much earnestness, that it stirred one’s heart
to its very depths, old memories of the long forgotten past seemed about
to awaken, pictures of the ancient times flitted across the vision, and
of the future when the glories of the past should be revived. One young
lady of slight figure and pale face, an enthusiastic worker, always
present at the meetings, but who never ventured to say a word, now
exclaimed:

“The very thought of it brings new life, new hope. Surely we haven’t any
time to sit and mope over the little frictions that beset our paths.
Surely we should keep on working and trusting that we may be a part of
this new life and each of us become individually a hope and a light to
those who would walk this broad path of knowledge towards the glorious
future that awaits us.”

_Dr. Wyld._—“One can see even now indications that the world is
advancing to a broader field of thought. The revival of the ancient
drama and the way the ‘Eumenides’ was received show this clearly and
show that the links with the mighty past exist in the hearts of
men—albeit unconsciously to most, but ready to be awakened into
responsive action when again the picture of that long forgotten life is
presented before them. I heard with much interest that in one city where
the play was given, the notices of the performance were given out in
almost every church in the city. And one prominent minister said it was
the finest study of conscience scourging for sin and of the Divine Power
to pardon and transform, he ever saw. He said such plays are better than
sermons.”

_Madam Purple._—“It is indeed gratifying that there are so many
interested in almost every line of work that will benefit humanity and
who are naturally drawn to help along educative lines. All work to be of
real benefit must be educative.”

_Dr. Wyld._—“Let me go back to what I said just after I came into the
room, it comes upon me with greater and greater force, and I felt it too
while watching the performance that somehow it moved one right away from
this grasping, money-making world to a new-old world near to the silence
and peace of things where words are not needed.”

_Madam Purple._—“May it not be that by taking up this Drama in the right
spirit and reviving the ancient life and consciousness by going back in
thought to old Athens, we have started anew the vibrations which
resulted in the beauty of Greek art and life. Then here in the Club
where but rarely any discordant note arises, but where we come together
in harmony there comes an indescribable something that leaves its
impress on the heart, of peace and joy and at the same time a sense of
courage and unconquerable energy to carry on this work that our beloved
H. P. B. and the Chief began. This is a peculiar time at the end of the
century, of such vast importance that is scarcely realized by any.”

_The Professor._—“It has been a century of unrest, and nothing is more
needed than that this keynote of harmony should be struck at this time,
it is in this that lies the hope of the future, and it is in this spirit
of harmony that actuates the workers to-day that lies the guarantee that
the work will be carried into the next century, though one here and
there, unable to go forward in the new age, must be left behind.”

_Dr. Wyld._—“Madam Purple, will you not tell us more about Æschylus’
purpose in writing his plays, for, like Shakespeare’s, I would declare
them to be ‘not of an age, but for all time.’”

_Madam Purple._—“Yes, I think Æschylus and Shakespeare may well be
compared, for each taught the truths of life, though each veiled them in
forms suited to the times in which they wrote. It is perfectly evident
to the deep student that there is an inner meaning to the plays of
Æschylus, and it may be that in his earnestness and endeavor to instruct
the people and bring out these truths he became so enthused that he
introduced some features of the Inner Mysteries, and although these
could only be recognized and interpreted by Initiates, yet the story is
he was condemned to death for this. It is true the inner meaning had to
be clothed in a form adapted to the tastes of the people. In those days
Greece had begun to retrograde, and the true idea of religion had become
obscured in the minds of the masses. It had begun to take on a gruesome
aspect, and that which had the greatest hold upon them was fear and the
dread of punishment. Æschylus, like all great teachers, adapted his
teachings to the mind of his hearers. Instead of taking them so high
that they could find no foothold, he used their ordinary conception of
religion and took them forward one step at a time. To have brought out
the teaching in all its power and grandeur would perhaps have dazzled
them, and being beyond their grasp would have seemed to them to be a
tearing down of their present conceptions and ideals, and thus have
thrown them back and into rebellion.”

_The Professor._—“There are plenty of evidences of this in modern life,
of would-be teachers who, ignorant of the laws of growth and
development, seek to tear down and at the same time to dazzle their
hearers with knowledge which they themselves have not half-digested, and
instead of bringing light and freedom, they but imprison and fetter the
mind more closely. It is just as though to hasten the growth of a tender
plant a gardener would bring it out of a cool and shady spot into the
full glare of the sun. Its life would be burned out by that which is the
very source of its life.”

_Madam Purple._—“But in Æschylus the teaching is there, though veiled.
The wise teacher does not tear down until a new foothold has been found.
He builds, constructs and educates, thus slowly leading to a higher
level, disengaging the minds gradually from error by instilling a higher
conception of truth. The inner teaching runs through it all like a
golden thread in a many colored tapestry, now appearing, now apparently
lost, but in reality only hidden from the casual observer yet present
still to him who has eyes to see.

“A great effort was made by the Initiates at about the time of Æschylus
to revive in the heart of the Greeks a love for the ancient wisdom which
they had received originally from Egypt. Æschylus himself had been
instructed by teachers not known to the world and had been prepared to
take part in this work long before he appeared openly as a teacher and a
writer. Those who had the best interests of the people at heart and who
were ‘called’ to serve as spiritual teachers were ever seeking to
educate them not according to what the people demanded of them but
according to their needs. Among these was Æschylus. He made no great
claims for himself but was a stranger to fear, and so deeply was he
imbued with the love of humanity and his desire to serve it that he
became indifferent to criticism, and dared to step out into the arena of
life with a boldness that to those who see only through the small
glasses of vanity and ambition and who could not understand him, may
have seemed egotism. But those who can follow the inner meaning of his
writings and can see his great purpose, recognize him as a true servant
and lover of humanity. What cared he for the hatred and opposition of
those who loved personal power and sought to keep the people in
ignorance, who saw that his grand work for helping humanity would thwart
their designs and block their selfish paths. It was these who persecuted
him and caused him to be condemned—not his fellow-initiates and comrades
or those who truly loved wisdom and freedom.

“The chief of the persecutors of Æschylus was one who had the ambition
to hold the place that he had in the hearts of the people and not
succeeding in this sought to destroy him. Yet in spite of his many
trials and persecutions his works and memory still live as a monument to
his aspirations and noble efforts. Yet even to-day he is only partly
understood and like many other teachers will have to wait for the
revolutions of the times and the further evolution of man before the
grander meaning of his great work is made manifest.

“But it has ever been so in the history of man. History but repeated
herself in the case of Æschylus, in the case of H. P. B. and many
another. Those who would help humanity know of a surety what to expect,
yet they falter not, nay, they even gain new courage and endurance under
the persecution, for is there not in their hearts the Light of Truth and
the love of all true comrades of the Ages to cheer their path? The
devotion of one faithful heart outweighs in the balance a multitude of
persecutors.”

[In future accounts of the Sokratic Club some of the characters will
appear under other names, but some of our readers who are interested
will doubtless be able to tell the identity.—Solon.]




                           STUDENTS’ COLUMN.
                          THE BASIS OF ETHICS.


In the December number of UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD the question is asked:
“Whence arises the sense of duty? In what does it originate?” The
answers given are good; and V. F. touches the key-note in the words “he
owes it to _himself_,” etc.

The question and the discussions recalled to my mind the answer given to
the same question by Dr. Hickok of Union College in his treatise on
Moral Science, which was published in 1853, and used as a text-book in
the University of Vermont a few years later.

It is too often taken for granted that a Christian must find a new basis
of ethics and a new rule of right in order to justify his acceptance of
the Theosophical teachings. This is far from the case, even assuming for
the sake of the argument what is not true in fact, that theosophy
rejects the Bible; for the great majority of Christian writers on this
subject have not founded their systems on the Bible, or upon any
religious system whatever, but have, so far as they discuss religious
duties, treated them as a part of some greater ethical whole. Such is
the case in the manual of Dr. Hickok. He only needs to bring out more
clearly the unity of finite spirits in Absolute Spirit, and to note the
proper distinction between personality and individuality and between
individuality and the One Life—a distinction that is logical rather than
metaphysical—and to enlarge his view so as to include the tenet of
reincarnation with its correlative doctrines, to make his system very
good Theosophy. His foundation is impregnable; but by overlooking the
unity of the finite in the infinite, and by clinging to the notion of a
personal God distinct from the Higher Self, he brings that God into
judgment before the finite spirit of man. This makes the Second Part of
his treatise, on Divine Government, weak and halting in comparison with
the First Part, on Pure Morality. His work would have been simplified
and strengthened beyond measure could he have seen that the self before
whom man stands in the inner sanctuary of his being is the Higher Self
of our teachings, and is one with the highest Deity. I quote Dr.
Hickok’s statement of the basis of ethics and of the source of our sense
of duty.

“Whether absolute or finite spirit, there is to each an inner world of
conscious prerogative—revealed to itself completely, and to itself only,
except as the absolute includes the finite—and from which comes forth
perpetually the imperative, that every action be restrained by that
which is due to its own dignity. It is this consciousness of the
intrinsic excellency of spiritual being, which awakens the reverence
that every man is forced to feel when he is brought fairly to stand
alone in the presence of his own spirit. As if another and a divine self
scanned and judged every purpose and thought of the acting self, so is
every man when arraigned before his own personality, and made to hear
with uncovered head his sentence of self-justification or
self-condemnation. There is an awful sanctuary in every immortal spirit,
and man needs nothing more than to exclude all else, and stand alone
before himself, to be made conscious of an authority he can neither
dethrone nor delude. From its approbation comes self-respect; from its
disapprobation, self-contempt. A stern behest is ever upon him, that he
do nothing to degrade the real dignity of his spiritual being. He is a
law to himself, and has both the judge and executioner within him and
inseparable from him. The claim of this intrinsic excellency of
spiritual being, as apprehended by the reason may be known as the
_objective_ Rule of right.

“We may call this the imperative of reason, the constraint of
conscience, or the voice of God within him; but by whatever terms
expressed, the real meaning will be, that every man has consciously the
bond upon him _to do that, and that only, which is due to his spiritual
excellency_. The motive to this is not any gratification of a want, not
any satisfying of a craving, and thus to be done for a price in
happiness; but it is solely that he may _be_ just what the intrinsic
excellency of his own spirit demands that he _should be_. Enough for
him, that he _is_, in the sight of his own spirit, and of all spirits,
worthy of spiritual approbation. Not only would he not sell this
worthiness of character for any price, but he has not attained it for
the sake of a reward beyond it. That it was not the end, but a means to
a further end, would make it wholly mercenary, and the very worthiness
he speaks of would be profaned to a marketable commodity. He willingly
then would be anything else if he could get equal wages for it. To be
thus worthy of spiritual approbation is the attainment of the highest
dignity, and may be called the _subjective_ end of ethics, and is a
_moral good_.

“This is the ultimate end of rational being; the end of all ends. As
worthy of happiness, this may now righteously be _given_, and
righteously _taken_, but not righteously _paid_ as a price nor _claimed_
as wages. The _good_ is the _being worthy_, not that he is to get
something for it. The highest good—the SUMMUM BONUM—is _worthiness of
spiritual approbation_.”

The italics and capitals are Dr. Hickok’s. “As if another and a divine
self scanned and judged every purpose and thought of the acting self,”
could hardly be improved by any of our theosophical writers.

G. A. MARSHALL.

DARLINGTON, Wis., Dec. 29, 1898.




                        YOUNG FOLKS’ DEPARTMENT.


                            THE WESTON TEN.
                         BY MARGARET S. LLOYD.
                             I. STILL POOL.

Weston, Massachusetts, is a beautiful little New England town, with the
cheerful, home-like air that is almost always found in the villages of
that State. It is situated in a pleasant, green valley, surrounded by
hills, and one can see the mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont from
the main street of the village. The Connecticut River flows past the
western part of the town and there are many pleasant walks in the
neighborhood.

The children of Weston, and there are many children in this pretty
village, love best to go down to the river, or else to take the long
walk to Quan Glen.

After leaving the long main street of the village, with its rows of
comfortable-looking big white houses, and double row of elm trees, a
turn to the north brings one, after a half-hour’s walk, to Quan Glen. It
is a lovely little place, always green even in the severe winter, for it
is sheltered on either side by high banks of pine, birch, and other
trees, that on the north side of the Glen lead away into deep woods. The
bottom of the Glen is covered with a soft carpet of mosses and ferns,
and through the middle runs a clear stream of water, which makes a
pleasant murmur as it ripples and plashes over the white pebbles which
compose its bed.

It was on a hot day in August when a party of children came through the
woods and prepared to descend the high bank leading down to the Glen.
Out of the hot sunshine and into the cool green of the shade trees made
a delightful change after their long walk, and they pushed forward
through the branches and tall grass and ferns. There were ten children,
four boys and six girls. The eldest of the children was Phœbe Allen, a
tall, slender girl of fourteen who seemed to be a sort of little queen
among the others, as they were constantly appealing to her and running
up to show some new flower or especially nice fern they had found. Tommy
Jones was the youngest member of the party. He was seven years old and
still wore the queer over-all blue checked apron which little boys and
girls alike wore at this period, thirty years ago. The apron made a
splendid play-dress and was really very comfortable, although our friend
Tommy was a quaint-looking little figure as he trotted along, the ruffle
of his apron forming a big collar around his neck, from which his head
stood out like some new kind of a daisy—a daisy with bright yellow hair
and dreamy grey eyes!

Tommy was jolly and full of fun and laughter, but he had his periods of
being quiet and this afternoon was one of them. At such times his
playmates had learned to leave him alone. For they knew it was just one
of “Tommy’s silent times,” and that by and by he would be as merry as
the others. He went along with the other children, holding Phœbe’s hand
and keeping close to her until they reached the bottom of the glen. Then
the others scattered, leaving him and Phœbe to walk on together. The
other boys amused themselves by throwing pebbles in the brook and trying
to find a minnow, while the little girls wandered about the glen in
search of flowers.

Phœbe Allen walked slowly along with Tommy at her side, and after a few
minutes she said: “I’m ever so glad we came to the glen to-day. It’s
just lovely here isn’t it, little Tommy?”

“Yes, I guess ’tis.”

He continued, “Phœbe, don’t you like the summer time the best of all?
The woods are so cool and green and there’s so many flowers.”

“Oh, yes, I do love it. But I think I like the spring time best because
I think the little flowers, so pale and tender, are the very dearest of
all. The summer flowers are so strong and bright. I love the little
spring flowers the best, and best of all the big, beautiful purple
violet.”

Tommy thought a while and then he said:

“I know. I guess you mean that we love the things that aren’t strong the
best. It wouldn’t hurt a daisy or a big mullein or a clover blossom one
bit if it was to rain hard. Would it? But the wee spring flowers
couldn’t stand so much, could they?”

“Yes, that’s it. Then, you see, I always think all the flowers are real
people, just as real as you and I are, only different, and of all the
Flower People—I always call them the Flower People when I think of
them—it seems to me that the spring Flower People are the loveliest. For
they come to us almost before the winter’s gone and while it is still
very cold and we haven’t any other flowers.”

“I think so too,” said Tommy. “You always ’splain to us children and
tell us lots of nice things to think about, Phœbe. But I like it best of
all when you ’splain things to just me, for then I can understand real
easy.”

The children soon came to a big chestnut tree and Phœbe sat down under
it to rest awhile. Tommy walked on. Phœbe looked around her. She could
hear the children laughing and chattering up the glen. She watched
Tommy. He walked along, stopping every now and then to watch a butterfly
or to peer into the waters of the brook as it rippled along the side of
his path.

Phœbe sat quiet for some time. The voices of the other children sounded
farther away until they scarcely reached her. She saw Tommy’s little
figure far down the glen, beside the Still Pool. “I wonder what he is
looking at,” she thought, “he has been standing beside the pool such a
long time.” She called, “Tommy, Tommy,” but he did not turn his head.
She waited a moment and then started toward him. As she came near him
she saw that he was gazing into the waters of Still Pool as though he
saw something very wonderful in it.

Still Pool was a beautiful little well of water at the northern end of
the glen. It was formed by water from the brook which had some time gone
out of its course and left here this deep, clear pool, all surrounded by
ferns and water cress. It was almost always so clear that you could look
right down to the bottom of it and see the white pebbles there. The
children had always called it the “Still” pool, because it seemed so
very quiet in this part of the glen and the pool was the stillest of
all.

Phœbe came up to Tommy. He did not hear her; he was looking into the
pool. So she came behind him very softly and laid her hand on his
shoulder.

“What are you looking at, little Tommy?” she asked.

“I have called and called you, but you never turned your head. I don’t
believe you even saw me as I came up here.”

Tommy turned around and looked at her. His big, dreamy eyes looked up
into her soft brown ones. “Oh, Phœbe,” he said, “I suppose I must have
been dreaming. I’m hardly awake yet. I saw something so wonderful in
Still Pool.”

Phœbe looked at the child with deep interest. “You saw a beautiful Face
there, didn’t you?”

Tommy looked at her with astonishment. “Why, how did you know? Then I
must really, truly have seen the Face.”

Phœbe laid her cool hand on his hot forehead and brushed his hair back.
Then she took his hand and said softly:

“Come to my chestnut tree before the other children come back and you
can tell me all about it. Or, if you don’t feel like talking, we will
just rest under the tree awhile, and when the others come we will all go
home together.”

Tommy grasped Phœbe’s hand tightly and walked along. Neither said
anything until they had sat under the tree for some time. Tommy’s eyes
still wore their far-away look. He laid his head on Phœbe’s lap, and the
young girl stroked his yellow hair and waited until he should be ready
to talk.

At last the little boy sat up and said:

“I saw a very queer thing while I was at Still Pool. I was just looking
into the water and thinking how white the pebbles were, when all at once
I couldn’t see the pebbles any more. The water looked all gray, and
then, while I was looking and wondering, I saw a beautiful, beautiful
face! I really did, Phœbe, honest and true!”

Phœbe looked at the earnest little boy. She answered nothing, but her
face was transformed as she listened to his story. Her beautiful brown
eyes grew more gentle looking and her face seemed to have a light
shining behind it.

“Honest, Phœbe, I did see a beautiful, lovely face. A _real_ face.”

“I am sure you did, Tommy,” said Phœbe. She saw that the child was ready
to cry at his fear that perhaps Phœbe did not understand him. “I know
you saw the Face. I have seen such a beautiful Face more than once.”

Tommy drew a deep breath. “It was the loveliest face you could think
about. It was just shiny, and it had deep, deep kind eyes, and it looked
right up at me and smiled. Oh, I felt my heart grow big all at once, and
I was just as still as could be for fear the beautiful thing would go
away. But the first thing I knew you laid your hand on my shoulder and I
sort of felt as if I was just waking up. But I know the face was real
and true!”

“Of course it was, Tommy.”

“It makes a little boy feel very strange to have such things happen,”
continued Tommy. “But it’s just like my very own thoughts. Sometimes I
think and think and think until the air seems all shiny, and then I feel
oh, so happy! So very, very happy! But I never can make it into words.”

“No, dearie, you can’t make it into words now, but you will be able to
some day. Do you know what I think? I think that nature made you a Poet
when you were born, and so, as you grow, the beautiful thoughts will
grow and grow as you do, until some time, when you are a big man, you
will be able to tell all that you have thought about, all the lovely
dreams, if you call them dreams, that you ever have had, and all these
lovely shining things will grow into beautiful words and be printed in
books. Then they will be read by men and women and little boys and
girls, too, and it will help them all to be good and more happy than
they ever were before.”

Tommy gazed with loving, wondering eyes while Phœbe spoke. He felt as
though he understood all she meant as he watched her face. For while she
talked it absolutely shone and she looked as though she saw, far in the
distance, little Tommy, grown to be a man and a wonderful poet.

After a while Tommy said, suddenly: “Oh, Phœbe, I know what the lovely
face in the pool was!”

“What, dearie?”

“Don’t you remember the other day when all us children were in your
house and you were telling us those nice stories? Don’t you remember how
you told us there was a shining boy or girl in each one of us? I
remember all you told us about it and you said it was the real, true
self. Our own best self; our bestest goodie. I believe the face in the
pool was my bestest goodie; it must have been!”

“Perhaps it was, Tommy. But why do you say ‘bestest goodie’?”

“'Cause ‘bestest’ is the very, _very_ best, and ‘goodie’ is the very
nicest, _goodest_ thing. So ‘bestest goodie’ is the very loveliest thing
of all!”

“Well, the Shining One is all that, dearie. You have found a very good
name for it. Our Shining Self is our ‘Bestest Goodie.’”

Soon the other children came up to Phœbe and Tommy and the party started
for home. All the boys and girls had bunches of ferns and flowers and
the boys whistled as they walked. The little girls walked along more
sedately, all of them clustering around Phœbe who laughed and chatted
with them, as gay as the gayest. Tommy, too, was full of fun, as he
hopped along, holding on to Phœbe’s hand. All the quiet, sober thought
was put aside, and again they were just two happy children with the
others.

As the party reached the main street of Weston once more, it was
decided, before breaking up, that the ten children—the Weston Ten, as
they call themselves—should meet in Phœbe’s house to spend the afternoon
two days from that time.




                                NOTICES.


We receive an occasional communication addressed to us with a
Post-office box number. Some time before the present Headquarters at 144
Madison Ave., was established the business of the Theosophical Society
and the Publishing Co. was transacted through a Post-office Box, but Mr.
Judge gave up this box upon removal to the Headquarters at 144 Madison
Ave., six years ago, and never afterwards used it. The Theosophical
Publishing Co., which was founded by Mr. Judge, is still at 144 Madison
Ave., to which address all mail should be directed.

The Theosophical Publishing Co.,
E. A. Neresheimer.
Manager.

Mr. Edwin H. Clarke has been selected to assume charge of the
Advertising Departments of the UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD and _New Century_.

Those desiring information as to rates, etc., as well as all matters
pertaining to this department should address

                      Edwin H. Clark,
                      Advertising Department,
                      144 Madison Ave.,
                      New York.

                      The Theosophical Publishing Co.,
                      E. A. Neresheimer, Manager.




                        BROTHERHOOD ACTIVITIES.


NEW YORK.

The Universal Brotherhood Meetings, held Sunday evenings in the Aryan
Hall, are increasing in interest all the time. A noticeable feature is
the number of men who attend and the very excellent and intelligent
questions which are asked. The meetings are interspersed with music,
usually by the Misses Fuller, Piano and Violin, forming a very important
part of the proceedings. Short addresses are given and questions
answered by H. T. Patterson, H. Coryn, B. Harding, and J. H. Fussell. A
collection is also taken to help defray expenses and it is found that
the visitors appreciate the opportunity of doing this.

The Aryan Lodge Meetings on Tuesday evening have for some time past been
for members only but it has been decided to open them to the public. The
first open meeting was held Jan. 17, and a number of visitors were
present. The Lodge meetings adjourn at 9.30, thus giving an opportunity
for conversation and social intercourse. Our President, Bro.
Neresheimer, often adds to the pleasure of the evening by singing.

A new Lodge was formed in New York on the West Side on Jan. 3. At the
time of writing three meetings have so far been held. A large room with
a piano has been hired at 587 Hudson Street, and a very good beginning
has been made, several people being already interested. This is one of
the old residence districts of New York and the inhabitants generally
are noted for being good thinkers and earnest people. Those helping in
the work are members from the H. P. B. and Aryan Lodges: D. N. Dunlop,
S. Hecht, Mrs. Cracauer, Dr. Wilcox, Miss Bernstein, H. T. Patterson, H.
Coryn, Miss Whitney, J. H. Fussell, and others.

Bro. Albert E. S. Smythe is now making a tour of Universal Brotherhood
Lodges and is a fully authorized representative of the Universal
Brotherhood, and the International Brotherhood League. He has so far
visited Toledo, Fort Wayne and Chicago and has had good success. This is
an opportunity for the new members and those at a distance to come in
closer touch through Bro. Smythe with the work at Headquarters. Bro.
Smythe is so well known through his work in Toronto and as Editor of
_The Lamp_ and so many have also heard him at the annual Conventions of
the T. S. A. that he needs no introduction.

Inquiries have been received in regard to the railway arrangements for
the Congress of Universal Brotherhood at Point Loma next April. Bro. W.
A. Stevens, 500 Lafayette Ave., Buffalo, N. Y., has these in charge and
will be ready to report by about Feb. 1st. Those desiring information
should write him. Further particulars will be given in _The New
Century_.

An important meeting of the Universal Brotherhood was held in Boston,
Jan. 17, at which were present the Leader, E. A. Neresheimer, F. M.
Pierce, H. T. Patterson, and H. Coryn from New York, and Clark Thurston
from Providence.

An illustration is given in this issue of the Headquarters Building at
144 Madison Avenue, New York, showing the office and book-store of the
Theosophical Publishing Company, on the first floor. The offices of the
Universal Brotherhood and the Theosophical Society in America are on the
second floor.

[Illustration: Central Office of the Universal Brotherhood Organization,
the Theosophical Society in America, and the Theosophical Publishing
Company.]

January 13th was the 1st anniversary of the founding of the Universal
Brotherhood Organization. The second year of U. B. has begun and we can
now look back and see how great a work has been done during the past
year. But more than all, one may know what this work has been, by simply
looking into his own heart. It has been a year of great effort; of trial
to some; but has resulted in joy to all who have worked unselfishly in
our glorious cause and who have followed faithfully the guidance of our
great Leader. I have heard many say recently that it seemed as though a
new spring had begun, that they felt so happy they wanted to sing. There
does indeed seem to be a new energy awakening and certainly never before
has there been such a happy harmonious household and staff as at present
at Headquarters, nor have we ever had such bright and harmonious
meetings.

But this is not only true of New York and the Headquarters but of the
whole organization from Boston and the East, from Fort Wayne, Chicago,
Pittsburg, Macon, and Lodges too numerous to mention, from the whole
Pacific Coast and the North West come the same tidings of new hope, new
strength, new achievements. Truly, U.B. 2 has begun auspiciously.

J. H. FUSSELL.


TACOMA, WASHINGTON.

Jan. 9, 1899.

DEAR COMRADE:—I have your favor of 3d inst. and am fully convinced that
you are right in the references and hopes you express for the year 1899.
Our local U. B. organization is in good shape, we never were able before
to work so unitedly and loyally and the efforts from all the members
seem now to strengthen that unity.

Yes, we are all looking forward to Point Loma in many respects. Many of
our members are planning to go down and I only wish we could all go and
hope we may be able.

R. H. LUND.


A SPLENDID RECORD.

              UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD LODGE NO. 7, AMERICA,
              California Academy of Sciences Building,
              Room 30, 819 Market Street,       San Francisco.

Secretary’s Annual Report for Year Ending December 21, 1898.

OFFICERS AND MEMBERS OF UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD LODGE NO. 7, AMERICA.

COMRADES:—Your secretary begs leave to report as follows concerning the
closing year:

The year’s work shows a gratifying increase in results. In order to be
exact your secretary gives the figures as shown by the minutes of the
year: 547 meetings were held, with an attendance of 41,150, as against
478 meetings and 36,279 attendance in 1897, an increase of 14 per cent.
in the number of meetings and of 13-1/2 per cent. in attendance; 481
addresses were delivered at these meetings by 65 speakers.

The highest total weekly attendance was 1060; the lowest 605; average
791.

The most noticeable increase is in the case of the International
Brotherhood League, which began the year with an average attendance of
78, and closes the twelve-month with an average attendance of 170, a
gain of 118 per cent.

The Lotus Group shows a gain of 18 per cent., as compared with 1897, and
Lodge meetings a gain of 29 per cent. The attendance of visitors at the
Library increased 16 per cent., and of members at meetings of Pacific
Coast Committee for Universal Brotherhood 98 per cent.

The especial attention of members is called to the Ethical Class and
Secret Doctrine Class as being the most important local channels for the
acquirement of a knowledge of ethics and philosophy. The Ethical Class
shows a gain of 35 per cent., and the Secret Doctrine Class 33 per cent.
for the year.

The work at San Quentin Penitentiary was resumed in August, under the
direction of H. H. Somers, after a suspension of more than a year.
Lectures are given monthly, and the chapel is always filled with
listeners.

A private meeting of U. B. L. No. 7 was instituted in October, two
meetings being held each month. Beginning with January this meeting will
be held regularly every Thursday evening, and is expected to accomplish
much good by way of bringing members into closer sympathy with each
other.

Your secretary’s annual report one year ago showed that 1897 had been
the most prosperous year in the history of the movement in this city. By
the present report it is seen that 1898 far surpasses the previous year,
and this in the face of financial distress and general unrest. The
prediction is ventured that 1899 will bring a still greater need of
success, for it is the beginning of a California cycle. In 1849 the name
of California was emblazoned before the world. The closing year marks
the passing of the seventh septenate of the cycle, and 1899 will usher
in the new cycle which is to bring California again before the notice of
the world, but this time as the depository of spiritual gold.

This report would be incomplete without reference to the Chicago
Convention, held on February 18, 1898, at which time the Universal
Brotherhood, or the Brotherhood of Humanity, was promulgated under the
leadership of Mrs. Katherine A. Tingley, and of which the Theosophical
Society in America and the International Brotherhood League became
integral parts. San Francisco Branch at once transformed itself into a
Lodge of Universal Brotherhood, becoming Lodge 7—the mystic number—and
the results of the year are ample justification of the action taken.

There were a few defections from the Society because of its expansion,
but the record shows that the result was in no wise serious for the
organization. An organization, like a human body, is made up of atoms or
lives, and as growth proceeds these atoms are constantly changing their
position and passing into and out of the body. The correspondence is
very similar, except that in the case of this organization it is not the
law of fatality which expels the atoms, but each has the free will to
maintain his position in the growing body if he so desires, or to leave
it. Each will choose as he desires, and we have not the right to attempt
to compel them. We have but to perform our full duty in every department
of our lives, and the recorders of karma will adjust the conditions and
the result.

I congratulate the members of Universal Brotherhood Lodge No. 7 on the
work of the closing year and the prospects of the coming one.

Fraternally,

AMOS J. JOHNSON, Secretary.

SAN FRANCISCO, December 21, 1898.


LOTUS HOME.

BUFFALO, N. Y., Dec. 29, 1898.

DEAR LEADER:—

I wish it were in my power to express to you all the sweetness and quiet
joy of the first Christmas, at Lotus Home, and the only thing that was
lacking, was the presence (in the physical body) of the precious “Lotus
Mother,” for it was such a delightful experience, so full of hope and
promise, that we wanted you there to share it with us.

Truly the spirit of “Peace on Earth, Good Will to all Men” brooded over
the Home and spread its wings over all that are working and ministering
to the tiny “Buds” there.

It is wonderful to see the improvement in them as the days go on, since
Dr. Kean has taken them in hand; she understands all their little needs
and with Miss Morris’ gentle and unceasing care and attention they are
growing as strong and beautiful as the most exacting could desire.

The atmosphere surrounding them is so serene and full of unselfish
brotherly love that the unfoldment into health and beauty of mind and
body has begun early, and we feel sure that they will grow to lovely
“Blossoms by and bye” and be workers for Humanity on the broadest lines
of “Universal Brotherhood.”

There was the Christmas Tree, filled with lights and all the “shining
things,” and the sweet odor of the fragrant boughs filled the rooms, the
babies and all the household gathered around it with the members of our
family also, at twilight, and if any one thinks a lot of wee babies do
not enjoy the fun of a Christmas tree, let them come here and see
“ours,” they stared and laughed and took in all the loveliness, as
wisely as the older ones of us. Little Katherine was so overcome with
prolonged staring and nodding her head with approval, that she fell
asleep in the midst of it, no doubt continuing the lovely vision in her
dreams.

Little Grace with the rosy cheeks and laughing blue eyes had grown to
the dignity of short clothes on Christmas day, and though but five
months old she sat in her fine new high chair and crowed and laughed
aloud with glee just as though she were years old instead of months
only.

Wee Edith, our frailest Bud, is frail no longer, but is growing stronger
and rosier every day, and her great wonderful eyes look as if they held
a store of untold things, which she will give to the world some day, in
song or verse.

On Christmas Eve a new-comer appeared, little “merry Christmas” and on
Christmas day another; this one we didn’t know what to call for the time
being, but little “Miss Newcome,” and that made six small workers for
humanity at Lotus Home on Christmas day.

The household is now composed of twelve persons, Dr. Kean, Supt.; Miss
Morris, assistant Supt.; the Housekeeper; the Maid of all work (who by
the way is a jewel); the Man of all work; and the new nursery maid; with
the six babies making the twelve.

Quite a household, for so short a time since the work was begun, and it
will continue to grow for it is getting to be better known all the
while.

We have received an appropriation from the County of $600. We are very
glad to get this, it will help us through the winter and in spring we
hope to have an entertainment that will bring us over $200.

I have no words at my command, dear Mother, to express all I feel in
regard to our blessed work here, and of my appreciation of the great
privilege you have bestowed upon us here, in permitting us to help on
our great Cause in this practical and substantial way, but you know my
heart, and what I lack in beautiful language, I hope I can make up in
faithful work.

THERESA Y. STEVENS.


HOME CRUSADE IN IRELAND.

On December 7th the Crusaders, Mrs. A. L. Cleather and Bro. Basil Crump,
went to Dublin for the first time, where they enjoyed the real Irish
hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. P. J. Dick. Ireland is a dreamy country, and
its people are extremely diffident and hard to interest in anything
novel. The deep interest of those who came to the Wagner lecture was,
therefore, no less a surprise to the local workers than the unusually
long and appreciative reports which appeared in the principal Dublin
papers. It was a significant fact that, although the reporters were
supplied with a complete summary of the lecture, they stayed to the end,
and gave money for the children’s work. This lecture was on Friday, the
9th; Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were occupied with U. B. and private
meetings, interviews, and general routine work. On Tuesday the
children’s entertainment took place in the Rotunda. A number of Dublin
ladies interested in philanthropic work came to help, and a gentleman
very kindly operated the lantern. All were delighted, and said it was
quite as much a lesson for them as for the little ones. There is no
doubt that this work will be carried forward in Dublin. Each visitor
asked for a portrait of Mrs. Tingley.

Early on Wednesday morning the Crusaders, Mrs. Cleather and Bro. Crump,
left Dublin to help at the


BROTHERHOOD BAZAAR IN LIVERPOOL.

They were met by Secretary Herbert Crooke and Brother H. M. Savage, and
stayed along with Brother Cranstone Woodhead at the “Mitre” Hotel. Some
very advantageous arrangements had been made, so that the Bazaar started
on a favorable financial basis. A beautiful picture, sent by Brother R.
Machell, R. B. A., was splendidly displayed in a large shop window in
Lord Street, and attracted an immense amount of public attention.

The Committee were singularly happy in securing the sympathetic services
of Mr. R. Holt and Mrs. Jeannie Mole to open the Bazaar on the first and
second days respectively. They both made speeches which came straight
from the heart, and their appreciation of the work now being done by the
Movement along practical lines was an object lesson to all in the
foresight and wisdom of our Leader. Brother T. Baker’s orchestra
provided excellent music, the refreshments were daintily served by lady
workers in tasteful costumes, and on the seven stalls there was a
profusion of articles for sale. We understand that the total receipts
amounted to upwards of £150, and we warmly congratulate the Committee on
this highly successful result.


BRISTOL.

Bristol reports an increase of attendence, due to copies of the _New
Century_ being placed in the public libraries. _New Century_
distribution is highly important work. When the hour shall strike, when
we have given it that unqualified support that it demands of us, it will
then speak right into the people’s hearts in clear and simple language,
so that none need longer question the “nobility of their calling,” or
again forget their “true position in life.” C. O.


LIVERPOOL.

The Lodge is flourishing, and the sole topic is the “Bazaar.” The
Thursday evening meetings have been very interesting during November.

On Sunday, November 20th, Brother Bern lectured on “Music.”

On the 24th November Brother Crooke gave an excellent lecture on “King
Solomon’s Seal.” To all our brethren, greeting.—J. F. CROPPER.

From _The Crusader_, Dec. 27, 1898.


HOLLAND.

We know that you are in a whirlwind of work. Here, too, we are, after
our own way in a whirlwind of the same kind, and things are going well.
We are busy with preparations for our Lotus circle, etc., and, as for U.
B. work, it goes in every way as far as our means allow. Inward work is
very good, and the true members are coming nearer to each other in
conscious unity. We only know our Leader here, and try to follow her.

H. DE N.




                  UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD ORGANIZATION.

                “Slowly the Bible of the race is writ,
                Each age, each kindred adds a verse to it.”

Universal Brotherhood or the Brotherhood of Humanity is an organization
established for the benefit of the people of the earth and all
creatures.

This organization declares that Brotherhood is a fact in nature. The
principal purpose of this organization is to teach Brotherhood,
demonstrate that it is a fact in nature and make it a living power in
the life of humanity.

The subsidiary purpose of this organization is to study ancient and
modern religion, science, philosophy and art; to investigate the laws of
nature and the divine powers in man.

This Brotherhood is a part of a great and universal movement which has
been active in all ages.

Every member has the right to believe or disbelieve in any religious
system or philosophy, each being required to show that tolerance for the
opinions of others which he expects for his own.

The Theosophical Society in America is the Literary Department of
Universal Brotherhood.

The International Brotherhood League is the department of the
Brotherhood for practical humanitarian work.

The Central Office of the Universal Brotherhood Organization is at 144
Madison Avenue, New York City.


THE INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD LEAGUE.

(_Unsectarian._)

              “Helping and sharing is what Brotherhood means.”

This organization affirms and declares that Brotherhood is a fact in
Nature, and its objects are:

1. To help men and women to realize the nobility of their calling and
their true position in life.

2. To educate children of all nations on the broadest lines of Universal
Brotherhood and to prepare destitute and homeless children to become
workers for humanity.

3. To ameliorate the condition of unfortunate women, and assist them to
a higher life.

4. To assist those who are, or have been, in prison, to establish
themselves in honorable positions in life.

5. To endeavor to abolish capital punishment.

6. To bring about a better understanding between so-called savage and
civilized races, by promoting a closer and more sympathetic relationship
between them.

7. To relieve human suffering resulting from flood, famine, war, and
other calamities; and generally to extend aid, help, and comfort to
suffering humanity throughout the world.

It should be noted that the officers and workers of the International
Brotherhood League are unsalaried and receive no remuneration, and this,
as one of the most binding rules of the organization, _effectually
excludes those who would otherwise enter from motives of self-interest_.

None of the officers hold any political office, the League is not
connected with any political party or organization, nor has it any
political character, it is wholly humanitarian and unsectarian.


THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN AMERICA.

This Society was formed in 1875 under the name of the Theosophical
Society, by H. P. Blavatsky, assisted by W. Q. Judge and others;
reorganized in April, 1895, by W. Q. Judge under the name of the
Theosophical Society in America, and in February, 1898, became an
integral part of Universal Brotherhood Organization.

The principal purpose of this Society is to publish and disseminate
literature relating to Theosophy, Brotherhood, ancient and modern
religions, philosophy, sciences and arts.

Its subsidiary purpose is to establish and build up a great library, in
which shall be gathered ancient and modern literature of value to the
great cause of Universal Brotherhood.


SCHOOL FOR THE REVIVAL OF THE LOST MYSTERIES OF ANTIQUITY AT POINT LOMA,
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, U. S. A.

Although American in centre, this school is international in
character—“a temple of living light, lighting up the dark places of the
earth.

“Through this School and its branches the children of the race will be
taught the laws of physical life, and the laws of physical, moral, and
mental health and spiritual unfoldment. They will learn to live in
harmony with nature. They will become passionate lovers of all that
breathes. They will grow strong in an understanding of themselves, and
as they gain strength they will learn to use it for the good of the
whole world.”

The Leader and Official Head wishes it known that there is an Eastern
and Esoteric School in which a very large number of the earnest members
of the UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD throughout the world are pupils. At present
there is no institution where students go to learn these teachings. The
studies are carried on in each group under directions from the centre in
New York.

In the School for the Revival of the Lost Mysteries of Antiquity there
will be an Esoteric Department, in which the higher teachings will be
given to such pupils of the Eastern and Esoteric School as are prepared
to receive them.


THE ISIS LEAGUE OF MUSIC AND DRAMA (OF THE ART DEPARTMENT OF UNIVERSAL
BROTHERHOOD).

The Isis League of Music and Drama is composed of persons carefully
selected by the Foundress, who are interested in the advancement of
music and the drama to their true place in the life of humanity. Its
objects are:

(_a_) To accentuate the importance of Music and the Drama as vital
educative factors.

(_b_) To educate the people to a knowledge of the true philosophy of
life by means of dramatic presentations of a high standard and the
influence of the grander harmonies of music.

Headquarters: 144 Madison Avenue, New York City, and at Point Loma, San
Diego, California.


OBITUARY.

We deeply regret to record the passing away on Dec. 30, of Bro. H. T.
Lotter, one of the most faithful and earnest workers in Kansas City,
after an illness lasting since last Aug. The following resolutions were
passed by Lodge No. 47 of Universal Brotherhood, Kansas City, Mo.

_Whereas_ In the economy of Nature, all is subject to change, that which
we see being the blossom of seed sown in the long ago in the yesterdays
of Eternity which in their turn shall bear seed for futurity’s growth;
and

_Whereas_ Time in its onward sweep has closed the Cycle of Active life
of him who was erstwhile known to us as Henry T. Lotter gathering for
further unfoldment the ripened fruit of an Earth life; now therefore be
it

RESOLVED That in the passing hence of brother Lotter this lodge loses an
earnest, enthusiastic and untiring worker in the Cause, its members a
staunch, sincere and kind brother and an amiable and gracious friend;
and further be it

RESOLVED That in token of our love and esteem, flowers shall be placed
on the rostrum at the public meetings to be held Jan. 8, 15, 22d and
that three members be appointed to address the audience in memoriam,
also be it

RESOLVED That our recollections of him can best be kept in our memories,
by making his conduct in life our standard of duty.

CHAS. E. HUNGERFORD, Pres.

J. FRANK KNOCHE, Sec.

We have also received notice of the passing away from earth-life of two
of the oldest workers on the Pacific Coast, Bro. Theodore G. Ed. Wollet
of San Francisco, on Dec. 12th, aged 70 years, and Dr. John S. Cook of
Sacramento, on Dec. 30th. Both of our brothers will be much missed by
their respective Lodges, but the memory of their faithful endeavor for
Universal Brotherhood will long be kept in the hearts of their comrades.




BOOK LIST

of high class, legitimate works on Brotherhood, Theosophy, Occultism and
Kindred Subjects, which may be obtained, post-paid, from

THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING CO.,

144 MADISON AVENUE, NEW YORK.

    Astral Intoxication, and other papers (Judge) $ 0.03

    Atlantis, The story of (Scott-Elliott). A geographical, historical,
    and ethnological sketch, with maps cloth 1.25

    Bhagavad-Gita, American Edition (Judge), pocket size, red leather
    75c; morocco, gilt 1.00 The pearl of the scriptures of the East.

    Bhagavad-Gita, or Song Celestial (in verse, by Edwin Arnold) cloth
    1.00

    Blossom and the Fruit, The (Collins) cloth .75 A true story of a
    Black Magician.

    Brotherhood; Nature’s Law (Harding); paper 20c; cloth .40

    Clothed with the Sun (Kingsford); paper 50c; cloth 1.25

    Coming Race, The (Bulwer-Lytton) paper .15

    Culture of Concentration (Judge) .05 A valuable aid to right mental
    development.

    Devachan, or The Heaven World (Coryn) .05 A conception of the heaven
    state.

    Diet Book, Buddhist boards .50

    Dreams and Dream Stories (Kingsford); paper 25c; cloth 1.25

    Dreams of the Dead (Stanton) paper .50

    Echoes from the Orient (Judge) paper 12c; cloth .50 A broad outline
    of theosophical doctrines.

    Elementary Theosophy per 100, $3; single copies .05 single copies
    .05

    Esoteric Buddhism (Sinnett) paper 50c; cloth 1 25

    Esoteric Basis of Christianity (Kingsland); paper 20c; cloth 1.25

    Esoteric Character of the Gospels (Blavatsky); cloth .35

    Etidorhpa (John Uri Lloyd) 2.00 The strange story of a Mysterious
    Being and a remarkable journey.

    Gems from the East (Blavatsky) parchment 1.00 A Theosophical
    Birthday-book.

    Glossary for Theos. Students, A Working cloth .50

    Golden Stairs, The (Waite) cloth .75 Tales from the wonder-world for
    children.

    Gospel of Buddha, The (Carus); paper 35c; cloth 1.00

    Heroic Enthusiasts, The. An ethical poem by Giordano Bruno, in two
    parts cloth 3.00

    Hypnotism; its History and Present Development (Bjornstrom) paper
    .30

    Idyll of the White Lotus (Collins) paper .25 A story of ancient
    temple life in Egypt.

    Isis Unveiled (Blavatsky) Royal 8vo, 2 vols. 7.50 A Master Key to
    the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology.

    Karma (Anderson) A study of Cause and Effect as a natural law of
    Justice. paper 50c; cloth 1.00

    Karma (Carus) A story of Early Buddhism. .75

    Key to Theosophy (Blavatsky); uncut leaves, gilt top, laid paper
    cloth 2.00 A clear exposition of Theosophy in the form of question
    and answer.

    Letters that have helped me (Judge) cloth .50 An aid to Aspiring
    Students of Theosophy.

    Light of Asia (Arnold) paper 25c: cloth 1.00 The Life and Teachings
    of Buddha in verse.

    Light on the Path (M. C.), with comments. An entirely new edition,
    the most beautiful of this classic ever issued; pocket size, brown
    linen, 15c; embossed paper, 25c; green cloth, 40c; red leather, 75c;
    morocco, $1.00; edition de Luxe (very rich) 1 50 Authoritative rules
    for treading the path of a higher life.

    Lotus Song Book boards 50 Fifty original songs with copyrighted
    music, for undenominational Sunday Schools.

    Man; Fragments of Forgotten History cloth 1.25 Some esoteric
    revelations on prehistoric times.

    Mandukyopanishad, The boards $1.50 One of the great Upanishads of
    India.

    Mysticism, Philosophy of (Du Prel) 2 vols., cloth 7.50

    Mythical Monsters (Charles Gould) cloth 5.00

    Nature’s Finer Forces (Rama Prasad) cloth 1.50

    Nightmare Tales (Blavatsky) paper 3.50 Some stories of enchantment
    not wholly visionary.

    Nirvana, A Buddhist tale (Carus) Crêpe paper 1.00

    Ocean of Theosophy (Judge) paper 25¢; cloth .50 A condensed
    comprehensive exposition of the Theosophical Philosophy.

    Occult Sciences, The (Waite) cloth 2.25

    Occult World, The (Sinnett) paper 50¢; cloth 1.25

    Path Magazine—Index to Vols. 1 to 8 cloth .50

    Pearls of the Faith; or Islam’s Rosary (Edwin Arnold) cloth 1.00

    Perfect Way, The, or the finding of Christ (Maitland & Kingsford)
    paper 50¢; cloth 1.25

    Pilgrim and Shrine, The (Maitland); paper 25¢; cloth 1.25

    Poems (Edwin Arnold) cloth 1.00

    Posthumous Humanity (D’Assier) cloth 2.50

    Pymander, The Divine (Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus) cloth 1.25

    Reincarnation (Anderson) paper 50¢; cloth 1.00 Rebirth from a
    scientific standpoint.

    Reincarnation (Walker) paper .40 A study of forgotten truth.
    Literary and historical evidences of the truth of the doctrine of
    Reincarnation. Out of print and scarce.

    Romance of Two Worlds, A (Corelli) cloth 1.00

    Sankya Karika boards 1.25 Scriptural Work, in Sanskrit and English.

    Secret Doctrine, The (Blavatsky); 2 vols. and Index 12.50 The
    synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy.

    Septenary Man (Anderson) paper 50¢; cloth 1.00 A study of the Human
    Soul in relation to the various avenues of Consciousness.

    Song Celestial—Bhagavad Gita, in verse (Edwin Arnold) cloth 1.00

    Source of Measures (Skinner) cloth 5.00

    Strange Story, A (Bulwer-Lytton) paper .25 A story of Black Magic.

    Theosophical Tracts.—An Epitome of Theosophy; Karma as a Cure for
    Trouble; Theosophy as a Guide in Life; Spirituality; Theosophy in a
    Few Words. Per 100, 50¢; per 1000, $2.00.

    Theosophie und die Okkulte Lehre; each 5¢; per 100 3.00

    Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China (M. Hue) 2 vols. cloth 2.00

    Two Paths, The (Watson) cloth .50 On Human Nature, Love, and
    Occultism.

    Voice of the Silence; by H. P. B., pocket size, red leather, 75¢
    morocco 1.00

    Yoga Aphorisms (translated by Judge); pocket size, red leather, 75¢;
    morocco 1.00 Rules leading to the acquirement of right knowledge,
    and all the virtues, by Patanjali, for thousands of years accepted
    in India as the greatest authority on true Yoga.

    Zanoni (Bulwer-Lytton) paper .25




_A Great Opportunity for Propaganda._

The Ocean of Theosophy

By WILLIAM Q. JUDGE.

_A new edition, printed on antique paper and tastefully bound, the paper
covers with colored border and the cloth with gilt side stamp._

In the whole range of theosophical literature there is no book so well
suited for propaganda work as this. Clear, concise, lucid, it covers the
ground in a such a manner as to give the beginner a thorough and
connected idea of the fundamental teachings of what is called Theosophy.
This it does in a manner greatly in advance of everything purporting to
explain the same subjects in a form for general circulation.

                  *       *       *       *       *

CONTENTS. Theosophy and the Masters: General Principles: The Earth
Chain: Septenary Constitution of Man: Body and Astral Body: Kama—Desire:
Manas: Of Reincarnation: Arguments Supporting Reincarnation: Karma: Kama
Loka: Devachan: Cycles: Differentiation of Species—Missing Links:
Psychic Laws, Forces, and Phenomena: Psychic Phenomena and Spiritualism.

Pages 9 and 154; 16mo, paper and cloth.

We will forward the book, post-paid,

=In Paper Binding, 25 cents.=

=In Cloth Binding, 50 cents.=

THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING CO.,
144 MADISON AVENUE, NEW YORK.




DIRECTORY OF UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD LODGES.

PUBLIC MEETINGS ARE HELD AS FOLLOWS:

=ARKANSAS.=

=Hot Springs.= 202 Reserve Ave. Sunday, 3 P. M.

=CALIFORNIA.=

=San Francisco.= 819 Market St. Sunday and Tuesday, 8 P. M. Class,
Friday, 8 P. M. Lotus Group, Sunday, 11 A. M.

=Stockton.= Masonic Temple, Room 12. Sunday and Tuesday, 8 P. M.

=COLORADO.=

=Denver.= Enterprise Block, Champa and 15th, Room 214. Wednesday, 8 P.
M. Lotus Group, Sunday, 2 P. M.

=ILLINOIS.=

=Chicago.= 511 Masonic Temple. Sunday and Thursday, 8 P. M.

=INDIANA.=

=Fort Wayne.= Tri-State Building, Friday, 8 P. M.

=IOWA.=

=Sioux City.= Cor. 4th & Nebraska. Sunday: Lotus Group, 11 A. M. Bible
Class, 11.45. Lecture, 8 P. M.

=MINNESOTA.=

=Jackson.= Hanson’s Hall. Sunday, 8 P. M. Class at Dr. Tryon’s,
Wednesday, 8 P. M.

=NEW YORK.=

=Buffalo.= Bryant & Stratton B’ld’g., 95 W. Genesee St. Sunday &
Tuesday, 8 P.M.

=New York.= 144 Madison Ave. Sunday, 8.15 P. M. Lotus Group. Sunday, 3
P. M.

=OHIO.=

=Toledo.= 61 Currier Hall. Madison St. Tuesday, 8 P. M.

=OREGON.=

=Portland.= 228 Sixth St. Tues., Frid. and Sun., 8 P. M. Lotus Group,
Sun., 11 A. M.

=PENNSYLVANIA.=

=Philadelphia.= 10 So. 18th St., Room 100. Sun. and Tues., 8 P. M.

=Pittsburg.= 216 Sixth St. Sun. and Thurs, 8 P. M. Lotus Group, Sun. 3
P. M. Class, 4.30 P. M.

=RHODE ISLAND.=

=Providence.= 206 Weybosset St. Sun. and Fri., 8 P. M. Lotus Group,
Sun., 3 P. M. Rooms open daily, 3 to 5 P. M.

=DIST. OF COLUMBIA.=

=Washington.= 509 G Street, N. W. Sun., 8 P. M. Lotus Group, Sun., 3 P.
M.

=WASHINGTON.=

=Tacoma.= 1004 Tacoma Avenue. Wed., Thurs., Sun., 8 P. M. Lotus Group,
Sun., 10.30 A. M.

=WISCONSIN.=

=Milwaukee.= Hathaway Building. Sun., 11 A. M.; Lotus Group, Sun., 9.45
A. M.

_Please mention_ UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD _when you write advertisers_.




Transcriber’s Notes:

Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.

Typographical errors were silently corrected.

Spelling and hyphenation were made consistent when a predominant form
was found in this book; otherwise it was not changed.

Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

Text in bold face is enclosed by equals signs (=bold=).