CHAPTER IX.
It seemed to her that for long ages she was alone. Her mind achieved great strides of thought which at another time would have appeared impossible to her. She saw before her clearly her own folly, her own mistake. Yesterday she would not have credited it—yesterday it would have been unmeaning to her. But now she understood it, and understood too how heavy and terrible was her punishment; for it was already upon her. She lay helpless, her eyes shut, her whole body nerveless. Her punishment was here. She had lost all hope, all faith.
A gentle touch on her hand roused her consciousness, but she was too indifferent to open her eyes. It mattered little to her what or who was near her. The battle of her soul was now the only real thing in life to her.
A voice that seemed strangely familiar fell on her ears; yet last time she had heard it it was loud, fierce, arrogant; now it was tender and soft, and full of an overwhelming wonder and pity.
“You, Princess Fleta, here? My God! what can have happened? Surely she is not dead? No! What is it, then?”
Fleta slowly opened her eyes. It was Hilary who knelt beside her; she was lying on the dewy grass, and Hilary knelt there, the morning sun shining on his head and lighting up his beautiful boy’s face. And Fleta as she lay and looked dully at him felt herself to be immeasurably older than he was; to be possessed of knowledge and experience which seemed immense by his ignorance. And yet she lay here, nerveless, hopeless.
“What is it?” again asked Hilary, growing momently more distressed.
“Do you want to know?” she said gently, and yet with an accent of pity that was almost contempt in her tone. “You would not understand.”
“Oh, tell me!” said Hilary. “I love you—let me serve you!”
She hardly seemed to hear his words, but his voice of entreaty made her go on speaking in answer:
“I have tried,” she said, “and failed.”
“Tried what?” exclaimed Hilary, “and how failed? Oh, my Princess, I believe these devils of priests have given you some fever—you do not know what you are saying!”
“I know very well,” replied Fleta; “I am in no fever. I am all but dead—that is no strange thing, for I am stricken.” Hilary looked at her as she lay, and saw that her words were true. How strange a figure she looked, lying there so immovably, as if crushed or dead, upon thedewy grass; wrapped in her white robes. And her face was white with a terrible whiteness; the great eyes looked out from the white face with a sad, smileless gaze; and would those pale drawn lips never smile again? Was the radiant, brilliant Fleta changed for ever into this paralysed white creature? Hilary knew that even if it was so he loved her more passionately and devotedly than before. His soul yearned towards her.
“Tell me, explain to me, what has done this?” he cried out, growing almost incoherent in his passionate distress. “I demand to know by my love for you. What have you tried to do in this awful past night?”
Fleta opened her eyes, the lids of which had drooped heavily, and looked straight into his as she answered:
“I have tried for the Mark of the White Brotherhood. I have tried to pass the first initiation of the Great Order. I did not dream I could fail, for I have passed through many initiations which men regard with fear. But I have failed.”
“I cannot believe,” said Hilary, “that you could fail in anything. You are—dreaming—you are feverish. Let me lift you, let me carry you into the house.”
“Yes, I have failed,” answered Fleta dully; “failed, because I had not measured the strength of my humanity. It is in me—in me still! I am the same as any other woman in this land. I, who thought myself supreme—I, who thought myself capable of great deeds! Ah, Hilary, the first simple lesson is yet unlearned. I have failed because I loved—because I love like any other fond and foolish woman! And yet no spark of any part of love but devotion is in my soul. That is too gross. Is it possible to purge even that away? Yes, those of the White Brotherhood have done it. I will do it even if it take me a thousand years, a dozen lifetimes!”
She had raised herself from the ground as she spoke, for a new fierce passion had taken the place of the dull despair in her manner; she had raised herself to her feet, and then unable to stand had fallen on to her knees. Hilary listened yet hardly heard; only some of her words hurried into his mind. He bent down till his face touched her white cloak where it lay on the grass, and kissed it a dozen times.
“You have failed because of love? Oh, my Princess, then it is not failure! Men live for love, men die for love! It is the golden power of life. Oh, my Princess, let me take you from this terrible place—come back with me to the world where men and women know love to be the one great joy for which all else is well lost. Fleta, while I doubted that you loved me I was as wax; but now that I know you do, and with a love so great that it has power to check the career of your soul, now I am strong, I am able to do all that a strong man can do. Come, let me raise you and take you away from here to a place of peace and delight!”
He had risen to his feet and stood before her, looking magnificent inthe morning sunshine. He was slight of build, yet that slightness was really indicative of strength; when Hilary Estanol had been effeminate it was because he had not cared to be anything else. He stood grandly now, his hands stretched towards her; a man, lofty, transformed by the power of love. Fleta looking at him saw in his brilliant eyes the gleam of the conquering savage. She rose suddenly and confronted him.
“You are mistaken,” she said abruptly. “It is not you that I love.”
Then, as suddenly as Fleta had moved and spoken, the man before her vanished, with his nobility, and left the savage only, unvarnished, unhumanised.
“My God,” gasped Hilary, almost breathless from the sudden blow, “then it is that accursed priest?”
“Yes,” answered Fleta, her eyes on his, her voice dull, her whole form like that of a statue, so emotionless did she seem, “it is that accursed priest.”
She moved away from him and looked about her. The spot was familiar. She was in the woodland about the monastery. She could find her way home now without difficulty. And yet how weak she was, and how hard it was to take each footstep! After moving a few paces she stood still and tried to rouse herself, tried to use her powerful will.
“Where are my servants?” she said in a low voice. “Where are those who do my bidding?”
She closed her eyes, and standing there in the sunlight, used all her power to call the forces into action which she had learned to control. For she was a sufficiently learned magician to be the mistress of some of the secrets of Nature. But now it seemed she was helpless—her old powers were gone. A low, bitter cry of anguish escaped from her lips as she realised this awful fact. Hilary, terrified by the strange sound of her voice, hastily approached her and looked into her face. Those dark eyes, once so full of power, were now full of an agony such as one sees in the eyes of a hunted and dying creature. Yet Fleta did not faint or fail, or cling to the strong man who stood by her side. After a moment she spoke, with a faint yet steady voice.
“Do you know the way to the gate?” she asked.
“Yes,” replied Hilary; who indeed had but recently explored the whole demesne.
“Take my hand,” she said, “and lead me there.”
She used her natural power of royal command now; feeble though she was, she was the princess. Hilary did not dream of disobeying her. He took the cold and lifeless hand she extended to him, and led her as quickly as was possible over the grass, through the trees and flowering shrubs, to the gateway. As they neared it she spoke:
“You are to go back to the city,” she said. “Do not ask why—you must go; yet I will tell you this—it is for your own safety. I havelost my power—I can no longer protect you, and there are both angels and devils in this place. I have lost all! all! And I have no right to risk your sanity as well as my own. You must go.”
“And leave you here?” said Hilary, bewildered.
“I am safe,” she answered proudly. “No power in heaven or earth can hurt me now, for I have cast my all on one stake. Know this, Hilary, before we part; I shall never yield or surrender. I shall cast out that love that kills me from my heart—I shall enter the White Brotherhood. And, Hilary, you too will enter it. But, oh! not yet! Bitter lessons have you yet to learn! Good-bye, my brother.”
The sentinel who guarded the gate now approached them in his walk; Fleta moved quickly towards him. After a few words had passed between them he blew a shrill, fine whistle. Then he approached Hilary.
“Come,” he said, “I will show you the way for some distance and will then obtain you a horse and a guide to the city.”
Hilary did not hesitate in obeying Fleta’s commands; he knew he must go. But he turned to look once more into her mysterious face. She was no longer there. He bowed his head, and silently followed the monk through the gate into the outer freedom of the forest.
Fleta meantime crept back to the house through the shelter of the trees. Her figure looked like that of an aged woman, for she was bowed almost double and her limbs trembled as she moved. She did not go to the centre door of the house, but approached a window which opened to the ground and now stood wide. It was the window of Fleta’s own room; she hurried towards it with feeble, uncertain steps. “Rest! Rest! I must rest!” she kept murmuring to herself. But on the very threshold she stumbled and fell. Someone came immediately to her and tried to raise her. It was Father Ivan. Fleta disengaged herself, tremblingly yet resolutely. She rose with difficulty to her feet and gazed very earnestly into his face.
“And you knew why I should fail?” she said.
“Yes,” he answered, “I knew. You are not strong enough to stand alone amid the spirit of humanity. I knew you clung to me. Well have you suffered from it. I know that very soon you will stand alone.”
“Of what use would that mask have been?” demanded Fleta, pursuing her own thoughts.
“None. If you had obeyed me and worn it you would have been of so craven a spirit you could never have reached the temple, never have seen the White Brotherhood. You have done these things, which are more than any other woman has accomplished.”
“I will do yet more,” said Fleta. “I will be one of them.”
“Be it so,” answered Ivan. “To do so you must suffer as no woman has yet had strength to suffer. The humanity in you must be crushed out as we crush a viper beneath our feet.”
“It shall be. I may die, but I will not pause. Good-bye, my master. As I am a queen in the world of men and women, so you are king in the world of soul, and to you I have done homage; that homage they call love. It is so, perhaps. I am blind yet, and know not. But no more may you be my king. I am alone, and all knowledge I gain I must now gain myself.”
Ivan bowed his head as if in obedience to an unanswerable decree, and in a moment had walked away among the trees. Fleta watched him stonily till he was out of sight, then dragged herself within the window to fall helplessly upon the ground, shaken by sobs and strong shudders of despair.
It was late in the day before Fleta again came out of her room. She seemed to have recovered her natural manner and appearance; and yet there was a change in her which anyone who knew her well must see. She had not been into the general rooms, or greeted the other guests; nor did she do so now. Her face was full of resolution, but she was calm, at all events externally. Without going near the guest rooms or the great entrance hall, she made her way round the house to where a very small door stood almost hidden in an angle of the wall. It was such a door as might lead to the cellars of a house, and when Hilary had explored the night before he had scarcely noticed it. But it was exceedingly solid and wellfastened.fastened.Fleta gave a peculiar knock upon it with a fan which she carried in her hand. It was immediately opened, and Father Amyot appeared.
“Do you want me?” he asked.
“Yes; I want you to go on an errand for me.”
“Where am I to go?”
“I do not know; probably you will know. I must speak to one of the White Brotherhood.”
Amyot’s face clouded and he looked doubtfully at her.
“What is there you can ask that Ivan cannot answer?”
“Does it matter to you?” said Fleta imperiously. “You are my messenger, that is all.”
“You cannot command me as before,” said Father Amyot.
“What! do you know that I have failed? Does all the world know it?”
“The world?” echoed Amyot, contemptuously. “No; but all the Brotherhood does, and all its servants do. No one has told me, but I know it.”
“Of course,” said Fleta to herself. “I am foolish.” She turned away and walked up and down on the grass, apparently buried in deep thought. Presently she raised her head suddenly, and quickly movedtowards Amyot, who still stood motionless in the dim shadow of the little doorway. She fixed her eyes on him; they were blazing with an intense fire. Her whole attitude was one of command.
“Go,” she said.
Father Amyot stood but for a moment; and then he came out slowly from the doorway, shutting it behind him.
“You have picked up a lost treasure,” he said. “You have found your will again. I obey. Have you told me all your command?”
“Yes. I must speak to one of the White Brothers. What more can I say? I do not know one from another. Only be quick!”
Instantly Amyot strode away over the grass and disappeared. Fleta moved slowly away, thinking so deeply that she did not know any one was near her till a hand was put gently on her arm. She looked up, and saw before her the young king, Otto.
“Have you been ill,” he asked, looking closely into her face.
“No,” she answered. “I have only been living fast—a century of experience in a single night! Shall I talk to you about it, my friend?”
“I think not,” answered Otto, who now was walking quietly by her side.“I“Imay not readily understand you. I am anxious above all to advance slowly and grasp each truth as it comes to me. I have been talking a long time to-day to Father Ivan; and I feel that I cannot yet understand the doctrines of the order except as interpreted through religion.”
“Through religion?” said Fleta. “But that is a mere externality.”
“True, and intellectually I see that. But I am not strong enough to stand without any external form to cling to. The precepts of religion, the duty of each towards humanity, the principle of sacrifice one for another, these things I can understand. Beyond that I cannot yet go. Are you disappointed with me?”
“No, indeed,” answered Fleta. “Why should I be.”
Otto gave a slight sigh as of relief. “I feared you might be,” he answered; “but I preferred to be honest. I am ready, Fleta, to be a member of the order, a devout member of the external Brotherhood. How far does that place me from you who claim a place among the wise ones of the inner Brotherhood.”
Fleta looked at him very seriously and gravely.
“I claim it,” she said; “but is it mine? Yet I will win it, Otto; even at the uttermost price, I will make it mine.”
“And at what cost?” said Otto. “What is that uttermost price?”
“I think,” she said slowly, “I already feel what it is. I must learn to live in the plain as contentedly as on the mountain tops. I have hungered to leave my place in the world, to go to those haunts where only a few great ones of the earth dwell, and from them learnthe secret of how to finally escape from the life of earth altogether. That has been my dream, Otto, put into simple words; the old dream of the Rosicrucian and those hungerers after the occult who have always haunted the world like ghosts, unsatisfied, homeless. Because I am a strong-willed creature, because I have learned how to use my will, because I have been taught a few tricks of magic I fancied myself fitted to be one of the White Brotherhood. Well, it is not so. I have failed. I shall be your queen, Otto.”
The young king turned on her a sudden look full of mingled emotions. “Is that to be, Fleta? Then may I be worthy of your companionship.”
Fleta had spoken bitterly, though not ungently. Otto’s reply had been in a strange tone, that had exultation, reverence, gladness, in it; but not any of the passion which is called love. A coquette would have been provoked by a manner so entirely that of friendship.
“Otto,” said Fleta, after a moment’s pause, during which they had walked on side by side. “I am going to test your generosity. Will you leave me now?”
“My generosity?” exclaimed Otto. “How is it possible for you to address me in that way?” Without any further word of explanation he turned on his heel and walked quickly away. Fleta understood his meaning very well; she smiled softly as she looked for a moment after him. Then, as he vanished, her whole face changed, her whole expression of attitude, too. For a little while she stood quite still, seemingly wrapt in thought. Then steadily and swiftly she began to move across the grass and afterwards to thread her way through the trees. Having once commenced to move, she seemed to have no hesitation as to the direction in which she was going. And, indeed, if you had been able to ask her how she knew what path to take, she would have answered that it was very easy to know. For she was guided by a direct call from Amyot, as plainly heard as any human voice, though audible only to her inner hearing. To Fleta, the consciousness of the double life—the spiritual and the natural—was a matter of constant experience, and, therefore, there was no need for the darkness of midnight to enable her to hear a voice from what ordinary men and women call the unseen world. To Fleta it was no more unseen than unheard. She saw at once, conquering time and space, the spot where she would find Father Amyot at the end of her rapid walk; and more, the state she would find him in. The sun streamed in its full power and splendour straight on the strange figure of the monk, lying rigidly upon the grass. Fleta stood beside him and looked down on his face, upturned to the sky. For a little while she did nothing, but stood there with a frown upon her forehead and her dark eyes full of fierce and changing feeling. Amyot was in one of his profound trances, when, though not dead, yet he was as one dead.
“Already my difficulties crowd around me,” exclaimed Fleta aloud.“What folly shall I unknowingly commit next? My poor servant—dare I even try to restore you—or will Nature be a safer friend?”
Full of doubt and hesitation, she turned slowly away and began to pace up and down the grass beside the figure of the priest. Presently she became aware that she was not alone—some one was near her. She started and turned quickly. Ivan stood but a pace from her, and his eyes were fixed very earnestly upon her.
He was not dressed as a priest, but wore a simple hunting dress, such as an ordinary sportsman or the king incognito might wear. Simple it was, and made of coarse materials; but its easy make showed a magnificent figure which the monkish robes had disguised. His face had on it a deep and almost pathetic seriousness; and yet it was so handsome, so nobly cut, and made so brilliant by the deep blue eyes, which were bluer than their wont now, even in the full blaze of the sun—that in fact as a man merely, here stood one who might make any woman’s heart, queen or no queen, beat fiercely with admiration. Fleta had never seen him like this before; to her he had always been the master, the adept in mysterious knowledge, the recluse who hid his love of solitude under a monkish veil. This was Ivan! Young, superb, a man who must be loved. Fleta stood still and silent, answering the gaze of those questioning, serious blue eyes, with the purposeful, rebellious look which was just now burning in her own. The two stood facing each other for some moments, without speaking—without, as it seemed, desiring to speak. But in these moments of silence a measuring of strength was made. Fleta spoke first.
“Why have you come?” she demanded. “I did not desire your presence.”
“You have questions to ask which I alone can answer.”
“You are the one person who cannot answer them, for I cannot ask them of you.”
“It is of me that you must ask them,” was all Ivan’s reply. Then he added: “It is of me you have to learn these answers. Learn them by experience if you like, and blindly. If you care to speak, you shall be answered in words. This will spare you some pain, and save you years of wasted time. Are you too proud?”
There was a pause. Then Fleta replied deliberately:
“Yes, I am too proud.”
Ivan bowed his head and turned away. He stooped over Father Amyot, and taking a flask from his pocket, rubbed some liquid on the monk’s white and rigid lips.
“I forbid you,” said Ivan, “to use your power over Amyot again.”
“You forbid me?” repeated Fleta in a tone of profound amazement. Evidently this tone was entirely new to her.
“Yes, and you dare not disobey me. If you do, you will suffer instantly.”
Fleta looked the amazement which was evidently beyond her power to express in words. Ivan’s manner was cold, almost harsh. Never had he addressed her without gentleness before. Hastily she recovered herself, and without pausing to address to him any other word she turned away and went quickly through the trees and back to the house. Otto was standing at one of the windows; she went straight to him.
“I wish to go back to the city at once,” she said, “will you order my horses?”
“May I come with you?”
“No, but you may follow me to-morrow if you like.”
(To becontinued.)
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Man’s reasoning faith can outlive and can rideO’er countless speculations. Navies floatOn changeful waves, and for this ark-like boatWinds from all quarters, every swelling tideWill serve. By all the virgin spheres that glideLike timid guests across sky-floor we noteWhere lies the pole-star. Those who only quoteTheir compass, fail, and antique charts must slideTo error, in this shifting sand of thoughtAndnew-found science, where sweet isles of palmAnd olive sink, that were as land-marks sought,While others rise from Ocean’s fertile bed.No storm, nor heat, nor cold I fear; my dreadIs lest the ship should meet a death-like calm.
Man’s reasoning faith can outlive and can rideO’er countless speculations. Navies floatOn changeful waves, and for this ark-like boatWinds from all quarters, every swelling tideWill serve. By all the virgin spheres that glideLike timid guests across sky-floor we noteWhere lies the pole-star. Those who only quoteTheir compass, fail, and antique charts must slideTo error, in this shifting sand of thoughtAndnew-found science, where sweet isles of palmAnd olive sink, that were as land-marks sought,While others rise from Ocean’s fertile bed.No storm, nor heat, nor cold I fear; my dreadIs lest the ship should meet a death-like calm.
Man’s reasoning faith can outlive and can rideO’er countless speculations. Navies floatOn changeful waves, and for this ark-like boatWinds from all quarters, every swelling tideWill serve. By all the virgin spheres that glideLike timid guests across sky-floor we noteWhere lies the pole-star. Those who only quoteTheir compass, fail, and antique charts must slideTo error, in this shifting sand of thoughtAndnew-found science, where sweet isles of palmAnd olive sink, that were as land-marks sought,While others rise from Ocean’s fertile bed.No storm, nor heat, nor cold I fear; my dreadIs lest the ship should meet a death-like calm.
Man’s reasoning faith can outlive and can ride
O’er countless speculations. Navies float
On changeful waves, and for this ark-like boat
Winds from all quarters, every swelling tide
Will serve. By all the virgin spheres that glide
Like timid guests across sky-floor we note
Where lies the pole-star. Those who only quote
Their compass, fail, and antique charts must slide
To error, in this shifting sand of thought
Andnew-found science, where sweet isles of palm
And olive sink, that were as land-marks sought,
While others rise from Ocean’s fertile bed.
No storm, nor heat, nor cold I fear; my dread
Is lest the ship should meet a death-like calm.
Ah! wondrous happy rounding universeWhere suns and moons alike as tears e’er mouldThemselves to beauteous circles! He that rolledThe planets, curved their paths; though seas immerseBoth shattered ship and shell, naughtshall escapeTh’ inevitable wheel that must restoreThe seeming lost. The potent buried loreOf saint and sage revives to melt and shapeOur thoughts to comeliness, and souls that leaveEarth’s shores float back as craft that cruising sails;Each blessed gift that hourly from us flies,God will rain down albeit in other guise;—And e’en the very dew-dropnoon exhalesMay find again the self-same rose at eve.
Ah! wondrous happy rounding universeWhere suns and moons alike as tears e’er mouldThemselves to beauteous circles! He that rolledThe planets, curved their paths; though seas immerseBoth shattered ship and shell, naughtshall escapeTh’ inevitable wheel that must restoreThe seeming lost. The potent buried loreOf saint and sage revives to melt and shapeOur thoughts to comeliness, and souls that leaveEarth’s shores float back as craft that cruising sails;Each blessed gift that hourly from us flies,God will rain down albeit in other guise;—And e’en the very dew-dropnoon exhalesMay find again the self-same rose at eve.
Ah! wondrous happy rounding universeWhere suns and moons alike as tears e’er mouldThemselves to beauteous circles! He that rolledThe planets, curved their paths; though seas immerseBoth shattered ship and shell, naughtshall escapeTh’ inevitable wheel that must restoreThe seeming lost. The potent buried loreOf saint and sage revives to melt and shapeOur thoughts to comeliness, and souls that leaveEarth’s shores float back as craft that cruising sails;Each blessed gift that hourly from us flies,God will rain down albeit in other guise;—And e’en the very dew-dropnoon exhalesMay find again the self-same rose at eve.
Ah! wondrous happy rounding universe
Where suns and moons alike as tears e’er mould
Themselves to beauteous circles! He that rolled
The planets, curved their paths; though seas immerse
Both shattered ship and shell, naughtshall escape
Th’ inevitable wheel that must restore
The seeming lost. The potent buried lore
Of saint and sage revives to melt and shape
Our thoughts to comeliness, and souls that leave
Earth’s shores float back as craft that cruising sails;
Each blessed gift that hourly from us flies,
God will rain down albeit in other guise;—
And e’en the very dew-dropnoon exhales
May find again the self-same rose at eve.
Mary W. Gale.
TWILIGHT VISIONS.
“At evening time there shall be light.”—Zech.xiv., 7.
“At evening time there shall be light.”—Zech.xiv., 7.
“At evening time there shall be light.”—Zech.xiv., 7.
“At evening time there shall be light.”
—Zech.xiv., 7.
The day’s work done, I cast my pen asideAnd rose, with aching eye and troubled brain,Thinking how oft my fellow workers hereHave suffered in the flesh for labours wroughtIn love to all mankind; and how the worldCares nought for words which teach not of itself;For to the world, itself is all in all,And nought outside it can the world conceiveAs real and true. And yet this earth must ceaseTo be for ever to each mortal, whenThe Spirit casts off earth, and, in new lifeWill feel and know the world to be the valeOf deathly shadows compass’d round aboutWith ignorance and error, sin and crime,With yearnings, longings, miseries, and griefs,And all that makes the “Breath of Lives” to seemAs Angels wrestling with the powers of hell.* * * *A gentle Spirit with the twilight cameAnd rested on my soul; then hope with peace,Long since to me as strangers, touched my heart,And, sitting at the organ, soft and sweetThere streamed a flow of harmony, tho’ IScarce seemed to touch the keys, yet simple hymnsCalled forth a train of Spirits bright and young,Amongst them saw I all that I had knownAnd loved in days when life seem’d sweet to me.I was a child again, and saw myselfAs such—no aching eye—no troubled brainHad that young being who in faith and hopeSang songs of holiness, of peace and truth—There, resting on his Mother’s breast, with armsClasped round her neck, with loving eyes that watchedThe loving face, whereon a parent’s smileWas ever present in the days now past,Now buried in the dust with former things.* * * *In saddened notes swelled forth “Thy will be done!”And then appeared a radiant spirit formOf one who, as a babe, was called away,From out this world of wretchedness and sin.An infant—which scarce breathed upon the earthEre God, in His great mercy, took her homeTo dwell with Him, and she, an Angel bless’d,Now looks in pity on her parents here,A weeping witness of the vacant livesWhich in the world their souls are forced to passAs, hung’ring for the love of One in heavenThey stagger on from day to day in doubt—In misery, which none but they can know.* * * *Some cursed bonds can ne’er be snapped in twain,Save death or sin alone be brought to bearTo shatter human customs hard and vile,And false and horrible as hell itself.For man exists in darkness, bound by lawsWhich curse and damn his very soul on earth;Mankind will not accept the Master’s wordsOr listen to His cry within the soul.And so the world in falsehood wanders onAnd dooms the inner Man of Light againTo suffer crucifixion in the flesh;The Trinity—of Wisdom, Love and Truth—The Christ, is absent from this “Christian” WorldAnd ignorance with hatred lies and sinReign rampant in their infidel abode.* * * *“Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.”O Lord! we suff’ring mortals here on earthHave nought but Thee, Thou Guide of all mankindTo lead us in our wand’rings, and to turnOur falt’ring footsteps from the way of death;Thy Angels true are sent to fainting souls,And lovingly their voices soft are heardPeace! troubled hearts, hereafter all shall beMade up in heaven. Know that sufferingsAre sent in love that we may minister,To all your needs, and bear you safely homeTo that good land ordained for all mankind—The kingdom bright—of happiness and love,Whereon your lives shall ever be a restIn one long summer day of light and joy.No mortal e’er can comprehend the peaceOf God, which shall be yours, when, from the worldYour glorious inner beings stand apartFor ever! Soon shall you know all that weWould tell you now—yet hope and struggle on.“At evening time there shall be Light! and then—The Living Light shall lead you home to God,Home to the place which He hath made,—’tis yoursFor ever! We are sent to tell you thisAnd by the Mighty One we do not lie!* * * *“O Glorious Angels of our Loving God!Pray tell us if this land, we fain would know,Contains the dear ones we have loved on earth?For what were heaven e’en to us, if weCould nevermore be all in all to thoseWho when on earth were all in all tous!”us!”A voice replied—’twas one I oft have heardAnd learned to love with more than mortal love,“Look up, my own! and see me with thee nowFor ever on this earth. If then ’tis so,How canst thou think that I shall ever beApart from thee in heav’n—the land of loveWherein alone life’s consummation findsA fullness in its own eternal self?For God is all—thus He is life and loveAnd love eternal is the power that weldsEach atom in the universal chainOf infinite expanse throughout the skies—Which ever shows to godly men on earthThe Power of powers that reigneth overall!”all!”* * * *Then in the gloom a glorious form appeared,And, standing by my side, it pressed its lipsUpon the troubled brow which none could calmOn earth, save she who was beside me then.And so an Angel from our loving GodCame down to comfort, in the eventide—To show, by light of love, God’s holy truth,Which from the world—in darkness—hath been hidBecause the world in darkness will exist,And, living thus, man sins against himselfAnd so against his loving God of Life.The promised Light appeared at evening time,And by its living rays did I perceive—Mankind to wander on in sin and shame;ThusHELLprevails to-day where heaven should be....
The day’s work done, I cast my pen asideAnd rose, with aching eye and troubled brain,Thinking how oft my fellow workers hereHave suffered in the flesh for labours wroughtIn love to all mankind; and how the worldCares nought for words which teach not of itself;For to the world, itself is all in all,And nought outside it can the world conceiveAs real and true. And yet this earth must ceaseTo be for ever to each mortal, whenThe Spirit casts off earth, and, in new lifeWill feel and know the world to be the valeOf deathly shadows compass’d round aboutWith ignorance and error, sin and crime,With yearnings, longings, miseries, and griefs,And all that makes the “Breath of Lives” to seemAs Angels wrestling with the powers of hell.* * * *A gentle Spirit with the twilight cameAnd rested on my soul; then hope with peace,Long since to me as strangers, touched my heart,And, sitting at the organ, soft and sweetThere streamed a flow of harmony, tho’ IScarce seemed to touch the keys, yet simple hymnsCalled forth a train of Spirits bright and young,Amongst them saw I all that I had knownAnd loved in days when life seem’d sweet to me.I was a child again, and saw myselfAs such—no aching eye—no troubled brainHad that young being who in faith and hopeSang songs of holiness, of peace and truth—There, resting on his Mother’s breast, with armsClasped round her neck, with loving eyes that watchedThe loving face, whereon a parent’s smileWas ever present in the days now past,Now buried in the dust with former things.* * * *In saddened notes swelled forth “Thy will be done!”And then appeared a radiant spirit formOf one who, as a babe, was called away,From out this world of wretchedness and sin.An infant—which scarce breathed upon the earthEre God, in His great mercy, took her homeTo dwell with Him, and she, an Angel bless’d,Now looks in pity on her parents here,A weeping witness of the vacant livesWhich in the world their souls are forced to passAs, hung’ring for the love of One in heavenThey stagger on from day to day in doubt—In misery, which none but they can know.* * * *Some cursed bonds can ne’er be snapped in twain,Save death or sin alone be brought to bearTo shatter human customs hard and vile,And false and horrible as hell itself.For man exists in darkness, bound by lawsWhich curse and damn his very soul on earth;Mankind will not accept the Master’s wordsOr listen to His cry within the soul.And so the world in falsehood wanders onAnd dooms the inner Man of Light againTo suffer crucifixion in the flesh;The Trinity—of Wisdom, Love and Truth—The Christ, is absent from this “Christian” WorldAnd ignorance with hatred lies and sinReign rampant in their infidel abode.* * * *“Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.”O Lord! we suff’ring mortals here on earthHave nought but Thee, Thou Guide of all mankindTo lead us in our wand’rings, and to turnOur falt’ring footsteps from the way of death;Thy Angels true are sent to fainting souls,And lovingly their voices soft are heardPeace! troubled hearts, hereafter all shall beMade up in heaven. Know that sufferingsAre sent in love that we may minister,To all your needs, and bear you safely homeTo that good land ordained for all mankind—The kingdom bright—of happiness and love,Whereon your lives shall ever be a restIn one long summer day of light and joy.No mortal e’er can comprehend the peaceOf God, which shall be yours, when, from the worldYour glorious inner beings stand apartFor ever! Soon shall you know all that weWould tell you now—yet hope and struggle on.“At evening time there shall be Light! and then—The Living Light shall lead you home to God,Home to the place which He hath made,—’tis yoursFor ever! We are sent to tell you thisAnd by the Mighty One we do not lie!* * * *“O Glorious Angels of our Loving God!Pray tell us if this land, we fain would know,Contains the dear ones we have loved on earth?For what were heaven e’en to us, if weCould nevermore be all in all to thoseWho when on earth were all in all tous!”us!”A voice replied—’twas one I oft have heardAnd learned to love with more than mortal love,“Look up, my own! and see me with thee nowFor ever on this earth. If then ’tis so,How canst thou think that I shall ever beApart from thee in heav’n—the land of loveWherein alone life’s consummation findsA fullness in its own eternal self?For God is all—thus He is life and loveAnd love eternal is the power that weldsEach atom in the universal chainOf infinite expanse throughout the skies—Which ever shows to godly men on earthThe Power of powers that reigneth overall!”all!”* * * *Then in the gloom a glorious form appeared,And, standing by my side, it pressed its lipsUpon the troubled brow which none could calmOn earth, save she who was beside me then.And so an Angel from our loving GodCame down to comfort, in the eventide—To show, by light of love, God’s holy truth,Which from the world—in darkness—hath been hidBecause the world in darkness will exist,And, living thus, man sins against himselfAnd so against his loving God of Life.The promised Light appeared at evening time,And by its living rays did I perceive—Mankind to wander on in sin and shame;ThusHELLprevails to-day where heaven should be....
The day’s work done, I cast my pen asideAnd rose, with aching eye and troubled brain,Thinking how oft my fellow workers hereHave suffered in the flesh for labours wroughtIn love to all mankind; and how the worldCares nought for words which teach not of itself;For to the world, itself is all in all,And nought outside it can the world conceiveAs real and true. And yet this earth must ceaseTo be for ever to each mortal, whenThe Spirit casts off earth, and, in new lifeWill feel and know the world to be the valeOf deathly shadows compass’d round aboutWith ignorance and error, sin and crime,With yearnings, longings, miseries, and griefs,And all that makes the “Breath of Lives” to seemAs Angels wrestling with the powers of hell.
The day’s work done, I cast my pen aside
And rose, with aching eye and troubled brain,
Thinking how oft my fellow workers here
Have suffered in the flesh for labours wrought
In love to all mankind; and how the world
Cares nought for words which teach not of itself;
For to the world, itself is all in all,
And nought outside it can the world conceive
As real and true. And yet this earth must cease
To be for ever to each mortal, when
The Spirit casts off earth, and, in new life
Will feel and know the world to be the vale
Of deathly shadows compass’d round about
With ignorance and error, sin and crime,
With yearnings, longings, miseries, and griefs,
And all that makes the “Breath of Lives” to seem
As Angels wrestling with the powers of hell.
* * * *
* * * *
A gentle Spirit with the twilight cameAnd rested on my soul; then hope with peace,Long since to me as strangers, touched my heart,And, sitting at the organ, soft and sweetThere streamed a flow of harmony, tho’ IScarce seemed to touch the keys, yet simple hymnsCalled forth a train of Spirits bright and young,Amongst them saw I all that I had knownAnd loved in days when life seem’d sweet to me.I was a child again, and saw myselfAs such—no aching eye—no troubled brainHad that young being who in faith and hopeSang songs of holiness, of peace and truth—There, resting on his Mother’s breast, with armsClasped round her neck, with loving eyes that watchedThe loving face, whereon a parent’s smileWas ever present in the days now past,Now buried in the dust with former things.
A gentle Spirit with the twilight came
And rested on my soul; then hope with peace,
Long since to me as strangers, touched my heart,
And, sitting at the organ, soft and sweet
There streamed a flow of harmony, tho’ I
Scarce seemed to touch the keys, yet simple hymns
Called forth a train of Spirits bright and young,
Amongst them saw I all that I had known
And loved in days when life seem’d sweet to me.
I was a child again, and saw myself
As such—no aching eye—no troubled brain
Had that young being who in faith and hope
Sang songs of holiness, of peace and truth—
There, resting on his Mother’s breast, with arms
Clasped round her neck, with loving eyes that watched
The loving face, whereon a parent’s smile
Was ever present in the days now past,
Now buried in the dust with former things.
* * * *
* * * *
In saddened notes swelled forth “Thy will be done!”And then appeared a radiant spirit formOf one who, as a babe, was called away,From out this world of wretchedness and sin.An infant—which scarce breathed upon the earthEre God, in His great mercy, took her homeTo dwell with Him, and she, an Angel bless’d,Now looks in pity on her parents here,A weeping witness of the vacant livesWhich in the world their souls are forced to passAs, hung’ring for the love of One in heavenThey stagger on from day to day in doubt—In misery, which none but they can know.
In saddened notes swelled forth “Thy will be done!”
And then appeared a radiant spirit form
Of one who, as a babe, was called away,
From out this world of wretchedness and sin.
An infant—which scarce breathed upon the earth
Ere God, in His great mercy, took her home
To dwell with Him, and she, an Angel bless’d,
Now looks in pity on her parents here,
A weeping witness of the vacant lives
Which in the world their souls are forced to pass
As, hung’ring for the love of One in heaven
They stagger on from day to day in doubt—
In misery, which none but they can know.
* * * *
* * * *
Some cursed bonds can ne’er be snapped in twain,Save death or sin alone be brought to bearTo shatter human customs hard and vile,And false and horrible as hell itself.For man exists in darkness, bound by lawsWhich curse and damn his very soul on earth;Mankind will not accept the Master’s wordsOr listen to His cry within the soul.And so the world in falsehood wanders onAnd dooms the inner Man of Light againTo suffer crucifixion in the flesh;The Trinity—of Wisdom, Love and Truth—The Christ, is absent from this “Christian” WorldAnd ignorance with hatred lies and sinReign rampant in their infidel abode.
Some cursed bonds can ne’er be snapped in twain,
Save death or sin alone be brought to bear
To shatter human customs hard and vile,
And false and horrible as hell itself.
For man exists in darkness, bound by laws
Which curse and damn his very soul on earth;
Mankind will not accept the Master’s words
Or listen to His cry within the soul.
And so the world in falsehood wanders on
And dooms the inner Man of Light again
To suffer crucifixion in the flesh;
The Trinity—of Wisdom, Love and Truth—
The Christ, is absent from this “Christian” World
And ignorance with hatred lies and sin
Reign rampant in their infidel abode.
* * * *
* * * *
“Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.”O Lord! we suff’ring mortals here on earthHave nought but Thee, Thou Guide of all mankindTo lead us in our wand’rings, and to turnOur falt’ring footsteps from the way of death;Thy Angels true are sent to fainting souls,And lovingly their voices soft are heardPeace! troubled hearts, hereafter all shall beMade up in heaven. Know that sufferingsAre sent in love that we may minister,To all your needs, and bear you safely homeTo that good land ordained for all mankind—The kingdom bright—of happiness and love,Whereon your lives shall ever be a restIn one long summer day of light and joy.No mortal e’er can comprehend the peaceOf God, which shall be yours, when, from the worldYour glorious inner beings stand apartFor ever! Soon shall you know all that weWould tell you now—yet hope and struggle on.“At evening time there shall be Light! and then—The Living Light shall lead you home to God,Home to the place which He hath made,—’tis yoursFor ever! We are sent to tell you thisAnd by the Mighty One we do not lie!
“Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.”
O Lord! we suff’ring mortals here on earth
Have nought but Thee, Thou Guide of all mankind
To lead us in our wand’rings, and to turn
Our falt’ring footsteps from the way of death;
Thy Angels true are sent to fainting souls,
And lovingly their voices soft are heard
Peace! troubled hearts, hereafter all shall be
Made up in heaven. Know that sufferings
Are sent in love that we may minister,
To all your needs, and bear you safely home
To that good land ordained for all mankind—
The kingdom bright—of happiness and love,
Whereon your lives shall ever be a rest
In one long summer day of light and joy.
No mortal e’er can comprehend the peace
Of God, which shall be yours, when, from the world
Your glorious inner beings stand apart
For ever! Soon shall you know all that we
Would tell you now—yet hope and struggle on.
“At evening time there shall be Light! and then—
The Living Light shall lead you home to God,
Home to the place which He hath made,—’tis yours
For ever! We are sent to tell you this
And by the Mighty One we do not lie!
* * * *
* * * *
“O Glorious Angels of our Loving God!Pray tell us if this land, we fain would know,Contains the dear ones we have loved on earth?For what were heaven e’en to us, if weCould nevermore be all in all to thoseWho when on earth were all in all tous!”us!”A voice replied—’twas one I oft have heardAnd learned to love with more than mortal love,“Look up, my own! and see me with thee nowFor ever on this earth. If then ’tis so,How canst thou think that I shall ever beApart from thee in heav’n—the land of loveWherein alone life’s consummation findsA fullness in its own eternal self?For God is all—thus He is life and loveAnd love eternal is the power that weldsEach atom in the universal chainOf infinite expanse throughout the skies—Which ever shows to godly men on earthThe Power of powers that reigneth overall!”all!”
“O Glorious Angels of our Loving God!
Pray tell us if this land, we fain would know,
Contains the dear ones we have loved on earth?
For what were heaven e’en to us, if we
Could nevermore be all in all to those
Who when on earth were all in all tous!”us!”
A voice replied—’twas one I oft have heard
And learned to love with more than mortal love,
“Look up, my own! and see me with thee now
For ever on this earth. If then ’tis so,
How canst thou think that I shall ever be
Apart from thee in heav’n—the land of love
Wherein alone life’s consummation finds
A fullness in its own eternal self?
For God is all—thus He is life and love
And love eternal is the power that welds
Each atom in the universal chain
Of infinite expanse throughout the skies—
Which ever shows to godly men on earth
The Power of powers that reigneth overall!”all!”
* * * *
* * * *
Then in the gloom a glorious form appeared,And, standing by my side, it pressed its lipsUpon the troubled brow which none could calmOn earth, save she who was beside me then.And so an Angel from our loving GodCame down to comfort, in the eventide—To show, by light of love, God’s holy truth,Which from the world—in darkness—hath been hidBecause the world in darkness will exist,And, living thus, man sins against himselfAnd so against his loving God of Life.The promised Light appeared at evening time,And by its living rays did I perceive—Mankind to wander on in sin and shame;ThusHELLprevails to-day where heaven should be....
Then in the gloom a glorious form appeared,
And, standing by my side, it pressed its lips
Upon the troubled brow which none could calm
On earth, save she who was beside me then.
And so an Angel from our loving God
Came down to comfort, in the eventide—
To show, by light of love, God’s holy truth,
Which from the world—in darkness—hath been hid
Because the world in darkness will exist,
And, living thus, man sins against himself
And so against his loving God of Life.
The promised Light appeared at evening time,
And by its living rays did I perceive—
Mankind to wander on in sin and shame;
ThusHELLprevails to-day where heaven should be....
Wm. C. Eldon Serjeant.
London,6th December, 1887.
ESOTERICISM OF THE CHRISTIAN DOGMA.
Creation as taught by Moses and the Mahatmas.BY THE ABBÉ ROCA(Honorary Canon).
Creation as taught by Moses and the Mahatmas.BY THE ABBÉ ROCA(Honorary Canon).
Creation as taught by Moses and the Mahatmas.
BY THE ABBÉ ROCA(Honorary Canon).
[Extracts translated from the “Lotus”Revue des Hautes Etudes Theosophiques. Journal of “Isis,” the French Branch of The Theosophical Society. December, 1887. Paris, George Carrés, 58, Rue St André des Arts.—VERBAL TRANSLATION.]
[Extracts translated from the “Lotus”Revue des Hautes Etudes Theosophiques. Journal of “Isis,” the French Branch of The Theosophical Society. December, 1887. Paris, George Carrés, 58, Rue St André des Arts.—VERBAL TRANSLATION.]
Thanks to the light which is now reaching us from the far East through the Theosophical organs published in the West, it is easy to foresee that the Catholic teaching is about to undergo a transformation as profound as it will be glorious. All our dogmas will pass from “the letter which killeth” to “the spirit which giveth life,” from the mystic and sacramental to the scientific and rational form, perhaps even to the stage of experimental methods.
The reign of faith, of mystery and of miracle, is nearing its close; this is plain and was, moreover, predicted by Christ himself. Faith vanishes from the brains of men of science, to make way for the clear perception of the essential truths which had to be veiled at the origin of Christianity, under symbols and figures, so as to adapt them, as far as possible, to the needs and weaknesses of the infancy of our faith.
Strange! It is at the very hour when Europe is attaining the age of reason, and when she is visibly entering upon the full possession of her powers, that India prepares to hand on to us those loftier ideas which exactly meet our new wants, as much from the intellectual, as from the moral, religious, social and other standpoints.
One might believe that the “Brothers” kept an eye from afar on the movements of Christendom, and that from the summits of their Himalayan watch towers, they had waited expectantly for the hour when they would be able to make us hear them with some chance of being understood....
It is certain that the situation in the West is becoming more and more serious. Everyone knows whence comes the imminence of the catastrophe which threatens us; hitherto men have only evoked the animal needs, they have only awakened and unchained the brute forces of nature, the passional instincts, the savage energies of the lower Kosmos. Christianity does indeed conceal under the profound esotericism of its Parables, those truths, scientific, religious, and social, which this deplorable situation imperiously demands, but sad to say, sad indeed for a priest, hard, hard indeed for Christian ears to hear, all our priesthoods, that of the Roman Catholic Church equally with those of the Orthodox Russian, the Anglican, the Protestant, and the Anglo-American churches, seem struck with blindness and impotence in faceof the glorious task which they would have to fulfil in these terrible circumstances. They see nothing; their eyes are plastered and their ears walled up. They do not discover; one is tempted to say, they do not even suspect what ineffable truths are hidden under the dead letter of their teachings.
Say, is it not into that darkness that we are all stumbling, in State and in Church, in politics as in religion! A double calamity forming but one for the peoples, which suffer horribly under it, and for our civilisation which may be shipwrecked on it at any moment. May God deliver us from a war at this moment! It would be a cataclysm in which Europe would break to pieces in blood and fire, as Montesquieu foresaw: “Europe will perish through the soldiers, if not saved in time.” We must escape from this empiricism and this fearful confusion. But who will save us? The Christ, the true Christ, the Christ of esoteric science.[126]And how? Thus: the same key which, under the eyes of the scientific bodies, shall open the secrets of Nature, will open their own intellects to the secrets of true Sociology; the same key which, under the eyes of the priesthoods, shall open the Arcana of the mysteries and the gospel parables, will open their intellects to these same secrets of Sociology. Priests and savants will then develope in the radiance of one and the same light.
And this key—I can assert it, for I have proved it in application to all our dogmas—this key is the same which the Mahatmas offer and deliver to us at this moment.[127]
There is here an interposition of Providence, before which we should all of us offer up our own thanksgivings. For my part, I am deeply touched by it; I feel I know not what sacred thrill! My gratitude is the more keen since, if I confront the Hindu tradition with the occult theosophic traditions of Judeo-Christianity, from its origin to our own day, through the Holy Kabbala, I can recognise clearly the agreement of the teaching of the “Brothers” with the esoteric teaching of Moses, Jesus, and Saint Paul.
People are sure to say: “You abase the West before the East, Europe before Asia, France before India, Christianity before Buddhism. You are betraying at once your Country and your Church, your quality as a Frenchman, and your character as a Priest.” Pardon me, gentlemen! I abase nothing whatever; I betray nothing at all! A member of Humanity, I work for the happiness of Humanity; a son of France, I work for the glory of France; a Priest of Jesus Christ, I work for thetriumph of Jesus Christ. You shall be forced to confess it; suspend, therefore, your anathemas, and listen, if you please!
We are traversing a frightful crisis. For the last hundred years we have been trying to round theCape of Social Tempests, which I spoke of before; we have been enduring, without intermission, the fires, the lightnings the thunders, and the earthquakes of an unparalleled hurricane, and we feel, clearly enough, that everything is giving way around us; under our feet and over our heads! Neither pontiffs, nor savants, nor politicians, nor statesmen, show themselves capable of snatching us from the abysses towards which we are being, one is tempted to say, driven by a fatality! If, then, I discover, in the distant East, through the darkness of this tempest, the blessed star which alone can guide us, amidst so many shoals, safe and sound to the longed-for haven of safety, am I wanting in patriotism and religion because I announce to my brethren the rising of this beneficent star?...
I know as well as you that it was said to Peter: “Iwillgive thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, that thou mayest open its gates upon earth”; yes, doubtless, but note the tense of this verb: Iwill givethee: in the future. Has the Christian Pontiff already received them—those magic Keys? Before replying look and see what Rome has made of Christendom; see the lamentable state of Europe; not only engaged in open war with foreign nationalities, but also exhausting herself in fratricidal wars and preparations to consummate her own destruction; behold everywhere Christian against Christian, church against church, priesthood against priesthood, class against class, school against school, and, often in the same family, brother against brother, sons against their father, the father against his sons! What a spectacle! And a Pope presides over it! And while, all around, men prepare for a general slaughter, he, the Pope, thinks only of one thing—of his temporal domain, of his material possessions! Think you that this state of things forms the Kingdom of Heaven, and say you still that the Pontiff of Rome has already received the Keys thereof?
It is written, perchance, in the decrees of Providence, that these mysterious Keys shall be brought to the brethren of the West by the “Brothers” of the East.... Such is, indeed, the expectation of all the nations; the prophetic East sighs for the tenth incarnation of Vishnu, which shall be the crown of all the Avatars which have preceded it, and the Apocalypse, on its side, announces the appearance of theWhite Horsewhich is the symbol of the Christ risen, glorious and triumphant before the eyes of all the peoples of the earth.
This is how I, priest of Jesus Christ, betray Jesus Christ, when I acclaim the wisdom of the Mahatmas and their mission in the West!
I have spoken of the opportuneness of the hour chosen by them for coming to our help. I must insist upon this point.
[The Abbé then enforces his argument by references to the position of Modern Science, and concludes:—Tr.]
“The phenomena of motion,” by means of which men of science claim to explain everything, explain nothing at all, because the very cause of that motion is unknown to our physicists as they themselves admit. “Consider, say to us the Mahatmas by the mouth of their Adepts, that behind each physical energy is hidden another energy, which itself serves as envelope to a spiritual force which is the living soul of every manifested force.”
And thus Nature offers us an infinite series of forces one within another, serving mutually as sheaths, which, as d’Alembert suspected, produce all sensible phenomena and reach all points of the circumference starting from a central point, which is God....
I can now, after these preliminaries, give an example of the transformation which, thanks to the Mahatmas, will soon take place in the teaching of the Christian Church. I will take particularly the dogma of theCreation, informing my readers that they will find in a book I am preparing,The New Heavens and the New Earth, an analogous work on all the dogmas of the Catholic faith.
Matter exists in states of infinite variety, and, sometimes, even of opposite appearance. The world is constituted in two poles, the North or Spiritual, and the South or Material pole: these two poles correspond perfectly and differ only in form, that is, in appearance.
Regarded from above, as the Easterns regard it, the universal substance presents the aspect of a spiritual or divineemanation; looked at from below, as the Westerns are in the habit of viewing it, it offers, on the contrary, the aspect of a material creation.
One sees at once the difference which must exist between the two intellectualities and, consequently, between the two civilisations of the East and the West. Yet there is no more error in the Genesis of Moses, which is that of the Christian teaching, than there is in the Genesis of the Mahatmas, which is that of the Buddhist doctrine. The one and the other of these Geneses are absolutely founded on one and the same reality. Whether one descends or ascends the scale of being, one only traverses, in the East from above downwards, in the West from below upwards, the same ladder of essences, more or less spiritualised, more or less materialised, according as one approaches to, or recedes from,Pure Spirit, which is God.
It was, therefore, not worth while to fulminate so much on one side or the other, here, against the theory ofemanation, there, against the theory ofCreation. One always comes back to the principle of Hermes Trismegistus: the universe is dual, though formed of a single substance. The Kabbalists knew it well, and it was taught long ago in the Egyptiansanctuaries, as the occultists have never ceased to repeat it in the temples of India.
It will soon be demonstrated, I hope, by scientific experiments such as those of Mr. William Crookes, the Academician, that everywhere, throughout all nature,spiritandmatterare nottwobutone, and that they nowhere offer a real division in life. Under every physical force there is a spiritual or a psychic force: in the heart of the minutest atom is hidden a vital soul, the presence of which has been perfectly determined by Claude Bernard in germs imperceptible to the naked eye. “This soul, human, animal, vegetal or mineral, is but a ray lent by the universal soul to every object manifested in the Kosmos.”
“Corporeal man and the sensible universe, says the theosophical doctrine, are but the appearance imparted to them by the cohesion of the interatomic or inter-astral forces which constitute both exteriorly. The visible side of a being is an ever-changing Maya.” The language of St. Paul is in no way different: “The aspect of the world,” he says, “is a passing vision, an image which passes and renews itself continually—transit figura hujus mundi.”
“The real man, or themicrocosm—and one can say as much of themacrocosm—is an astral force which reveals itself through this physical appearance, and which, having existed before the birth of this form, does not share its fate at the hour of death: surviving its destruction. The material form cannot subsistwithoutwithoutthe spiritual force which sustains it; but the latter is independent of the former, for form is created by spirit, and not spirit by form.”
This theory is word for word that of the “Brothers” and the Adepts, at the same time it is that of the Kabbalists and the Christians of the School of Origen, and the Johannine Church.
There could not be a more perfect agreement. Transfer this teaching to the genesis of the Kosmos and you have the secret of the formation of the World; at the same time you discover the profound meaning of the saying of St. Paul: “The invisible things of God are made visible to the eye of man through the visible things of the creation,” a saying so well translated by Joseph de Maistre by the following: “The world is a vast system of invisible things, visibly organised.”
The whole of the Kosmos is like a two-faced medal of which both faces are alike. The materialists know only the lower side, while the occultists see it from both sides at once; from the front and from the back. It is always nature, and the same nature, butnatura naturatafrom below,natura naturansfrom above; here, intelligent cause; there, brute effect; spiritual above, corporeal below, etherealised at the North, concreted at the South Pole.
The distinction accepted everywhere in the West down to our own day, as essential and radical, between spirit on the one hand and matter on the other, is no longer sustainable. The progress of science, spurredon as it will be by Hindu ideas, will soon force the last followers of this infantile belief to abandon it as ridiculous....
Yes, all, absolutely all in the world is life, but life differently organised and variously manifested through phenomena which vary infinitely from the most spiritualised beings, such as the Angels, as well known to Buddhists as to Christians, though called by other names, down to the most solidified of beings, such as stones and metals. In the bosom of the latter, sleep, in a cataleptic condition, milliards of vital elementary spirits. These latter only await, to thrill into activity, the stroke of the pick or hammer to which they will owe their deliverance and their escape from thelimbus, of which the Hindu doctrine speaks as well as the Catholic. Here lies, for these souls of life, the starting point of theResurrectionand of theAscension, taught equally by both the Eastern and the Western traditions, but not understood among us.
[The Abbé sketches in eloquent words the development of these “spirits of the elements,” and then continues:—Tr.]
But as they ascend, so the spirits can also descend, for they are always free to transfigure themselves in the divine light, or to bury themselves in the satanic shadow of error and evil. Hence, while time is time, “these ceaseless tears and gnashings of teeth” of which the gospel Parables speak metaphorically, and which will last as long as shall last the elaboration of the social atoms destined for the collective composition of the beatific Nirvana.
Nature is ever placing under our eyes examples of organic transformations, analagous to those I am speaking of, as if to aid us in comprehending our own destiny. But it seems that many men “have eyes in order not to see,” as Jesus said. See how in order to remove these cataracts, science, even in the West, constantly approaching more and more that of the East, is at work producing in its turn phenomena, which corroborate at once the Parables of the Gospels and the teachings of nature. I will not speak of the Salpêtrière and the marvels of hypnotism in the hands of M. Charcot and his numerous disciples throughout the whole world. There are things which strike me even more.
M. Pictet, at Geneva, is creating diamonds with air and light. This should not astonish those who know that our coal mines are nothing but “stored-up sunlight.” With an even more marvellous industry, do not the flowers extract from the atmosphere the luminous substance of which they weave their fine and joyous garments? And “all that is sown in the earth under a material form, does it not rise under a spiritual form,” as St. Paul says?
The glorious entities, which we call celestial spirits, have themselves an organicform.form.It is defined in the canons of our dogma, whatever the ignorance-mongers of ultramontanism may pretend. God alone has no body, God alone ispure Spirit—and even to speak thus we must consider the Deity apart from the person of Jesus Christ, for in the “Wordmade flesh” God dwellscorporeally, according to the true and beautiful saying of St. Paul.
And it is because God has no body that he is present everywhere in the infinite, under the veils of cosmic light and ether, which serve as his garment and under the electric, magnetic, interatomic, interplanetary, interstellar and sound fluids, which serve him as vehicles....
And it is also because God has no created form that the Kabbala could, without error, call himNon-Being. Hegel probably felt this esoteric truth when he spoke, in his heavy and cumbrous language, of the equivalence of Being and Non-Being.
All visible forms are thus the product, at the same time as they are the garment and the manifestation, of spiritual forces. All sensible order is, in reality, anorganic concretion, a sort of livingcrystallisationof intelligent powers fallen from the state ofspiritualityinto the state of materiality; in other words, fallen from the North to the South pole of nature, in consequence of a catastrophe called by Holy Scripture theFall from Eden. This cataclysm was the punishment of a frightful crime, of an audacious revolt spoken of in the traditions of all Temples and called in our dogmaoriginal sin. The primary priesthood of the Christian church has hitherto lacked the light needed to explain this biological phenomenon, which is an ascertained fact of physiology and sociology, as I hope to prove. Questioned on this point, the priests have always replied: It is a mystery. Now there are no mysteries save for ignorance, and the Christ announced that “every hidden thing should be brought to light, and proclaimed on the house-tops.”
This is why so many new lights, coming from the East and elsewhere, enter scientifically, in our day, into the Christian mind. Glory to the Theosophists, glory to the Adepts, glory to the Kabbalists, glory above all to the Hermetists everywhere, glory to those new missionaries whose coming M. de Maistre foresaw, and whom M. de Saint-Ives d’Alveydre lately hailed as the elect of God, charged by him to establish a communion of knowledge and of love between all the religious centres of the earth!
Priests of the Roman Catholic Church, we shall enter in our turn this wise communion of saints, on the day when we shall consent to read anew our sacred texts, no longer in “the dead letter” of their exotericism, but in the “living spirit” of their esotericism, and in the threefold sense which Christian tradition has always canonically recognised in them.