is somebody masquerading behind that name, and that somebody is not Madame Blavatsky. The name is Eastern, and the sustained character that of a Tibetan Brother; but the style is emphatically Western, and the staple of the thinking, the incidental allusions, the whole mental background of the writer, are unmistakably symptomatic of a superficial European education, in which he has skimmed over the surface of many subjects without really exhausting any. In fact, much of what is given us as from his pen is but the ordinary 'fine writing' of the Bengali Babu; and the assumption of the lofty phrases of a 'veiled prophet' is simply an elaborate hoax. He writes his English with Scotch (or American) idioms, as we have noticed in various places. Take as example of this unintentional self-betrayal the letter given in The Occult World, pp. 66, 67. The writer quotes Dr. Hooke's Micrographia, and not only misspells the writer's name as Hookes but misstates the cause and nature of his dispute with Newton. It is absurd enough to find him commenting upon Lord Lytton's romance of The Coming Race as if it were a record of actual facts, and asserting that the Church sought to sacrifice Galileo as a holocaust to the Bible,' which is, historically speaking, sheer nonsense. And it would be a curious English school in which Roma ante Romulum fuit was 'taught us,' as Koot Hoomi says, as an axiom.' Perhaps it was a dim reminiscence of Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona that he had in his mind, and he ought to know his English better (not to speak of the Greek word itself) than to talk of 'an impossibility, a myth,' as if they meant the same thing. We hardly like to venture to instruct a 'Mahatma,' but perhaps his Greatness (or whatever the proper style of address may be) will pardon us for remarking that a myth is not an impossibility, nor yet a truth regarded as fabulous (which is the sense in which he uses it), but a fabulous story which in the process of time has come to be regarded as true. But here we must make our bow to Koot Hoomi. It seems upon the whole, that we are led to the following dilemma: Either this new departure of Neo-Buddhism is sheer imposture: its teaching wild and incoherent speculation, and the pretensions of its leaders to vast powers simply preposterous. That is one alternative. Or, again, it may be seriously intended and propounded in good faith. That would be the other alternative. In that case the nature of its subject matter would make it necessarily of a religious or scientific character. But if scientific, it would be logical, intelligible, and natural, and its views would agree with what is already known of the laws of nature. It would not need to recommend itself by petty and puzzling magic of a commonplace kind, which, though we cannot profess to explain, we vehemently suspect; and above all it would not be secret. True science throws processes and results alike as open as the day, to all who would share them. But of this movement, the objects, teachers, and methods, are alike shrouded in the deepest darkness. Perhaps, however, it is, or professes to be, religious? The reader who has gone with us through this survey of the system, will be under no illusion in that respect. For we have seen that the Old Buddhism, if it be to be considered as a religion at all, contains perhaps more erroneous ideas than have ever been combined in any single system. It is at once atheistic and fatalist, thus subjecting all things to the grinding and multiplied injustices of a blind Necessity, instead of conceiving them as guided by an Intelligent Will. With theism falls the idea of a Moral Law binding upon man, and even the distinction between good and evil, which has its ultimate ground in the Will of God. Finally, it denies to man a soul and a future conscious existence. According to it the human race are just ephemera and no more: worms of earth, crawling for a brief moment in their slime, and then ceasing to be. 'Quum prorepserunt primis animalia terris, Mutum et turpe pecus, glandem atque cubilia propter When mankind wholly despairs of itself and its destinies, it may take up generally with some such system of blank atheism and gloomy pessimism as this; but, as it seems to us, not until then. 'Hope springs eternal in the human breast,' while Buddhism originally emerged from a race of men driven to despair; it is despair organized and reduced to a system. But as darkness is chased by light, so despair cannot coexist with hope. It is, like Calvinism, a fore-doomed creed. Startling news has been reported in the Indian journals respecting the collapse-partly actual, partly impending-of the Theosophical movement. We mentioned that the Committee of the Theosophical Society had advised Madame Blavatsky not to prosecute a proceeding quite incomprehensible, unless on the supposition that the inculpated letters were more or less genuine. But the effect of it was that Madame Coulomb, who had published them, was deprived of any opportunity of vindicating herself against charges freely lavished against her of having forged some or all of the letters. This being the case, 'I determined therefore,' she says (we quote from the Indian Churchman of Calcutta, date May 30), 'to bring the question of the genuineness of the letters before a court of law by my own action. I was advised that this could be done by prosecuting any of those Theosophists who had charged me with forging them. . . I therefore instructed Messrs. Barclay and Morgan to proceed against General Morgan, of Ootacamund, as he had been the most forward in charging me with crime.' Immediately upon this being done (one week later) Madame Blavatsky, who would have been one of the two principal witnesses in the case, left India and sailed for Europe. Madame Coulomb, indeed, asserts that 'the chief men of the Society, when things became serious and there was a probability of prosecution, insisted upon her breaking her connexion with the Society and leaving the country at once.' That, however, must be taken at present as a mere ex parte statement from one of the parties, however closely it may accord with the probabilities of the case. Whatever, however, is apparently certain is that the elaborate 'Report' of the Theosophical Society issued in defence of Madame B. has now been withdrawn, 'containing, as Mr. R. Ragoonath Row admits, "untruths and non-genuine documents," the work of unscrupulous friends of Madame B.' (I. C. May 30.) 'In the May number of the Theosophist also there is a special circular addressed by Colonel Olcott to the presidents of all branch Theosophical Societies, in which he repudiates all connexion of the Theosophical movement with occult phenomena. All this is in the highest degree significant, and we cannot but be glad to see our own judgment of the true character of 'occultism' thus speedily verified, and weaker brethren delivered from the glamour of a dangerous delusion. ART. IV. FREMANTLE'S BAMPTON LECTURES. The World as the Subject of Redemption; being an Attempt to set forth the Functions of the Church, as designed to embrace the whole Race of Mankind. Bampton Lectures (1883). By the Hon. and Rev. W. H. FREMANTLE, M.A., Canon of Canterbury and Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. (London, 1885.) IT is in no way surprising that the minds of many people at the present day are largely occupied with the social and political aspects of Christianity. Religion belongs to the deepest part of man's nature, and it cannot but affect everything which concerns him. In a scientific age the relations between religion and science naturally attract attention. In an age of great social and political change the attitude which the Christian ought to adopt towards the movements going on around him becomes a question of pressing importance. There are some who would have us stand aloof from all that is not immediately and directly concerned in the development of the individual spiritual life. The world, they tell us, is very evil. It must be left to go on in its own mad, bad way. The Christian cannot hope to improve the world as such. All he can do is to separate himself from it, to come out of it, and to induce as many others as possible to follow his example. We had better not meddle with the affairs of the world at all, they say, unless it be by way of occasional protest. Others urge with greater truth that we ought to take a more hopeful view of the possible future of human society, and a more generous view of the duty of Christians with regard to it. The existing condition of the social organism is indeed bad, but it is capable of being made better, and it is the mission of Christianity to transform it. And in that case Christians have no right to assume a position of selfish isolation from the world. They should rather claim the world for Christ, and boldly endeavour to win it for Him. The ideal which we set before us, the goal towards which we press, should be nothing less than the triumph of the Christian faith, not in one department only of human life, but in all. We are bidden in Holy Scripture to look forward to a time when 'the kingdom of the world' shall have 'become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.' We should be trying, surely, to hasten the coming of that time. We should be doing all that lies in our power to bring about submission to our Master's rule, not only in the case of individuals, but on the part of society at large. The Bampton Lectures for 1883 are intended to develop this thought. Their purpose, as stated at the outset, is 'to restore the idea of the Christian Church as a moral and social power, present, universal, capable of transforming the whole life of mankind, and destined to accomplish this transformation.' It is certainly true, as the lecturer complains, that Christian teachers, in their concern for individuals, have too often overlooked the need and the possibility of improving the social organization of which they form part. Important spheres of Christian duty have consequently been neglected. Many of the most serious interests of life have been regarded 'as secular and profane,' and Christian influence has not been brought to bear upon them as it should have been. Thus the Church has come to be looked upon (rightly or wrongly) rather as the opponent than the leader of movements of social and political reform. We may believe, indeed, that this reproach is being gradually removed. Our people are learning to put themselves at the head of good works for necessary uses. But there is still much to be done in awakening the consciences of Christian men and women to their responsibilities in such matters. The glaring contrast between excessive luxury on the one hand and squalid poverty on the other; the growing consciousness of this contrast on the part of those who suffer under it, and the increasing discontent among the poorer classes; the misery caused by the fluctuations of trade, the loathsome evils of overcrowding, the defects in our system of technical education; these and subjects like these, as bearing directly on the well-being of our brother men, are subjects in which the Church ought not merely to show an interest, but in dealing with which she ought to be prepared to teach and to guide. And as in social, so in political affairs; the coming democracy, with its grave dangers and its great possibilities of good; our system of party government, with its practical advantages and its moral defects, its blind animosities and equally blind allegiances, our war parties and peace parties, our international enmities and questionable international morality: all these are subjects on which the influence of the Christian Church ought to be exerted and ought to make itself felt. Canon Fremantle is right when he urges that the ideal of a Christian State is not one in which secular and spiritual affairs are regarded as wholly disconnected. In such an ideal community, as he points out, the Church and the State would be conterminous, for each would embrace the whole. The temporal rulers would know themselves to be indeed 'God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing,' and the prayer of our Good Friday Collect would be, to some extent at least, realized, and not one class alone, not clergy more than laity, but all estates of men in God's Holy Church, and every member of the same in his vocation and ministry, would endeavour truly and godly to serve Him Who is the Lord of all. Canon Fremantle has traced in his fourth and fifth lectures some of the efforts which have been made towards the practical realization of such an ideal of a Christian State. He has |