It is a fair guess that the Archbishops and Bishops, two hundred and fifty-two in number, will be somewhat taken aback to be told that, on the one hand, the spirit of The Theosophical Society is admirably, though not completely, expressed throughout the Encyclical Letter; and, on the other, that nowhere, perhaps, will certain strictures which they have passed on Theosophy, as they conceive it, be so heartily welcomed and warmly appreciated as by many readers of THE THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY.

What the Conference has to say, is this:

"The Conference, while recognizing that the three publicly stated objects of The Theosophical Society do not in themselves appear to be inconsistent with loyal membership of the Church, expresses its conviction that there are cardinal elements in the positive teaching current in theosophical circles and literature which are irreconcilable with the Christian faith, and warns Christian people who may be induced to make a study of Theosophy by the seemingly Christian elements contained in it to be on their guard against the ultimate bearing of theosophical teaching, and to examine strictly the character and credentials of the teachers upon whose authority they are encouraged or compelled to rely."

Many readers of THE THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, as has been said, will welcome this pronouncement most sincerely. It is simply a repetition of what has been said, over and over again, in these pages. For the only body known to the Conference appears to be the Adyar Society; and its leaders, in the view of many who read THE THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, parted company with the genuine principles and practice of Theosophy twenty-five years ago.

We record with profound sympathy the paragraph which follows: "The Conference, believing that the attraction of Theosophy for some Christian people lies largely in its presentation of Christian faith as a quest for knowledge, recommends that in the current teaching of the Church due regard should be given to the mystical elements of faith and life which underlie the historic belief of Christendom."

That is a good and fruitful quest. It is exactly what many students of Theosophy have been doing for many years.

How should you be a lamp when you yield no light to what is close besides you?-AKHLAQ-I JALALI.

T

HERE is but one way,-the way of self-forgetfulness, and

devotion to the interests of others. Without this, as a perpetually animating spirit, joys may easily become snares.

From any joy be always detached; in any joy be always recollected. Let all joy be in and through me. In my keeping it is safe; in your own it will be lost.

To walk safely, be secure in the purity and honesty of your intention, and seek perpetually how you may help and serve and minister to the interests and pleasures of others, with no single thought of your own. If you live from minute to minute with such intention, you can make no mistake, there will be no danger, and the work entrusted to you will prosper, since I will keep and guide it. If in the smallest detail it slips from my hand, there lies the danger,-as one stitch dropped can unravel the whole.

You must bear with cheerful patience whatever else may be put upon you. Sin must be purged, and that means sorrow. Pain and sacrifice make atonement for past wrong. Accept as from my hand each deprivation; there shall not be one feather's weight more than must be, and every blessing you make possible, or have made, I shall give.

Failure is an illusion, like all other illusions, one of the snares of Mara. Its consciousness pertains only to the four worlds, and it fades to nothingness at the entrance to the higher three. No breath of its cold blight touches the Immortal Dweller in those regions. Keep steadfast in that faith. Set it as a torch upon the pathway of your life.

It has been said that Buddha climbed into heaven upon the shoulders of a million men. This is one expression of Brotherhood, and of the obligations entailed by it, too seldom or inadequately understood. That

I stand where I stand to-day, I owe but in small part to myself. Myriads of beings on all planes have contributed to make me what I am, physically, mentally, morally. Many are quite unconscious of the fact, as unconscious as I. Others have deliberately and of free choice given of their best-or sacrificed-for me, stepping from sunshine into shadow to make room for my more pressing need.

Bound together, part and parcel each of the other's success or failure, we grow and evolve as others help us to make possible; as we, in turn, make possible their evolution. That I have not yet opened that door ahead of me, upon whose handle, perchance, my uncertain fingers have lain these many years, hesitating, timid,-how many, guess you, have been obliged to wait, a tedious or painful wait, before entering a further room of better light and truer freedom and wider outlook? That fault I have struggled with in part, but which is still unconquered,— the fate of how many, may be, is hanging in the balance of my victory or defeat?

And this is true of souls in all stages of evolution; we confine our responsibilities and gratitude far too much to human kind. Brotherhood knows no such distinctions, but runs freely through all kingdoms, from tiniest atom to highest, intangible being. The whole universe is different that I live. So the great question confronts us,-how is it different? That is what we must ask ourselves, seeking if we may discover the means whereby to prove an endless blessing throughout the seven worlds, a benefactor in the highest, purest sense.

The secret of this tangled, bewildering, painful life is the inner life— the religious life; and the secret of the religious life is love. Great saints carry us still further into the depths of these mysteries, telling us what sometimes seems difficult of comprehension, that the heart of it all is joy, and bliss unspeakable. O marvel of marvels! toward which we grope in our blindness, reaching out longing hands, straining our weary steps. For this unfailing testimony through all the ages awakens a hope as immortal as its source.

CAVÉ.

"Those who break Nature's laws lose their physical health; those who break the laws of the inner life lose their psychic health."

-Light on the Path.

"We are the richer, but they [poets & artists] are the poorer. They should have sealed their lips, guarding the vision in their hearts till they had wrought it into the fabric of their lives."

-The Song of Life.

ILLIAM BLAKE'S name has some of the fascination of the "untravelled world whose margin fades for ever and for ever" from the sight. One finds apt quotations from his writings in almost every essay or book that treats of mysticism. Anthologies reprint lovely and suggestive poems over his name. Authors who stand at extremes of the temperamental range, from exuberant and exaggerating Swinburne to judicial Miss Underhill, praise him in various manners and degrees. The cumulative effect of such mention of an author who is otherwise unknown, is that we receive an impression of rich, unexplored country. But if one sets out to explore, the margin fades. First, the books are not easily accessible; they did not find publishers during Blake's lifetime. The most important of them (according to Blake's opinion) were for the first time published in ordinary type, so recently as 1904 a whole century after they were written. While there are earlier editions than that of 1904, those earlier printings are facsimiles of script-attractive (and expensive) for collectors, but for practical use, illegible. A curious explorer who persists beyond the first obstacle of inaccessible books, faces, next, the difficulty of writings that are not to be read by him who runs. The explorer does not skim neat sentences-it seems as if the apt quotations and the charming verse of the anthologies contained all the gold-he encounters forbidding heaps like the desolate accumulation of rubbish outside a slate quarry. The average explorer turns back from Blake's untravelled world, and contents himself with information at second hand.

But bolder navigators are advancing. A hundred years ago, when Blake's voluminous manuscripts came into the hands of his executor, that executor burned them, convinced that they contained harmful teachings. Now, conditions have so changed that a that a vogue of Blake may be possible. Two facts might make him popular. First, he writes in "free-verse." Second, he paints and writes. about spiritualistic or psychical subjects; he drew portraits of the spirits who visited him in his rooms-his writings were 1 The well known anthology poems in conventional metre are lapses from his customary

form.

taken down in dictation from spirits. A year or so ago, a Blake exhibition was held in New York. Art Museums, in Boston and elsewhere, are collecting his works. Two editors, Ellis and Yeats, the latter, at one time, an avid student of theosophical writings, have expounded, by aid of the Secret Doctrine, Blake's elaborate symbology. Certain literary coteries-Swinburne and the Pre-Raphaelites, made a fad of Blake. From a fad, he may become a temporary idol; he may be regarded as another prophet unhonoured in his own generation, a neglected forerunner of Conan Doyle and Oliver Lodge.

Blake was born in 1757 and died in 1827. He was able to work until his death. His period of productivity thus covers two different cycles, and two generations of men. He worked in the last quarter of the 18th century-the cycle of Cagliostro and St. Martin. He sympathized with the political ambitions of the French Revolution. In the opening cycle of the 19th century, he outlived Byron, Shelley and Keats.

His thought, in its general course, is a curious blend of tendencies from each cycle and generation. Though he abetted the 18th century revolutionary movement, on its political side, to the point of intimate friendship with Priestley and Paine, there is no superlative that would exaggerate his detestation of its anti-Christian nature. He traced backwards the religion of the Revolution-Deism and "Natural Religion"through Locke, Newton and Bacon. Those three names recur as a refrain through his philosophical writing-a refrain of anathema; sometimes he adds to them, singly or combined, Gibbon, Hume, Voltaire, Rousseau. He held up against their anti-Christian dogmas not only the Christ of history but the Living Christ. He believed it possible to meet the Living Christ face to face in the world. He made a transition, by that positive belief, from the negative scepticism of the 18th century to the constructive philosophy of the 19th century poets. Like these latter, he saw the imaginative faculty as a saving spiritual element in man; and in his elaborate symbolical system, he recognizes correspondence between that faculty of man and Christ. With these positive convictions, he nevertheless held certain private interpretations that greatly restrict his understanding of Christian history-such as on the Passion and Death of Christ-that they represent a certain weakness of Christ's human nature, rather than triumphant victory. While he partakes of the constructive work of the new generation, his true position is transitional.

The new poetry of Blake's time ("Tintern Abbey" and "Adonaïs" fairly represent it) seems tabula rasa, so far as no explicit or implicit mention is made of doctrines hitherto taught as specifically Christian. But such clearing of the surface worked advantageously in the end, and forced a re-statement of convictions that were deeply felt. The result in the poetry itself was a new (Blake had very little share in this achievement) and fresh understanding of the universe-as the One Life in many lives-the old understanding of the Upanishads. That