THE CHRISTIAN'S ANSWER TO THEOSOPHY.

In reply to all this the Christian answers that among the initiates of antiquity none was better instructed than Moses the servant of Jehovah, who was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and that he entirely repudiated the doctrines of Karma and reincarnation as being contrary to the teachings of an earlier wisdom taught to the patriarchs, which the Egyptians had corrupted both in doctrine and in symbolism.

In his writings, especially in Genesis, are embodied in its divinely inspired structure, all the keys to cosmic numbers and to the geometrical building up of the "elements" of this cosmos, both in its astronomical as well as in its minute atomic relations.

The divine philosophy underlying the structure of the writings of that man of God gives the true key to geometrical symbols and to the esoterism of numbers.

ISAIAH'S PROPHECIES BEFORE THE BIRTH OF BUDDHA.

Again it is helpful in this connection to bear in mind that the writings of another great initiate, the prophet Isaiah, were known in the countries of the East one hundred years before the birth of Gautama Buddha.

Moreover, Daniel, who was wiser than all the astrologers of Chaldea, who in his divine chronology of the "Times of the Gentiles" foretells the end of this Age, could alone interpret the writing on the wall at Belshazzar's feast.

THE GREATEST OF ALL INITIATES.

Lastly, in the writings of the greatest of all initiates both of east and west, the Apostle Paul, we have a revelation of a third order of mysteries which in every way transcends both the Lesser and Greater Mysteries of the Ancients, a philosophy of God, Man and the Universe of which the Risen and Glorified Christ is the only true key, and whose name is above every name, who is "the Firstborn from the dead."

"At His Name every knee shall bow, of things in Heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Phil. ii, 10, 11.)

As we know, the true and all-powerful answer to Modern Theosophy is the fuller and deeper teaching of the Epistles of St. Paul to the Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians. The "Sophia," "Sunesis," "Epignosis," the "Pleroma," and the "Mysteria." of these inspired Pauline Epistles in

connection with the Cross of Christ, by which He triumphed over and led captive all the hosts of evil principalities and powers in heavenly places, far transcend all the "deep things of Satan" with which Theosophy is so replete.

The exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, to a sphere and throne far above all principalities and powers is the answer of the enlightened Christian, the true "teleios," the real "initiate," who knows that the "seven spheres" of the Theosophist, to the fifth of which only ("Nirvana") he hopes by a long process of reincarnations to attain, do not reach to that sphere, "far above all the heavens," where He is, who glorified God by His death and put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, who redeemed us by His precious blood, and who is soon coming to transform us and to call us away to be in the same glory in heavenly places on high, in the Father's Home with Himself. (Phil. iii, 19, 20; 1 Tim. iii, 16.)

He whom Theosophy would dishonour by placing Him on a level with Buddha, Krishna and Confucius, is the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the Creation of God, who from that sphere of Love and Light and Glory encourages each and every one who loves His appearing by the promises: "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree of Life which is in the Paradise of God. Hold fast that which thou hast that no one take thy Crown. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit down with Me in My throne, even as I overcame and am sat down with My Father in His throne."

THE TRUE "LOGOS."

Holy Scripture teaches that Christ is the Logos by Whom this world was created, and that by Him were all things made, that are in heaven, and that are in earth-visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities, or powers: "All things were created by Him and for Him, and He is before all things and by Him all things consist." Coloss. i, 16-18.

Professor W. R. Inge points out in his Personal Idealism and Mysticism in the chapter on the Logos-Christology, p. 52, that St. Paul avoids the use of the actual word "Logos," while he gives us in his doctrine of Christ all that the word contains. Professor Inge has no suggestion as to the reason why the Apostle avoids using "Logos." The true explanation seems to be this.-The Apostle John's writings refer especially to the coming of the true Logos into this Cosmos-which is, therefore,

a more or less relative term-whereas in the Pauline Epistles, the Lordship of Christ over the whole universe is set forth, especially in Ephesians and Colossians.

The transcendent glory of the Risen Christ as the "Prototokos" of all creation in these epistles goes beyond the scope of the word Logos as used by the Spirit of God in the Johannine writings.

St. Paul does not use the expression "Son of Man"-doubtless for the same reason.

Theosophy is concerned with setting forth from a Pantheistic standpoint the evolution of this Cosmos or Solar System. The revelation of the glory of Christ, and of the calling of the Church, as revealed in Ephesians, infinitely surpasses anything that can be found in modern Theosophy.

AN INSPIRED REVELATION AS TO ORIGINS.

The mind of man works by deductive, inductive, analytic and synthetic processes. But unless it starts from an inspired revelation as to the question of origins-the theories which it can formulate or which can be suggested to it by intelligences of a spiritual order of existence, are not only interminable and of a very mixed kind, but must end in leaving nothing certain

or sure.

The Theosophist is openly and confessedly receiving suggestions as to the evolution of this Cosmos from those who profess to be highly evolved men of previous incarnations.

The Christian rejects this testimony in many important details, and, therefore, is bound to believe that the real object behind these clairvoyant suggestions is both sinister and ominous. Holy Scripture states expressly (1 Tim. iv, 1) that such communications will be a striking characteristic of the closing days of this age or dispensation.

NOTE ON 'NEW ELEMENTS IN CHEMISTRY."

In a recent address on "New Elements in Chemistry" by Professor Sir William Crookes, he said:

"If we had disestablished the idea of the fixity of the oldfashioned elements, we would say we still had matter to fall back

on.

But philosophers had not respected even the sacredness of matter itself. Physicists were now beginning to say that in all probability there was no such thing as matter; that when we had caught and tamed the elusive atom and split it into 700 little bits,

these residual particles would turn out to be nothing more than superposed layers of positive and negative electricity. He refrained from speculating as to what would happen to us if some clever researcher of the future discovered a method of making these alternate layers of plus and minus cancel each other out.

"It must never be forgotten that theories were more than mutable; they were only useful so long as they admitted of the harmonious correlation of facts into a reasonable system. Directly a fact refused to be pigeon-holed, and would not be explained on theoretic grounds, the theory must go, or it must be revised to admit the new fact. The nineteenth century saw the birth of new views of atoms, electricity, and ether. Our twentieth century views of the constitution of matter might appear satisfactory to us, but how would it be at the close of the present century? Were we not incessantly learning the lesson that our researches had only a provisional value? A hundred years hence should we acquiesce in the resolution of the material universe into a swarm of rushing electrons He could not conclude better than by quoting some words he wrote more than thirty years ago: 'We have actually touched the borderland where matter and energy seem to merge into one another-the shadowy realm between the known and the unknown. I venture to think that the greatest scientific problems of the future will find their solution in this borderland, and even beyond. Here, it seems to me, lie ultimate realities, subtle, farreaching, wonderful.'"

In view of this reference to the borderland of Science, and taking it in connection with the extracts given above from Occult Chemistry, the Christian student of Science holds fast to the dignified opening words of Scripture: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

That God, who is both transcendent and immanent, was pleased to work by gradual methods as well as by direct creative energy, is, I take it for granted, what most of us here present believe.

For my own part I have long held that Genesis i and ii refer both to indirect and direct creative acts, and that there is no authority for amalgamating these inspired records.

To those who agree with me in this, there is no difficulty in keeping the mind open upon the, as yet undetermined, questions in the modern scientific world.

Professor Alfred Russell Wallace, in a recent reference to the question as to how life originated in this planet, again affirmed:

·

"That there was at some stage in the history of the earth, after the cooling process, a definite act of creation. Something came from

the outside. Power was exercised from without. In a word, life was given to the earth. All the errors of those who have distorted the thesis of evolution into something called, inappropriately enough, Darwinism, have arisen from the supposition that life is a consequence of organisation. This is unthinkable. Life, as Huxley admitted, is the cause and not the consequence of organisation. Admit life, and the hypothesis of evolution is sufficient and unanswerable. Postulate organisation first, and make it the origin and cause of life, and you lose yourself in a maze of madness. An honest and unswerving scrutiny of nature forces upon the mind this certain truth, that at some period of the earth's history there was an act of creation, a giving to the earth of something which before it had not possessed; and from that gift, the gift of life, has come the infinite and wonderful population of living forms."

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DISCUSSION.

:

Mr. MAUNDER of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, said: There is one sentence in the paper which I should like to see amended (p. 45, lines 26 and 27); for "in many important details" read 'absolutely." I think we are much indebted to Mr. Coles for his paper, which deals with a subject of great importance. It does not seem to me right that such systems, as that which he has described to us to-day, should be spoken of without knowledge and it is therefore necessary that from time to time able men should investigate them, and ascertain their true character. It is not the duty of every one to take up such an investigation, just as it is not the duty of every one to examine into diseases. But the service which is rendered to the community by the medical men who do study obscure diseases is of the highest order. My own particular line of study is that of astronomy and necessarily it touches very little upon the subject of Mr. Coles' paper; but he has referred incidentally to a subject to which I have given long attention, namely, the record in the constellation figures of the promise of the Seed of the Woman, and the bruising of the serpent. Now it is abundantly clear that the designers of the constellation figures had a considerable knowledge of a genuine and practical astronomy. But it is also clear from Babylonian tablets and inscriptions, that though the Babylonians retained the constellation figures, they had lost the astronomical