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REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



December 1, 1913. 



taph, grinning in perpetuity from grave- 

 stone or wall. Religion had fallen on 

 evil days when such things became pos- 

 sible. Scarcely less censurable than 

 those who first wrote them, are those 

 who to-day gather together, these melan- 

 choly witnesses to the flippant indecency 

 of an age which it were better to for- 



get.' 



The " Commonwealth," a Christian 

 Social Magazine, devotes some space in 

 its November issue to a consideration 

 of " The Land Campaign." Mr. Harold 



Anson asks the question: — "If the 

 squire is to go, what of the village par- 

 son ? If the living wage is to be paid 

 to the labourer, if the farmer's rent is 

 to be fixed by the Arbitration Court, if 

 the landlord, whether it be the Crown 

 or the Duke or the County Council, is 

 to be paid some interest on the capital 

 invested in improvements, where will the 

 tithe be ? . . . The tithe, we suspect, 

 will tend to vanish, without any express 

 measure of disendowment : it w-ill be 

 absorbed by the labourer's living wage." 



THE OCCULT MAGAZINES. 



The " Theosophist " contains a lec- 

 ture by Mrs. Besant, given at Stockholm 

 in June, on " The Mysteries." She holds 

 that the religious persecutions com- 

 menced as soon as the Mysteries were 

 abolished. We And " that in relation 

 to every faith that were Mysteries es- 

 tablished, to which the most learned of 

 the faith belonged, and in w^hich the 

 teachers of that faith were trained 

 . . . and that while the various esoteric 

 faiths might differ, the inner heart of 

 them, as found in the Mysteries, was the 

 same." This naturally led to religious 

 toleration. She deals with the history 

 of the Mysteries through the centuries. 

 Madame Blavatsky started the Restora- 

 tion of the Mysteries, and in time it 

 will be possible to restore them to what 

 they were in the past, and so ODen the 

 way for complete religious toleration. 

 Princess Galitzine gives an interesting 

 account of how, by showing the inmates 

 of a Russian prison that she believed 

 that there was good in them, and that 

 she trusted them, she was able to instil 

 in them a desire to live better lives. The 

 Rev. S. Baring-Gould describes how he 

 once saw a man who could lay hold of 

 a red-hot bar, and drink boiling oil 

 without hurt, and discusses the question 

 of ordeal by Are, coming to the conclu- 

 sion that there must have been some 

 preparation which was known to the 

 priest, and could render the hands and 

 feet immune from burning. 



The " Theosophical Path " contains 

 some \•e';^• fine illustrations of the Yose- 

 mite Vallev, Land's End, and Wiirz- 

 burg. A Christian and a Theosophist 



discusses the Essential Truth of Chris- 

 tianity, and summarises thus: (i) It 

 promises recompense for every thought. 



(2) It demands purification of the heart. 



(3) Love of God and one's neighbour. 



(4) A continuous approach towards per- 

 fection. Henry Ridgely Evans con- 

 tinues his article on " The Romance of 

 the Dead." and the Rev. S. J. Neill des- 

 cribes Australia for the purpose of 

 studying the native races as direct des- 

 cendants of the Lemurians described in 

 " The Secret Doctrine." 



BANSHEES AND PRECOLITSCHES. 



Elliott U'Donnell writes on " Ban- 

 shees " in the " Occult Review." Every- 

 one of the old Irish clans has a Banshee, 

 and most of them date back to the time 

 of Niall of the Nine Hostages. The Ban- 

 shee is sometimes a beautiful lady, and 

 sometimes a dreadful being ; but in 

 either case they always announce a death 

 or some great famil)^ catastro[)he. Mr. 

 O'Donnell has heard his Banshee three 

 times. 



In the South-Eastern corner of 

 Europe there is a belief in a wandering 

 Terror known as the Precolitsch. Philip 

 Macleod gives a well-authenticated stor}' 

 of the attack of this being on an Aus- 

 trian sentry. Another sentry described 

 \vh;il be. saw : An ugly black shape, 

 rather animal than human, appeared 

 near the unfortunate! man, and, ap- 

 proaching him, made a huge spring at 

 him, undeterred by two shots ; then both 

 disappeared. The sentry was found 

 thirty paces away, burned all over, but 

 still alive, his rifle bent into a semi-circle. 

 He never recovered consciousness, and 

 died soon after. 



