48 



THE KEV. J. J. B. COLESj ON THEOSOPHY. 



knowledge connected with them. Indeed their knowledge of 

 astronomy was almost nil until the Greeks conquered them. It 

 would seem that, in just the same way as they had retained the 

 constellations, but lost the principles of astronomy, so they had also 

 lost the religious significance which they were intended to set forth, 

 and many idolatrous mythologies were invented to explain them. 

 I have for some considerable time been impressed with the proba- 

 bility that some of the most powerful and widespread heathen systems 

 owed their origin to the dispersion of the two Hebrew kingdoms. 

 The literary influence, both of Israel and of Judah, would seem to 

 have been great upon their conquerors, and we find, as a matter of 

 fact, that the conquest of Israel was followed by the remarkable 

 literary development of Assyria under Ashurbanipal, and the 

 conquest of Judah by a similar development in Babylon , just as 

 the conquest of Greece by Eome gave rise to the literary develop- 

 ment of the latter nation. I think it probable that the spiritual 

 influence of the Hebrews was more powerful even than their 

 intellectual, and that apostate Hebrews, having the light and know- 

 ledge derived from the law and the prophets, but giving themselves 

 up to idolatry, were in efl'ect the creators of the great religious 

 cults. The reality of the truths which they held in perverted form 

 sufficed to give vitality to the idolatries which they embraced, and 

 we may probably see in Mithraism, the outcome of the golden 

 calves of Bethel and of Dan. Here then I think is the root of 

 theosophy, in which there is much subtlety and knowledge, as well 

 as evil ; hence its danger and its importance. In my mind the two 

 most important things are Keligion and Science, and both are 

 eminently sane and eminently reasonable. 1 do not think theosophy 

 either the one or the other. 



Lieut.-Colonel Mackinlay said : — I wish to add my thanks for 

 the able paper which we have just heard. On pages 34 and 35 our 

 author tells us Theosophy teaches that in His divine incarnation the 

 Christ is not an antagonistic concept to Krishna and Buddha. But 

 according to the New Testament " God was manifest in the flesh " 

 {1 Tim, iii, 16), and according to Ex. xx, 3-5, there is but one God 

 and He a jealous one. Christ Himself said, "All that ever came 

 before Me are thieves and robbers," John x, 8. Antagonism is 

 expressed, all through the Scriptures, between the religion of the 

 true God and any other. 



