THE REV. J. J. B. COLES, ON THEOSOPHY. 



51 



that that same Gospel to-day possesses like power. The revivals in 

 Wales and Cornwall in the eighteenth century and those of recent 

 years all emphasize this point. 



Mr. Wedgwood said he was a theosophist and Christian, and 

 Mrs. Sharpe had asked him to reply to the question of the last 

 speaker. He had been in India and had studied Theosophy at head- 

 quarters there. He had seen its effect for good on men of all 

 classes in India. For example : a servant who had been neglecting 

 his work, when rebuked, begged forgiveness for his shortcomings 

 and the prayers of his mistress, explaining that if he neglected his 

 work in this life he would again be born a servant in his next life 

 on earth. The immense hope given by the doctrine of reincarnation 

 had great influence for good, bringing happiness and an under- 

 standing of life to quite the lower strata of society, they know that 

 they will have a chance of bettering themselves in future incarna- 

 tion. The theosophists had schools for the outcast classes in India. 

 It was true that Theosophy has not done much in the lower strata 

 of society in England, that was because the Theosophical Society was 

 of recent origin. Its membership was less than 2,000 in number, 

 but theosophists are doing their best to work for the uplifting of 

 humanity, and although Theosophy had exercised a great influence 

 on contemporary thought, it was early yet to expect much marked 

 result amongst the great mass of the people. 



The speaker said he had formed the impression from what had 

 been said that afternoon that Theosophy was looked upon as a 

 species of spirit communication or automatic writing. That was 

 not so. 



It was true that theosophical teachings were, in the first instance, 

 gained from those whom theosophists called the adepts, who had 

 climbed up through evolution and reincarnation to a superhuman 

 level, but the details were worked out by superphysical observation 

 on the part of clairvoyant investigators. They had developed in 

 themselves by training the psychic faculties latent in all men, so 

 that they could investigate the higher planes of nature in the same 

 manner as the scientist investigated physical plane phenomena. 

 The important researches on the atoms, for instance, referred to by 

 the lecturer, were in no sense the result of revelation, but were 

 observations as fallible and subject to revision as any other scientific 

 observation. Dr. Anna Kingsford was not a representative 



