The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-09-10
he Has Devoted the Best Part Of
Her Life to the Poor Of
London.
Woman OF Wonderful Moral
Courage, and Of Wide Ex-
perience as Well.
How She Became = Convert to and nm EN-.
thusiast for TheosOphy--Her He-
lief In Brief.

nation. says a writer in a Chicago ex-
,hange. She probably will make her way
o Thibet and have a confab with the Ma
,atmas, the gentlemen who live for half n
century and who are reputed to know all
lbout the unknown. II these people do
i've with the eagles among the mountains,
and ii Mrs. Besnnt can get at them, there
pan be NO doubt that she will pump them
Try. This ia a case in which .if anybody
lin she kim"
While talking yesterday with DR.. Sarah
dackett Stevenson upon this subject !
asked that lady what she thought about
Mrs. Besant. Read this" she said, as she
handed me a copy of the London Daily
News which had been forwarded to her by
\ Chicago lady who 10 in attendance at the
Hygiene congress. The marked passage
stated that Mrs. Besant had delivered the
most satisfactory address, heard during
Ehe session of the congress. Her subject
was: Gan Children That Are Half Fed
md Half Clothed Be Efficiently Educat-
ed?" She convinced her audience that
Upon This matter, at all events, she did not
derive hor facts or her arguments from men
in the noon. "
Nov, what am I TO think about such a
woman2" said DR.. Stevenson. 'She has
devoted the. best part of her life to the poor
of London, and she has All influence with
them such as no one else possesses. l don't
know ANYTHING about tLeosophy, and l can
not estimate Mrs. Besant's position in the
new world, but she takes very high and
very strong grouud in the world around US.
She ia a woman of wonderful moral cour-
age, of great knowledge and wide expert
ence. She is a graduate of the best medi-
cal schools in England and has a stock of
general culture that the very ablest men in
the profession might envy. Her %conclu-
sions upon subjects that I can understand
may not be popular, but they have not been
hastily formed, and | am convinced that
abe is sincere. One excellent feature of
her character is that she is never afraid to
admit that she is wrong when she discovers
her error, and if th%eosophy should turn out
to be a delusion, ! have no doubt that Mira.
Besant will give it up. She will give good
reasons for abandoning it if it should prove
untrue. but If it contains the promise of
light for the human race. Mrs. Besant will
hold on her present course to the end"
l have had many conversations with Mrs.
Besant. and there is no man or woman liy-
ing for whose intellect I entertain a more
~ l. L4Stt lCl NololO uGl~
self in Il speech which lasted nearly two
days before Chief Justice Cockburn ut
Westminster hall. She had against her
tho attorney general and solicitor general
OF England, and she made mincemeat Ct
most OF their arguments. The judge con-
graduated her upon the marked ability
with which her case was presented, and a
barrister engaged in the prosecution told
me afterward that, although he detested
strong-minded women in public life, he had
mover heard d speech in Il court of Justice
that combined SO much logic, good sense.
highest sort of eloquence as that in which
Mrs. Besant made her defense for the pub
LEGATION Of Fruits of Philosophy"
l have heard her ut n dinner table discus
sing various questions with some of the
best trained men in London and she was
always able to do more than maintain her
position. l ventured upon one occasion to
tell her that although | was not able to beat
down her arguments, I could never agree
with her conclusions. She turned to me
with q somewhat quizzicel look and simply
said, "Why?' When said that the couls sc
in a sudden by such methods rs she advo-
Gated, or by any other methods. she lifted
up her very musical voice and said:
Young man, you brighten me. If you &C
on steadily in that line you will soon be as
wise as you own grandmother" That
WNbA y dTkuu6uG, DuU IL luQ Vl0 eH0Ct OF
shutting me up.
An interesting phase of Mrs. Besant's de-
velonment appears in the attitude of the
secularists toward one whom for many
wears they had regarded as the Clothilde de
Vaux of their creed. Demanding for them.
selves q boundless latitude of thought and
speech, they wo%rshipped a leader who crys-
tallized their W uniformed opinions IN
logical and eloquent language. But when
the time came that this leader saw fit tc
ehange her yiews-a privilege, by the way,
that she did not always readily accord tc
others in former days-her followers sent
up a how of indignation. A few half
baked infidels had reduced metaphysics
philosophy and religion to q few cut-and.
died propositions, so that the results of hu
man knowledge and wisdom could be ex-
pressed in half Il dozen sentences. When
Mrs. Besant saw-or thought she saw
Light that led her beyond these narrow
bounds the former devotees became her
most bitter enemies, and in many oases her
slanderers. 1t was under such circum-
stances that tho priestess of dogmatic athe-
ism issued her apologize, under the title
"Why l Became q Theosophist." In this
pamphlet, republished from the luxurious
suects III vlgo.ous language to tho ocular
lists of London. She upbraided them with
not understanding the meaning of the
words free thought" and then in more
tranquil style she proceeded to explain the
cause OF her movement toward mysticism.
In q fine passage at tho conclusion Of her
little paper she declared her determination
to follow truth wherever it might lead her.
This pamphlet places the secularist in a
very disagreeable light. even for people who
had been drifting to their views, and il
probably is the beginni az of a schism which
which must ultimately disrupt tho Brad
laugh school of philosophy.
A very remarkable and intel esting por-
ton of the pamphlet il that in which Mrs,
basant relates tie circumstances under
which she was led to consider her position
upon speculative subjects. After she had
been studying Notwithstanding chem
lstry and allied branches--for two or three
years, she devoted her self assiduously fol
q season to the investigation of the mater
ial brain, or, as it might be called, the
physical basis OF mind. As sho pondered
over the contents of n human skull she
came to the conclusion that the gray
matter under her dissectinp knife afforded
no explanation of the faculty of thinking.
There, before her, indeed, was the insttu-
mcnt Of thought, but where was the thought
Itself! In forcible language she replies to
those philosophers who speak of tie brain
hecreting thought just hs the liver
s%ecretss bile, and points at tho
absurd inappllcability of such an
illustration. This led her 10 searoh for
the origin OF thought and spiritual life in
regions which are not available either to
the scalpel or tho laboratory. just at this
time, while reviewing " book Of Nine.
Mavatzky's, for n paper with which she was
connected, tho idea OF ~eaoterio buddhism
was borne in upon hor mind, and after II