The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1893-10-27

they are painted over ana look new.
They are really fatalism and pantheism
Of olden time, But we must forget that
and call them theosophy, The Grace
Darling of this lifeboat was an oars
woman by the name Of Mime. Blavat-
sky, but the oarswoman now Is Annie
Besant, So many are getting aboard
the boat it is worthy of examination,
both because of the safety of those who
have entered it and because we ourselves
are invited to get in.
Its theory is that everything Is God.
Horse and star and tree and man are
parts of God. We have three souls--an
animal soul, a human soul, spiritual
soul. The animal soul becomes, after
awhile, a wandering thing, trying to ex-
press itself through mediums. 1t enters
beasts or enters human being, and
when you find an effeminate man 1t Is
because woman's soul has got into the
man, and when you find a masculine
woman it is because mans soul has
taken possession of a womans body.
If you find woman has become o
platform speaker and likes politics, she
is possessed by dead politician, who
40 years ago made the platform
quake. The soul keeps wandering on
and on, and may have so or innumer-
able different forms, and finally is
absorbed in God. 1t was God at the
start and will be God at the last. But
who gives the authority for the truth of
sucha religion? Some beings living in
cave in central Asia. They are invisible
to the naked eye, but they cross CONT
nents and seas in flash.
My Baptist brother DR.. Haldeinan says
that theosophist in New York was Wis
tied by one of these mysterious beings
from central Asia. The gentleman knew
it from the fact that the mysterious be-
ing left his pocket handkerchief, en-
broidered with his name and Asiatic res
idence. The most wonderful achieve
ment of the theosophists is that they
keep out of the insane asylum. They
prove the truth of the statement that no
religion ever announced was SO absurd
but it gained disciples.
Societies in the United States and Eng
land and other lands have been estab-
lished for the PRONUNCIATION of theosophy.
Instead of needing the revelation of a
Bible you can have these spirits from a
cave in central Asia to tell you all you
ought to know, and after you leave this
life you may become a prima donna, or
robin, or gazelle, or sot, or prize
fighter, or Herod, or Jezebel, and SO
be enabled to have great variety of
experience, rotating through the uni
verse, now rising, now falling, now
Shot out in a straight line and now de-
scribing parabola, and on and on; and
up and up, and down and down, and
round and round. Don't you see? Now,
that theosophic ifeboat has been
launched. 1t proposes to take you off
the rough sea of doubt into everlasting
quietude. How do you like the lifeboatf
My opinion is you had better initiate
the mariners of my text and cut off the
ropes of that boat and let her fall off.
ABoAT THAT LEAKS.
Another lifeboat tempting us to enter
Is made up of many planks of good
works. 1t is really beautiful boat
almsgiving, practical sympathies for
human suffering, righteous words and
righteous deeds. l must admit like the
looks of the PROV, and of the row1ocks
and of the paddles, and of the steering
gear, and of many who are thinking to
trust themselves on her benches. But
the trouble about that lifeboat is it leaks.
never knew man yet good enough to
earn heaven by his virtues or generosi-
ties.
If there be one person here present
on this blessed Sabbath all of whose
thoughts have been always right, all of
whose actions have always been right, and
all of whose words have always been
right, let him stand up, OF if already stand
ing let him lift his hand, and | will know
that he lies. Paul had it about right
when he said, by the deeds of the law
shall no flesh living be justified" David
had it about right when he said, There
is none that doeth good, no not one."
The old book had it about right when
It said, "All have sinned and come short
ST the glory of God" Let man get off
that little steamer called The Maid of
The Mist, which sails up to the foot of
Niagara falls, and then climb to the top
bf the falls on the descending floods, for
he can do it easier than any man ever
will be able to climb to heaven by his
good works.
If your thoughts have always been ex-
actly right, and your words exactly
right, and your deeds always exactly
right, you can go up to the gate of heav-
en-, and you need not even knock for ad-
pittance, but open it yourself and push
The angels out of your way and go up and
take one of the front seats. But you
would be SO unlike any one else that has
gone up from this world that you would
be a curiosity in heaven and more fit for
heavenly museum than for place
where the inhabitants could look at you
free of charge.
No, sir, l admire your good works,
and that lifeboat you are thinking of
trusting in is handsomer than any yawl
or pinnace or yacht or cutter that ever
sped out of boathouse or hoisted sail
for race. But she leaks. Trust your
soul in that, and you will go to to the
bottom. She leaks. So initiate the
mariners of the text, and with cutlass
strike the ropes of the boat and let hel
fall off.
Another lifeboat is Christian Incon-
sistencies. The planks of this boat are
composed of the split planks of ship
wrecks. That PROV is made out of by
pocrisy from the life of a man who pro
fessed one thing and really was another
One oar of this lifeboat was the false
hood of church member, and the Other
oar was the wickedness of some ministe,
of the gospel, whose iniquities were no
for long while found out. Not on,
plank from the oak of Gods eterna
truth in all that lifeboat. All the planks
by universal admission, are decayed ant
crumbling and fallen apart and rottel
and ready to sink.
well, WELL" you say, mo one vii
want to get into that lifeboat." Oh, IN.
friend, you are mistaken. That is tn
most popular lifeboat ever constructed