The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1893-12-16

speed, and stowaSs and seif.righting
capacity. And when you offer my soul
q lifeboat / must first test it.
Here is splendid new lifeboat called
TheosuphS. II has eniF little While
heeR launched. although some of the
planks are really several thotisand
years old, and from d worfn-eateIi ship,
bit they are painted over and look
hew. they are really Fatalism and
Pantheism OF olden time: But we
must forget that aud call them Theos-
ofhy. The Grace DARLING Of this
1ifeboat was an uarswornan BY the
name of Madame Blavatslky, but the
oarswoman is now Annie Besant. So
many are getting aboard the boat, 1t
is worthy of examination, both because
of the safety of those who have en-
tered 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 AMI;
NAL soul, a human soul, spiritual
soul. The animal soul becomes, after
awhile, wandering thing, trying to
express itself through mediums. 1t
enters beasts, or enters human being,
and when you find an effeminate man
Il is because woman's soul has got
into the inan, and when you find d
masculine woman, it is because mans
soul has taken possession of a woman's
body. If you find a woman has be-
come a platform speaker and likes
politics, she is possessed by d dead
politician, who forty years ago
made the platform quake. The soul
keeps wandering on and on, and may
have fifty or ihhumerable different
forms, and finally is absorbed in God.
It was God at the start and will be
God at the last. But who gives the au-
thurity for the truth of such religion?
Some beings live id cave in central
Asia. They are invisible to the naked
eye. but they cross continents and seas
in flash. My Baptist brother, DIR.
Haldeman, says that Theosophist in
New York was visited by one of these
mysterious beings from central Asia.
The gentleman knew it from the
fact that the mysterious be-
ing left his Observation-Disclosures,
embroidered with his name and
Asiatic residence. The most wonderful
achievements of the Theosophists is
that they keep ont of the insane
asylum. They prove the truth of the
statement that no religion ever an
nounced was so absurd but it gained
disciples. Societies in the United States
and England and other lands have been
blished for the PRONUNCIATION of The
osophy. Instead of needing the revela-
ton of Bible, you can have these spir-
it's from a cave in central Asia to tell
you all you ought to know, land after
you leave this life you may become a
prima donna or a robin, or ga
zelle, or a sort of prize-fighter,
or a Herod, or Jezebel; and
so be enabled to have great
variety of experience, rotating
through the universe, now rising, now
falling, now shot out in straight line,
and now describing a parabola, and on
and on, and up and up, and down and
down, and round and round. Don't you
see? Now, that Theosophie lifeboat
has been launched. Itproposes to take
you off the rough sea of doubt into
everlasting quietude. How do you like
that lifeboat? 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.
Another lifeboat tempting us to en-
ter is made up of many planks of good
works. 1t is really a beautiful boat
alms-giving. practical sympathies for
human suffering, righteous words and
righteous deeds. / must admit l like
the looks of the prov and of the row
locks and of the paddles and of the
stearing gear and OF many who are
thinking to trust themselves on he1
benches. But the. trouble about that
| lifeboat is it leaks. l never knew q
| man yet good enough to earn Heaven
| by his virtues or generosities. II
there be one person here present or
| 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
or if already standing, let him lift hi'
hand, and 1 will know that he lies
Paul had it about right when he said
by the deeds of the law shall no fest
living be justified" David had i
about right when he said: There il
none that doeth good, no not one
The Old Book had it about right wheI
it said: '.All have sinned and come
short Of the glory of God" Let maj
| get off that little steamer called
s'The Maid of the Mist" which
sails up to the foot of Magyar;
falls, and then climb to the top of thu
falls on the descending floods, for HI
can do it easier than any man ever viii
be able to climb to Heaven by his goot
works. If your thoughts have always
been exactly right, and your deeds al
ways exactly right, you can go up t.
the gate of Heaven, and you need no
even knock for admittance, but opel
it yourself, and push the angels out o
your way, and go up and take one Q
the front seats. But You would be s.
unlike anyone else that has gon
up from this world that yo1
would be curiosity in Heaven, ant
more fit for heavenly museum thai
for place where the inhabitants coul'
look at you free of charge. No, sir,
admire yonr good works, and that life
l,<,o4 wy, .ro <binlr;ur IF <ruSfipo in i