The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-05-12
THEOSOPHY.

To the Editor of the Journal and Courier:
 The object of the last article was to show that change not so much in leg islation and in government as in mems hearts was necessary in order to bring hope and liberation to humanity. This needs to be emphasized.
 Good government is supposed to be a government of law. In order that its laws may be enforced, penalties are in- stituted to punish and prevent the con- mission of crime. That the law may be administered with any show of justice whatever, there must be opportunities for fair trial, according to certain fixed and general rules applicable to all men. Where these forms of trial exist delays cannot be avoided. And wherever there is an opportunity for delay, there is reasonable certainty that that op- portunity will be seized upon as a mat ter of protection by parties defendant. This fact necessarily co-existent with the law itself, whenever litigation is un- dertaken, makes it generally possible for the rich, powerful or litigious to wear out the poor, weak or peace lovi- l lS. l lie WIlltI Ol lllGSe llCltS lS d member of the bar and knows whereof The speaks.
 | It is of no use to make the recognition of the fact of this weakness in the law an opportunity to inveigh against wealth. A rich and powerful man, even | if he be selfish, is probably no worse than his neighbor, so far as his heart goes. Having greater abilities or greater opportunities, he only does what others have done, or tried to do and would have done had they been in his place The motto of too many of | to-day, rich and poor alike, Is expressed ] on one of the buttons that We find sold on the street, '"The new golden rule: Do others before they do you" pret- ty commentary upon our boasted civili- zation, a civilization whose barbarity will some day be known by it's conspic- uous examples of so-called success"
 Now, of course, this is only one side of the shield. There is another and brighter side. Men do not wish, for the most part, to be so selfish. Only many of them do not see any hope or use in trying to be otherwise. The reason for | this is because they do not have any re- alizing belief in the inner and spiritual life. They are sceptical about the ex- istence of their own souls. They do not know what the ancients knew-that the soul Is the man and that man is immor- tai. On the contrary they consider that the soul is or may be creation of the body, and, like the body, a thing which will die.
 Why have men come to accept such doleful ideas, so contrary to reason and so benumbing to the spiritual sense?
 It Is the fault of those theologians, philosophers and scientists who, with contentious spirit, have preferred rath- CT to win In battle against their oppo- nents than to search for truth in spir- it of mutual and brotherly toleration. Ever since the beginning of the Chris tian era, not because of the fault of Je- sus of Nazareth, but because of the nature of the barbaric nations of the west to whom his teaching went, in- stead of trying to find out, first, where in all men agreed in their beliefs and then to examine in a spirit of federation
 those opinions in which they differed the tendency up to a very recent date
 has been for each church, each sect each man, each teacher of philosophy
 and of science, to contend that he was
 right and that those who did not fully
 agree with him were wrong.
 This, more than anything else has led
 to the wide spread scepticism of to- day
 as we shall endeavor to show in ouI
 next article. RUFUS McHARA.