The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1897-05-14

tant of Many Races at Different Periods
in the Worlds History.
! The doctrine of re-birth or re-incarna-
tlon is utterly opposed to all our western
! notions of life and death; but while it has
been comparatively unknown to us until
within few years, or since the founding
of the Theosophical Society, it has been
held for ages past by more than one-half
of the worlds inhabitants.
1t may be that at first the idea that man
lives not only one little earth life but many
in different bodies and in different families
and races, may seem so strange as to be
hardly worthy of serious thought, but if
you Will reflect that you are not body,
its strangeness disappears. We are too
apt to look upOnthe body with all its fleet
ing sensations as being the very self,
whereas it is only the mask which the real
person or ego puts on in which to play his
part while on this stage of life. If we look
upon it in that light then re-birth seems
neither strange or unworthy of acceptance
but on the contrary the more we reflect
on it, the more we see its reasOnableness
and its perfect accord with the facts of
nature. The theory most commonly held
in this western hemisphere is that the
soul is created by God out of nothing,
comes into life on earth, and after a short
period of fifty, sixty or even in exception
al cases, one hundred years, passes out in
to the unseen about which there is no
certainty and only the VagueSt of IDEAS to
live there in misery or bliss fOrever-its
happiness or unhappiness being determin-
ed by its actions on earth, nOtwithstand-
ing that it was influenced by inherited
traits, defects and passions.
Now, let us contrast this crude and
childish idea of the divine plan with the
logical finished one held by the east and
this philosophy.
Theosophy asserts that the spirit did
not come into being with our present life !;
it is something that always has existed
and always will exist. The western idea
the spirit to have beginning and then
never expects it to have an end. If you
say it is eternal in one direction it follows
that it must be in the other for eternity
extends both ways. The idea held by the
churches might be represented by a
straight line which has only. one end, an
imposSibility, of Course-while that taught
by TheOsophy is best represented by cir
Gle, which has neither beginning nor end.
Thus, the spirit passes from spiritual life
into physical or earth life, from physical
to spiritual again, and so on in never
ending round until the need ceases for its
existence in matter at all. 1t uses the
different bodies in which it dwells merely
as instruments for the requirement of eX-
perience for what else are we here for,
and why should we finally go away until
we have gained all the earth can give us
And just as the school boy needs vaca-
tions in which to become rested and re-
freShed for a new start in higher class
so the real ''I'' in each of us needs periods
of retirement from the scene of actual life
and these it gets in the after death states
1t passes from earth to heaven Ito use
familiar term and from heaven to earth
again, each time taking step forward in
the scale of evolution
Emerson expresses this idea of re-birth
when he says, eve wake in the morning
and find ourselves on a stair; there are
other stairs below us which we seem to
have ascended, and there are stairs above
us which go upward and out of sight.
CHAS. HI. OLIN, f. T. S.
The Encampment District Meeting
last Friday night was a success. We |
clip the follC wing from this weeks |
Journal:
Lyndonvile Encampment. No. 26, Pa
triarchs Militant. went to Bradford last /
Friday evening and worked the first and /
third degrees. The boys performed their /
work in a highly creditable manner, and |
were handsomely entertained by their
Bradford brethren.
We received the following charac-
-eristic note from Albert Rogers of
Haverhill on Tuesday, which explains
tself:
Ed Rogers wants now to take lessons in
Jocal music so that he can sing the old
song:
There's stranger in the house,
It's baby. It's baby.
Be as quiet as mouse
For fear you will wake the-boy"
The stranger in question was born
,arly that morning in Piermont, to
Mr.. and Mrs. Ed Rogers. We cOngrat-
ate the happy parents not forgetting
he delighted grandpa and grandma
Rogers.