Los Angeles herald., 1909-08-29
Criticised and SIandered


Criticised and SIandered
In the antagonism which this attitude
engendered, no criticism was too severe
no slander too baseless to be used
against her.
Mrs. Besants widening vision Of
truth rapidly surpassed many mile
stones that her friends had marked out
for themselves. She turned her face
ever to the distant peaks and went
forth alone. A case in point is her re-
fusal to reprint or sell her pamphlet
on the sex question, Law of Popula-
ton" after coming to the conviction
that the remedy therein suggested for
poverty and the social evils was pal
liatiye merely and would but bring new
evils in its train.
While engaged in this trouble her
enemies attacked her at her most vul-
nerable point-her love for her child,
whom they succeeded in taking from
her on the ground of Atheistic beliefs.
This great sorrow so wrought on the
mother heart that she became very i'll
from fever; but after her recovery re-
turned with undaunted conviction and
so pleaded her own case at the bar of
English justice that she not only won
her child back, but definitely estab-
lished the right of the mother to the
freedom of opinion.
AS the result of her association with
Mr. Bradlaugh and the cause Of So
cialism, she concluded the indi-
vidualistic warfare Of Socialism
was not the way Of truth. She
then connected with the Fabian
society, and was for some time assO-
ciated with Bernard Shaw, William
Morris and Sidney Webb. Happily Mr.
Bradlaugh was tolerant and remained
to the last her stanch friend.
Fiuhts for Oppressed
At this period in her life she became
entirely identified with the cause Of
the outcast and the oppressed suffer-
ing of humanity And in her own
words, 20, blind and mighty people, my
heart went out to you, trampled,
abused, derided, asking so little and
needing so much, so pathetically CRATE
full for the pettiest service"
While in her public effort TO ale
viate individual sorrow around her she
was studying in geometry, chemistry,
physics and was being more and more
convinced that there was some hidden
power, some hidden thing, and she was
determined TO follow its source.
In 1889 Mr.. Stead, editor Of Pail Mall
Gazette, gave her the Secret Doc
trine" Of Madam Blavatsky to review.
"As I turned over page after page how
familiar it seemed, how my mind leaped
forward blinded by the light in which
disputed facts We're seen as parts Of a
mighty whole and all my puzzles, rid
dies, problems seemed to disappear
AS a result of this now light she be-
came affiliated with what is known as
the TheosOphical society, and after
years Of association with Madam Bla-
vatssy she, at the death of Col Olcott,
was made president of the order.
In Mrs Besants own words She says:
IT know the soul exists. that my soul
and not my body is myself, that it can
leave the body at will, that it can, dis
embodied, reach and learn from living
human teachers, and bring back and
impress on the physical brain that
which it has learned, that this process
of transferring consciousness from one
range of being as it were, to another
is a very slow process, during which
the body and the brain are gradually
correlated with subtlcr form which is
essentially that of the soul. This same
path Of knowledge is open to all who
viii pay the toll demanded at the gate
way, and that toll is willingness TO give
all the truth that is given to one To
the service Of man. keeping back no
shred for self" Mrs. BosJnt knows
death to be a negligible incident in
our widening life.
Universal Brotherhood
The object of the society Of which
Mrs. Besant is president is: "To form a
nucleus of a universal brotherhood Of
humanity to promote the study of
Aryau and other scriptures of tho
worlds religions and sciences.'
Some Of the beliefs of this brother
hood are that all men have the same
spiritual and physical origin; that i'm
essence mankind is ono; that what one
man or one nation does affects the
whole race. This is purely a Christian
belief not o Judaic belief. Theosophists
believe that for every flower of love
planted in his ueighbor's eardcn--a
loathsome weed viii disappear in his
own.
The society is merely the channel
through which more or less truth found
IN the accumulated evidence of hu-
manitys great teachers is given to the
world. They know that only by study
Ing the various great religions and
philosophers, by comparing thom dis
passionately, and with unbiased minds,
can man hope TO arrive at the best
b,n+I,aJ Cf ohio iyflry 4l,o f,,11tI