THEOSOPHICAL LECTURE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLII, Issue 10112, 20 October 1917, Page 5

THEOSOPHICAL LECTURE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—Your correspondent, who signs himself "Love and Judgment" in last night's issue credits me with saying, or rather "gratuitously assuming," that, people have strange mental obliquity who believe at one and the same time in a God of love and a God of judgment. Where did he get hold of such an idea ? There was nothing liko it in my lecture, and nothing approaching it in the report thereof. Theosophv teaches above all that God is a God of love and judgment and justice. First, that man reaps what ho sows, and moreover that there is no escape till he has "paid the uttermost farthing." This sowing and reaping is known as the law of cause and eil'ect, or Karma, which is the law of God's own naturo or Being. It knows neither mercy (in the sense of leiting the sinner escape from the consequences of his sin) nor revenge: it simply acts, bringjng to every soul the result r his thoughts, desires and actions, each working out on its own piano of consciousness. It is no respecter of persons, so can always be depended upon—inviolable and unerring it brings to each that which he has earned.

What I did say, and it was correctly reported, was this: Some people have a strango mental obliquity or quirk which enables them to believe simultaneously in two doctrines which are mutually destructive, viz., fl) that "God is Love," lovo so pure and great that it renders Him omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, and (2) that loving His children thus, knowing all and seeing their future, he deliberately creates thousands whom 110 knows will chooso evil instead of good and thus reap eternal misery, and that this He allows while knowing all and able to prevent it. I said, too, that for those who could hold such contradictory mental concepts,- mythic must appear to stato an impossibility, saint and sinner could never according to them reach the same final goal Your correspondent evidently holds these two concepts, and objects to my showing that they are mutually destructive. I leave your readers to draw the inference. It i.s very cunning of him to speak of the "fiends" of the earth escaping the just reward of their deeds by simply being reincarnated on the lines stated by the leoturor (myself), and withholding information as to what thoso lines were, and he can no more escape the result of that act and of the following statement ("the Theosophist would consider it sufficient punishment for him to pass through certain evolutionary stages of existence") than the Pharaoh he quotes could escape the result of his greater mistakes and iniquities. The fact that a man reaps in another life-period on earth the results of past mistakes or sins that could not be fitted into the life in which they wore committed, is no more wonderful or strange than the fact that we do not always pay our debts on the same day as they are incurred: they are presented next clay or later, and over and over again until they are paid. Of course wo must meet God,* and some of us have reached tin: point where love of Him "casteth out fear." Wo are beginning to know Him. and as for walking over the body of the Redeemer and choosing an eternity of woe, it cannot be done. Moreover, the Theosophist believes in but ono God for all worlds, so there is no use in trying to scare Him with an opposite God—a bogey called Satan—whom our correspondent calls the trod of this world.—T am, etc., CATHERINE W. CHRISTIE, National Lecturer, Theosophical Society.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—ln reply to "Love and Judgment's" criticism of a recent Theosophieal lecture. I would first suggest to him that out of the present war struggle there _ may come a better understanding of the teachings of Christ. For instance, the idea that millions of the great human family will inevitably suffer the torments of hell is gradually being recognised as being at variance with our belief of an all-wide Creator _a God of Love. Although a very ordinary Christian, I have many times felt sorrow at the summary fashion otherwise good men will condemn thenfellows to hell, often on the flimsiest doctrinal pretext. Christians usually agree that God is the Father of us all —we members of the great human family. When we say God is love, is all powerful, is merciful and just, is our Creator and Ruler; is in fact the Divine Father of us all, do we really believe it or fully realise our glorious inheritance? If we do what room is there in the Divine plan for a second ill-powerful being in the shape of the Devil who is to be so successful in upsetting the divine plan that millions of our fellows will be lost. To me it Is awful sacrilege to suggesit that God's creative plan is so working out that millions <il bis creatures fail to reach the goal. To one who loves his fellow men it is little satisfaction to know 'hat lie may save his own skin. I know ittle of Theosonhy, but if the Theosoihiciil lecturer's theology is such that die can hold out hope that ultimately the whole of God's creation will be gathered into the fold I am content.