DE ANNIE BESANT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 256, 26 September 1933, Page 9

DE ANNIE BESANT

Last Sunday evening a special meeting was held at the Theosophical Hall, Church Street, to commemorate tho life work of the president of the Theosophical Society, from 1907 until her passing last week. There was a large attendance of members and friends to pay tribute to the memory of the great president, Dr. Annie Besant. The hall was beautifully decorated for the occasion with white cherry blossoms. The speaker of the evening dealt with the life and work of Dr. Besant. Born in 1847, Mrs Besant had lived a career in itself before coming in contact with theosophy. Associated 1 with Bradlauglr she fought all England for the right of freedom of thought. Passing from the free thought movement she became associated with the Fabian Socialists. “Bernard Shaw has left a fine record of her passage through Fabian Socialism. He. said that he had never heard her oratory excelled. She was elected to the London School Board in 1888 after election meetings as, thanks to her eloquence, were unique and luminous in the squalid record of London electioneering. “In 1889 she first came into contact with theosophy through reviewing Madame Blavatsky’s book, ‘The Secret Doctrine.’ Then commenced the second phase of her life which was to take her all over the world. In 1893 she went to India where she soon set to work to .regenerate Hinduism. Sir Valentine Chivol has left on record her marvellous work in revivifying this great religion. Furthering this work she established the Central

Hindu College, now the Hindu University of Benares, of which she was an honorary Doctor of Literature. “In 1914 she entered on a definitely political career with the publishing ol her paper New India. Her aim was Dominion home rule and in 1917 she was elected president of the Indian National Congress at 70 years ol age. She disagreed with Gandhi over his non-co-operation movement and worked with men like Sastri and Sapru in their constitutional agitation for self-government. Her social work went on and Sir Arthur Lawley has said : ‘Her voice was never raised save to move her hearers to some nobler impulse, to some loftier ideals, to some higher plane of thought.’ “Her saintly life, great gifts of heart and head, and absolute devotion to the spread of the highest ideals made her name a household word all the world over. Her writings are famous, especially her book on ‘Thought Power.’ There arc well over three hundred books and pamphlets to her credit. “Whatever her views she always earned the respect of her opponents in later years who recognised liei sincerity of purpose. Viscount Willingdon, when Governor of Bombay, banished her from his province in 1916, but later when Governor of Madras he thanked her for her splendid cooperation with him in promoting the Montagu-Clielmsford reforms. “Viscount Snowdon has summed up her career effectively—‘No woman of this generation has devoted supreme gifts of oratory and intellect to great humanitarian causes with such energy and disinterestedness as Mrs Besant.’ ”