THEOSOPHICAL LECTURES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11773, 28 October 1912, Page 6

THEOSOPHICAL LECTURES.

"The Coming of the Great World Teacher" is the title of the lecture which on Sunday night drew a' very fair audience to hear Miss Christie in Mitchell's Tearooms. There were many items of a decidedly startling nature to those who do not read any but their own. religion, but there could be no doubt as to the reverent feeling of the speaker nor of her earnestness and strong; belief in what she was teaching. The cause of much -of the opposition to the "Order of the Star in the. East," she said, was the confusing by orthodox Christians of the work always done by the Christ, Who is Lord and Founder of all the religions of the world-, and that of the Cosmic Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, into Whom all forms will, at the end of , the world, be gathered and disappear. The coming Teacher is connected with . that great cosmic aspect of God, and is the highest being upon that ray who can wear human form. Two thousand years ago Ho. came to found Christianity with its grand keynote of self-sacrifice, and to do this He used the physical body of the Lord Jesus, Who gave it "a willing sacrifice," knowing it would be killed in a few years. At the baptism in Jordan bV John, Jesus left His perfectly pure and beautiful physical body, just as you or I leave a heavy' overcoat, and the Christ entered it; then came "t7?e dove," the symbol of the Holy Spirit, the Great Avatara interpenetrating the • physical body of Jesus, the subtle bodies and the individuality of the Lord Jesus through and'through, and connecting all with the second aspect of the Trinity, makingthe Lord Jesus Christ "very God and very man." For three years after this "He went about doing good." He healed the sick, cleansed the leper, made the blind to see, and the lame to walk; He fed the hungry and raised the dead. And what did we give Him in return? We killed Him! unable to bear such a pure and holy presence among us. It was aot the irreligious or the. atheist who did this; nay, but it was the orthodox,, narrow religionist, the Pharisee, who neither then nor now can tolerate any teaching outside his -own 'narrow creed, and it is with the same class tochry that- the danger lies when He returns to us, as He will within '2O; years, from now. We are too civilised now to, spit upon, scourge, and crown Him with thorns, or to kill Him, but cries of .-aiifP Christ and "false prophet" will ring .through the air, and many will be unable to know or love Him because of their bigotry and hatred of all creeds but their own. Miss Christie then told the stories of (1) the sacrifice of the Manifesting Deity crucifying Himselfln matter. 2. The myth of the sun-god born under Virgo at the winter solstice. 3. The story of the . Essene Tuitiate bound upon a wooden cross for three days and nights. 4. The story of .the human Jewish, babe .named Jesus. s.'The- mystic Christ born within, the heart- of every devotee, :iio matter what his religion'; and showed how all these were true in the higher sense, though not historical, and.were all intern-oven with the beautiful life of our Lord Jesus given'us in the New Testament. The lecturer closed with an earnest appeal to all present "to. so mould their, lives that the Christ spirit within each heart- would grow until- when the Lord rame He would draw them irresistibly to Him as a magnet draws all .of its own nature to it: and gave..also a new-and very beautiful interpretation "of the. "coming in clouds of glory" and "as athief in "the\night,", and other.-well-known texts referring to His coming. -,. A number joined the Order -of "the Star in the East at the dose, andiseve-i ral inquiries were made as to forming n study-class or a TheosophicalLddsre in. Oamaru. The next lecture is on Wed-" nesday, at- 8 p.m. Miss Christie leavesfor Duuedin on Saturday.