AMAZING CAREER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22256, 8 May 1934, Page 7

AMAZING CAREER

TREBITSCH-LINCOLN NOT WANTED IN ENGLAND (United Press Association.) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, May 5. Trebitsch-Lincoln, who is now Chao Kung, a Buddhist monk, arrived at Liverpool on board the Duchess of York, accompanied by five men and five women —disciples from China. The party came, via Canada. Trebitsch-Lincoln was refused permission to remain because the deportation order against him was not cancelled. He was detained, while his followers, who refused to desert him, were placed in a boarding house pending the return of the whole party to the Far East. Trebitsch-Lincoln has had an amazing career of adventure. Born a Jew in Hungary, his name was Ignatius Timothy Trebitsch. At the age of 20 he was baptised a Christian and for some years in Canada he was a Presbyterian clergyman, later still joining the Church of England and acting as curate. He was regarded as a brilliant theologian, but he eventually decided he did not believe the Gospel he preached and became an atheist. When this softened into agnosticism he dismissed religion from his mind, and added Lincoln to his name. He was elected a member of the British House of Commons. He says he was wronged by Great Britain during the war, and giving this ns the real explanation for becoming an international spy for 12 years, he followed his desire for revenge. The impulse led him into a dozen countries on the Continent, into Asia and America. He was arrested, thrown into prison, acquitted, and threatened with death on sight. He then embraced Buddhism. In recounting the story of his conversion he said: “ Impulses are not new to me. I have an impulsive nature —it is impulses that have always governed my actions. But I call this a strange impulse for it was unlike the others. It was more like a vision. A voice kept saying: ‘Go to Tientsin, Go to Tientsin.’ I engaged passage immediately. On the boat I met a captain of the British Army who was stationed in Hongkohg. He took an interest. in me. We talked—this and that. On the second day, when I happened to come upon the captain, he was reading a book. It was a book about Buddhism. I began to discuss the subject with him, quite casually. We talked for a while, and he aroused my interest in several points upon which I had not quite been clear before. I asked him to lend me the book when he finished it, and this he did that very night. I cannot attempt to tell you what it was I found in this book, for it would take too long to explain its relation with what I already know of Buddhism. Let us say that the light dawned upon me—that I knew at last I had found the real truth of the mysteries of life—just as the truth of the system of the planets must have dawned upon Copernicus. When I finished that book I knew that I had found myself. There came a great peace to my mind that had never been there before. I was no longer restless. I no longer desired revenge. I desired nothing except to meditate upon the truths I had come to understand. I am sorry for the hurts I have caused other people; sorry I have done some of the things I have done. But without the knowledge I gained in living the life I have I might never have seen the truths of the Buddha.”