(This editorial note was published in the New-York
Daily Tribune, on May 10, 1891, two days after Blavatsky's death.)
HELENA PETROVNA
BLAVATSKY
Few women in our time have been more
persistently misrepresented, slandered and defamed than Madame Blavatsky, but
though malice and ignorance did their worst upon her there are abundant
indications that her life-work will vindicate itself; that it will endure; and
that it will operate for good.
She was the founder of the Theosophical Society,
an organization now fully and firmly established, which has branches in many
countries, East and West, and which is devoted to studies and practices the
innocence and the elevating character of which are becoming more generally
recognized continually.
The life of Madame Blavatsky was a
remarkable one, but this is not the place or time to speak of its vicissitudes.
It must suffice to say that for nearly twenty years she had devoted herself to
the dissemination of doctrines the fundamental principles of which are of the
loftiest ethical character.
However Utopian may appear to some minds an
attempt in the nineteenth century to break down the barriers of race,
nationality, caste and class prejudice, and to inculcate that spirit of
brotherly love which the greatest of all Teachers enjoined in the first
century, the nobility of the aim can only be impeached by those who repudiate
Christianity.
Madame Blavatsky held that the regeneration
of mankind must be based upon the development of altruism. In this she was at
one with the greatest thinkers, not alone of the present day, but of all time;
and at one, it is becoming more and more apparent, with the strongest spiritual
tendencies of the age. This alone would entitle her teachings to the candid and
serious consideration of all who respect the influences that make for
righteousness.
In another direction, though in close
association with the cult of universal fraternity, she did important work. No
one in the present generation, it may be said, has done more toward reopening
the long-sealed treasures of Eastern thought, wisdom, and philosophy.
No one certainly has done so much toward
elucidating that profound wisdom-religion wrought out by the ever-cogitating
Orient, and bringing into the light those ancient literary works whose scope
and depth have so astonished the Western world, brought up in the insular
belief that the East had produced only crudities and puerilities in the domain
of speculative thought.
Her own knowledge of Oriental philosophy
and esotericism was comprehensive. No candid mind can doubt this after reading
her two principal works. Her steps often led, indeed, where only a few
initiates could follow, but the tone and tendency of all her writings were
healthful, bracing and stimulating. The lesson which was constantly impressed
by her was assuredly that which the world most needs, and has always needed,
namely, the necessity of subduing self and of working for others.
Doubtless such a doctrine is distasteful to
the ego-worshippers, and perhaps it has little chance of anything like general
acceptance, to say nothing of general application. But the man or woman who
deliberately renounces all personal aims and ambitions in order to forward such
beliefs is certainly entitled to respect, even from such as feel least capable
of obeying the call to a higher life.
The work of Madame Blavatsky has already
borne fruit, and is destined, apparently, to produce still more marked and
salutary effects in the future. Careful observers of the time long since
discerned that the tone of current thought in many directions was being
affected by it. A broader humanity, a more liberal speculation, a disposition
to investigate ancient philosophies from a higher point of view, have no
indirect association with the teachings referred to.
Thus Madame Blavatsky has made her mark
upon the time, and thus, too, her works will follow her. She herself has
finished the course, and after a strenuous life she rests. But her personal
influence is not necessary to the continuance of the great work to which she
put her hand. That will go on with the impulse it has received, and some day,
if not at once, the loftiness and purity of her aims, the wisdom and scope of
her teachings, will be recognized more fully, and her memory will be accorded the
honor to which it is justly entitled.
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