ask him to open the columns of this Journal to
an exposition of Theosophy from my pen, and so bring about a long
controversy on a subject which would not interest the majority of the
readers of the _National Reformer_. This being so I cannot here answer
the attacks made on me. I feel, however, that the party with which I
have worked for so long has a right to demand of me some explanation
of the step I have taken, and I am therefore preparing a pamphlet
dealing fully with the question. Further, I have arranged with Mr.
R.O. Smith to take as subject of the lectures to be delivered by me at
the Hall of Science on August 4th and 11th 'Why I became a
Theosophist.' Meanwhile I think that my years of service in the ranks
of the Freethought party give me the right to ask that I should not be
condemned unheard, and I even venture to suggest, in view of the
praises bestowed on me by Freethinkers in the past, that it is
possible that there may be something to be said, from the intellectual
standpoint, in favour of Theosophy. The caricatures of it which have
appeared from some Freethinkers' pens represent it about as accurately
as the Christian Evidence caricatures of Atheism represent that
dignified philosophy of life; and, remembering how much they are
themselves misrepresented, I ask them to wait before they judge."

The lectures were delivered, and were condensed into a pamphlet
bearing the same title, which has had a very great circulation. It
closed as follows:--

"There remains a great stumblingblock in the minds of many
Freethinkers which is certain to prejudice them against Theosophy, and
which offers to opponents a cheap subject for sarcasm--the assertion
that there exist other living beings than the men and animals found on
our own globe. It may be well for people who at once turn away when
such an assertion is made to stop and ask themselves whether they
really and seriously believe that throughout this mighty universe, in
which our little planet is but as a tiny speck of sand in the Sahara,
this one planet only is inhabited by living things? Is all the
universe dumb save for _our_ voices? eyeless save for _our_ vision?
dead save for _our_ life? Such a preposterous belief was well enough
in the days when Christianity regarded our world as the centre of the
universe, the human race as the one for which the Creator had deigned
to die. But now that we are placed in our proper position, one among
countless myriads of wo