rlds, what ground is there for the preposterous
conceit which arrogates as ours all sentient existence? Earth, air,
water, all are teeming with living things suited to their environment;
our globe is overflowing with life. But the moment we pass in thought
beyond our atmosphere everything is to be changed. Neither reason nor
analogy support such a supposition. It was one of Bruno's crimes that
he dared to teach that other worlds than ours were inhabited; but he
was wiser than the monks who burned him. All the Theosophists aver is
that each phase of matter has living things suited to it, and that all
the universe is pulsing with life. 'Superstition!' shriek the bigoted.
It is no more superstition than the belief in Bacteria, or in any
other living thing invisible to the ordinary human eye. 'Spirit' is a
misleading word, for, historically, it connotes immateriality and a
supernatural kind of existence, and the Theosophist believes neither
in the one nor the other. With him all living things act in and
through a material basis, and 'matter' and 'spirit' are not found
dissociated. But he alleges that matter exists in states other than
those at present known to science. To deny this is to be about as
sensible as was the Hindu prince who denied the existence of ice
because water, in his experience, never became solid. Refusal to
believe until proof is given is a rational position; denial of all
outside of our own limited experience is absurd.

"One last word to my Secularist friends. If you say to me, 'Leave our
ranks,' I will leave them; I force myself on no party, and the moment
I feel myself unwelcome I will go.[29] It has cost me pain enough and
to spare to admit that the Materialism from which I hoped all has
failed me, and by such admission to bring on myself the disapproval of
some of my nearest friends. But here, as at other times in my life, I
dare not purchase peace with a lie. An imperious necessity forces me
to speak the truth, as I see it, whether the speech please or
displease, whether it bring praise or blame. That one loyalty to Truth
I must keep stainless, whatever friendships fail me or human ties be
broken. She may lead me into the wilderness, yet I must follow her;
she may strip me of all love, yet I must pursue her; though she slay
me, yet will I trust in her; and I ask no other epitaph on my tomb but

"'SHE TRIED TO FOLLOW TRUTH.'"

Meanwhile, with this new controversy on my hands, the School Board
wo