• HART, Samuel Hopgood. [em inglês]
In Memoriam Anna Kingsford (Em
Memória de Anna Kingsford). The Leeds Vegetarian Society,
Leeds (Inglaterra), 1947.
Informações:
Livreto contendo o texto completo, com algumas adições pelo autor, de
uma palestra ministrada para a Sociedade Vegetariana de Leeds
(Inglaterra), em 15 de setembro de 1946, em comemoração ao centenário de
nascimento de Anna Kingsford. Segue o texto completo, em inglês:
IN MEMORIAM ANNA KINGSFORD
(Born
1846 – Died 1888)
By
Samuel
Hopgood Hart
[The
full text, with some additions, of a Lecture read to the Leeds
Vegetarian Society on
September 15th, 1946, to commemorate the Centenary of the
birth of Anna Kingsford.]
“I
have spoken unto the prophets, and I have multiplied visions.”
(Hosea
12:10)
The
late Mme. Isabelle de Steiger, speaking of those whom she regarded as
“the three greatest women of the day” – with each of whom she claimed
intimate knowledge and friendship – said to me: “Mrs. Mary Anne Atwood
was the greatest Scholar; H. P. Blavatsky was the greatest Occultist;
and Anna Kingsford (the centenary of whose birth we now commemorate) was
the most Illumined” (enlightened from within). This judgment I believe
to be sound. The Light of the Spirit shone through Anna
Kingsford. Edward Maitland, referring to their first meeting, speaks of
“her whole being” as “radiant with a spiritual light which seemed to
flow as from a luminous fountain within.” She was born on the 16th
September, 1846, at Maryland Point, Stratford in Essex; the daughter of
John Bonus, and the youngest of twelve children. She derived from her
Father together with a great capacity for work, a constitution so
fragile that at birth she was wrapped up and laid aside for dead; while
from her Mother she inherited a vitality which enabled her to endure,
and a strength of will which enabled her to dominate the illness,
weakness, and suffering which life had in store for her. But apart from
this, throughout her life, she manifested characteristics which could
not be ascribed to physical heredity, for they were spiritual. As
Wordsworth says (“Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of
Early Childhood.”):
“Our
birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that
rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had
elsewhere its setting,
And cometh
from afar:
Not in entire
forgetfulness,
And not in
utter nakedness,
But trailing
clouds of glory do we come
From God, who
is our home.”
This
was the teaching of Anna Kingsford, who said: “The soul passeth from
form to form; and the mansions of her pilgrimage are manifold.” The
truth of this will become more and more apparent as we proceed. Anna
Kingsford was born with a mission.
In her
early days she used to declare that she was “of fairy and not of human
lineage (…) and that only by adoption was she the child of her parents,
her true home being in fairy land (…). She could even recall, she
believed, her last interview with the queen of that lovely country, the
prayers with which she had sought permission to visit the earth, and the
solemn warnings she had received of the suffering and toil she would
undergo by assuming a human body (...). But she had persisted in coming,
being impelled by an overpowering impression of some great and necessary
work, on behalf both of herself and of others, which she alone could
perform, to be accomplished by her.” In later life she was wont to
declare that “she had returned to earth to work out a double redemption,
for the race and for herself.” The faculty of seership manifested itself
at an early age. But this she soon learnt to keep secret, because it
entailed references to the family physician, with results at once
disagreeable and injurious to her. She had ability for music, singing,
drawing and painting; but, above all, she was a poet. Much of interest
relating to her early childhood and to her girlhood is related in her
Biography. (The Life of Anna Kingsford, by Edward
Maitland, which is written as the history not of a person only, but of a
soul.)
In
early life her great resource was writing, and it was in verse chiefly
that she sought expression for her ideas. The quality of her poems,
while still but a child, was such as to win for them admission into
various magazines. Her first book, Beatrice: a Tale of the Early
Christians (published in 1863), was written at the age of
thirteen. She said: “It all came to me ready-made, and I had but to
write it down.” On the fly-leaf of a copy of this book which is in my
possession, are written these words: “Annie Bonus. Take it Oh Lord and
let it be, As something I have done for Thee!” Some of her poems were
(in 1866) published in a little book under the title of River
Reeds, all which were written by her before she was seventeen,
and many of them when she was but a child of ten or eleven.
At
school, her curiosity respecting religious subjects was a cause of
offence and resulted in severe school impositions; but the first prize
for English composition, always fell to her.
On
quitting school, she devoted herself to writing. During this period she
wrote her Flower Stories which, in 1875, were with other
stories published under the title of Rosamunda the Princess.
Other of her stories were included in Dreams and Dream Stories,
published after her death. Many of them were the product of sleep, even
to the minutest details.
On the
last day of 1867, she was married to her cousin Algernon Godfrey
Kingsford, then in the Civil Service. Later, he took Orders in the
Church of England, and afterwards became Vicar of Atcham, near
Shrewsbury. She accompanied her husband in his theological studies, and
became well grounded in Anglican theology. Full of ideas which possessed
her respecting a work in store for her, she made it a condition of her
marriage that it should not fetter her in respect of any career to which
she might be prompted, and she continued to live with a sense of some
great work to be done by her. Her theological studies failed to modify
“the aversion she felt to the religious system in which she had been
reared, because of ifs unrelatedness to her own spiritual needs,
intellectual or emotional.” From association with a small circle of
Catholic friends she obtained some knowledge of the teaching of their
Church, with which she felt in sympathy; and, having received three
nocturnal visitations from “an apparition. purporting to be that of St.
Mary Magdalen” who bade her join the Roman Communion “as a step
requisite for the work in store for her, the nature of which would in
due time be communicated to her,” she, in 1870, joined the Roman
Catholic Church. Thus to her knowledge of Anglican theology, she now
added that of Catholic doctrine. No question had as yet arisen for her
as between the two presentments of Christianity, the ecclesiastical and
the mystical. She accepted the Catholic as against the sectarian, not
the ecclesiastical as against the spiritual. She did not then comprehend
the spiritual import of the dogmas of the Catholic Church. In after
years, she said, “My Spirit strove within me to create me a Catholic
without my knowing why.” It was not until 1875-6 that she began “by
means of the Inner Light” to comprehend why she had been led to take
this step. Then it was that she had unfolded to her soul that divine
system of teaching which is set forth in the pages of The Perfect
Way, and The Credo of Christendom, and other of
her writings: a teaching which demonstrates that “All that is true is
spiritual,” and that “No dogma of the Church is true that is not
spiritual.” She was told: “If it be true, and yet seems to have a
material signification, know that you have not solved it. It is a
mystery: seek its interpretation. That which is true, is for spirit
alone.”
For a
time she took an active part in the movement for the enfranchisement of
women, and became the proprietor and editor of The Lady’s Own Paper.
In her opinion, “Men and Women are on an equality. Neither is first.” It
was “the woman principle in man” (the soul and her intuitions), that she
stood for. As editor of this Magazine she first became aware of the
existence of vivisection, and from that time forth the suppression of
this crime against humanity became one of the foremost aims of her life,
and she determined to take up the study of medicine in order to qualify
herself for the contest that awaited her. She regarded .vivisection, as
“the foulest of practices, whether as regards its nature or its
principles.” She was also influenced by the question of diet. Under the
advice of her eldest brother (John Bonus) she had already given up
eating flesh-food “with such manifest advantage to herself, physically
and mentally, as to lead her to see in it the only effectual means to
the world’s redemption whether as regards men themselves or the
animals.” Man, carnivorous and sustaining himself by slaughter and
torture, was not for her man at all in any true sense of the term.
In the
Spring of 1873, she had a remarkable experience. She had then commenced
to study medicine, when she received from a stranger a letter, signed
“Anna Wilkes,” saying that she (the writer) had read in The Lady’s
Own Paper with profound interest and admiration one of her stories –
“In my Lady’s Chamber” – and after reading it, “had received from
the Holy Spirit a message for her which was to be delivered in person.
Would Mrs. Kingsford receive her and when?” An appointment was made, and
on meeting, her visitor declared that “she had received a distinct
message from the Holy Spirit, and had been so strongly impressed to come
and deliver it in person that she could not refrain.” Her message was to
the effect that for five years Anna Kingsford was to remain in
retirement, continuing the studies on which she was then engaged,
whatever they might be, and the mode of life on which she had entered,
suffering nothing and no one to draw her aside from them. And after
that, the Holy Spirit would drive her forth from her seclusion “to teach
and to preach, and a great work would be given her to do.” A few months
later, she saw in the Examiner notice of a book entitled By-and-by, by Edward Maitland, – then a stranger to her – on
reading which she found herself so much in sympathy with the writer that
she wrote to him proposing an interchange of ideas. Correspondence
followed, and in one of her letters, having referred to the fact that
she was a member of the Roman Catholic Church, she said: “but by
conviction I am rather a pantheist than anything else, and my mode of
life is that of a fruit-eater. In other words, I have a horror of flesh
as food, and belong to the Vegetarian Society. At present I am studying
medicine.”
Before
the close of the year, she had passed her preliminary examination at the
Apothecary’s Hall, and was intending, shortly, to go to Paris for the
purpose of being admitted to the medical schools there – the authorities
in London having closed their schools to women.
In
January of the following year (1874), she first met Edward Maitland. It
was in London, and was but for a short time, and during a single
afternoon. In describing the impression she then made on him, he says:
“She seemed at first more fairy than human, and more child than woman –
for though really twenty-seven, she appeared scarcely seventeen.” So
ready was their mutual recognition, there was no barrier of strangeness
to be overcome. “Justice as between men and women, human and animal,
these were her foremost aims. For all injustice was cruelty, and cruelty
was, for her, the one unpardonable sin.” Justice was the ruling
principle of her nature. The outcome of this meeting was an invitation
to visit the Shropshire parsonage at the earliest opportunity, and the
visit – which lasted nearly a fortnight – was paid in the following
month, and it proved to be the crucial point in their lives. Edward
Maitland did not doubt that their association had been brought about for
the purpose of the fulfillment of their respective missions – for he
also was conscious of a mission in life which had yet to be discovered.
They saw truth alike. The barbarities perpetrated in the laboratories of
the vivisectors, then first made known to him, decided him to join her
in the proposed anti-vivisection crusade. “Vivisection meant the
demonisation of the race,” and realising that the animals would not be
allowed to accept at the hands of those who ate them, their deliverance
from the hands of the vivisectors, he forthwith became a vegetarian.
Much of
the time of her student-course had to be spent in Paris, and her refusal
to allow her tutor to experiment on live animals at her lessons, led to
his withdrawal. She then attempted to dispense with private tuition by
attending the official classes at the medical schools, but these soon
had to be discontinued, because the laboratories were in such close
proximity to the lecture rooms that the cries of the animals under
torture were plainly audible and were so distressing to her as to compel
her to give up her attendance at the schools, and again have recourse to
private tuition: but her persistent refusal to allow her professors to
vivisect at her lessons continued to subject her not only to constant
altercations with them, but to a constant change of them.
During
the whole of her student-course she never waivered in her refusal to
allow experiments on living animals at her lessons. In an article by her
respecting vivisection at the medical schools in Paris, she said: “Very
shortly after my entry as a student at the Paris Faculté, and when as
yet I was new to the horrors of the vivisectional method, I was one
morning, while studying alone in the Natural History Museum, suddenly
disturbed by a frightful burst of screams, of a character more
distressing than words can convey, proceeding from some chamber on
another side of the building. I called to the porter in charge of the
Museum, and asked him what it meant. He replied with a grin, “It is only
the dogs being vivisected in M. Béclard’s laboratory:” I expressed my
horror; and he retorted scrutinising me with surprise and amusement –
for he could never before have heard a student speak of vivisection in
such terms – “What do you want? It is for science.” Therewith he left
me, and I sat down alone and listened. Much as I had heard and said, and
even written, before that day about vivisection, I found myself then for
the first time in its actual presence, and there swept over me a wave of
such extreme mental anguish that my heart stood still under it. It was
not sorrow, nor was it indignation merely, that I felt; it was nearer
despair than these. It seemed as if suddenly all the laboratories of
torture throughout Christendom stood open before me, with their manifold
unutterable agonies exposed, and the awful future an atheistic science
was everywhere making for the world rose up and stared me in the face.
And then, and there, burying my face in my hands, with tears of agony I
prayed for strength and courage to labour effectually for the abolition
of so vile a wrong, and to do at least what one heart and one voice
might to root this curse of torture from the land.” She said: “Two ways
lie before every man – the path of good and the path of evil – and man
is free to chose between them. Men of Science must choose, just as must
traders, writers, or artists. Semblance of success may lure him who
enters on the track of evil, but it is the glamour of a phantom decoy,
and will sooner or later end in collapse; for it was no evil principle
that built the universe. A method which is morally wrong cannot be
scientifically right. The test of conscience is the test of soundness.”
As
regards the question of diet, the following experience more than
confirmed her in advocating a vegetarian regimen. Relating an early
experience in her student-course, she said:
“In the
hospital yesterday – at the surgical consultation of La Pitié – there
was a man with a broken péroné (fibula), who fell to my share.
“Describe to me the accident which caused this,” said I.
“I
slipped. My leg slid under me, and l fell.”
“How
came you to slip?”
“The
floor was swimming in blood, and I slipped on the blood.”
“Blood!” cried I. “What blood?”
“Madame, I am a slaughter-man by trade. I had just been killing, and all
the slaughter-house was covered with blood.”
Oh,
then, my heart was hardened. I looked in the man’s face. It was of the
lowest type, deep beetle-brows, a wide, thick, coarse mouth, a red skin
– “Savage” was stamped on every line of it. The world revolts me. My
business is not here. All the earth is full of violence and cruel
habitations.”
In
1880, having passed all her “Doctorat examens”, there remained
only the acceptance of a thesis which she was required to write before
she could obtain a diploma, and this she made an exposition of the
principles on behalf of which she sought a medical degree, entitling it
“De l’Alimentation Végétale chez l’Homme”. Edward Maitland
says: “Of the cost in toil and suffering, physical and mental, at which
that privilege was obtained, her Biography gives but a faint
indication.” An English edition of her thesis was subsequently published
under the title of The Perfect Way in Diet, which at once
took its place as a foremost text-book on the subject, and was
translated into various languages.
During
the whole of her student-life, she experienced great spiritual
unfoldments, and received many Illuminations, records of which were
preserved by Edward Maitland and were included in the “Book of her
Illuminations” – Clothed with the Sun – which was
published after her death. The celestial had been opened to them, and if
it be asked, “What is Divine Illumination?” It is “The Light of Wisdom,
whereby a man perceiveth heavenly secrets, which Light is the Spirit of
God within the man, shewing unto him the things of God.” – “Unto the
godly there ariseth up Light in the darkness.” The Spirit within man is
Divine. Truth is revealed from within, and all that Anna Kingsford wrote
was from within, and not from without. She knew. She was not told. She
was not obsessed. When under Illumination, it was her spiritual self who
saw, heard, and spoke. “She was an unveiled soul, shining through the
material form (...). She drew direct from the Infinite.” Though “caged
in the body,” as she was, all that she touched she illuminated by a
radiance that shone through her soul: – She was a prophet. One of
her Illuminations contains the following magnificient apostrophe to the
prophet. She was told:
“None
is a prophet save he who knoweth: the instructor of the people is a man
of many lives. (…) The knowledge of the prophet instructeth him. Even
though he speak in an ecstasy, he uttereth nothing that he knoweth not.
Thou who art a prophet, hast had many lives: yea, thou hast taught many
nations, and hast stood before kings. And God hath instructed thee in
the years that are past; and in the former times of the earth. By
prayer, by fasting, by meditation, by painful seeking, hast thou
attained that thou knowest. There is no knowledge but by labour; there
is no intuition but by experience. I have seen thee on the hills of the
East: I have followed thy steps in the wilderness: I have seen thee
adore at sunrise: I have marked thy night watches in the caves of the
mountains. Thou hast attained with patience, Oh prophet! God hath
revealed the truth to thee from within.”
Anna
Kingsford was under no misconception as to the nature of her high
office. Mme. de Steiger (to whom reference has been made) in her
Memorabilia (pp. 171-3) says that at a dinner party given by the
celebrated Jewish scholar Dr. Ginsburg, at which she and Anna Kingsford
were present, he – not having before met her – greeted her as follows: –
“Mrs. Kingsford, I have heard much about you. I am told you have read my
book (on the Kabalah) and that you are a prophet.” – “Yes, Dr.
Ginsburg,” she answered, “I have read your book. It interests me very
much, and it is true that I am a prophet.” Dr. Ginsburg “gasped,” and,
with the intention of exploiting her for the amusement of himself and
his guests, said: “You mean, you may be a sort of prophet; but I mean a
real prophet, a great one, let us say, Isaiah.” She merely replied, very
quietly, “I am a prophet, and a greater one than Isaiah” – suppressing
her own emotion at the affront she said no more, and Mme. de Steiger
adds, “She meant honestly what she had said.”
The
next great event of her life quickly followed the grant of her diploma.
She was now free to openly proclaim her views without fear of offending
medical authorities and possibly jeopardising the grant to her of a
medical degree. The time had come for her and Edward Maitland to start
their spiritual campaign. This they did by giving to a select audience a
series of lectures embodying their teaching which had for its object
“the downfall of the world’s materialistic system both in Religion and
in Science.” These lectures were delivered in 1881, and they
represented the chief product of their collaboration. They were later
published under the title of The Perfect Way; or, the Finding of
Christ, and they set forth “the intellectual concepts which
underlie Christianity, demonstrating it to be a symbolic synthesis of
the fundamental truths contained in all religions.” The late Rev. G.J.R.
Ouseley – at one time a priest of the Catholic Apostolic Church – said
of this book that it was “the brightest and best of all revelations that
had been given to the world.” On first reading it, I was “as one that
findeth great spoils.” Through its teaching I became a vegetarian; and
it brought me out of “the horrible pit” of materialism – which is but
“mire and clay” – and set my feet upon the spiritual “rock.”
Vegetarianism is but one of many “golden strings” that lead to “Heaven’s
gate,” which the teaching of this book offers to all seekers after
Truth. In the words of Blake:
“I give
you the end of a golden string;
Only
wind it into a ball,
It will
lead you in at Heaven’s gate.
Built
in Jerusalem’s wall.”
As
regards the “bloody sacrifices” of Scripture; and the necessity for
food-reform generally, the following are some of the teachings that were
received by Anna Kingsford while under Illumination: –
“Were
the Prophets shedders of Blood? God forbid; they dealt not with things
material, but with spiritual Significations. Their Lambs without Spot,
their white Doves, their Goats, their Rams and other sacred Creatures
are so many Signs and Symbols of the various Graces and Gifts which a
Mystic People should offer to Heaven. Without such Sacrifices is no
remission of Sin (…) The Sacrifices of God are not the Flesh of Bulls or
the Blood of Goats, but holy Vows and sacred Thanksgivings, their
Mystical Counterparts. As God is Spirit, so also are His Sacrifices
Spiritual. What Folly, what Ignorance, to offer material Flesh and Drink
to pure Power and essential Being!”
“It is
to man frugivorous, and to him alone, that the Intuition reveals
herself, and for her comes all revelation. For between him and his
spirit there is no barrier of blood; and in him alone can the spirit and
the man be at one.”
“With
the reproach of innocent blood removed from God, and the Divine
character vindicated, there is nought to check the soul’s aspiration.”
“Eat no
dead thing. Drink no fermented drink. Make living elements of all the
elements of your body. Mortify the members of earth. Take your food full
of life, and let not the touch of death pass upon it (…). The breath of
(terrestrial) fire is a touch of death. The fire that passes on the
elements of your food, deprives them of their vital spirit, and gives
you a corpse instead of living substance.”
“Purify
your bodies, and eat no dead thing that has looked with living eyes upon
the light of Heaven.
For the
eye is the symbol of brotherhood among you. Sight is the mystical sense.
Let no
man take the life of his brother to food withal his own. But slay only
such as are evil; in the name of the Lord.
They
are miserably deceived who expect eternal life, and restrain not their
hands from blood and death.”
On the
eve of Christmas Day 1880, when speaking under Illumination she
said: “The atmosphere is thick with the blood shed for the season’s
festivities. (…) The earth whirls round in a cloud of blood like red
fire.” And she was told “distinctly and emphatically” that “the
salvation of the world is impossible while people nourish themselves on
blood.” She said: “The whole globe is like one vast charnel-house. (…) I
see the blood and hear the cries of the poor slaughtered creatures.”
Here her distress became so extreme that she wept bitterly; and, Edward
Maitland says, “some days passed before the fully recovered her
composure.”
The few
remaining years of her life were devoted to writing and speaking on
behalf of vegetarianism, against vivisection, and in expounding esoteric
Christianity as opposed to the materialistic teaching of the
churches, and to agnosticism. It was during the writing of The
Perfect Way lectures that she had the vision “Concerning the
Three Veils between Man and God,” which announced to her the nature
and the object of her mission. Edward Maitland says: “It was more than a
vision. It was a drama actually enacted by her in sleep, wherein she was
withdrawn from the body for the purpose. (…) We regarded it as a
veritable annunciation to her of the redemptive work to be
accomplished through her.” The names of the three veils were BLOOD,
IDOLATRY, and THE CURSE OF EVE, and she was told: “To you it is given
to withdraw them; be faithful and courageous; the time has come.” At
the close of the vision, she heard these words:
“Put
away Blood from among you!
Destroy
your Idols!
Restore
your Queen!
Worship
God alone!”
It was
by withdrawing these three veils that she fulfilled her mission – the
mission for which she was born. All three must be withdrawn by each of
us, and vegetarians are particularly concerned with the withdrawal of
the first of them. Much of what she wrote and said on the subject of
vegetarianism is contained in Addresses and Essays on
Vegetarianism, which is by many regarded as one of the best
books on the principles of Vegetarianism that has been written. The
following are examples of her teaching on the subject: –
“I
ardently believe that the Vegetarian movement is the bottom and basis of
all other movements towards Purity, Freedom, Justice and Happiness. (…)
Of civilization we have as yet acquired but the veriest rudiments.
Civilization means not mere physical ease, but moral and spiritual
Freedom – Sweetness and Light – with which the customs of the age are in
most respects at dire enmity. (…) I see in the doctrine we are
here to preach the very culmination and crown of the Gentle Life, that
Life which in some way we all of us in our best moments long to live,
but which it is only given now and again to some great and noble soul,
almost divine, fully to realise and glorify in the eyes of the world.”
“Who so
poor, so oppressed, so helpless, so mute and uncared for, as the dumb
creatures who serve us – they who but for us must starve, and who have
no friend on earth if man be their enemy? Even these are not too low for
pity nor too base for justice, and without fear of irreverence or slight
on the holy name that Christians love, we may truly say of them, as of
the captive, the sick, and the hungry, “Inasmuch as ye do it unto
the least of these, my brethren, ye do it unto Me.”
[Matthew
25:40]
“The
essential of true Justice is the sense of solidarity. All creatures,
from highest to lowest, stand hand in hand before God. Nor shall we ever
begin to spiritualise our lives and thoughts, to lighten and lift
ourselves higher, until we recognise this solidarity, until we learn to
look upon the creatures of God’s hand, not as mere subjects for hunting
and butchery, for dissecting and experimentation, but as living souls
with whom, as well as with the sons of men, God’s covenant is made.”
“Vainly, today, we dream of universal peace, vainly we talk about
abolishing war among nations, while we are still content to live like
brutes of prey. As long as men feed like tigers, they will retain the
tiger’s nature. Universal peace will be impossible until man abjures the
diet of blood. Thus, I regard Vegetarianism as the ultimate and the only
means of the world’s redemption.”
“I
consider the vegetarian movement to be the most important movement of
our age. I believe this because I see in it the beginning of true
civilization. My opinion is that up to the present moment we do not know
what civilization means. When we look at the dead bodies of animals,
whether entire or cut up, which with sauces and condiments are served at
our table, we do not reflect on the horrible deed that has
preceded these dishes; and yet it is something terrible to know that
every meal to which we sit down has cost a life. I hold that we owe it
to civilization to elevate the whole of that deeply demoralized and
barbarized class of people – butchers, cattle-drovers, and all others
who are connected with the deplorable business. Thousands of persons are
degraded by the slaughter-house in their neighbourhood, which condemns
whole classes to a debasing and inhuman occupation. I await the time
when the consummation of the vegetarian movement shall have created
perfect men, for I see in this movement the foundations of perfection.
When I perceive the possibilities of vegetarianism and the heights to
which it can raise us, I feel convinced that it will prove the redeemer
of the world.”
In
furtherance of the Spiritual side of her work, she accepted the position
of President of the English Branch (subsequently known as the London
Lodge) of the Theosophical Society, but later she transferred her
activities to the Hermetic Society, of which she was appointed
President. It was to the latter Society that she gave the series of
lectures on The Credo of Christendom, reports of which are
included in the book of that title, published after her death.
Both
she and Edward Maitland sacrificed – yes, “sacrificed” (made sacred) –
their lives for the accomplishment of their mission. They sacrificed
them for the world’s redemption, which included the animals – for they
regarded the animal creation as “man in the making.” They never
forgot the last recorded command said to have been given by Jesus to his
disciples before he “ascended up into heaven:” “Preach the Gospel to
the whole creation.” This they did, for God’s Laws were in their
hearts. In the pages of The Perfect Way was shed “the very
life-blood of their souls.”
On the
22nd February, 1888, in her forty-second year she passed
away, and wherever this Gospel shall be preached, that also which
this woman hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her. From the
teaching of The Perfect Way she never deviated. Shortly
before her death she said, “In the faith and doctrine set forth in that
book I desire to die.” As a fitting ending to this Remembrance, I quote
the following lines which were “suddenly presented to her mind in waking
vision” one day in Paris.
“I
thank Thee, Lord,
Who
hast through devious ways
Led me
to know Thy Praise,
And to
this Wildernesse
Hast
brought me out,
Thine
Israel to blesse.”
–––––––––––––––––––––
“Because thou hast loved Justice, and hated Iniquity, therefore hath
God, even thy God, anointed thee with the Oil of Gladness – (Wisdom and
Love) – above thy fellows,” and “Wisdom and Love are One.”
SAMUEL
HOPGOOD
HART.
The
Round House, llfracombe, N. Devon, England.
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