HPB-SB-14-87

H. P. Blavatsky Scrapbooks

from Adyar archives of the International Theosophical Society

T i

vol. 14, p. 87	volume 14, page 87 vol. title: vol. period: 1882 pages in vol.: 174 Several Adyar Library stamps overlap the clippings
Legend HPB note HPB highlighted HPB underlined HPB crossed out <Editors note> <Archivist note> Lost or unclear SBT, DT Restored

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THE PHILOSOPHIC INQUIRER.
SUNDAY, December 17, 1882.

THE BRIDGEWATER TREATISES.

Eight in number were written by well-paid-men of learning and science, on different departments, ‘to exhibit the power, wisdom, and goodness of God manifested in the works of creation,’ just so said a wit ‘as per contract.’ Now, Sir, I would not offend any one’s feelings or prejudices or beliefs, nay I pity the poor mouse the cat is tormenting, and would not tread upon a worm or hurt a fly; but that is just the reason why I protest against the idea of a God—the creator of Heaven and earth and of Hell; and this Father consigning the multitude of his own offspring, made in his own image, to eternal damnation in the fires of sulphur in Hell, as expressed by the Ghost in Hamlet—

‘My hour is almost come, When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames, Must render …p myself’ &c.

And yet we are admonished to be in goodness as our father in heaven; but this father was the creator of Hell! I believe in commonsense, in logic, and consistency, in goodness, justice, and in mercy, but I am not going to believe from the Bible just what pleases my own fancies, or feelings, and reject the rest, if all be the will and word of God—the whole or none. And on which I once heard the famous preacher Spurgeon preach, and placing his hand on the Bible, he paused and said, “my good’friends, I know that many of you think that my doctrine is a harsh one, but I am a minister of the Gospel, a preacher of the doctrine I find in this book, and a hell for the many is as certainly a part of that doctrine, as a heaven for the select few”!!! Now in the name of Christ, in the name of the Virgin Mary, what are we to make of such a beneficent scheme of creation and damnation as this? Why, we must condemn it as a monstrous fiction, and a moral and logical fallacy. Then the very idea of living after you are dead, how contrary to fact and reason, as we may read it from our great poet and philosopher. But to begin with facts, how are we to believe in the resurrection of the body, when diffused in the elements and used up in the composition of other bodies, and elements, that are being changed every moment of our existence, and our whole nature, and the will, and memory and sense of identity transferred to the new materials. The man and his dog grow old together and die in the same fashion as all animated nature does, and must do, and become insensible earth again, and then we are buried in the cold grave, and are food for worms.

‘A flower above, and the mould below, And this is all that the mourners know.’

Barry Cornwall.

If a man showed himself to be exceptional, as an anomaly in nature, we might think differently, and did not inherit decrepid old and imbecile age in the progress from childhood. Buddah might have turned Nirvana into immortality; but with the second childishness and mere oblivion, how can we suppose but that the end must be the same with man as with other animals, and with animals the same as with planets? All nature is change in a perpetual doing and undoing, and there seems no other ‘purpose’ to be accomplished, or to be possible; and as the poet has it “the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, and, like this unsubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind: we are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with a sleep”—that is returning to insensibility or Nirvana, or as we may prefigure it as eternal rest or sleep—any thing better than the christian belief in Hell-fire and eternal damnation for the many. But I suspect that few really do believe in any thing so horrible, a clear conception of which human nature could not endure. If the Bible is the word of God, you are bound to take it as you find it; you must not pick and choose and mutilate the scheme as laid down before you in unmistakable terms. There is no more reason for believing in a future life than in a past one, as supposed by Plato,—a fancy really entertained by not a few. We might think it hard that plants do not think and feel or that every pebblestone is not invested with the living principle! When would such fancies and folly end; but in the grave:

‘Quiet at last reposing, Under the moss and fern.’—Barry Cornwall.

London.

Henry G. Atkinson, f.g.s.

–––––––

Joseph Cook:

REPORTS AND CRITICISMS.

SUPPLEMENTARY SELECTION.

[Complementary to “Reports and Criticisms”
issued by the Melbourne Committee.]

(Forwarded by a friend for publication.)

I.

The Rev. Joseph Cook, of Boston, U. S. A., is not a minister, although he posts himself as such on his show-bills that are displayed on the hoardings of the cities he visits. He travels with an agent who transacts his business for him, the same as the agent of a theatrical star. He is designated by his admirers as “the Great Champion of Orthodoxy,” but by those who look beyond the surface of things, who have followed him in his career, he is seen as “the Destroyer and Distorter of Christianity.” He became popular a few years ago in Boston, U. S. A., by the delivery of a series of lectures given at noon every Monday. His popularity in Boston was not of long duration. He afterwards crossed to England, where he delivered a course of lectures, or read them from a book, or delivered them from memory, where they have become stereotyped by constant repetition. Even as the theatrical star plays only a certain numbers of play, so also does Joseph Cook deliver only a certain number of lectures, and confines himself within a certain boundary, from which he never steps forth. As the Rev. Joseph never fails to impress upon his audiences a most pleasing and brilliant picture of himself and his career, perhaps it will be well for us to take a glance at the reverse side of this pleasant picture, and see what is said about him by the people and press who have not such a personal interest in his work as himself and his orthodox admirers.

In the North American Review, of March, 1881, appeared an admirable critique on the Rev. Joseph Cook by John Fiske, a. m., l. l. b., the American Scientist, and Spencer of America. The article was headed “Theological Charlatanism,” and is a clever enquiry into his “fundamental method of procedure.” Mr. Fiske says:—

In Mr. Cook’s case, one does not need to read far in the published reports of his lectures to see that his fundamental rule of procedure is something very different from any of the rules by which truth is wooed and won by scientific inquirers. . . . . His favorite method of dealing with a scientific writer is to quote from him all sorts of detached statements and inferences, and without the slightest regard to the writer’s general system of opinions or habits of thought, to praise or vituperate the detached statements according <... continues on page 14-88 >

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