Blavatsky H.P. - Miscellaneous Notes (14): Difference between revisions

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It is quite possible that Captain Seymour may have been one of the three Englishmen who, according to Master Koot Hoomi’s statement (''The Mahatma Letters'', p. 19) had been “brought across the threshold” during the nineteenth century, one of them being a Captain Remington.—''Compiler''.]}}</ref> The mission house, gentlemen, {{Page aside|153}}is a glass house, and the fewer stones its occupants throw while still in India, the better. You had better leave the Holkar alone—unless you court troubles. You are here only on sufferance. The Government has not yet forgotten what share of the Mutiny it owes to the missionary editors of the ''Friend of India'', who also clamoured for protection to missionary interests. The later instance of the Zulu War is fresh, and the goings-on of the flogging missionaries of Blantyre fresher still in the public mind. The Editor of the ''Guardian'' is a respected, good, and devoted man, though a missionary; like ourselves he is, we believe, an alien. If he would but reflect a moment he would see that if he is a well-wisher of the Government of India, and would avoid throwing any heavier burdens upon its already over-burdened hands, he ought to abstain from such expressions as those above cited, which plainly tend to stir up discontent and breed perhaps bloody disturbances among a naturally docile and loyal people, passionately devoted to their ancestral religions and intolerant of Governmental interference with the same.

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The learned principal of Benares college—Dr. G. Thibaut—has laid us under obligations by the presentation of a copy of the paper “On the ''Sûryaprajñapti''”, which he contributed to the journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (Vol. XLIX, part I). Dr. Thibaut’s essay upon the curious Jaina cosmological and astronomical system displays all that painstaking elaboration of the details of a subject under study, which is the characteristic of a true man of science, and—a marked trait of German scholars. It is probably within the truth to say that so careful a paper as the present can find but a very small number of appreciative readers in India, where officialism seems to destroy in a great measure the inclination for serious research. If such ripe minds as his would have sympathetic approval and aid they must seek them at home. Here, Badminton holds sway.

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Complying with the pressing invitations of our Buddhist brothers, our President, Colonel Olcott, is again on his way to Ceylon. He sailed on April 22, by the steamer ''Khiva'', accompanied by Mr. H. Bruce. {{Style S-Small capitals|f.t.s.}} (late of Shanghai), a Scotch gentleman connected with the educational line, who will inspect the several Theosophical Buddhist schools, and, perhaps, be induced to remain on the island as Educational Superintendent. The thorough acquaintance of that estimable gentleman with school systems makes it desirable that our Buddhist brethren should not lose such an opportunity; the more so as Mr. Bruce—a freethinker of forty years’ standing—is very much opposed to ''padri'' proselytism, which in this country is rarely, if ever achieved, through sincere conviction. In Ceylon, converts bribed over to Christ, whether by the prospect of employment, ready cash, or any other worldly boon, are pertinently called “belly Christians.” We doubt whether the confiding victims “at home” who are made to swell the “poor missionary” fund would be much gratified to find out that instead of helping the heathen convert to “Jesus” they helped him to “Mammon.” Out of the two fresh and educated catechumen, we hear, one was coaxed over to “Salvation” by the means it afforded him to cast off his non-Christian wife and marry again, and the other by the prospect of becoming the happy possessor of the few rupees of his ''padri'' baptizer by taking his daughter in the bargain. Being a thoroughly honourable man, we trust Mr. Bruce will help to expose such evil practices. We may give some account of the joint work of both the travellers in our next.

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