O hero of the iron age,
Upon thy grave we will not weep,
Nor yet consume away in rage
For thee and thy untimely sleep,
Our hearts a burning silence keep.
O martyr, in these iron days
One fate was sure for soul like thin:
Well you foreknew but went your ways,
The crucifixion is the sign,
The meed of all the kingly line.
We may not mourn—though such a night
Has fallen on our earthly spheres
Bereft of love and truth and light
As never since the dawn of years;—
For tears give birth alone to tears.
One wreath upon thy grave we lay
(The silence of our bitter thought,
Words that would scorch their hearts of clay),
And turn to learn what thou hast taught,
To shape our lives as thine was wrought.
About 9 a.m. On Saturday, the 21st of last month, our beloved leader left us. As we go to press no details are to hand. Meantime we cannot let this issue appear without a few words from one or two who knew that hear through by many to be “something else.”—Ed.
The claim of William Q. Judge upon us is impersonal and universal, for it is the claim of work, and of work only.
Not the man then, but his work. The Work was his ideal. He valued men and women only by their work and the spirit in which it was done; he held right thought to be the best work of all; he worked with anyone who was wishful or willing to do work in any real sense, whether such persons were enemies or friends.
Slowly, under the moulding touch of time and suffering, his character evolved before the eyes of the community whose estimate is the estimate of twenty years’ experience and is not to be shaken. If there be little said about him as an occultist, it is because such men, in such relations, leave no visible, material traces. Of them it may be said, in the language of paradox: They are known to be what they are because they are unknown; they are recognized because they are misunderstood; they are honored in the inner world because they are dishonored in the outer world; they have suffered that other men may rejoice; hatred is their portion because they have loved much; sorrow is their lot until that day when the whole world shall rejoice. Such men, in their unrecorded deeds, wear the likeness of the rootless Root, the unevolved Evolver, in the sense that, being themselves obscure, they are the source of greatness in others. Themselves silent, they are the cause of eloquence in others. Theirs are the thoughts which spur others to great deeds. Theirs is the quiteness which overcomes everything, just as water, the softest thing, overcomes all hardness. They, and they alone, come into this world of our with one idea, one ideal, which they carry out along a hundred lines with unwavering purpose, never pausing, never resting, never changing, knowing no alteration of mind, no lesser deity than the One Self, no other service than the service of that Self hidden in humanity; childhood, youth and manhood sees them pursuing the same changeless purpose, and when the wearied body falls and dies and the fire-soul frets through the frail, ethereal casing, these men, these Egos cannot rest in the grave of the ether; they know no heaven; Death itself cannot stay them; the blissful life of the spheres cannot give them pause; they return—they, the disembodied and free, turn from the free and glorious starry airs, they take again the fetters of the body, and for what? For what end? Only for this: that they may work, work, and serve the Self eternal.
J. [Julia Keightley]
It is with no feeling of sadness that I think of this withdrawal. He would not have wished for that. But with a faltering hand I try to express one of many incommunicable thoughts about the hero who has departed. Long before I met him, before even written words of his had been read, his name like an incantation stirred and summoned forth some secret spiritual impulse in my heart. It was no surface tie which bound us to him. No one ever tried less than he to gain fro men that adherence which comes from impressive manner. I hardly thought what he was while he spoke; but on departing I found my heart, wiser than my brain, had given itself away to him; an inner exaltation lasting for months witnessed his power. It was in that memorable convention in London two years ago that I first glimpsed his real greatness. As he sat there quietly, one among many, not speaking a word, I was overcome by a sense of spiritual dilation, of unconquerable will about him, and that one figure with the grey head became all the room to me. Shall I not say the truth I think? Here was a hero out of the remote, antique, giant ages come among us, wearing but on the surface the vesture of our little day. We, too, came out of that past, but in forgetfulness; he with memory and power soon regained. To him and to one other we owe an unspeakable gratitude for faith and hope and knowledge born again. We may say now, using words of his early years: “Even in hell I life up my eyes to those who are beyond me and do not deny them.” Ah, hero, we know you would have stayed with us if it were possible; but fires have been kindled that shall not soon fade, fires that shall be bright when you again return. I feel no sadness, knowing there are no farewells in the True; to whosoever has touched on that real being there is comradeship with all the great and wise of time. That he will again return we need not doubt. His ideal were those which are attained only by the Saviours and Deliverers of nations. When or where he may appear I know not, but I foresee the coming when our need invokes him. Light of the future æons, I hail, I hail to thee!
Æ [George Russell]
“It is a cry of the soul,” were the words in which he summed up the meaning and purpose of the theosophical movement when initiating us in 1888. There was nothing of the maudlin sentimentalist about him. Clear, simple and powerful are all his utterances, for the strong light of soul shone through all he did and said. One more has been added to the long list of the world’s crucified saviours. It is almost like presumption to essay an appreciation in words of great sould like these. We cannot measure, weigh, or sound their depths. How inadequate, then, any attempt of the kind. We can but point to the work achieved even in these few years and realize dimly that we have entertained angels unawares; that the Great Ones of the earth have been among us and we knew them not.
F. J. D. [Frederick J. Dick]