THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 106, 29 January 1919, Page 3

THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

! Miss Christie, national lecturer for the i New Zealand section of the Theosopliical i Society, concluded on Sunday night the ! 6eries of lectures on "Man, Know Thy- ! self." Miss Christie,dialt with the varij ous social problems exercising the minds j of thinkers to-day, and treated them from i the standpoint of reincarnation, and j- karma, or the great law of cause and I effect. AVo nie to-day, the lecturer eaid, i reaping the result of causes set going in i the' past. There was a law governing : moral and spiritual evolution equally as j inviolable as, that governing physical 1 evolution. One effect of the recent war ! in Europe was the awakening of the j social conscience. -As a nation we were {'finding out the truth of the words of Scripture,' "No man liveth unto himself, no man dieth unto him'self." AVe are, eaid Miss Christie, inextricably tie}! , together, and must bear one another's burdons. The social evils in our midst must be the responsibility of every right-mind-ed'citizen. Wo had in New Zealand a great opportunity to cleanse the country of some of the festering eores in its moral and social life. The greatest of, all was the drink traffic. It was a duty owed to the rising generation to create a clean, healthy, wholesome cnviroiujiect. If we refuse to create slums the souls who would be attested to them would j incarnate in some of the lower races and I find a most suitable field to work out , their destiny. iVs one of the leading nations of the world, continued Miss Christie, we should attract the highest-type, not the lowest. Miss Christie referred to the soldiers returning irom the war, I weakened in "body and, as a consequence, I often weakened in will. It was clearly the duty of every responsible man and woman to help these men to help themselves, and one .effective way was to remove the- temptation of drink from them. j It was deplorable to see the lack of inI terest, the want of a senee of responsi- ;| l>ility ovidenced l>y the people in their ! failure toj-ecord their votes at the ballot box. Brotherhood meant responsibility. The present was a time pregnant with great possibilities. Every individual who could think and act could help in the great scheme of social reconstruction now before us. A freo nation necessitated free men and women, l>ut no man/ov woman was free who was under the domination of vice and drunkenness. Self-control and self-sacrifice were wanted—these were the foundations on which a free nation could be built. The great aim of theojophy was to help man irrespective of creed, caste, class, sex or colour, to unfold ,his own diiino power and thus hnsten the day of peace on eaTth and good will among men.

; end ii tdred far.