To which we may add in reference to the present, "And having by the hands of His Intellectualists, beaten down the false interpretation of His holy Word, accomplishing the work of destruction, is about by the hands of His Intuitionalists, to establish the true interpretation, accomplishing the work of re-construction."
Nor are there wanting specific historical facts pointing in the same direction. To Britain it was given by a timely act of revolt against a domination at once foreign and sacerdotal, to rescue the letter of Scripture from suppression and virtual extinction at the hands of an order bent only on exalting itself at whatever cost to truth and humanity. Meanwhile, for three centuries and a half—period suggestive of the mystical "time, times, and half a time,"—Britain has faithfully and lovingly, albeit unintelligently and mistakenly, guarded and cherished the letter thus rescued, even to the erecting of it into a fetish. And it may well be that she has now, for her guerdon, been further commissioned to be the recipient and minister of its interpretation.
Moreover, as Mistress of the Sea, the especial symbol of the Soul, she has a prescriptive claim to be the vehicle of the latest and crowning message to earth, of which the Soul herself is at once the source, the subject, and the object.
Nor are the universality of her language and the grandeur of her literature elements to be left out of consideration. All things point to her language as destined to become, practically, the language of the world; and hence its peculiar fitness to be the vehicle of that "eternal gospel" which it is declared should, at the end of the age, be proclaimed "unto them that dwell on the earth, even unto every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people."
CHAPTER VII.
THE PROMULGATION AND RECOGNITION.
As will readily be imagined, the interest was intense with which we watched the progress of our work, in order to see whether the crucial event of its promulgation would coincide with the date prophesied for the turning point between the outgoing and the incoming dispensations. The predictions covered a period of six years, namely from 1876 to 1881 inclusive. In this period was to be laid the foundation of a universal kingdom of justice and knowledge, which should constitute the reign of Michael, and spring from a new illumination, one feature of which was to be the "return of the Gods" in 1876. It was in the autumn of this year that they first came to us, and the intimation was given us that the reign of Michael was then actually commencing; we having no knowledge either of the meaning or of the fact of such predictions. For, while the Bible references to Michael were altogether unintelligible to us, we had not learnt to refer the event to any assignable period. The fulfilment of this prediction disposed us to attach value to those which pointed to the year 1881 as that in which our work—supposing our estimate of its significance to be correct—ought to see the light. For our illuminators observed silence respecting times and seasons, contenting themselves with bringing under our notice the books containing the predictions, the application being left to our own perspicacity. We were powerless to influence events, even had we desired to do so. We could but work steadily on, as we did, "without haste, without rest," until my colleague had finished her university course and obtained her diploma. This she accomplished in the summer of 1880, soon after which we returned to England; and in the summer of 1881 we delivered in London, to a private audience, the lectures which constituted the first promulgation of our work. These were published in the following winter under the title of "The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ," our excellent friend at Paris faithfully fulfilling the mission she had accepted in relation to us and our work[81]. Thus were fulfilled exactly all the predictions respecting the dates, the character, and the manner of our work.
There were many other coincidences of a kind so remarkable as to make us feel that to ascribe them to accident would require a larger measure of credulity than to ascribe them to design. Among the most striking were those which concerned "Mary's" names, and which were in this wise.
When first the significance of the Apocalyptic utterance concerning the river Euphrates and the kings of the East was flashed on my mind, I asked her if she knew that she was mentioned, even to her very name, in the book of Revelation. To which she replied, smiling, that she had known it for some time, but which of her names did I mean? I said that I meant her married surname, which fitted exactly a way made for kings across a river, by the drying up of its waters, namely a king's ford; the "Kings of the East," meaning those principles in man whereby he has knowledge of divine things—the East being the mystical expression for the place of the dawn of spiritual light, such as that of which she was the revealer. While the Euphrates means, in the Apocalypse as in Genesis, the highest principle in the fourfold kosmos of man, the Spirit or Will[82]. Only when this principle in man is "dried up," or sublimated by being made one with the divine Will, is man accessible to the divine knowledges brought by the "Kings of the East." As the channel by which these knowledges were being restored to the world, she was the kings' ford implied. She then told me, what I had not yet observed, that her baptismal and maiden names were equally appropriate, as the Latin for the "acceptable year of the Lord," or good time, announced as to follow the restoration of the knowledges brought by the Kings of the East, is—allowing for difference of gender—Annus Bonus. The coincidence of names did not end here, for we shortly afterwards, in the course of our researches, came upon an old prophecy declaring that the initials of the "Messenger" of the new Avâtar, due at this time, would be A. K.!
She further identified the "Kings of the East" as functions of the three principles in man, the Spirit, the Soul, and the Mind; being respectively, right aspiration, which is of the Spirit; right perception, which is of the Soul; and right judgment, which is of the Mind; the combination of which is the necessary and sufficient condition of divine knowledge.