There were sundry other tokens of recognition which are entitled to reproduction here, as showing to how wide a range of educated and intelligent opinion within the pale of Christianity our work appeals. Their value is due to their representing a class of minds which, while possessed of the ordinary ecclesiastical training, are not restricted to the knowledge thereby acquired. For, seeing that such training means little, if anything, more than the mechanical learning of what other men have said who, themselves, had no real knowledge, the opinions, expressed on the strength of it, are neither educated nor intelligent, but adoptive only and perfunctory, and represent learning without insight. And as such precisely are the opinions which constitute ecclesiastical orthodoxy, the judgment of the representatives of that orthodoxy on our work possesses no more real value than did that of Caiaphas and his coadjutors on Jesus and His work[91]. Denouncing Him as a blasphemer, they were themselves blasphemers. And inasmuch as they were types of the votaries of ecclesiastical orthodoxy of all time, it is obvious that the only new revelation—if any—which would find acceptance at their hands, would be one that confirmed and reinforced their errors, instead of exposing and correcting them. Proceeding, as was declared by Jesus, from their "father, the devil," a priest-constructed system ever prefers Barabbas to Christ;—prefers, that is, a system which defrauds—hence the force of the term "robber" as applied to Barabbas—man of the divine potentialities which Christ came to reveal to him by demonstrating them in His own person, together with the manner of their realisation.
Not that all who bear the title of Ecclesiastics come under this condemnation. In every age of the Church there have been those who, while holding office in it, have not consented to the "Scarlet Woman" of Sacerdotalism. And never was there a time when the proportion of these was larger, or when their sense of the need of a New Gospel of Interpretation was more keen and urgent than now: so intolerable to multitudes of the clergy of all sections of the Church has become the antagonism recognised by them as subsisting between the traditional and official presentation of religion and their own clear perceptions of goodness and truth[92].
The testimonies which remain to be added are valuable as coming from men who, while possessed of ecclesiastical training, have been taught also of the Spirit, and, adding to tradition intuition, and to learning insight, have in themselves the witness to that which they utter.
A distinguished French ecclesiastic, the Abbé Roca, writing in L'Aurore, says of our books—
"These books seem to me to be the chosen organs of the Divine Feminine" (i.e. the interpretative) "Principle, in view of the new revelation of Revelation."
By which it will be seen that he shared Cardinal Newman's expectation referred to in the introduction; and accepted as realised the forecast of Joseph de Maistre when he said "Religion and Science, in virtue of their natural affinity, will meet in the brain of some man of genius—perhaps of more than one—and the world will get what it needs and cries for, not a new religion, but the revelation of Revelation." As the event shows, for "the brain of some man," he should have said "the mind and soul of a woman."
The Rev. Dr. John Pulsford, author of "The Supremacy of Man," "Quiet Hours," "Morgenrothe," and other works distinguished for the depth of their piety and insight, thus wrote to me on the publication of "Clothed with the Sun"—
"I cannot tell you with what thankfulness and pleasure I have read Clothed with the Sun. It is impossible for a spiritually intelligent reader to doubt that these teachings were received from within the astral veil. They are full of the concentrated and compact wisdom of the Holy Heavens and of God. If Christians knew their own religion, they would find in these priceless records our Lord Christ and His vital process abundantly illustrated and confirmed. The regret is that so few, comparatively, who read the book, will be aware of the tithe of its pearls. But that such communications are possible, and are permitted to be given to the world, is a sign, and a most promising sign of our age.
"It is no little joy to me to feel that I am so much more in sympathy with God's daughter, the Seeress, than I supposed. The testimony is so clearly above, and distinct from, aught that is derived from the occult powers of the universe, rather than from the Supreme Spirit and Father-Mother of our Spirits."
Another notable student of spiritual science, a Priest, writing in Light of 21st October, 1882, after describing The Perfect Way as "that most wonderful of all books which has appeared since the beginning of the Christian Era," said:—"It is a book that no student can be without if he will know the truth on these matters. It furnishes us with a master-key to the phenomena which so perplex the minds of enquirers, and gives a system, the like of which has not been seen for eighteen centuries." The late Rev. John Manners, a man venerable of years and mature of spirit, and deeply versed in the sciences of both worlds, declared of these illuminations, "the Great I Am speaks in every line of them. Only the Logos Himself could be their source." Lady Caithness, already referred to, upon receiving a copy of The Perfect Way, wrote: "I have got another Bible, the most complete Revelation, certainly, that has yet been given to man on this planet"[93]. And a Parsee scholar, a native of India, wrote: "The Perfect Way has made me a much nobler man—a man of tranquility and calmness, due to the knowledge of the philosophy of Being imbibed by me from it, and for which my mind was fortunately prepared"[94].