increase in the owner as he shares them with his fellow men. If we have education, let us spread it among the uneducated, and we shall be the better educated for giving it to those who have none. If we are pure, let us go out among the impure; they cannot soil our purity if it be real, and our presence will be a purifying influence. If we are refined, let us go out among the coarse and the rough, and then by the beauty of our examples we shall stimulate them also to remedy their way of living. To every man and woman let us do what we would do for the members of our own family; let us give the love, the tenderness, the service, we would give to a child of our own, to our own parents, our own nearest relatives. That is the great Law of Brotherhood-the Law of Sacrifice. Only as we rise to that life, the life that here you would rightly call the life of the Christ, can we possibly become truly divine, for we can only serve God as we do service to man.

Annie Besant

THE FIRST WORLD CONGRESS

By CLARA M. CODD

THE First World Congress of the Theosophical Society took

place in Paris from the 23rd to the 30th of July, at the Headquarters of the French Section in the Square Rapp. It was in every way an immense and wonderful success, and those whose fortunate karma enabled them to take part in it will assuredly never forget a deep and inspiring experience.

The beautiful home of Theosophy in Paris, where daily during the Congress more than a thousand of the brethren from all over the world congregated, must be seen to be truly appreciated in its delicate, almost oriental beauty. Already on the Friday preceding the opening day of Convention the building hummed with the cheerful speech and continual greetings of members arriving to get their cards of admission, and in many cases immediately finding old friends they had not seen for years. Every member was presented with a beautifully printed programme in French and English, inside which was also slipped the programme for the Conference of the Order of the Star in the East, which took place on the two days following the closing of Congress, the progammes of the Round Table and the Theosophical Fraternity in Education, and a printed motto for the Congress, with these words from Light on the Path: "The Peace you shall desire is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb, and in which the soul grows as does the holy flower upon the still lagoons."

The meetings opened on the Saturday afternoon with a chant by the choir, composed and conducted by a relative of the late Countess Wachtmeister. Then came the address of welcome by our President, after which the greetings from the General Secretaries or delegates of thirty-three National Societies were delivered, either in French, English or the native tongue. The General Secretary of Iceland humorously remarked that probably only two other people beside himself understood his! This intensely interesting proceeding, which generated an immense display of warm feeling and fraternal applause, lasted so long that our beloved President closed it with only a few words, and we separated until the evening, when a little play in One Act, entitled "The Birth of Man," was performed by the author and two others in the Amphitheatre of the Headquarters, followed by a universal "At Home" all over the building.

Sunday we carried on with a debate in the afternoon on "The Mission of the Theosophical Society in the World : Spiritual, Intellectual, Social," our President in the Chair, supported by Mr. Wadia, and by M. Marcault who translated the English speeches into French with a truly astonishing promptitude and accuracy. At 4.30 there was an adjournment for tea, and at 5.30 the whole assembly foregathered at the beautiful Champs Élysées Theatre to listen to our President speaking to us on "The Theosophical Ideal". She spoke in French, indeed that was the language she employed at every meeting, and it was a beautiful and interesting experience for our English members to listen to our beloved President's familiar golden voice clothing the sublime ideals she so unwearyingly holds up before us in the graceful terminology of our French brothers' native tongue. Somehow the ideas expressed seemed thus a little different and a little new. Perhaps it was also the pressure of the French thought-forms around us.

At 8.45, again the indefatigable Congressmen gathered in the Square Rapp to listen to a splendid concert organised by the French Society, and upstairs, in the front of the gallery, our President sat and smiled upon us.

"The

Monday's proceedings began with a debate on Problem of Education in the New Era," at which Mr. BaillieWeaver presided, and Mr. Ensor gave the opening speech. The Educational Trust is at this moment holding a fortnight's Convention at Calais.

The afternoon was devoted to the "Order of Service," at which again Mr. Baillie-Weaver presided, supported by the Secretary for Europe, Mr. Arthur Burgess. I think the Order of Service is not so well developed abroad as it is in England, but the seeds of its future European expansion were sown that day.

Again, in the evening, we met in the Champs Élysées Theatre, where Mrs. Besant continued the subject of Theosophical Ideals. The key-note of her words was an intense appeal to us all to put Brotherhood into practice, to live love in a passion-wracked world, to spread peace and healing and inspiration to a world that had such sore need, and thus to become, each one of us and all together, a channel for the power and blessing of the Hierarchy flowing for the regeneration of the world. She called upon us all to strive our utmost to realise our divine possibilities, that thus we might become true helpers to men, "for," she said, "there is nothing truer than that we can be what we will to be". That unfolding of the Divinity within for the helping of the world is the primary thing we ought to undertake. He must unfold and become for every one of us the Ruler of our lives and deeds, for all men are open to that which is above and around them. The barriers of the lower selves close us to each other. If we could stretch up to impersonal realisation, we would be able to share what little strength is ours with others, helping them

where they are and not where we are which is no help at all.

Tuesday morning saw the debate on the Society's mission resumed, this time more in its sociological aspect, and the tentative formation of a Universal League of Goodwill for Public Service, to have branches in every country, was announced. It was felt that now was the time when the ideal and example of social action, as service and self-renunciation, should be held up everywhere.

In the afternoon M. Chevrier lectured on "Man's Relations with Nature," in French, and was followed by Mr. Wadia on "Will the Soul of Europe Return?" in English, our President being in the Chair. Both speeches were able expositions of their subjects, and were distributed in condensed translations to the Congressmen. Mr. Wadia ended on a grand note, reminding us that we were at a parting of the ways, and that if the Society did its duty, we would have helped to save humanity to-day and to draw down amongst us that royal kingdom of the Masters which sent H.P.B. in the first instance to inaugurate the work of teaching the race its divine origin and goal.

Then came the official closing of the Congress, for the succeeding lecture by Mrs. Besant in the Central Lecture Hall of the Sorbonne on "Theosophy" was primarily intended for the public. Only a few minutes remained, and the great World Congress would be over; and the hearts which had been knit in such wonderful and flaming fashion into one, would draw again apart, at any rate on the physical plane, and scatter to the uttermost ends of the earth. But only on the physical plane-in order to do with added power and intention the work it is our joyous privilege to do; for that splendid sense of happy kinship and comradeship which was the marked feature of this first World Congress can assuredly never be lost, but will ever be cherished as gained for every National Society through