Annie Besant
Annie Besant: An Autobiography
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066120504
Table of Contents
PREFACE
It is a difficult thing to tell the story of a life, and yet more difficult when that life is one's own. At the best, the telling has a savour of vanity, and the only excuse for the proceeding is that the life, being an average one, reflects many others, and in troublous times like ours may give the experience of many rather than of one. And so the autobiographer does his work because he thinks that, at the cost of some unpleasantness to himself, he may throw light on some of the typical problems that are vexing the souls of his contemporaries, and perchance may stretch out a helping hand to some brother who is struggling in the darkness, and so bring him cheer when despair has him in its grip. Since all of us, men and women of this restless and eager generation—surrounded by forces we dimly see but cannot as yet understand, discontented with old ideas and half afraid of new, greedy for the material results of the knowledge brought us by Science but looking askance at her agnosticism as regards the soul, fearful of superstition but still more fearful of atheism, turning from the husks of outgrown creeds but filled with desperate hunger for spiritual ideals--since all of us have the same anxieties, the same griefs, the same yearning hopes, the same passionate desire for knowledge, it may well be that the story of one may help all, and that the tale of one should that went out alone into the darkness and on the other side found light, that struggled through the Storm and on the other side found Peace, may bring some ray of light and of peace into the darkness and the storm of other lives.
ANNIE BESANT.
The Theosophical Society,
17 & 19, Avenue Road, Regent's Park, London.
August, 1893.
The Easter of 1866 was a memorable date in my life. I was introduced to the clergyman I married, and I met and conquered my first religious doubt. A little mission church had been opened the preceding Christmas in a very poor district of Clapham. My grandfather's house was near at hand, in Albert Square, and a favourite aunt and myself devoted ourselves a good deal to this little church, as enthusiastic girls and women will. At Easter we decorated it with spring flowers, with dewy primroses and fragrant violets, and with the yellow bells of the wild daffodil, to the huge delight of the poor who crowded in, and of the little London children who had, many of them, never seen a flower. Here I met the Rev. Frank Besant, a young Cambridge man, who had just taken orders, and was serving the little mission church as deacon; strange that at the same time I should meet the man I was to marry, and the doubts which were to break the marriage tie. For in the Holy Week preceding that Easter Eve, I had been—as English and Roman Catholics are wont to do—trying to throw the mind back to the time when the commemorated events occurred, and to follow, step by step, the last days of the Son of Man, living, as it were, through those last hours, so that I might be ready to kneel before the cross on Good Friday, to stand beside the sepulchre on Easter Day. In order to facilitate the realisation of those last sacred days of God incarnate on earth, working out man's salvation, I resolved to write a brief history of that week, compiled from the Four Gospels, meaning them to try and realise each day the occurrences that had happened on the corresponding date in A.D. 33, and so to follow those "blessed feet" step by step, till they were
" … nailed for our advantage to the bitter cross."
With the fearlessness which springs from ignorance I sat down to my task. My method was as follows:—
| MATTHEW. | MARK. | LUKE. | JOHN. |
|---|---|---|---|
| PALM SUNDAY. | PALM SUNDAY. | PALM SUNDAY. | PALM SUNDAY. |
| Rode into Jerusalem. Purified the Temple. Returned to Bethany. | Rode into Jerusalem. Returned to Bethany. | Rode into Jerusalem. Purified the Temple. Note: "Taught daily in the temple." | Rode into Jerusalem. Spoke in the Temple. |
| MONDAY. | MONDAY. | MONDAY. | MONDAY. |
| Cursed the fig-tree. Taught in the Temple, and spake many parables. No breaks shown, but the fig-tree (xxi.19) did not wither till Tuesday (see Mark). | Cursed the fig-tree. Purified the Temple. Went out of city. | Like Matthew. | —— |
| TUESDAY. | TUESDAY. | TUESDAY. | TUESDAY. |
| All chaps, xxi. 20, xxii-xxv., spoken on Tuesday, for xxvi. 2 gives Passover as "after two days." | Saw fig-tree withered up. Then discourses. | Discourses. No date shown. | —— |
| WEDNESDAY. | WEDNESDAY. | WEDNESDAY. | WEDNESDAY. |
| Blank. (Possibly remained in Bethany, the alabaster box of ointment.) | |||
| THURSDAY. | THURSDAY. | THURSDAY. | THURSDAY. |
|
Preparation of Passover. Eating of Passover, and institution of the Holy Eucharist. Gethsemane. Betrayal
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