CHAPTER XIII.
QUESTIONS AND CHALLENGES.
“Hath he said anything?”
“He hath, my lord; but, be you well assured,
No more than he’ll unswear.”—“Othello.”
“Next in importance, or perhaps equal in value, to Devotion, is Truth.”—Circular on “Occultism and Truth,” signed by H. S. Olcott, Annie Besant, B. Keightley, &c., July, 1894.
In my first chapter I set out certain conclusions. In succeeding chapters I have given the facts on which my conclusions were based. I now assert that the evidence for those facts, be it good or bad, is that of the Theosophical leaders themselves, written and signed as the case against the Vice-President, and adopted by Mrs. Besant as true. If it be not true, then Colonel Olcott, Mr. B. Keightley, Mr. W. R. Old, and the other official witnesses must be guilty of a conspiracy, as I said at the outset, “even more discreditable to the personnel of the society.” It is not I who accuse Mr. Judge. It is Mr. Judge and his colleagues who accuse each other. The rank-and-file of the Theosophists have paid their money; they may now take their choice.
The fact is, before Mrs. Besant got hold of the evidence, at least one set of complete and duly witnessed copies had been made, together with facsimiles of the documents. It is these which lately fell into my hands, under circumstances which left me free to take, as I do take, the moral and legal responsibility of that publication which the president first promised and afterwards shirked. ***** In regard to Mr. William Q. Judge, vice-president, I do not feel called on to labour any theory of my own as to
