The Leadbeater Family.

The Leadbeater family was Norman French in origin, with the name Le Bâtre (the builder), later Englicised to Leadbeater. The senior branch of the family settled in Northumberland, England; whence a junior branch established itself in Ireland. Some facts about this junior branch are given in the two volume of The Leadbeater Papers. The senior branch followed the fortunes of "Prince Charles" Stuart and became Jacobite; from that day on - though they later became loyal subjects of the British Crown - it was the custom of the family to christen the eldest son "Charles".

Charles Webster Leadbeater was born on the 17th of February 1847. During his childhood, he and his younger brother travelled to Brazil, where their father supervised the construction of a railroad. His father, during his stay, contracted a tropical disease and the boy died just before the family returned to England, and his brother died accidentally.

Leadbeater's Ministry in the Church of England.

Charles W. Leadbeater's father died while his only surviving son was a teenager. The family was well-to-do, but a few years later, they lost all in the collapse of a great bank. This necessitated the young man going to work as early as possible. For a while he was a clerk in the well-known bank of William Deacons & Co., but the work was naturally cramping and uncongenial.

Leadbeater was then very "High Church" in his ecclesiastic leanings, and was closely associated with the work of the Church of All Saints, Margaret Street, London. As his uncle had much influence in ecclesiastical circles, it seemed logical that the nephew should enter the Church. The Rev. W.W. Capes was Leadbeater's uncle and the Rector of the parish of Bramshott, Liphook, Hampshire. He was also an Oxford "don", being the Reader in Ancient History in the University, fellow and tutor of Queen's College and of Hertford College, Junior Proctor, Select Preacher and Public Examiner. After the usual studies, the young Charles was admitted as Deacon by Bishop Harold Browne of Winchester on December 22, 1878, and ordained to the Priesthood on December 21, 1879, at the Parish Church of St. Andrew, Farnham, Surrey by Harold Browne, Bishop of Winchester.

In the 1870's Charles Leadbeater was a teacher at the school attached to Trinity Church in Tottenham, North London. He also officiated as Superintendent. He lived with his mother and is remembered as a bright and cheerful and kindhearted man. A testimony of his work is provided by one of his students, Mr. A.W. Throughton, sixty years later. (see his letter dated June 16, 1934 .)

When admitted as Deacon, the Rev. Charles Leadbeater was authorized to act as a curate in a parish in Hampshire called Bramshott, and lived with his mother at a cottage called "Hartford", about a quarter of a mile from the small village of Liphook. The Rector of the parish was the Rev. W.W. Capes of course; his wife was Charles' aunt. The other curate of the parish was Mr. Kidston who was married and lived further along the same road. There was also an old lay reader in the parish. When he died another curate named Mr. Cartwright came and shared the cottage with Leadbeater, now living alone after his mother's death. During term time, the Rector was often away at Oxford on his University work, and the routine work of the large parish fell largely upon the two, later three, curates.

The young Leadbeater was a very active minister. He opened several local branches of clubs and societies associated with the Church of England: first a local "study" clubs for boys, later the "Union Jack Field Club", then the "Church Society", and finally "The Juvenile Branch of the Church of England temperance Society" in March 1884. Astronomy was a favorite hobby of Leadbeater at the time, and owned a 12" reflector telescope. During an eclipse of the moon, he saw a shadow that was noticeable before the eclipse fairly started, and wrote some paper as to this, and it was found to be, in all probability, the shadow cast by the Andes.

At one point of time, Charles Leadbeater used to go to a good few spiritualistic séances in London and met William Eglinton, a famous spiritualistic medium and reported some of his experiences with this medium . He also organized meetings in his own cottage. It is through Spiritualism and psychic phenomena that Leadbeater came to discover Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society after reading the book "The Occult World" of A.P. Sinnett. He joined the Theosophical Society on November 21, 1883 at the same time as Prof. William Crookes, an eminent scientist, and his wife..



On November 3rd., 1884, Leadbeater invited the members of his parish to his cottage and treated them with a fireworks display, with tea and with cake. After the fireworks were over, he gave all his belongings (and his beloved cat "Peter") to three boys of the village. He took the early train in the morning of the 4th of November to London, and left everyone (the boys excepted) in ignorance. This event, and a few others were reported by one of the three boys named James (Jim) W. Manley , who became a sailor, and later a planter in Papua. He died in 1939. One of the last 'arrangements' Leadbeater made before leaving was to make certain payments on behalf of young Jim Manley, so that he could be entered as a cadet in the Mercantile Marine in one of the principal lines, for the boy's parents were not well off, and were unable to help their younger son to realize his dreams of becoming a sailor.

Leadbeater left London the same evening for Marseille and reached it at 6 the next morning, and went on board of a French steamer for Alexandria. He embarked for a new life on a British steamer for Madras, in Port Said, in the company of Madame Blavatsky, after a journey by train, via Cairo.

To many, the unexpected departure of Charles Leadbeater from Bramshott, abandoning his congregation and his career, may look like desertion. However, his attitude is in concordance with what Leadbeater deeply believed in at the time. He had tried on March 3, 1884 to establish a form of communication with the Masters, as they were described by H.P. Blavatsky. He tried to use the "spirit guide" of Mr. Eglinton to dispatch a letter by an elaborate procedure , but no reply came for months. When he came to say goodbye to Madame Blavatsky just before he departure on October 30th and stayed the night with Mr. and Mrs., A.P. Sinnett, she informed him that his letter of March 3rd has been seen by the Master. On the morning of October 31st, Leadbeater returned to Bramshott by the 11.35 train from Waterloo Station in London, he found out that the reply from the Master has arrived to his home, and it is the content of that letter that made him decide to put an end to his career in England
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When he arrived in Adyar, the headquarters of the Theosophical Society, he offered himself for work. He was appointed as Recording Secretary and Editor of the Theosophist, the magazine founded by Mrs. Blavatsky. During 1885, Leadbeater was practically alone in Adyar. But it is during that time that he was invited to follow a special training program that led him to the development of clairvoyance. His first efforts were, according to some of his friends, not very successful, and the help of another teacher an Indian Master (D.K. according to some oral tradition), was needed to complete the special exercises he had to follow. These exercises allowed him to conduct his later occult research and acquire the rare faculty to bring back into his physical brain, with great accuracy, the observations he made on the higher planes of consciousness. In 1886, he travelled with Mrs. Blavatsky to Ceylon and met Colonel. Olcott, who was then working for the preservation of Buddhism. Leadbeater was assigned as Olcott's assistant and settled in the island.

Leadbeater's work for Buddhism.

Leadbeater was offered to join Buddhism by Olcott. He accepted under the condition that he wouldn't have to abjure the Church of England he had been baptized in. After receiving such confirmation, Leadbeater became a Buddhist and took the Pansil, which included the Tisarana (the three guides: the Buddha, the Law, and the Order), and the Pancha Sila or five precepts (1. to refrain from destruction of life, 2.to refrain from taking what is not one's own, 3. to refrain from unlawful sexual intercourse, 4. to refrain from falsehood, 5. to refrain from intoxicating liquors and drugs.)

In June 1886, C.W.L. lives in Colombo, Ceylon, 61 Maliban Street, at the headquarters of the 'Buddhist Theosophical Society'. That Society was never 'Theosophical', but Buddhist first and last. Leadbeater had, on the first floor, at the end of the building abutting on a street, one small room to serve as a writing, dining and living room; the tiny bedroom was partitioned of from the verandah by a canvas screen. He certainly had a bathroom to himself, to which he had to descend to the ground floor; but next to it was, not a water-closet, for it had no water, nor even the Indian arrangement with a daily 'sweeper', but a horrible cesspool, cleaned once a year. There was a very noisy printing press on the ground floor, and a meeting hall for the weekly preaching that kept him awake from nine at night to midnight.
The Buddhist Society made him a small allowance, and provided a servant; but how small that 'subsistence allowance' was can be gauged from the fact that he lived mostly on porridge, bread and bananas, and a little something that passed for milk. Tea and coffee were expensive luxuries and Mrs. Sinnett used to periodically send him socks and handkerchiefs.
Leadbeater had to travel constantly into the villages, usually at night by bullock cart, for the day was taken up with organizing schools, and getting subscriptions and collections. The first year, he travelled with Colonel Olcott, but later alone. In spite of the hardship, he 'stuck to his job'. Next after Olcott, he was the one who helped to build up the Buddhist Educational Movement in Ceylon, though the Buddhists seem hardly aware of that fact, even today . Leadbeater founded an English school in Colombo that later became the "Amanda College". He also wrote a "Little Buddhist Catechism" in Singaleese, which was inspired by the "Buddhist Catechism" by Colonel. Olcott.

It is during his stay in Ceylon that Leadbeater met a young man named C. Jinarajadasa, he believed to be the reincarnation of his younger brother. Leadbeater was still in Colombo in November 1888, and the circumstances of his return to England are still to be unearthed.

Leadbeater's work for the Theosophical Society in England.

In 1889, C.W. Leadbeater was back to England, with Jinarajadasa. By then his uncle has passed away. The other members of his family didn't stay in close contact with him. He was without resources, and had several jobs. At one point of time, he became the private tutor of the son of Mr. and Mrs. Sinnett he had met in India. He worked as a teacher and a journalist. He was helped on his household by C. Jinarajadasa he had broad with him and with whom he was sharing his modest abode. In spite of his condition close to poverty, he managed to pay for his entire education, which lasted 11 years. Jinarajadasa described this period of Leadbeater's life in his later works . He also paid for the education of a young Englishman named George Arundale, both became later Presidents of the Theosophical Society.

Annie Besant, the Socialist activist joined the Theosophical Society in London about the time C.W. Leadbeater returned to England. It is also the period when Leadbeater began to experiment extensively with clairvoyant research, Annie Besant joined in later on. He also lectured, wrote books on a wide variety of topics, but somewhere related to his clairvoyant experiments. He gradually extended his lecturing tours outside Europe and, with Mrs. Besant, he became one of the most known speakers in the Theosophical Society for quite a number of years.

Around 1900, Leadbeater had acquire an impressive reputation in the Theosophical Society as a writer, a lecturer, a clairvoyant, and a teacher. Many members sent their children to him to be trained by him according to the tenets of spirituality and occultism. Some came for short periods of time, others stayed for several years, as did the son of A.P. Sinnett. From 1900 and 1904, CWL made two long lecture tours in the United States and in Canada. and in 1905 in Australia. He sometimes took some students with him when travelling. This habit is probably at the origin of what is to be known later, by the members of the Theosophical Society, as the "Leadbeater Scandal"

That Society was unexpectedly taken by storm in 1906, when Leadbeater was accused to have given advice to a group of young men, in the United States, what regards masturbation. That advice is the one that European doctors and members of the Clergy of that time would give to boys having sexual problems, but in the United States, the general opinion was that masturbation led to mental illness. Strange enough, although condemned as dangerous and immoral, prostitution with all its risks and the degradation of women was there generally well accepted.

The executive committee of the Theosophical Society in America, under the leadership of Olcott, ordered the British Section to brand Leadbeater as an homosexual and pedophile. The complaints of a boy from San Francisco (1901) and another from Chicago (1904) about recommendations to practice masturbation were presented as evidence, and an undated, unsigned coded letter, allegedly found in Toronto, in an apartment where Leadbeater had lived for a few days. The Board of the British Section had to act, and the accused was requested to present his defense on May 16, 1906 at the Grosvernor Hotel, in London. Prior to the meeting, CWL gave his resignation to Colonel Olcott "to avoid any bad publicity". Olcott, victim of the opinions of his time and culture, had requested CWL to be expelled from the Society, but under the pressure of the members of the British Council, he finally did accept the resignation. The Theosophical Society was divided about the "scandal", especially in England where Sinnett and Mead organized a "Committee of Protest". The single person to keep his cool, and to refrain from any criticism was Leadbeater himself, and he never attempted to say anything for his defense. A month later, he explained his position in a letter to his friend, Annie Besant.

Mrs. Besant broke her relations with him, and she publicly accused him to save her nomination as the President of the Theosophical Society, after the death of Olcott. Leadbeater had lost the support of a co-worker on the physical plane, and he tried to calm her doubts about the validity of their common occult research. Although they didn't had frequent contacts, she managed to regain confidence in him after her election, and she managed to write in February 1907: "I cannot say to you how relieved I am that the veil has finally be removed, and that the idea of fantasy has been removed from your mind".

After his resignation, Leadbeater stayed mainly in continental Europe and in the Isle of Jersey, avoiding England and Adyar. He resumed his clairvoyant explorations, especially on the nature and structure of matter, and he continued to teach. He had the benefit of the friendship and even financial support of many supporters and defenders he had kept in the Society. He was still asked to be responsible for the education of many children, and all testified of the absolute purity of his life. A short time before his death, Olcott realized that he had been unfair towards Leadbeater and sent him a letter of apology .

Olcott died in Adyar in February 1907. Mrs. Besant was his natural successor, however she had to lead a violent fight to secure the Presidency, because of members of the American Theosophical Society were extremely aggressive. She had to use all her political ability, and she was finally elected with a substantial majority in June 1907. The friends of Leadbeater started an fiery campaign for his reintegration into the Theosophical Society. By the end of 1908, the Presidents of the International Sections of the Theosophical Society, considering that Leadbeater had been ill treated by Adyar and Mrs. Besant in particular, voted his readmission. Mrs. Besant was forced to apologize, but her letter was badly received in England. But her installation as the President of the Society opened a profound crisis, and about one third of the members resigned, including most of the promoters of the so-called "scandal". As she needed the votes of the other Sections, Annie Besant, facing a shortage of manpower , invited Leadbeater back to the Headquarters . He accepted and arrived in Adyar on February 10, 1909. He resumed his work for the Society. However the deep friendship he had before 1906 for Mrs. Besant was never fully restored. The reintegration of Leadbeater was used as an excuse for the creation of a dissident theosophical movement in England. The " Protest Committee " under the leadership of Mead and Sinnett (defeated in the elections for the Presidency), both hoping that England would take the control of the Society. The "THE QUEST SOCIETY.", didn't live for long. The head of the Theosophical Society became firmly established in India, and in Adyar in particular.

Leadbeater in Adyar.

Leadbeater lived then in a cottage called the octagon bungalow, where he had lived after his arrival with Madame Blavatsky in 1884, consisting of two rooms and a veranda. This structure is now part of the original buildings and still exists today at the East side of the headquarters building. CWL lived in one room and in the veranda, while a young Dutchman, Johann van Manen, took the other room and accepted to serve as his secretary. He also secured the help of a young Englishman, Ernest Wood, who knew stenography, and lived in another building called "The Rectangle". Ernest Wood's roommate was a young Indian called Indian called Subrahmaniam Aiyar, who the close friend of Mr. Narianiah, the father of Krishnamurti (alias Krishna) and of Nitya. Ernest helped the two kids with their homework. Wood and van Manen liked to swim with friends, including Subrahmaniam, every evening for an hour or so. Krishna and Natya, with other children living outside the estate, came often to play with them. One evening in April 1909, Leadbeater went swimming with the group and told Ernest, on his way back to the Octagon, that he had seen a child on the beach, with an extraordinary aura, because it had not the slightest trace of selfishness. Ernest was quite surprised to hear that the child was Krishna, because the boy was particularly slow to understand his school lessons.

The physical appearance of the boy was certainly not what attracted Leadbeater's attention. Undernourished, dirty, covered with lice, the ribs visible through the skin, the child was coughing constantly. His teeth were broken, and he carried his hair as do the Brahmins of South India: the front of the head shaved, and the rest, never cut, never washed, braided and falling on the back down to the knees. His look was a gaze, and the people who knew him at that time claimed that they couldn't see much difference with his brother Sadanand, who was mentally retarded. Furthermore, according to the testimony of Ernest Wood, Krishna was extremely weak physically, and his father often said that he would soon be dead.

In June of the same year, a young Englishman arrived in Adyar. His name was Richard Balfour (Dick) Clarke. He was an engineer and was hoping to find work in the Theosophical Society. He rapidly joined Leadbeater's group and heard of CWL's comment about Krishna's (and in a lesser measure of his brother Natya's) aura. The young man began to spread the idea to have the family moved to Adyar, and he volunteered to take care of the children.

On the day of Dick's arrival, the residents were celebrating Nitya's Upanyaman that had been postponed due to his mother's illness. Leadbeater observed Krishna during the ceremony and asked Narianiah to bring his remarkable son to his room, on a day that he didn't had to go to school. Narianiah came and Leadbeater asked the child to sit close to him, and laying hands of his head, began a clairvoyant investigation; Ernest Wood writing all in steno. The child was greatly impressed, and reported his experience in his Memoirs . When they met, Krishnamurti didn't speak a word of English, and that made communicating very difficult. The boy was attending school where lessons were given in English and Tamil. He looked so stupid that his teacher often sent him out of the class and completely forgot about him. Many times, his young brother would come and took him home by the hand, so that he wouldn't spend the night outside. He was beaten daily because he hadn't learned his lessons.

Leadbeater didn't announce Krishnamurti's discovery to Annie Besant before September 2nd,, when he expressed to her his consternation about the living conditions of his family. He asked that all be moved into an empty house on Adyar's property, after repairs. Leadbeater added that Narianiah's children would not create problems because "they are very calm and well behaved". The family moved to Adyar in a clean, restored, freshly painted house. By mid-october, after the child had suffered a particularly cruel beating, Leadbeater managed to convince the reluctant father to stop sending his son to the local school, and to trust his education to the Adyar residents . Leadbeater then consecrated much of his time to the boy's education, English style: swimming, tennis, study of languages and European history. By doing this, he often hurt the Brahminic convictions of Narianiah. Annie Besant, on the other hand, being more diplomatic, always respected such convictions. On the long run, the relations between Leadbeater and Narianiah seriously deteriorated.

There was never a warm, natural relationship between Krishnamurti and Leadbeater. Both were influenced by very different cultures, and had incompatible characters. They achieved some kind of modus vivendi , although the pupil remained deeply grateful to his mentor. Mrs Besant and Mrs Russak very soon took care of Krishna, and Leadbeater lost gradually interest about the two brothers, except for their occult and spiritual training.

The Order of the Star of the East was not founded by Leadbeater, on January 11, 1911, but by George Arundale. The purpose of that Order was to organize the support that many members of the Theosophical Society were ready to give to Krishnamurti, as they were seeing in him the reincarnation of a "great instructor". George took a leave of absence for several month from his job at the Hindu College to help in the educational transition of Krishnamurti. As from that date, Mrs. Besant has been in charge of Krishnamurti's education. She leaves India for England with the two brothers and Arundale from Bombay on April 22nd, 1911, and will only return on the following 7 October.

The purpose of Annie Besant the following year was to take the two boys with her in England for complete their education, English style... She managed to get a written agreement from their father on January 19th, 1912 saying that he had no objection to their departure. She sent Leadbeater early to prepare for the boys's arrival in England. However, she was not really convinced that their father would let the boys go, so she left unexpectedly from Adyar while he was away for a week, and sailed for England on February 3rd. She also waited until February 7th before writing to Narianiah, ordering him to leave the estate and that she would keep his sons in England until after their graduation from college.

Leadbeater had made arrangements for Annie Besant, George Arundale, Jinarajadasa, Clarke and the two boys to stay in Taormina, Sicily, in a place that he considered to have "the right kind of atmosphere". All arrived on March 27, 1912 for a stay of several months. They all left for England end July, Leadbeater excepted as he went to Genoa to visit his old friends William and Maria Louisa Kirby. He never returned in England, and his detractors claimed that he didn't to avoid prosecution. This is of course nonsense, why otherwise would Leadbeater have stayed in England for three full years after the so-called "scandal" of 1906?

The news that Leadbeater had stayed in Sicily with Krishna and Natya came all the way to India. Narianiah, being expelled from Adyar, considered with good reasons that Annie Besant had broken their agreement, and requested by registered mail his children to be returned to India before the end of August, he then began with a campaign against her, Leadbeater, and the Theosophical Society in the Hindu , on of the largest daily newspaper in India. Believing that Narianiah's friends would kidnap the children, she hid them in a large house, lent for that purpose by Lady De La Warr. They stayed there for 5 months under the constant watch of Jinarajadasa, Dick Clarke, Basil Hodgson-Smith and Reginald Farrar, Mrs and Mr. Bright taking care of the household.

Leadbeater returned to Adyar in October and followed the details of the case Narianiah had started. He wrote many details in several letters to Lady Emily Lutyens he had met during his visit to the Kirby. Mrs Besant assumed Leadbeater's and her own defense against Narianiah's accusations .

At the time, although Leadbeater was over 60 years old, he was alert and enthusiastic, he was known to be unsufferable against women and often quite rude, but never against Mrs. Besant. He was also cursing violently, and had probably learned from Mrs Blavatsky, whose was very rude and cursed outrageously, that there is no incompatibility between rudeness and sanctity. Such attitude antagonized a large number of people, especially outside the Theosophical Society. But after the judgement of the tribunal, a number of newspapers printed formal appologies .

On October 31st, 1913, during a trip to France, and Italy, Krishnamurti wrote a letter to Leadbeater manifesting his independence. One of his admirers, Miss Dodge, had established for him an trust fond paying 500 pounds sterling to be added to the 150 pounds Mrs Besant was giving him every month for his expenses. The letter broke what was left of his relationship with Leadbeater, whose letters became rare, later completely stopped. He seemed to have lost all interest for the "Vehicle".

Leadbeater left Adyar on February 20th, 1914 for a lecture tour in Burma, Java, New Zealand and Australia. At the time, the relationship between Annie Besant and Leadbeater was tense again. Free from the court cases, she began to work for India's independence. CWL was an imperialist, didn't like Mrs. Besant political orientation at all, and never missed an opportunity to say so. She was not sorry to see her old companion leave Adyar, as he had become a political liability. The inevitable separation came at the begin of 1915, when Leadbeater went to live in Sydney, Australia. He began to teach and assembled there a substantial audience. He had just discovered by clairvoyance the energies hidden in the Christian Sacraments and came to closer contact with James Ingall Wedgwood he knew since 1906.

Wedgwood came to visit Australia in 1915. During his stay, he initiated Leadbeater to Masonry in the "Droit Humain", also known as co-Masonry because it admits in its ranks women as well as men. Leadbeater found Masonry "very useful", and began clairvoyant investigations on the Rituals. He also suggested to make changes to improve their performance in the invisible. Wedgwood also introduced him to Martinism, and in the following years, transmit to him the Martinist initiations he had received from the Liberal Bishop Augustin Chaboseau he had met in Paris a few years before. It is also probable that Wedgwood conferred upon CWL the high degrees of the Egyptian Rite of Memphis and Misraïm in which he had been admitted by John Yarker in 1910, and in the Temple of the Rose and the Cross he had founded in London around 1911.

Leadbeater in Australia, and the begining of the Liberal Catholic Church

The following year (1916) Wedgwood came back to Sydney, but this time as a Bishop. and on July 22nd he consecrated Leadbeater to the Episcopate. Three days later, Leadbeater announces his episcopal consecration to Annie Besant , and explains the reasons for his acceptance. The two Bishops then began with the enormous task to revise the Old Catholic Liturgy, and their progress can be seen in the correspondence between Leadbeater and his former work companion, Mrs Annie Besant . The following is described in the brochure 001.001.02 published by the Liberal Catholic Institute of Studies (LCIS). The two Bishops, from the first day of their cooperation believed that their work was approved by the Lord and consisted in the re-creation of the ancient Catholic liturgy to be a better channel for the distribution of Christ's energy. After several months of intense work, the first version of the Liturgy was published, but only as a typed document. Its first public celebration occurred on Easter Sunday 6th of April 1917 in Sydney. An Oratory had been installed in the Penzance Building, Elisabeth Street, under the denomination of the Old Catholic Church. From this very first day, there was a resistance to what Leadbeater called The First Ray Benediction, because members of the Theosophical Society considered to be supporting the idea that Krishnamurti was the reincarnation of Christ. The controversy continued until it was finally put to rest during the General Episcopal Synod of the Liberal Catholic Church of Sydney, in 1996. But both founders insisted to keep it in the Liturgy, because it was a legacy of the 19th century Liberal Catholics. Later, the use of that particular Benediction was extended in the subsequent issues of the Liturgy, and the notes of the Bishops were assembled by Leadbeater in a book called: The Science of the Sacraments.

In their revision of the Old Catholic Liturgy, Bishops Wedgwood and Leadbeater started with the Holy Eucharist and tried to incorporate the new ideas into the old forms of the Catholic Liturgy. . Bishop Leadbeater began to look at his students, and offered the priesthood to those having the desire and the ability to serve in the clergy of the new Church. He provided training by giving lectures regularly from 1916 till 1919. This work of revision took several years.

From that time on, the work in the Liberal Catholic Church became Leadbeater's main activity, although hecontinued to work for the Theosophical Society, co-Masonry, and other movements. He continued to help youngpeople, men and women, to shape their character and to prepare themselves as servants of humanity. He oftenspoke to them and organized informal lectures in the homes of his students. Hereafter are a few words from C. Jinarajadasa:

" Always friendly, he was a strict master, training us to accomplish every job efficiently, inspiring us with a high ideal of truth and honor, working without reserve for the work of the Master, giving us an unforgettable vision of Justice, that is what my elder brother taught me of the past, present and future without end."

" To see him live, was to learn wisdom. He is the great transformer working with rather average children, and older people, changing them in a wonderful way, until their faces shine with the light of their inner spirit, until their lives become beautiful and dedicated to the service of the others and the aspiration of the Supreme.
But there are always those who prefer darkness over Light, so a number of people used that devotion expressed by the young students to misrepresent his character, but we who have known him and live with him for years, know how absurd these accusations are, and wicked as well, when they are directed against a soul of all purity, refinement and honor, against a person whose life can be read as an open book.

Many family moved from other places in Australia, and even from other countries to live closer to the Bishop. To live near him was like living near a generator or an electric plant, these vibrations elevating to a level that could never be reached by ordinary means. It is like bathing in sunlight, full of peace and joy, in which every good thing is stimulated, and weakness dies because it is not nourished. His simple presence is a continuous silent blessing and everyone feel rejuvenated, happy, and spiritually elevated, even when meeting him for a short few minutes.

His live continues in the midst of his large family of some fifty people. People with a good reputation, cultivated, nobility coming from all parts of the world just to sit at the feet of this pure and holy man. They consider his teaching as a privilege, making the effort to share accommodation under a common roof. When he walks on the street, strangers look at him, his noble stature and his dignity, stunned by the joy and the kindness shining around him. "What a beautiful old age!", said one day a passer-by.

" Charles Webster Leadbeater has meant more than anyone else in my life. What I want to speak on is certain great things for which he stood: the power of the man, the beauty of his character. The greater the man, the more he is understood. I was intimately associated with him and know him as much as one human being can know another. I have never met a finer, more wholly sane personality. His whole life was marked by service: Priest in the Anglican Church, then lecturing, and assisting multitudes, changing the lives of thousands of people, giving them new hope and new courage. In 1916 he came back into the Church, was elevated to the rank of Bishop and devoted his time to building up this work, a new point of view, planned not only for our own day but for the years and centuries to come. This Eucharist is the finest thing we have to offer to man. It is not mere a ceremony, it is a great spiritual outpouring. There is something bigger than the quest for bread and wealth, and that is what the Presiding Bishop stood for. There is no need for sorrow in this service because death is not the end, it is only an episode. We are immortal. He is alive."

" It is not because I say so that you should believe those things; if you accept them it should be because they seem to you inherently reasonable..."".

1. I will try to think of the Master's work first.

2. I will make it an absolute rule not to take offense at all.

3. I will strictly mind my own business, and not criticize. I will not listen to or repeat gossip about others

4. I will try to avoid irritability, to keep calm and peaceful. I will endeavour to put aside all personal thoughts.