In thinking of this helper and teacher of ours, I find myself thinking almost wholly of the future. He was one who never looked back; he looked forward always. While the activities of the body and the mind were engaged each moment in the duty of that moment, yet his heart was set upon the promise of the future and the song of his soul echoed the music of cycles yet to come. We think of him not as of a man departed from our midst, but as a soul set free to work its mighty mission, rejoicing in that freedom and resplendent with compassion and power. His was a nature that knew no trammels, but acknowledged the divine laws in all things. He was, as he himself said, "rich in hope." This quality of his soul appears to be near to the root of much that has become so instantly, so largely helpful to us now; it seems the origin of the great leap which the Theosophical movement has taken during the last month. To those who were in some degree admitted into the orbit of that large mind, the scope of its plans seemed a wonder which the passage of time only increased. He wrote recently that we should now turn our attention to work in the United States in order to have there "a world compelling and sky defying place for Theosophy," and to all who comprehended the forward stride of the movement seen at the last Convention, this prophesy seems very near fulfilment. How well he knew that the thought germ sowed today was the seed of a wider tomorrow. Continuously, habitually he sowed such seeds in every heart, knowing that like nature, he must ofttimes sow to waste a thousand seeds for every one that germinated, and so knowing, he calmly continued to sow. To the organizing, formative, building power possessed by him we owed much, and equally we found that the master builders must often demolish in order to build. While Mr. Judge organized on the one hand, he pulled down on the other, breaking up forms of thought, moulds of mind, crystallizations of habit and feeling, quite regardless of the cost to himself. Looking at the work as he left it, his object becomes apparent. That object was to solidify, to unify; or rather to prepare for the unification which others mightier than he would bring about. In the fulfilment of this duty he was absolutely careless of misinterpretation, careless even when he inflicted a wound upon our surface natures, for he knew the occult significance of that saying: "faithful are the wounds of a friend." When he wounded the lower forms of self it only caused loyal souls to seek refuge in that wider nature which is the Self divine. While he felt pain when friends turned against him, pain in that warm human heart possessed by him, yet he mastered that pain and unflinchingly did again and yet again his duty. If he gave such warnings, no man ever gave greater joy, wider delight to his friends. And all who would be his friends were that. It must then be clear, as we survey the past, that our leader prepared the soil, the human soil, for the harvest to be sown. Now soil must be harrowed: storms as well as sunshine must sweep over it; it must now lie fallow and now give birth. In all these functions assisting, as the husbandman assists the fields, he presided over certain offices to his pupils as preparation for the sowing of the grain; and that grain is not various but is of one species and origin. From it harmony and unity have germinated. In these continuing, who shall say what universal harvests shall not gladden the courses of the stars?
Mr. Judge joined another office to that of evolver. He was a conserver. When one came to work under him, one was at first surprised, perhaps annoyed even, at his insistence in small things. It was, keep your desk thus; or, dip your pen thus; or, make your entries and copy your letters in this fashion, and not in your own way. Presently one found that the sum total of attention in these details was greater celerity with less waste of energy, or greater mental freedom often obtained by greater ease of bodily action. All he did had a meaning when you came to put it together. That change which men call Death has completed the puzzle: the picture stands before us perfect in all its parts. William Q. Judge was a teacher fulfilling a teacher's task. Before he left his body he was working in and for the future. Hence it is that we now feel him to be, — aye, let the truth be spoken, — we know him to be more fully alive, more freely working than ever. Rejoicing in his splendid freedom he still beckons us into the future.
That future as he saw and sees it is majestic in its harmonious proportions. It presaged the liberation of a race. It struck the shackles from the self-imprisoned and bade the souls of men be free. It evokes now, today, and henceforward forever, the powers of the inner man; it promises to these powers, still latent but drawing near to the birth, opportunity of education, of ordered evolution, assistance from men to mankind, from The Soul to all souls. Death, the magician, opened a door to show us these things. If we are faithful, that door shall never close. If we are faithful; only that proviso. Close up the ranks and let Fidelity be the agent of heavenly Powers. Down the long lines of history Freedom then shall march triumphant, her way paved with the fragments of great empires, and on her brows the trophies of the soul. Those empires were builded, every one, as forms of men are put together, for the use and self-enlightenment of the soul, and must give place to other and higher forms when that soul has expressed their essences and reaches forth to other heights of Being. To see America, the cradle of the new race, fit herself to help and uplift that race and to prepare here a haven and a home for Egos yet to appear, — for this he worked; for this will work those who came after him. And he works with them.