The Last Shall Be First, and the First Last

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Mystic Verse and Insights Series · 3 pages

Three pages from "Modern Apostles and Pseudo-Messiahs" in Blavatsky Collected Writings volume XII, pages 261-62, built around Wordsworth's sonnet To Toussaint L'Ouverture of 1803. The sonnet is printed with *the omitted lines shown in pale grey*, so a reader can see both the quoted portion and its full context, and a headnote identifies Toussaint as the leader of the Haitian revolution against slavery and Napoleon.

The argument is directed against people who set themselves up as saviours of the people. Its opening propositions are that service for humanity is its all-sufficient reward, and that empty jars are the most resonant of sound. What follows is the reason those two go together: to know even a very little of the philosophy of life, of man's power to redeem wrongs and teach others, and to accomplish anything of lasting spiritual benefit, is to annihilate all thought of posing as a heaven-sent saviour — because a very little self-knowledge is a leveller, and more democratic than the most ultra-radical could desire. The evidence offered is the record of actual reformers. Those who did most against slavery, the deprivation of the rights of women, legal tyrannies and the oppression of the poor are said never to have dreamed of posing as Messiahs, and honour, worthless as it is, followed them unsought, since a tree is known by its fruits. Wordsworth's sonnet is then addressed to any soul spending itself for others: Toussaint, imprisoned and never to rise again, is told to take comfort because he has left behind powers that will work for him — air, earth and skies, and not a breathing of the common wind that will forget him — his friends being exultations, agonies, and love, and man's unconquerable mind. The closing lines state the file's thesis plainly: with the advent of theosophy the Messiah-craze has had its day, since if it teaches anything more plainly than another it is that the first shall be last and the last first.

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