"'The path to be trodden is both exterior and interior, and in order to reach the goal it is necessary to tread these paths with strength, courage, faith and the essence of them all, which is wisdom. "'For these two paths, which fundamentally are one, like every duality in nature, are winding paths, and now lead through sunlight, then through deepest shade. During the last few years the large majority of students have been rounding a curve in the paths of both inner and outer work, and this wearied many. But those who persevered and faltered not will soon reap their reward. [Illustration: FIG. 39. PORTRAIT OF MRS. TINGLEY. [Reproduced by courtesy of the _New York Herald_.]] "'The present is pregnant with the promise of the near future, and that future is brighter than could be believed by those who have so recently been immersed in the shadows that are inevitable in cyclic progress. Can words describe it? I think not. But if you will think of the past twenty years of ploughing and sowing and will keep in your mind the tremendous force that has been scattered broadcast throughout the world, you must surely see that the hour for reaping is near at hand, if it has not already come." The invasion of English territory by the American crusaders was resented by the British Theosophists. The advocates of universal brotherhood waged bitter warfare against each other in the newspapers and periodicals. It gradually resolved itself into a struggle for supremacy between the two rival claimants for the mantle of Madame Blavatsky, Mrs. Annie Besant and Mrs. Tingley. Each Pythoness ascended her sacred tripod and hysterically denounced the other as an usurper, and false prophetess. Annie Besant sought to disprove the idea of Madame Blavatsky having re-incarnated herself in the body of Mrs. Tingley. She claimed that the late High Priestess had taken up her earthly pilgrimage again in the person of a little Hindoo boy, who lived somewhere on the banks of the Ganges. The puzzling problem was this: If Mrs. Tingley was Mme. Blavatsky, where was Mrs. Tingley? Oedipus would have gone mad trying to solve this Sphinx riddle.