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THOMAS TROWARD

AN APPRECIATION

How is one to know a friend? Certainly not by the duration of

acquaintance. Neither can friendship be bought or sold by service

rendered. Nor can it be coined into acts of gallantry or phrases of

flattery. It has no part in the small change of courtesy. It is outside

all these, containing them all and superior to them all.

To some is given the great privilege of a day set apart to mark the

arrival of a total stranger panoplied with all the insignia of

friendship. He comes unannounced. He bears no letter of introduction. No

mutual friend can vouch for him. Suddenly and silently he steps

unexpectedly out of the shadow of material concern and spiritual

obscurity, into the radiance of intimate friendship, as a picture is

projected upon a lighted screen. But unlike the phantom picture he is an

instant reality that one's whole being immediately recognizes, and the

radiance of fellowship that pervades his word, thought and action holds

all the essence of long companionship.

Unfortunately there are too few of these bright messengers of God to be

met with in life's pilgrimage, but that Judge Troward was one of them

will never be doubted by the thousands who are now mourning his

departure from among us. Those whose closest touch with him has been the

reading of his books will mourn him as a friend only less than those who

listened to him on the platform. For no books ever written more clearly

expressed the author. The same simple lucidity and gentle humanity, the

same effort to discard complicated non-essentials, mark both the man and

his books.

Although the spirit of benign friendliness pervades his writings and

illuminated his public life, yet much of his capacity for friendship was

denied those who were not privileged to clasp hands with him and to sit

beside him in familiar confidence. Only in the intimacy of the fireside

did he wholly reveal his innate modesty and simplicity of character.

Here alone, glamoured with his radiating friendship, was shown the

wealth of his richly-stored mind equipped by nature and long training to

deal logically with the most profound and abstruse questions of life.

Here indeed was proof of his greatness, his unassuming superiority, his

humanity, his keen sense of honour, his wit and humour, his generosity

and all the characteristics of a rare gentleman, a kindly philosopher

and a true friend.

To Judge Troward was given the logician's power to strip a subject bare

of all superfluous and concealing verbiage, and to exhibit the gleaming

jewels of truth and reality in splendid simplicity. This supreme

quality, this ability to make the complex simple, the power to

subordinate the non-essential, gave to his conversation, to his

lectures, to his writings, and in no less degree to his personality, a

direct and charming naïveté that at once challenged attention and

compelled confidence and affection.

His sincerity was beyond question. However much one might differ from

him in opinion, at least one never doubted his profound faith and

complete devotion to truth. His guileless nature was beyond ungenerous

suspicions and selfish ambitions. He walked calmly upon his way wrapped

in the majesty of his great thoughts, oblivious to the vexations of the

world's cynicism. Charity and reverence for the indwelling spirit marked

all his human relations. Tolerance of the opinions of others,

benevolence and tenderness dwelt in his every word and act. Yet his

careful consideration of others did not paralyze the strength of his

firm will or his power to strike hard blows at wrong and error. The

search for truth, to which his life was devoted, was to him a holy

quest. That he could and would lay a lance in defence of his opinions is

evidenced in his writings, and has many times been demonstrated to the

discomfiture of assailing critics. But his urbanity was a part of

himself and never departed from him.

Not to destroy but to create was his part in the world. In developing

his philosophy he built upon the foundation of his predecessors. No good

and true stone to be found among the ruins of the past, but was

carefully worked into his superstructure of modern thought, radiant with

spirituality, to the building of which the enthusiasm of his life was

devoted.

To one who has studied Judge Troward, and grasped the significance of

his theory of the "Universal Sub-conscious Mind," and who also has

attained to an appreciation of Henri Bergson's theory of a "Universal

Livingness," superior to and outside the material Universe, there must

appear a distinct correlation of ideas. That intricate and ponderously

irrefutable argument that Bergson has so patiently built up by deep

scientific research and unsurpassed profundity of thought and

crystal-clear reason, that leads to the substantial conclusion that man

has leapt the barrier of materiality only by the urge of some external

pressure superior to himself, but which, by reason of infinite effort,

he alone of all terrestrial beings has succeeded in utilizing in a

superior manner and to his advantage: this well-rounded and exhaustively

demonstrated argument in favour of a super-livingness in the universe,

which finds its highest terrestrial expression in man, appears to be the

scientific demonstration of Judge Troward's basic principle of the

"Universal Sub-conscious Mind." This universal and infinite

God-consciousness which Judge Troward postulates as man's

sub-consciousness, and from which man was created and is maintained,

and of which all physical, mental and spiritual manifestation is a form

of expression, appears to be a corollary of Bergson's demonstrated

"Universal Livingness." What Bergson has so brilliantly proven by

patient and exhaustive processes of science, Judge Troward arrived at by

intuition, and postulated as the basis of his argument, which he

proceeded to develop by deductive reasoning.

The writer was struck by the apparent parallelism of these two

distinctly dissimilar philosophies, and mentioned the discovery to Judge

Troward who naturally expressed a wish to read Bergson, with whose

writings he was wholly unacquainted. A loan of Bergson's "Creative

Evolution" produced no comment for several weeks, when it was returned

with the characteristic remark, "I've tried my best to get hold of him,

but I don't know what he is talking about." I mention the remark as

being characteristic only because it indicates his extreme modesty and

disregard of exhaustive scientific research.

The Bergson method of scientific expression was unintelligible to his

mind, trained to intuitive reasoning. The very elaborateness and

microscopic detail that makes Bergson great is opposed to Judge

Troward's method of simplicity. He cared not for complexities, and the

intricate minutiæ of the process of creation, but was only concerned

with its motive power--the spiritual principles upon which it was

organized and upon which it proceeds.

Although the conservator of truth of every form and degree wherever

found, Judge Troward was a ruthless destroyer of sham and pretence. To

those submissive minds that placidly accept everything indiscriminately,

and also those who prefer to follow along paths of well-beaten opinion,

because the beaten path is popular, to all such he would perhaps appear

to be an irreverent iconoclast seeking to uproot long accepted dogma and

to overturn existing faiths. Such an opinion of Judge Troward's work

could not prevail with any one who has studied his teachings.

His reverence for the fundamental truths of religious faith was

profound, and every student of his writings will testify to the great

constructive value of his work. He builded upon an ancient foundation a

new and nobler structure of human destiny, solid in its simplicity and

beautiful in its innate grandeur.

But to the wide circle of Judge Troward's friends he will best and most

gloriously be remembered as a teacher. In his magic mind the

unfathomable revealed its depths and the illimitable its boundaries;

metaphysics took on the simplicity of the ponderable, and man himself

occupied a new and more dignified place in the Cosmos. Not only did he

perceive clearly, but he also possessed that quality of mind even more

rare than deep and clear perception, that clarity of expression and

exposition that can carry another and less-informed mind along with it,

on the current of its understanding, to a logical and comprehended

conclusion.

In his books, his lectures and his personality he was always ready to

take the student by the hand, and in perfect simplicity and friendliness

to walk and talk with him about the deeper mysteries of life--the life

that includes death--and to shed the brilliant light of his wisdom upon

the obscure and difficult problems that torment sincere but rebellious

minds.

His artistic nature found expression in brush and canvas and his great

love for the sea is reflected in many beautiful marine sketches. But if

painting was his recreation, his work was the pursuit of Truth wherever

to be found, and in whatever disguise.

His life has enriched and enlarged the lives of many, and all those who

knew him will understand that in helping others he was accomplishing

exactly what he most desired. Knowledge, to him, was worth only what it

yielded in uplifting humanity to a higher spiritual appreciation, and to

a deeper understanding of God's purpose and man's destiny.

A man, indeed! He strove not for a place,

Nor rest, nor rule. He daily walked with God.

His willing feet with service swift were shod--

An eager soul to serve the human race,

Illume the mind, and fill the heart with grace--

Hope blooms afresh where'er those feet have trod.

PAUL DERRICK.