William Quan Judge, son of Alice Mary Quan and Frederick H. Judge, was born at Dublin, Ireland, on April 13th, 1851. His mother died in early life at the birth of her seventh child. The lad was brought up in Dublin until his thirteenth year, when the father removed to the United States with his motherless children, taking passage on the Inman Liner, "City of Limerick," which arrived in New York harbour on July 14th, 1864. Of the years of his childhood there is little to be said, though we hear of a memorable illness of his seventh year; an illness supposed to be mortal. The physician declared the small sufferer to be dying, then dead; but in the outburst of grief which followed the announcement, it was discovered that the child had revived, and that all was well with him. During convalescence the boy shewed aptitudes and knowledge never before displayed, exciting wonderment and questioning among his elders as to when and how he had learned all these new things. He seemed the same, and yet not the same; had to be studied anew by his family, and while no one knew that he had ever learned to read, from his recovery in his eighth year we find him devouring the contents of all the books he could obtain, relating to Mesmerism, Phrenology, Character-Reading, Religion, Magic, Rosicrucianism, and deeply absorbed in the Book of Revelation, trying to discover its real meaning. The elder Judge, with his children, lived for a brief period at the old Merchants' Hotel, in Cortland Street, New York: then in Tenth Street, and106 afterward settled in Brooklyn. William began work in New York as a clerk, afterwards entering the Law Office of George P. Andrews, who afterwards became Judge of the Supreme Court of New York. There the lad studied law, living with his father, who died soon after. On coming of age, William Q. Judge was naturalised a citizen of the United States, in April, 1872. In May of that year he was admitted to the Bar of New York. His conspicuous traits as a lawyer, in the practice of Commercial Law, which became his specialty, were his thoroughness, his inflexible persistence, and his industry, which won the respect of employers and clients alike. As was said of him, then and later: "Judge would walk over hot ploughshares from here to India to do his duty." In 1874 he married Ella M. Smith, of Brooklyn, by whom he had one child, a daughter, whose death in early childhood was long a source of deep, though quiet, sorrow to both. Mr. Judge in especial was a great lover of children, and had the gift of attracting them around him, whether in public—as on the steamer deck—or in private, and this without any apparent notice or effort on his part. Wherever he went, one would see the children begin to sidle up to him, soon absorbed in the new friend.

Living in Brooklyn until 1893, Mr. and Mrs. Judge then removed to New York in order to be nearer to the Theosophical Headquarters, Mr. Judge at that date, and for the first time, giving up his arduous labours at the law, in order to devote himself wholly to Theosophical work.

Soon after his marriage Mr. Judge heard of Madame Blavatsky in this wise. He came across a book which greatly interested him. This was People from the Other World, by H. S. Olcott. Mr. Judge wrote to Colonel Olcott, asking for the address of a good medium, for at this time the tide of occult inquiry107 and speculation had just set in, and the experiences of numbers of people, including those of Madame Blavatsky, at the "Eddy Homestead," were the talk of all the world. Mr. Judge was invited to call upon H. P. B. while no medium was forthcoming, and thus the conjunction was formed, in this incarnation, which H. P. B. later on declared to have existed "for ?ons past." Henceforward, Mr. Judge spent much of his time with H. P. B. at Irving Place, New York: he was one of a number of people present at her rooms one evening when she turned to him, saying: "Ask Col. Olcott to form a Society." This was done at once. Mr. Judge was called to the Chair, nominating Col. Olcott as permanent Chairman, and was himself nominated as Secretary. This was the beginning of the Theosophical Society, on the date of 7th September, 1875.

When Madame Blavatsky went to India, Mr. Judge was left to carry on the T.S. in New York as best he could; a difficult task indeed when she who was then the one great exponent had left the field, and the curiosity and interest excited by her original and striking mission had died down. The T.S. was henceforth to subsist on its philosophical basis, and this, after long years of toil and unyielding persistence, was the point attained by Mr. Judge. From his twenty-third year until his death, his best efforts and all the fiery energies of his undaunted soul were given to this Work. We have a word picture of him, opening meetings, reading a chapter of the Bhagavat G?ta, entering the Minutes, and carrying on all the details of the same, as if he were not the only person present; and this he did time after time, determined to have a Society. Little by little he gathered about him a number of earnest seekers, some of whom still work in the New York and other Branches, and through his unremitting labour he built up the T.S. in America, aiding108 the Movement as well in all parts of the world, and winning from The Master the name of "Resuscitator of Theosophy in America." His motto in those days was, "Promulgation, not Speculation." "Theosophy," said he, "is a cry of the Soul."

The Work went slowly at first, and the eager disciple passed through even more than the usual suffering, sense of loneliness and desolation, as we see H. P. B. pointing out in regard to him that "he of all chelas, suffers most, and asks, or even expects, the least." But the shadow lifted, and in 1888 we find H. P. B. writing of him as being then "a chela of thirteen years' standing," with "trust reposed in him"; and as "the chief and sole Agent of The Dzyan in America." (This is the Thibetan name of what we call The Lodge.)

Mr. Judge also went to South America, where he saw many strange things, and contracted Chagres fever, that terrible scourge whose effects dog the victim through a lifetime. To India as well, where he was for some time with H. P. B. Later on he was with her in France and in England, always intent on the Work of the T.S. He lectured in both countries; instituted The Path magazine, meeting all its deficits and carrying on its various activities, as well as those of the T.S. He wrote incessantly; opened the doors of the Press at length to a serious consideration of Theosophy; he lectured all over the States and did the work of several men. His health was frail; a day free from pain was a very rare thing with him. He had his sorrows too, of which the death of his only child was the deepest. But the cheerfulness of his aspect, his undaunted energy, never failed him, and he was the cause of activity among all his fellow members. To those who would ask his advice in the crises which were wont to shake the tree of the T.S. he would make answer: "Work! Work! Work for Theosophy!" And109 when at last the Great Betrayal came to him, and some of those whom he had lifted and served and taught how to work, strove to cast him down and out of the Society, in their ignorance of their own limitations, he kept the due silence of the Initiate; he bowed his defenceless head to The Will and The Law, and passing with sweet and serene heart through the waters of bitterness, consoled by the respect and trust of the Community in which his life had been spent, and by the thousands of students who knew and loved him: he exhorted all to forgiveness and renewed effort: he reminded us that there were many committed by the unbrotherliness of his opponents who would in time come themselves to see and comprehend the wrong done to the Work by action taken which they did not at the time understand in all its bearings; he begged us to be ready to meet that day and to take the extended hands which would then be held out to us by those who ignorantly shared the wrong done to him, and through him, to us all. In this trust he passed behind the veil. On the 21st of March, 1896, he encountered "Eloquent, Just and Mighty Death."
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So much for the open and material facts of his life. There is much more that must be left unsaid. His claim upon us was that of The Work. The Work was his Ideal. He valued men and women only by their theosophical Work, and the right spirit in which that Work was done. He held Right Thought to be of the best Work. He worked with anyone who was willing to do Work in the real sense, careless whether such were personal friends, strangers, or active or secret foes. Many a time he was known to be energetically working with those who were attacking him, or planning attack in supposed concealment, and his smile, as this was commented upon, was a thing to be always remembered; that whimsical and quaint smile, followed110 by some Irish drollery. But in order to leave behind us some adequate idea of the broadness and the catholicity of his nature, it seems best to append to this brief and unworthy sketch, some few of the thoughts of his life-long friends, nearly all published soon after he had left us.
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On page 75 of the first volume of Letters is a letter from an Adept, from which a certain portion ("private instruction") is omitted. That omitted portion runs as follows:

    "Is the choice made? Then Y. will do well to see W. Q. J. and to acquaint him with this letter. For the first year or two no better guide can be had. For when the 'presence' is upon him, he knows well that which others only suspect and 'divine.' ... is useful to 'Path,' but greater services may be rendered to him, who, of all chêlas, suffers most and demands, or even expects the least."

(If this extract be fitted into the original letter its immense importance in respect to Mr. Judge may be realised by the intuitive student.)

"In answer to your letter I can only say as follows: If W. Q. Judge, the man who has done most for Theosophy in America, who has worked most unselfishly in your country, and has ever done the biddings of Master, the best he knew how, is left alone in ... and if the ... Society in general and its Esotericists especially leave him alone, without their unanimous moral support, which is much more than their money—then I say—let them go! They are no theosophists;—and if such a thing should happen, and Judge be left to fight his battles alone, then shall I bid all of them an eternal good-bye. I swear on Master's holy name to shake off the dust of my feet from everyone of them.... I am unable to realise that at the111 hour of trouble and supreme fight ... any true theosophist should hesitate for one moment to back W. Q. J. publicly and lodge in his or her protest. Let them read Master's letter in the preliminary——. All that which I said about W. Q. J. was from His words in His letter to me.... Do with this letter what you like. Show it to anyone you please as my firm determination...."—H. P. B.

"It is necessary that just those souls in whom we have felt most of reality should disappear from us into the darkness, in order that we may learn that not seeing, but inwardly touching, is the true proof that our friend is there; in order that we may learn that the vanishing and dissipation of the outward, visible part, is no impairing or detriment to the real part, which is invisible. This knowledge, and the realising of it in our wills, are gained with the utmost difficulty, at a cost not less than the loss of the best of our friends; yet if the cost be great, the gain is great and beyond estimating, for it is nothing less than a first victory over the whole universe, wherein we come to know that there is that in us which can face and conquer and outlast anything in the universe, and come forth radiant and triumphant from the contest. Yet neither the universe nor death are real antagonists, for they are but only Life everywhere, and we are Life."—C. J.

"He was never narrow, never selfish, never conceited. He would drop his own plan in a moment if a better were suggested, and was delighted if someone would carry on the work he had devised, and immediately inaugurate other lines of work. To get on with the work and forward the movement seemed to be his only aim in life.... For myself, knowing Mr. Judge as I did, and associating with him day after day, at home, in the rush of work, in long days of travel over desert wastes or over the trackless ocean,112 having travelled with him a distance equal to twice around the globe, ... there is not the slightest doubt of his connection with and service of the Great Lodge. He did the Master's work to the best of his ability, and thus carried out the injunction of H. P. B. to "keep the link unbroken."—J. D. Buck.

"There is not one act in the life of William Q. Judge that has come under my observation, that savours of selfishness or of a desire to further any personal end.... Perhaps I am not qualified to pass on the merits as an occultist, of the man whose memory I hold in such grateful esteem; but I can, at least, speak of what passed before my eyes in the ordinary affairs of life, and in these affairs I have invariably found him to be the soul of unselfishness, honour, generosity, and all the other virtues that men hold so dear in other men."—E. B. Page.

"In the summer of 1894 we were privileged to have him stay at our house for several weeks, and since then he spent at least one evening a week with us until his illness forced h............