seven natural envelopes, which are most minutely described. After Vishnoo, or Hari, as he is most commonly called, has in his different capacities of Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer, created, preserved, and destroyed himself for beside him there is none— -he sleeps on his mighty serpent couch, and after a vast period he wakens to go again through the same process. We read: "As one with sensible things, he is subject to his own control." Again: "Perfect being is void of all qualities, and is therefore inert."

When Vishnoo, as the Creator, had made the world, he was thus addressed by the goddess Earth: "The sun, the stars, the planets, the whole world-all that is formless or that has form; all that is visible or invisible ; all that I have said or left unsaid; all this, Supreme, thou art! Hail to thee again and again! Hail, hail!” She was rather premature with her praises; for the world sank into the waters, and was in the utmost danger of being destroyed. Then Vishnoo's help was implored by the terrified inhabitants, and he, listening to their cry, in the form of a boar, vast as a mountain, uplifted with his ample tusks the earth from the lowest regions. Much is said about this boar in the Purans. We are told that he was eighty miles in breadth, and eight thousand miles high. He roared like thunder; his tusks were white and sharp, and fearful. He was radiant like the sun. The devotees of Vishnoo took refuge in his bristles, and praised his tongue, teeth, mouth, hair, and, in short, everything about him, in the most extravagant terms.

We are informed that Vishnoo, as Brahma, created fierce beings-de

mons, goblins, malignant fiends, eaters of flesh, and was full of horror at the contemplation of his own offspring. We read that birds came from his vital region, sheep from his breasts, goats from his mouth, kine from his belly and sides, horses and elephants from his feet, while from the hairs of his body sprang herbs, roots, and fruits. According to another account, Brahmans sprang from Brahma's head, the military class from his breast, the mercantile class from his belly, and the servile class from his feet. The different Vedas, with their metres, are represented as coming from his eastern, western, northern and southern mouths.

The distances and periods mentioned in the Vishnoo and other Purans, are prodigious. We are told that the earth is 408,000,000 of miles in length; and we read of a mountain in its centre 600,000 miles high, 128,000 miles in circumference at its base, and 356,000 miles wide at the top. Periods are on as vast a scale as distances. The world during its present creation has existed above four millions of years, and is not yet near its close. A day of Brahma can only be represented by figures4,300,000,000 years. A hundred such years make his life.

The Hindoos dilate on the trouble Brahma had in making the world; but we believe our readers are satisfied with the details already given, and will not thank us for more. The stories are grotesque in the extreme; they are full of contradictions; the creation, or rather formation work, is attributed to different gods and goddesses, and we seem to be listening to the recital of fantastic dreams rather than the relation of real facts.

Even Professor H. H. Wilson, with all his admiration of the Hindoos, says: "The Purans teach constantly incompatible doctrines. Incongruities are frequent in the Vedas, as well as in the Purans."

We turn from the popular to the philosophic writings of the Hindoos. These are much occupied with the origin and nature of the universe. In some of them a creator, or rather a former is allowed, and he is honoured with the title of Lord. But he is quite distinct from Brahm, the Supreme; and when you inquire more particularly what he is, so far as an answer is given to you, you find that he is a manifestation of the spirit of the universe. Pantheism pervades the Hindoo philosophic systems through all the phases they assume. God is represented as at once the agent, the act, and the effect. As the spider weaves his web out of his own body, so Brahm has drawn the universe out of himself. Cloth is yarn turned into a new form. The oil was

in the seed before it was pressed; milk was in the udder before it was drawn. Thus the universe, which now is or seems to be, ever was, though not with the same phenomena. Creation in the proper sense, the bringing of that into existence which formerly was not, is stoutly denied by all the pundits, in common with the Greek philosophers, and, we may say, in common with some called Christians, who pride themselves on their philosophic clearness and acuteness. Along with this denial of proper creation they all, though in different modes, confound the universe with Him who made it and rules over it. The cosmogonies of the nations have a strong family likeness.

In

form, as we have said, they are prolix, tawdry, and fantastic; in substance they are pervaded by deadly error. Their teaching strikes at the fundamental truths which man needs for his mental and spiritual sustenance. They deny all proper creation. They deny one true living God. They either set before us a host of gods so distinct that they are represented as contending with each other for the supremacy, or affirm there is no God apart from the universe, which we are told is God expanded and developed. We do indeed meet at times with some apprehension of one living God apart from all, and superior to all. Not a few passages may be culled from the writings of the heathen, which seem to indicate acquaintance with one personal God; and in the conversation of the Hindoos such ex

pressions as "God sees," "God knows," "God will punish," "God will reward," are frequently heard. It would appear that there is a voice for God in the soul of man, which can never be wholly silenced. Are we to conclude, as some have done, that those who use these expressions are acquainted with the one God? We might do so, did we not meet on either side of these utterances with the grossest Polytheistic and Pantheistic sentiments, and did we not know that the better was in this, as in so many other instances, suppressed by the worse. The testimony to the true God, to which we have referred, is like a flash of lightning in a dark night; for a moment in the light of this testimony, things are rightly discerned, but error again speedily covers all with its gloom.

The glory of the Hebrew cosmogony, as we find it in Genesis, is

that it gives the clearest and most emphatic testimony to the one true, living God-a testimony which is maintained consistently throughout the Bible to its close, and which is not found in the sacred books of other religionists. The cavil that the Bible, because it speaks of the gods of the nations, recognizes their divinity, though it regards them as inferior to Jehovah, the God of the Jews, is unworthy of a reply. On the same ground Missionaries might be represented as Polytheists, because they speak of the gods of the countries. where they labour. The doctrine of One Living God is the only doctrine which worthily meets the religious instinct so characteristic of man. Can anything worth the name of a religion be founded on details regarding a rabble of gods and goddesses, who are represented as addicted to lust, anger, envy, revenge, and every hateful passion, and who are set forth as carrying on the fiercest war with each other? As little can religion rest on Pantheism. This has been very attractive to speculative minds, but it utterly fails to meet the most urgent demand of the understanding, and is a dreary blank to the conscience and the heart. The understanding can find no rest in trying to conceive of law apart from a law-giver and law-sustainer,-of order, where there is no one either to establish order or uphold it,-of power, while we discern no worker. The conscience and the heart revolt still more than the understanding, from this abstraction. Can you unfold your heart to a law? Can you plead for mercy with a law? Can you seek sympathy from a law? Can you commune with a law? In an abstrac

tion which will not allow you to think of an intelligent conscious Being, can you find an object for the heart's noblest and most tender feelings, its love, gratitude, and trust? So utter has been the void left in the human mind by Pantheism in the countries where it has most prevailed, Greece and India, that men have hastened to people heaven and earth, and air and seas, with divine personages, with whom they could have sympathy, and these they have striven to make like themselves. Auguste Comte, in our own day, after throwing down all religions with his Positive Philosophy, set himself to the construction of a new religion, turning into gods the most distinguished persons of the race, thus doing afresh what had been done hundreds and, indeed, thousands of years before he was born. One True Living God, the Creator, the Upholder, the Governor, alone meets our religious necessities, and the Hebrew cosmogony is invaluable because it points us most clearly and emphatically to Him. This great glorious vital truth is the foundation of all true

virtue and peace. And the book which teaches it with the greatest power is entitled to the highest place.

We have now to ask,--How comes it that the Jews have handed down a cosmogony so singularly unlike the cosmogonies of all other nations-a cosmogony so unique that it looks as if coming from another sphere-a cosmogony presenting such a contrast to the productions of heathen priests and philosophers that when we leave it for them, we feel as if leaving green pastures and living waters for arid wastes and stagnant pools-as if leaving the joyful light of

day for a dark and dreary cave with dim fleeting spectres and confused perplexing sounds? We live in a philosophic age. We have parted

with fancies, and now deal with facts. We look carefully at phenomena, mark their peculiarities, and trace them to their proper cause. Here, then, is an effect; to what cause are we to trace it? Are we told of the characteristics of the Shemitic mind? Is that mind essentially different from the ordinary human mind? If so, that itself is a most singular phenome

non.

The Hebrews formed only one section, a small section of the Shemitic race. How is it that the other sections have produced nothing resembling the cosmogony of which we are speaking? How is it that the Hebrew race have proved themselves, as in the Talmud, capable of producing as wild stories as have ever been uttered by the lips of man? Here is a unique effect. Even depreciate its importance, if you like, and yet you will find nothing resembling it. Let an adequate cause be found. If the human mind be named as equal to the effect, let the proof be adduced. We are confident no such proof can be adduced, and we show ourselves to be true philosophers by tracing this wondrous effect to an adequate cause—a direct revelation from the Living God.

Am I asked if I have nothing to say about the reconciliation of the first chapter of Genesis with the facts of science? All I have to say is that Scripture and science have their own respective proofs, and rest on evidence independent of each other. Truth of every kind must be consistent, though the consistency be not always apparent. As there is decided evi

dence for believing the first chapter of Genesis to have been furnished by Divine revelation, and as science has its indisputable facts, we may be sure they cannot clash with each other; although a wrong interpretation of that chapter, and the conjectures of science may come into sharp collision. The great lessons of the Hebrew cosmogony address themselves in their excellence and simplicity to the lettered and to the unlettered; but owing to the peculiarities of the subject, and of the object held in view by the sacred writer, the exact interpreta-. tion of its various details is attended with many difficulties. "He that believeth, shall not make haste."

Our

strong positive reasons for belief have not been disturbed in the least degree, and we ought to rest on them with unabated confidence. The enemies of the Bible seldom deign even a glance at these reasons; and till they do so, they do nothing towards driving us from our stronghold. Theology, indeed, as studied by man, ought to be humble. It has every now and then taken indefensible positions, which it has been obliged to abandon, and by the abandonment of which it has gained strength instead of suffering loss. Ought not science to be humble likewise? It has seen reason again and again within a generation to contradict its own teaching. The muchtalked-of antiquity of man is a striking instance. Some years ago, geologists were well-nigh agreed as to man's late appearance on the earth. If the Bible had then seemed to speak of man's origin as going back a vast period, how loud would have been the cry of its contradiction to science! Some of high geological fame now conjecture that man existed

many thousands of years ago, and their followers call these conjectures by the name of demonstration." If the Bible must square with what is called science at all times, twenty or thirty years ago it ought to have maintained the recent origin of the race; and now it ought to pronounce the very reverse,

for now it should tell us of our vast antiquity. It ought thus to undergo periodical recensions. But "The

word of the Lord is tried." It has stood the test of the past, and it will the test of the future; it is firmer than the everlasting hills.

WHILE the Jews number seven millions and are scattered over the face of the whole world, their ancient rivals, clinging to the home of their fathers, are reduced to one hundred and fifty-and these have the mortification to find their city occupied by nearly ten thousand Arab Mussulmans, whose fanaticism is of the intensest order. But, few as they are, and politically powerless, we cannot approach them and study their manners and beliefs without both interest and instruction. The very reverence with which they guard their ancient Pentateuch, superstitious and almost idolatrous as it is, has served a good purpose in Divine providence, and awakens in Christian hearts the prayer that their eyes may be opened to see that the " prophet like unto Moses " has really come, and is able to bestow on them that living water which is not to be found even in Jacob's well.

The Rev. John Mills, the author of an interesting volume now before us, visited the Samaritans in 1855 and in 1860, and remained with them for several months in the friendliest intercourse. The following is in substance the account which he gives of their faith in a Messiah and in things pertaining to God.

The Samaritans have a firm belief in the coming of Messiah. They found this upon the words of Moses, "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto Him ye shall hearken."—(Deut. xviii. 15.) They differ, however, with regard to the character of the Messiah, as well from Jews as from Christians. They ridicule the Jewish idea of His being a king and a great conqueror. His mission, they say, is not to shed blood, but to heal the nations; not to make war, but to bring peace. He is to be, according to Moses' promise, a great Teacher, a restorer of the law, one that will bring all the nations, by the illumination of His teaching, to unite in one service to one God. Therefore His common name with them is Taebah, or the Arabic equivalent, Al Mudy, because it is He whose mission it is to turn the ungodly and unbelieving unto the Lord.

With respect to the person of the Taebah, they regard Him merely as a man. He is not Moses, but inferior to him. Moses was the greatest of all the servants of God. It was he that gave the law; and the office of the Taebah will be to restore that law to its purity, preach it to the world,