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the true function of the historian. He could not have a nobler

one.

In one respect these two lectures are of a piece; they both suggest the same reflection. It is impossible to read them, and Mr. Lecky's especially, without recalling the Prince of Abyssinia's despairing cry to Imlac, "Enough! Thou hast convinced me that no human being can ever be a poet."

The study of history as recommended by Mr. Lecky, and, though not quite so categorically by Mr. Froude, is the study of a lifetime. One may regret that the ancient literatures of Greece and Rome do not fill so large a space as they did in the curriculum of the universities, though there need be no fear that they will ever cease to play their part in educating and humanizing the world; but their most thorough-paced advocate will not deny that a knowledge of history, and especially of the history of his own country, is good for man. Yet if it is to be studied on these lines, it is obvious that, when his three years' course is over, the student will carry away with him into the great world a knowledge of infinitesimally small portions and parcels of the past, and those, it may be, if all one hears of the methods of the scientific school be true, what Emerson, describing his own style, called "infinitely repellant particles."

If a knowledge of the history of his own country be useful to a man-as surely no one will deny that it is, even if he has no intention of assuming the office of an historian, or even of a lecturer on history-then it must clearly profit him more to have a general knowledge of "the long results of time” than to have amassed the materials out of which he may form a knowledge of one special period. Nor, indeed, is it possible to have mastered the knowledge of any particular epoch in history without at least a good general knowledge of what has gone before; and it is equally impossible to rightly understand it without, at least, a good general knowledge of what came after. Changes in human affairs, though they should merit the name of revolutions, do not spring ready-made, even from the brain of a Cæsar, a Luther, a Cromwell, or a Napoleon. The greatest man, even a Shakespeare, is but the child of his age. The budding young historians, who chatter so glibly about their "periods," are surely much in the position of architects who have made an exhaustive study of chimneys or staircases, but have neglected to acquaint themselves with the other properties of a house. The only house they will ever build will be such as Gray describes, full of

Rich windows that exclude the light,
And passages that lead to nothing.

Though the rivalry between the disciples of the two schools of history be as fierce as that between M. Jourdain's professors, is the difference between them really so great as they are sometimes pleased to suppose? No man would willingly be called dull, and I suspect that the scientific historian would gladly write in epic fashion, if he could. Both, we all assume to be as eager for facts as Mr. Gradgrind; and both, human nature, and especially historical human nature, being what it is, will inevitably, and more or less consciously, color the facts, or, let us say, arrange them, according to their views, theories, principles, prejudices, whims, fancies, whatever it pleases the critics to call them.

I suppose the world has not yet read the ideal historian, and is never likely to read him. When he is found he will be, as most good things are found, between the two extremes, between the plodding pedant on the one hand, and the dashing dramatist on the other. It is surely idle, however, to talk of the old school being repudiated and the new triumphant, because the latter happens for the moment to be in the ascendency in our universities. The world's verdict is not pronounced in the lecture-rooms of Oxford or Cambridge, and the world, we may be very sure, will continue to read those historians who can write the best books.

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A BLOW AT THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.

HANNIS TAYLOR.

North American Review, New York, December.

NEV

II.

EVER until the passage of the Anti-Lottery Act, approved September 19, 1890, did Congress venture to assert that it possessed power to exclude newspapers and other publications from the mail by reason of their contents. That Act, designed to destroy the Louisiana Lottery Company, operates directly upon the publishers of all American newspapers who claim the right to print what they please, subject to the limitations which the First Amendment embodies.

Two publishers presented the constitutional validity of the Act for adjudication in the Supreme Court of the United States. The contention was made that the power originally vested in Congress to regulate the postal system of the country was afterwards expressly fettered and limited by the clause in the First Amendment which forbids Congress making any law "abridging the freedom of speech or of the press"; that the formula in an historic one whose settled meaning in both English and American precedents is that the legislative department can never consider or pass upon the morality or immorality, the legality or illegality, of anything that may be said or written by the citizen; that the character of all utterances, written or printed, is a question for juries only; that the attempt of Congress to adjudicate that all publications or other utterances touching the business of a lottery are per se immoral is a gross usurpation of judicial power.

This being the first case of the kind that had ever come into court, it was to be expected that an exposition would be made worthy of the subject and of the occasion. Vain expectation. The Chief Justice briefly announced that the Court held the Act constitutional because the question had be adjudicated in the case of ex parte Jackson (96 U. S., 732), a case which arose twelve years before the rights of the press in the mail were ever assailed, a case in which no one connected with the press appeared, and in which those rights were neither involved or represented.

In ex parte Jackson the only party before the Court was a person who had deposited in the mail "a circular letter concerning a lottery offering prizes," in violation of a statute forbidding the mailing of such a letter or circular. The only right involved in the Jackson case was the "freedom of speech" a right kindred to but not identified with the "freedom of the press." It is inexplicable that in this case the counsel utterly failed to present, or the Court to suggest, the one clear and historic ground upon which that right has ever depended. The short answer to the whole matter would have been that Congress could not exclude the circular in question from the mail, by virtue of its contents, because the sender had the right, under the First Amendment to have the legality or illegality of its contents passed upon by a jury before any penalty whatever could be imposed upon him. Without even considering the one simple question really involved in the case, the Court held that the political department of the Government could take the jury's place and make the adjudication. The Court further went entirely outside of the record in order to define what would be the rights of newspapers in the mail whenever a future statute should be passed forbidding their circulation through that channel.

Only once before the Jackson case had the question of the power of Congress to exclude publications from the mail by reason of their contents been discussed by the jurists and statesmen of the country. President Jackson appealed to Congress to pass a law to exclude from the mail inflammatory appeals calculated to excite the slaves to insurrection, and the matter was referred to a select committee of the Senate, of which Mr. Calhoun was chairman. After an exhaustive examination of the whole subject, and with every motive to reach

an opposite conclusion, Mr. Calhoun reported in the most emphatic terms that the First Amendment absolutely prohibited Congress from excluding any communication from the mail by reason of its contents.

Such was the lion which stood in the path of the Supreme Court in its undertaking to create the doctrine which was born in the dictum announced in ex parte Jackson. To sweep away at a stroke a conclusion in which Webster, Clay, and Calhoun had concurred was a serious undertaking, but the Court rose to the emergency. It discovered that these eminent jurists and statesmen had fallen into a fatal error as to a vital branch of the subject. This is the language:

But it is evident that they [the views of Calhoun, Webster, and Clay] were founded upon the assumption that it was competent for Congress to prohibit the transportation of newspapers and pamphlets, over postal routes in any other way than by mail; and, of course, it would follow that if, with such a prohibition, the transportation by mail could also be forbidden, the circulation of the documents would be destroyed, and a fatal blow given to the freedom of the press. But we do not think that Congress possesses the power to prevent the transportation In other ways, as merchandise, of matter which it excludes from the mails.

The sole foundation for this notion is found in the language used by Mr. Calhoun. In his anxiety to emphasize the want -of power in Congress to abridge the freedom of the press at all, Mr. Calhoun said, by way of antithesis, that if it were once conceded that Congress could exclude documents from the mail by reason of their contents, some extremist would claim next that Congress could declare all roads post-roads and then extend the exclusion to their transportation even in that manWhen the fragment from Mr. Calhoun's report* which the Court has quoted is taken with the context, it is obvious that the Court has read an affirmative where a negative is written. The misapprehension is clearly the result of a hasty reading of a long document.

ner.

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The angular, the spatula-shaped, and the philosophic hand may be approximated to, but are rarely met with of pronounced type, while mixtures of the psychic and the artistic hand are very common. The thumb, as a rule, is smaller in woman than in man, indicating less force and resolution. Nevertheless, the thumb plays a very important part as an indication of female character. If, for example, the thumb is large, one may safely conclude that its fair possessor is more shrewd than tender-hearted, that reflection and intelligence dominate, and that affairs of the heart are deemed only of secondary importance.

A small thumb on a woman's hand is an indication that she is more devoted than sharp-witted; thinks a great deal more of her man, or of men in general, than of learning; and possesses feminine characteristics in a more marked degree than

The report may be found in full in Niles's Register, Vol. XLIX., 408, 411.

her larger-thumbed sisters, and consequently exerts a greater influence and more fascination over man. Large-jointed fingers are very rare among women, but when they do occur, they may be accepted as vouchers for violent passions, hasty temper, and for a persistence and recklessness in pursuit of the object aimed at, which defies difficulties and scorns consequences. As a rule, the feminine hand is elastic, soft, flexible, and the typical chararcteristics less pronounced than in man. There are, nevertheless, exceptions to the rule, women being occasionally seen with as pronouncedly typical hands as men. These are, however, unusual phenomena, women of strong character, who, for good or for evil, will be sure to make their influence felt.

The following rules hold uniformly good in the interpretation of the female hand. Women whose terminal finger joints are square, have domestic tastes, and are capable of being wholly absorbed in the duties of wife and mother. If the hands are small and slender, the thumb small, the fingers fine and pointed, it indicates a disposition on the part of the possessor rather to enjoy the good things of life, than to make a drudge of herself. The woman with spatula-shaped fingers is not contented with the narrow sphere of domesticity, but seeks an outlet for her activity in the practical affairs of life. If the fingers are delicate, slightly pointed, and the thumb at the same time small, and the trunk extremely small and elastic, one may conclude with confidence that the possessor of such a hand has enthusiasm, heart, and soul, but no practical energy. The extreme type, however, is subject to innumerable shadings, resulting in wide variations of character. On the whole, it is more difficult to discipher the feminine than the masculine hand.

Nations, too, have their distinctive hand-types corresponding to the national character. While in France, the angular practical type persists even in the most beautiful hands, the spatula type in various admixtures is characteristic of Englishwomen, and of their fair sisters in North America, while among the women of South America the artistic form predominates in harmony with the national character. The same type is characteristic of the Negroes, who live for the pleasure of the passing moment, careless of what the morrow may bring. The psychic hand characterizes the dreamy, religious, ideal Hindoos, while in Germany, where a pronounced individualism is a marked feature of the race, almost every section displays its own char acteristic mixed type.

Another branch of Chirognomy is palmistry, or the determination of character by the lines, prominences, and depressions of the inside of the hand, but for reasons already given, we forbear from entering on this branch of the subject.

In the aforegoing sketch, our object has been simply to awaken in the reader an interest in a long-neglected science, which, approached by scientific methods, promises to be a profitable as well as an attractive study. In a magazine article one can do no more than cover the ground in outline. For those who wish to study the subject systematically, there are works available in German, French, and English.

THE

THE FLATTENING OF THE EARTH AT THE POLES. PROFESSOR J. HOWARD GORE. Journal of the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, December. HE attention of Huggens was first drawn to the subject of the figure of the earth by the variation in the length of the seconds pendulum in. different latitudes, which was first announced as an observed fact when Picher returned in 1672 from Cayenne. It was quite natural that Huggens should take notice of everything related to pendulum behavior, as he was at that time busy with the application of the pendulum to the regulating of clocks. He immediately perceived that this phenomenon the shortening of the seconds pendulum on approaching the equator—was caused by the centrifugal force at the earth's surface, which, increasing as the equator is

approached, lessens the power of gravity and retards the time of the pendulum's variation. It also occurred to him that if the earth were a perfect sphere, a plumb-line would not be at right angles to the sea, or to the surface of standing water, but would be deflected somewhat by the action of centrifugal force. Hence a light body in still water would not press perpendicularly upon the surface, and consequently could not be at rest, which is contrary to experience. Huggens, therefore, argued that the earth was not spherical, but protuberant at the equator, so that the terrestical meridians might everywhere be perpendicular to the plumb-line. Here he ceased speculating, perhaps waiting for observations to in some way substantiate his views, nor did he proceed until Newton furnished the stimulus in the nature of a suggestion.

Newton determined the ratio of the two axes by conceiving two columns of fluid to extend from the center of the earth outward towards the surface; one to the equator, the other to one of the poles. Since these two columns were in equilibrium they would press upon one another with equal intensity, so that the ratio of their lengths would be found by comparing their weights.. The weight of the equatorial column is equal to gravitation diminished by centrifugal force, while the polar column, unaffected by the earth's diurnal motion, had a weight dependent solely on the gravitation of its particles.

This centrifugal force of each equatorial particle depended upon its angular velocity and its distance from the center, but its gravitation, resulting from the combined attraction of the surrounding particles, was one of the problems first solved by Newton. The result of this discussion gave us the ratio of the polar to the equatorial axis, 229 to 230. This is usually stated b: a:: 229: 230, and the ellipticity, which is the ratio of a—b to a is 1/230.

This was the needful suggestion for Huggens. He at once took up the problem, but rejecting the Newtonion principle of an attraction between the particles, he placed in the center of the mass a force attracting the particles according to the inverse square of the distances. Upon this hypothesis he proved that a homogeneous body of fluid revolving upon an axis will be in equilibrium when it has the figure of an oblate spheroid very little different from a sphere, the ellipticity being one-half of the ratio of centrifugal force to the gravity at the equator, or 1/2x1/289=1/578. He tried to verify his theory from actual experiences, so he took a soft globe of clay and attached it to an axis. This he caused to revolve very rapidly, when he observed that the ball became flattened at each end of the axis and enlarged at the middle.

He very cleverly concluded from this theory, that the water adjusts itself over the surface of the earth and that the fixed land must do the` same—for if the land at the poles were exactly at the same distance from the centre of the earth that the equator is, the water of the seas in this latter region would be raised above the land. But since we find at the equator large areas of land, these, too, must have been thrown out under the action of centrifugal force, and for this to be possible, the earth was at one time in a fluid condition, becoming solid later in its life. Quite recently Professor Stokes has enunciated almost the same idea when he said that the fact that the waters of the earth are in equilibrium shows that at some time there must have been a bulging out of the land in the equatorial region. Newton saw in the flattening of Jupiter as reported by Cassini (1691) a proof by analogy of the oblate hypothesis.

The acceptance of a flattened earth was by no means instantaneous. Terrestrial measures were not harmonious, but their weight of evidence was on the other side, or towards an elongated earth This caused a conflict-notable in the history of Geodesy, sending champions of the latter hypothesis to Peru and within the polar circle to bring back as the fruits of years of toil the lengths of an equatorial degree and of a polar degree. The evidence was on the unexpected side-the earth was flattened. However, the adherents did not at once relinquish the elongated theory, but computed and recomputed the teil-tale figures, and discussed and re-discussed the methods which yielded such unwelcome results.

"

Οι

EVOLUTION AND EXACT THOUGHT.

THE REVEREND JOHN GERARD.

The Month, London, December.

UR modern philosophers, as is well known, feel themselves qualified to correct the erroneous impressions of bygonegenerations by reason of improved methods of argument. Thought" they say "has become exact," "investigation deals. with facts, not with assumption." This claim of the modern school to have revolutionized the science of argument is almost universal.

At the same time there are undoubtedly those trained according to older methods of thought, to whom this claim among all the mysteries attending on the evolution theory is by far the most mysterious, and whose main difficulty in accepting its tenets is their utter inability to grasp the processes of reasoning by which they are supposed to be established. To such it appears that in no respect is such reason so defective as in the utter confusion of its phraseology, and the fallacieswhich such confusion begets; and moreover that, apart from this, no attempt has yet been made to provide the system with a solid groundwork whereon it may ultimately rest; and without this, however harmoniously its parts may be put together, it must ever remain a mere castle in the air.

Let it be clearly understood that no denial is here intended of what are called the facts of evolution. That the progressof organic life on earth has been through a course of development from lower to higher forms, is certain. That this development has been wrought by natural instruments is most. highly probable. But if that which has not been proved in any one instance should be clearly demonstrated of all, if it could be shown that every species now existing has been evolved from another, and that all species but the first have been evolved from it,-the point now under examination would be just where it is. Our affair is not with evolution as a fact, but with what is styled the evolution theory, which is a totally different thing. This theory presents itself not as a chronicle, but as a philosophy, not as giving us to know the course of things, but their causes likewise: it comes before us, not as a subsidiary system, dealing with one department of Nature, but as the great fundamental principle which eliminates: from the universe all other forces and agents but its own. Were it satisfied with saying that one animal has come from another animal, and that environment or sexual selection has been the instrument of the metamorphosis, the world at large would feel but a feebie interest in its teachings. It is. otherwise when it builds up a whole cosmogony with natural forces alone and tells mankind that they need take account of no others here or hereafter.

It is with this claim of " Evolution to be a philosophy of causes that we are now dealing. There are, undoubtedly, many and serious points to be considered before we can accept the historical account it gives of the process through which Nature: has reached its present position, but these we are not considering. Conceding the assumed order of evolution, where is the prime agent to which we must ascribe its production?

To begin with the matter of phraseology. If we ask in regard to the assumed evolution of one species from another, by what means this has been brought about, we are very commonly told that it has been by the operation of the law of Natural Selection. This explanation affords an excellent instance of what I mean, for when examined it appears to be a phrase, and a phrase only, and to explain nothing, while it has yet been at times almost universally accepted as the key which shall unlock all the secrets of Nature.

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duce another? It is not variation itself, but the determining force that rules it to which must be ascribed the result attained. It is not because a marksman misses a pigeon that he kills a crow, but because his gun was aimed at the crow.

Here, in fact, we find a prime example of a fallacy shrouding itself under confusion of phraseology. Doubtless variation is necessary to improvement; but it does not follow that variation is the agent. Purposive variation is one thing, purposeless variation quite another. The first is the method of the inventor, the second of the destroyer, and yet it is to this that Darwinians look as the power capable of producing all the "exquisite machinery" in nature.

To this, indeed, they are compelled. If there is a force directing successive modifications in one direction to the production of organs more and more elaborate and efficient, then must this force, and it alone, be credited with the results. The Law of Variation and Natural Selection affords no explanation of the production of new forces.

It is precisely on the claim to dispense with the necessity of any such directive force that Darwinism takes its stand, and it is in variation, altogether purposeless, that it professes to find a sufficient instrument. It is, for example, by a succession of "slight accidental variations in the required direction that Mr. Darwin himself explains the development of the eye, from the simple apparatus of an optic nerve, coated with pigment, and invested by transparent membrane to the complex organ of inimitable contrivances" which we now behold. What such an explanation really means it is worth while to inquire. We all know that the friction to which bodies at the bottom of a river are exposed inevitably changes their form-that is, makes them vary. If we were to throw in amongst the gravel ten thousand or ten million cubes of glass, is there any probability that any of them would be shaped into a lens fit to use in a telescope, such a lens as the variations wrought by an optician produce every day? Yet this is exactly what we are asked to believe, that a system of variation equally random has actually done in the eye, and might be counted upon to do.

And if it is inconceivable that one piece of glass should be ground by the method we have considered into a lens, what of the chances that two should be shaped so as to satisfy the conditions required respectively for eye-piece and objectglass? And what, then, of the supposition that the complex contrivances of the eye, cornea, iris, aqueous humor, crystalline lens, sclerotic, retina, and within this the subtle apparatus of its various subdivisions, have all simultaneously “varied,” each into the form fitting it for coöperation with the others?

In truth, the law of evolution as we find it stated is absolutely at variance with the laws of Variation and Natural selection. If we believe that in the world of real life there is orderly succession, it is that we believe, despite our inconsistent theories and systems that there is some force at the bottom of all, not aimlessly producing change, like random currents of the air, but shaping for life, forms in which it can better and better dwell.

D

RESPONSIBILITY OF INEBRIETY.
T. L. WRIGHT, M.D.

Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, New York, December. RUNKENNESS is a form of insanity, and is practically so recognized by the law; and "in insanity there can be no crime," says Judge Noah Davis. Insanity is not subject to law. When, therefore, a crime is committed by reason of drunkenness it is not strictly that identical crime that is the subject of inquiry and punishment, but it is the anterior and original act of getting drunk that is esteemed to be the actual crime. If a man gets drunk and commits no other offense he is not usually punished. But if he does commit some other offense he is held responsible, and punishable for putting himself in a drunken state. The rule of responsibility for inebri

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ates differs in civil from that in criminal cases. Our business is with the responsibility of inebriates for criminal acts. "The law assumes that he who, while sane, puts himself voluntarily into a condition in which he knows he cannot control his actions must take the consequence of his acts, and his intention may be inferred."

The inquirer, on reading this plausible and rather fair rule of law, is hardly prepared for the very next thing that he will hear (or see), namely: "Drunkenness is no defense for crime." This is a non-sequitur. Yet it is heard from the bar, the bench, and the pulpit, and it rings and reverberates throughout the whole civilized world as though it contained all the wisdom applicable to inebriate crime, and settled, at once and forever, the whole subject.

What class of inebriates is it that most frequently violates the laws of the land-and particularly those laws tliat relate to crimes of violence? Clearly that class that drinks the most immoderately, the most irrationally, the dipsomaniacal class.

Dipsomania is a mental disease. The convulsive or spasmodic drinking of the dipsomaniac is only one of the traits of the malady-showing that the insanity, no longer latent, has become active and raging. Magnan says, "The alcoholic excitement with which an attack of dipsomania terminates, should not be confounded with dipsomania itself, as it is a complication, not a symptom of it." Trelat also says: “Dipsomaniacs are patients who become intoxicated whenever their attack comes on." Other writers of note adopt these propositions as substantially correct. But who is the dipsomaniac? Always he is of the neurotic constitution. He is in a state of hypnotic automatism much of the time, not only when intoxicated; but the strong presumption is, that he labors under the same disability, very often, indeed, at the moment when he begins to consume alcohol in order to become drunken. This is inconsistent with the idea of free will or rational volition. Drunkenness is not always, if it is ever, a factor or a part of dipsomania, but may be a consequence of it. The dipsomaniac cannot be assumed to be "sane," and in drinking he does not "voluntarily" put himself in a condition in which he "knows" he cannot control himself. On the contrary, the dipsomaniac, being insane, cannot control himself when-and before-he begins his ungovernable movement of intoxication. His drinking is one of a series of causes tending towards crime—the first one of which was formed in an insane mind; and for the existence of which the inebriate mind is totally irresponsible.

In the neurotic constitution the condition called trance is not uncommon-and this is especially true in dipsomania. The hypnotic state is not recognized by its subject. He moves by suggestion, coming not only from the outside world, but also from memory and inward impulsion. He may suspect that he has suffered by afterward seeing the effects of his unnatural state. But if there are no perceptible effects, neither himself nor his friends may suspect that he has been under hypnotic influence.

In view of the facts of dipsomania, it seems unjust and untrue to declare that drunkenness is no defense for crime. In strict accordance with the legal maxim, already cited, dipsomania does, in all cases, present a good primâ facie defense for criminality. The reasonable mind, the sober mind of the dipsomaniac, has nothing to do in deciding upon the probabilities of intoxication; for the intoxication of dipsomania is only one of a series of more or less insane movements, begun and carried on under the forceful suggestions of mental disease. As long as the insanity is latent, there is no drunkenness.

In order to excuse responsibility for inebriate crime, there must be a morbid incentive, a judgment incompetent to pass upon conduct intelligently, and a defective will. The crave for drink is, in the dipsomaniac, the outcome of disease, and of unmanageable nervous distress. It must be borne in mind that the question here is not of the actual commission of crime, but it relates to the voluntary establishing of the criminal propensity through the act of drinking.

Similar considerations apply to the character of criminal responsibility in the habitual drunkard.

THE

RELIGIOUS.

THE FALLACIES OF IBN ISHAK.*

National Popular Review, Chicago, December.

HE September Arena contains a very interesting article entitled "The Future of Islam" from the pen of a talented Moslem-Ibn Ishak-educated in the Anglo-Vernacular school of British India. In the course of his paper he predicts that Islamism is the only remedy through which the social inconsistencies and dissoluteness that exist in Christian countries can be remedied.

In the following Arena we have a review of Ibn Ishak's paper-a calm philosophical dissertation upon the possibilities, future, and missionary work of Islamism, from the pen of the Rev. Thomas P. Hughes, D.D., remarkable for its candor, sound judgment, and clearly expressed idea's. Dr. Hughes does not believe that Islam will ever supplant Christianity, but looks upon Islam as a preparatory school, wherein, in time, pagans and barbarians may, in the end, be brought up to acknowledge the Christian religion.

There is about Islam a democratic simplicity that is not without attractions. Saracenic history is overflowing with examples. The Moslems have, as a rule, been humble, sober, and hospitable; with the bravery and impetuosity of the lion and the fierceness of the tiger, they at all times gave thanks to God for all success. They fought and conquered only in His name, and they-whether Caliph, general, or knightwere all on an equality with the meanest of the soldiers. The march of the Caliph Omar from his Arabian capital to Jerusalem, when that city fell into the power of the Saracen general, Amr, is, in its simplicity, unequaled; no great success, even such as followed the battle of Kadesia, where the whole Persian nation was overthrown, seemed at any time to make them vainglorious. They simply fought for Allah. To Him was due the victory. His was the glory. With such a people liberty, equality, fraternity stands for more than a mere sentiment, and it is idle to undertake to say and maintain that, in practice, the Moslems have not adhered more closely to the teaching of the Great Master than have His professed followers.

When the Arab chiefs met at the house of Mohammed's uncle, and took an oath before Allah to champion the oppressed, and to see that right and justice should prevail, and that justice should be done to all alike-regardless of tribe, position, power, or wealth-so long as one drop of water remained in the ocean, or, failing in which, that they would reimburse the injured from their own private means, it showed in these sons of the desert a sense of religious justice that exists only in the principles, but not in the practice, of highly organized religions. Mohammed did not then see that the Gospel of Peace was one thing, beautiful and grand in conception and theory, but that in practice it is inoperative. Look at the great professing and missionary British nation, and its inconsistent and contradictory opium-war, and there you have on a grand scale the actual difference that exists between the theory and practice of the Christian religion. It is certainly more pardonable to unsheath the sword in the cause of right, and to compel a people or a race to adopt a religion founded primarily on the Bible and the Gospels-even with the Koran as a subsequent foundation—than to employ fleets and a nation's armament to force another nation into demoralizing habits-habits that, unfortunately, in the shape of the opiumden are even now coming back upon inconsistent Christianity like a fearful retribution for its inconsistencies of practice.

The polygamy of the Mohammedan is something that theoretical Christianity cannot countenance. Remove polygamy from Mohammedanism, and it and the Christian creed could *See also THE LITERARY DIGEST, Vol. V., No. 8, p. 211; and Vol. VI., No. 1, p. 15.

travel side by side in peace. Dr. Hughes, in his very able paper, in speaking of this branch of contention, remarks that "it would be well for modern missions if those evangelists who carry in their hands the Biblical accounts of Lot, Jacob, David, and Solomon, as an inspired record, would avoid this objectionable and unsavory line of controversy." Inconsistently enough, as Dr. Hughes remarks, this is precisely that which the Christian missionaries at once proceed to attack in Islam. We must not overlook the fact that the social evil does not exist in Mohammedan lands, and that in our country it was the boast of the Latter-Day Saints that Salt Lake City, while under their religion, was free from that blot of Christian civilization.

The great illegitimate rate of Europe, with the infanticides daily committed, the thousands upon thousands of fatherless children, outcasts from society, are all greater puzzles to the Moslem than they are to us, we having become familiarized to their existence.

Ibn Ishak looks upon the religion of Islam as the pilot whose mission it will be to lead the Gentile world out of this slough of corruption and social derangement. His views of the social difficulty under which our people are unfortunately laboring, are in the main, too true, but erroneously he ascribes all the evils to the failure and inefficiency of the Christian religion which they profess. In part he is correct. We must admit that Druidical Europe, before it was perverted by Roman Paganism, was more honest, chaste, and moral than Christian. Europe.

What are we to say to a Moslem that takes us to task? The Rev. Dr. Hughes does not answer Ibn Ishak. Ibn Ishak simply says, You Christians have such and such moral blotches that do not exist in Islam.

Is it a sufficient answer to say that Christianity has nothing to do with it? Is it not better to tell him that Christianity is operative only where it is authoritative? Is it not better to tell him that one cause of the failure of Christianity to obtain. a better social condition is due to the fact that most reformed creeds have neglected to take the same view of man that the Hebrew. Roman Catholic, and Mohammedan religions have taken of him-that the social and moral laws must be made a part of the religion from which they should never have been separated?

Can Islam do more than Christianity has done for the Gentile? This is the question suggested by reading Ibn Ishak. He answers it in the affirmative. We must, after due reflection, answer it in the negative. The Hebrew, the Christian, and the Mohammedan religions were all of Semitic origin and were more particularly adapted for the climate in which, and the people among which, they originated. Mohammedanism could never have obtained a footing in Europe. Mohammed lived to see his religion adopted by all the nations of his race, and by foreign nations also; while Christianity struggled for centuries to convert Gentile Europe, and has hardly succeeded even now. And if this is true of a tempered Hebraic religion, of a religion adapted to meet the needs of European nations, how much more is it the case of a purely Oriental religion utterly unsuited in its requirements to the Gentile constitution and temperament.

THE BRAHMO SOMAJ.
PROTAP CHUNDER MOZOOMDAR.

New World, Boston, December.

HE Brahmo Somaj was founded on a very unpretentious basis. Two-thirds of it formed a protest against the polytheistic creed prevailing round about, and one-third of it only was a simple monotheism, a mere mustard-seed of affirmative faith, of weekly worship of the One without a second. Rajah Ram Mohem Roy, at an ill-lighted house on a dusty thoroughfare at Jorasanko in Calcutta, met a handful of land-owning Bengali millionaires, with flowing robes, voluminous turbans, and Oriental perfumes. A few Ved verses were chanted, a few improvised hymns sung, and then the congregation dispersed, Apparently there was not much promise or potency of life in a movement of this kind. The orthodox ridiculed; the Christian missionaries looked down with contempt; the masses took no notice. Sixty-one years have

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