with authority, and is an assured conclusion from the researches of A. V. Williams Jackson of Columbia University, New York; of Franz Cumont of Ghent; his countryman Count d'Alviella of Brussels, and especially Professor Lawrence H. Mills of Oxford, England.

It will be of interest to our readers to learn that Professor Haeckel, the great scientist, has lately re-affirmed the theory that our religion ultimately came from the Exile. To put the claims of the criticism in a nutshell: "We are actually what we are, as Orthodox Christians, because of this wide-spread North-Persian system."

We read in the first book of Esdras (vi. 24) that "in the first year of Cyrus, King Cyrus commanded to have the house of the Lord in Jerusalem built, where they should worship with eternal fire." The book of Esdras further states the woods and measures of the temple, and how the king had the gold and silver vessels which had been taken away by Nebuchadnezzar as spoils of war returned for temple service.

We can not doubt that Cyrus represented a reform movement in the Orient and that part of his success is due to the purity of his religious convictions. Not without good reason does Isaiah call him "the Messiah of Yahveh," and the "shepherd of the nations" whom God has called to rule over the world.

All the reports corroborate the theory that the religion of Cyrus was not only congenial to the Jews, but that it also influenced both their doctrines and ceremonials.

Professor Lawrence H. Mills has made a special study of Zoroaster and his religious system and has written a book which will be published in the near future. We predict that the significance of the Zendavesta in its relation to both the Old and the New Testaments, will be of increasing significance. Professor Mills writes in a letter to the editor: "The Jewish Bible surpasses the original Zendavesta only in the inspired genius of its depictments. Cold-blooded critics might well call the Gathas the purer book."

Professor Mills has given his instructive book Zarathushtra, Philo, the Achæmenids and Israel a formidable title, but it is written in easy style, and was for the most part delivered as University lectures. The author is however conservative as to the primary origin of the doctrines, holding that they were Jewish; but he exhaustively depicts the facts. Every Christian, not to say, every scholar, should read the book. It is the only one of the kind as yet attempted.

A JAPANESE WRITER'S HISTORY OF HIS THE

OLOGY.

COMMUNICATED BY E. W. CLEMENT.

W

HEN I was a boy there were few boys worse than I as far as downright mischief is concerned. I was fond of playing all sorts of pranks on passers-by. One of these was to put small snakes in a cake bag and then to throw down the bag for somebody to pick up while I watched from behind some obstacle. Many of my tricks were so bad that I expected the gods of whom I had heard so much would certainly punish me. As they did nothing, I at once began to doubt their existence. Shortly after this my grandmother, who belonged to the Nichiren sect, commenced to take me to hear sermons at the temple. At first I was greatly bored, but eventually got interested in all the preacher told us about the wonderful doings of Nichiren. I began to think that gods and divinities were real beings after all.

But having a practical mind, I decided that I would put this question to a fair test. We had an image of Nichiren in our house. So one day I removed this image from the altar and, taking it outside, submitted it to the greatest indignities possible. Subsequently I restored it to its place and waited to see what punishment I should get for this insult to the divinity. When nothing happened, I became more and more confirmed in the belief that no such beings as gods exist.

This was my state of mind when I gradually grew into manhood. I studied Chinese under a man who had very strong antiforeign feelings, and being very susceptible to the influence of those with whom I associate, I gradually imbibed his views. Later when I commenced to study English, I regarded it as the language of a set of barbarians that was hardly worthy of serious attention. The man who taught me English had been the pastor of a church, and he

grew very fond of me and begged me to read the Bible. He gave me a copy, but I despised foreign things too much to even open it. Subsequently I was asked by this teacher whether I thought I could do my duty in the world unaided by a higher power. I felt then that I could not, but I knew that to say so was to acknowledge my need of divine assistance. This I did not want to do, so I left him without replying. I next came into contact with the Spencerianism of Toyama and Yatabe. Their arguments were welcomed by me as supporting my atheism. I thought then that I understood Spencer, but now I perceive this was only youthful conceit. At this time I commenced to lose my contempt for English and to study it with a will until I knew enough to read and understand pretty difficult works. Having reached that stage, I tackled the English translation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. That book taught me much, but at the same time raised a number of new doubts in my mind. It will be remembered that Kant makes it quite plain that all attempts to prove the existence of a deity by speculative reasoning. have signally failed. Whether God exists or not can not, according to him, be determined by reason. But while saying this Kant declares himself to be a believer in the existence of God. This dumbfounded me. That a man like Kant should have been satisfied by the transcendental arguments whose inconclusiveness he takes such pains to show, or should have been able to rest his faith in the existence of God on any other satisfactory basis, is certainly surprising. His personal belief and his written agruments seemed to me to be irreconcilable with each other. But since a man of such enormous intellectual capacity as Kant was able to retain his belief, despite his failure to find for it a thoroughly rational basis, why should not I do the same?

With this feeling, I commenced to read the Christian Bible earnestly and accepted its transcendental teaching. "God's nature,” I said, "is beyond our comprehension, but it is plain that God exists. Our conception of the world would be incomplete did we not predicate this existence." And so I passed from the stage of unconscious atheism to that of conscious theism. But, as you will see, I had not reached the end of my theological journey by any means. Though I accepted at this time the Christian conception of God, I joined no Christian church. I offered up no prayers. I sang no hymns of praise. To me there seemed to be an air of great hypocrisy about such Christian services as I attended. The words used by pastors in prayers often struck me as utterly silly. For instance, one pastor asks that God will grant special blessings to all assembled in his

church; which is equivalent to asking an impartial deity to be pleased to stoop to favoritism. The words used in hymns did not seem to me to represent in the least the real feelings of the persons singing these hymns. Christian services impressed me badly, but they did not lead me to condemn Christianity altogether, as I felt then that the creed was better than the men and women who professed it. I even went so far as to defend Christianity against the attacks of certain conservative educationists (Dr. Inoue Tetsujirō and his fellowthinkers). But as the years went by and my mind reached its maturity, I argued to myself thus:

In the opinion of the deepest thinkers that which is beneath the phenomena of the universe, call it what we may, clothe it with what attributes we may, is to us absolutely unknowable. What creeds like Christianity teach about God rests only on imagination. To say that God is capable of love or hatred, to supply the world with an exhaustive list of the traits he is supposed to have, does not help us at all to understand the real nature of God. This God of the religious is an invented God rather than a real one. If it be true that what is known as the real substance of the universe is God, and that real substance has an actual existence, it is quite plain that we finite beings whose intelligence is of a comparatively low order can never know God. So I come to the conclusion that there is no God that we can know. I am then an atheist in the sense that I can affirm that to us human beings no knowable God exists.

The stages of theological thought through which I have passed then are these: (1) I began with unconscious atheism. (2) I passed on to superstitious polytheism. (3) This drove me back to atheism. of an arbitrary type. (4) Thence by the process described above I reached a stage of conscious monotheism. (5) But not finding any logical resting-place there, I passed on to conscious atheism. This is of course a contradiction in terms. Of the non-existence of God there can not possibly be any consciousness. As consciousness, after all, only embraces a very limited area and God may exist in the region beyond, to make consciousness or non-consciousness the test of his existence or non-existence is of course quite absurd.

MISCELLANEOUS.

BENEDICTUS DE SPINOZA.

Our readers will be pleased to find reproduced in our frontispiece an unusually good and authoritative portrait of Spinoza, the original of which has been kindly loaned us by Mrs. Julius Rosenthal of Chicago. We will add that we knew of the existence of this portrait from her late husband, Julius Rosenthal, who unfortunately died about a year ago at the age of seventy-six, as a result of being knocked down on the street by a cab. We take this opportunity to express our great appreciation of the friendship of Mr. Rosenthal, who endeared himself to us through his congenial spirit and the intense interest he took in the work of the Open Court Publishing Company.

Mr. Julius Rosenthal discovered the original of this picture in Europe, and appreciating its unusual merit, had it framed under glass. It had been engraved soon after Spinoza's death by an artist who knew the philosopher personally. The Latin lines were accompanied by a Dutch version which reads as follows:

"Dit is de schaduw van Spinoza's zienlijk beelt,

Daar't gladde koper geen sieraat meer aan kon geven;
Maar zijn gezegent brein, zoo rijk hem meégedeelt,
Doet in zijn schriften hem aanschouwen naar het leven.
Wie oil begeerte tot de wysheit heest gehad,

Hier was die Zuiver en op't snedigste gevat."

We here publish an English translation of the Latin in the original meter: "He to whom Nature and God were known, and the cosmical order,

Here he, Spinoza, is seen; here are his features portrayed;

But the man's face has been pictured alone. As for painting his spirit, Verily Zeuxides' hands would not suffice for the task.

Seek in his writings his mind, where he treateth of things that are lofty. He who is anxious to know, therefore, his writings must read."

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES.

SHINTO, THE WAY OF THE GODS. By W. G. Aston. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1905. Pp. 390.

The present volume on Shinto, or as we commonly say, "Shintoism," the native religion of Japan, bids fair to become the standard book for information not only to us Western people but also to the Japanese themselves.