homed's words: the worst of men is he who sells slaves.' These words are transmitted by the second source of Mahomedan law, the authenticated tradition or Hadis, accepted by Sunnès and Shiáhs alike. The strangest confirmation of Mahomed's protest against slavery lies in the fact that if a Mahomedan woman has been tempted or forced to enter the harem, it is forbidden she should become the slave of the Mahomedan master, who must legally marry her. For a woman to be a Mahomedan is to be preserved from slavery. The words of the African traveler Rohlfs are in the implied sense contrary to truth: At present Islam has triumphed, and slavery, the inevitable consequence of Mahomedan government, is reëstablished. · Political influences, contrary to the injunctions of the Korân, will not forever be permitted to stand in the way of measures such as those taken by united Powers to prevent in Africa the exportation of slaves and the importation of arms and ammunition. Even the conception of a crusade against Islam would be impossible in our days of enlightment. If such an attack were ever attempted, it would inevitably call forth the Jihad, or the utmost effort for the protection of Mahomedanism against assault.' But even the so explained Jihad, and what was later called the holy war,' a 'righteous effort of waging war in self-defence against the grossest outrage on one's religion,' is strictly limited by the Korân. 'Permission is granted unto those who take arms against the unbelievers, because they have been unjustly persecuted by them, and have been turned out of their habitations injuriously and for no other reason than because they say, 'Our Lord is God.' And if God did not repel the violence of some men by others, verily monasteries and churches and synagogues and mosques, wherein the name of God is frequently commemorated, would be utterly demolished.' Another hindrance to Islam's progress and to the peaceful relations is the want of knowledge respecting symbols, particularly the symbol of the cross. According to the teaching of Jesus the cross symbol continued to be what it had been for ages in India and Egypt, the symbol of Divine enlightenment (Vol. XII, p. 181). The aboriginal cross, similar to the Greek letter tau, to which points the Greek word for cross 'stauros,' in the form of a yoke, was by the ancient Egypttians and Indians connected with the sun and with fire respectively. The hieroglyphic of the Egyptian Tau meant 'ankh' or enduring life. The Tau-cross is represented, on a monument of Dynasty XVIII, at the end of a solar ray, connecting Pharaoh's nostrils with the solar disc, symbol of the throne of God. Enduring life is thus indicated to have been sent by God to Pharaoh, his vicegerent. Moses, or another in his name, knew this symbolism when he wrote in Genesis that God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life. The Indian swastica-cross, perhaps originally in the form of Tau, was formed by the two firesticks, the arcani of the ancient Indians. Fire became the symbol of the spirit, and thus the original Christian cross indicated spiritual enlightenment, the anointing. Jesus certainly connected no other sense with the cross. In order to follow him, man in whom is the holy spirit, is to take up his cross, the easy yoke of spiritual obedience. To Mahomed the cross was known only in the new sense which Paul had first given to it, by connecting with the cross his doctrine of redemption, asserting that the reconciliation between God and humanity had been brought about by Messiah's blood shed on the cross. Absolutely denying this Paulinian doctrine, Mahomed could not accept this symbol of the cross, and he, probably like all Jews and Christians, knew not how to explain the cross-symbol of Jesus and of antiquity, which absolutely excluded the meaning which Paul gave to it. In the historical sense, Paul and his followers were and are the enemies of the cross of Christ.' A reformation of Islam in the spirit of its founder, but beyond what Mahomed could contemplate, is considered to be an impossibility by a high but not unprejudiced anthority. Sir William Muir regards the low position of Islam in the scale of civilisation' as the necessary consequence of two causes. Islam's founder intended this religion only 'for Arabia, not for the world; for the Arabs of the seventh century, not for the Arabs of all time; and being such and nothing more, its claim of Divine origin renders change or development impossible." With respect to the first point the writer admits it to be doubtful whether Mahomed in his later days may have contemplated the reformation of other religions beyond the peninsula. The second point is the most important. All the injunctions 'social and ceremonial as well as doctrinal and didactic' are embodied in the Korân 'as part of the Divine law,' so that 'defying as sacrilege all human touch,' the Korân stands unalterable forever.'' From the stiff and rigid shroud in which it is thus swathed, the religion of Mahomed cannot emerge. It has no plastic power beyond that exercised in its earliest days. Hardened now and inelastic, it can neither adapt itself nor yet shape its votaries, nor even suffer them to shape themselves, to the varying circumstances, the wants and development of mankind.' To the unprejudiced reader we would submit the following reply: What has become of the many injunctions in the Old Testament, embodied with every peculiarity of detail as part of the Divine Law? How is to be explained the doctrinal developments in the Bible? We are told in the New Testament that since the most ancient times essential doctrines were 'kept in silence' till the mystery was made known by prophets. Thus Jesus declared that the doctrine of the Spirit of God in mankind, the spiritual new covenant foretold by Jeremiah, that the kingdom of heaven on earth had been kept back and its spreading hindered by the law and the prophets until John. Did Jesus consider that this imposed silence was in accordance with a Divine command, or did he for this reason call Moses and the prophets 'thieves and murderers,' 'because they had taken away' the key of knowledge' from the people, because they had covered the Scriptures by a veil,' for having done what Paul implies to have been the falsifying of God's word? Who were inspired, the original writers or those who revised and developed their doctrines? If the latter, then that which is recorded in the Bible as part of the Divine Law, defying as sacrilege every human touch, was nevertheless reformed Iwith Divine sanction. If the text of the Bible and its interpretation has not stood unalterable forever, how can it be asserted that a revision and reformation of the Korân, in the spirit of Islam's founder, is impossible? The superstitious and now proved unhistorical and misleading conceptions respecting the inspiration of the Bible as an infallible record have led to the unauthorised belief in the Korân as a book come from heaven. With Barthélemy St Hilaire, we neither revolt against Islam nor despair of its transformation and progress. If the exigencies of our advancing time require a reform of Islam, the questions arise, who shall give the first impulse to it, who shall take the lead of the movement? Certainly not Christian missionaries, who, without the necessary knowledge of church history, by their teaching, deny the connection of Islam with the doctrines of Jesus, and thus with the prophecies of the Old Testament. The development of Islam can be furthered only by the example of men of higher culture, the application of all established results of scientific investigations, the avoiding of all attempts at conversion, the support of suitable teachers in Mahomedan schools, and above all by the gradually increasing conviction that, from a church history point of view, Mahomedans are Jews, that the true followers of Mahomed, like the true followers of Jesus, represent in essential points JewishChristiansor prepaulinic christianity. The Sultan would have the power to such carry through a reform, if political interests in the future. should suggest such a movement, which probable. For the democratic theocracy of the Sunnís recognise the in fact existing Khalifat (kháfat) of the Sultan for the time being. This they do without going counter to the general expectation in the Mahomedan world of a spiritual head or Imám, whom the Shiahs expect as a Koreishi by descent, and as the reappearance of the twelfth or last Imám, Muhammad Mahdi, who is said to have disappeared A. H. 265, or A. D. 878-879. SONS OF THUNDER. Jesus calls to of his disciples (John and James) Boanerges, or "the Sons of Thunder (Mark iii, 17). Kenealy says that is "Sons of the Messiah." In the Hetruscan language, the most ancient after the Chinese or Sanskrit, of which we have any record, "Manu-Biai" means " Volumes of Thunder." Oannes declares he was about to write what the Thunders spake, but was forbidden. PHILOSOPHER OR THEOSOPHER. I have been searching for the first use of the word Theosophy or Theosopher, but have not traced it very far back. Can you give any light on the matter? OBELOS. A copy of the work of Jacob Behmen on "The Three Principles of the Divine Essence," London, 1648, has on the title page," Jacob Behmen, Alias Teutonicus Fhilosophus." The works of Jacob Behmen, printed in London, 1763, has on the title page, "Jacob Behmen, the Teutonic Theosopher." The works of William Law, printed in London, 1856, has on the title-page, "The Celebrated Divine and Theosopher, William Law." The publications of the Philadelphian Society, for the Advancement of Divine Philosophy, are entitled "Theosophical Transactions," 4to., pp. 294. 1697. If any reader can antedate 1697, please send in quotations and the references. Theosophy is thus defined by Webster : "Any system of philosophy or mysticism which proposes to attain intercourse with God and superior spirits, and consequently superhuman knowledge, by physical processes, as by the theurgic operations of some ancient Platonists, or by the chemical processes of the German fire philosophers; also, a direct, as distinguished from a revealed knowledge of God, supposed to be attended by extraordinary illumination ; a specially direct insight into the processes of the divine mind, and the interior relations of the divine nature." REQUISITES FOR AN AUTHOR. The following advertisement appeared in an English journal in the '50's, and as the call was not very promptly responded to, the requirements were later modified, and William Law's "Serious Call to a Holy Life," "Cause and Reason, or Natural Religion," were cited as examples for style, metaphysics, and logical reasoning: "WANTED, a Gentleman of high Literary Talent, and deep Devo tional Spirit, not under forty years of age, who, during his scholastic studies, has been well versed in the casuistry and metaphysics of an cient divinity, and whose style of composition is that strict logical ar gumentation, however its severity may be arrayed in the simplicity and graces of rhetoric, to assist in writing an elevated religious and philosophic biography." Jacob Behmen — the most profound, the most unaffected of all he mystics of the sixteenth century."- Victor Cousin. BIBLIOGRAPHER'S PRAYER. The following is Eugene Field's prayer as recently published in the New York Sun, in connection with a sale. of rare books : Keep me 1 pray, in wisdom's way, That I may truths eternal seek ; I need protecting care today, My purse is light, my flesh is weak; Of first editions and of prints. Which leads away from bookish strife, But if, O Lord, it pleaseth Thee 1 humbly ask that I way be Which I shall purchase, hold, and keep, As in rare copper-plates abounds, Uncut, unique," unknown to Lowndes." OLD AND NEW STYLE. Prior to 1582 the year commenced on March 25. The new style, in which the year commenced on January I, was not introduced into Great Britain until 1752, and then as 170 years had elapsed since the new style was established by Pope Gregory, it was necessary to get rid of 11 days; and this was done by calling September 3, September 14. In Russia the Old Style is still retained. GEGENSCHEIN. (Vol. XII, p. 214,) A phenomenon connected. with the zodiacal light. It is a small spot of faint light seen in the sky opposite to the sun's place, that is, 180° from the sun. Keen eyesight is necessary for its detection, as it is always very faint. ΜΑΝ "Whose heaven-erected face the smiles of love adorn." "Whatsoever ought to be either is or is to be."-GEORGE STEARNS. |