a very curious parallel. Both live under a dynasty of foreign conquerors, long established in Babylonia; both represent these foreigners as regarding the native Babylonians with aversion or contempt. Kuthami, like Ibn Wahshiyyah, does not openly express his dislike for the dominant race, but speaks of them in cautious and moderate terms, disclaiming all wish to give them offense, and acknowledging that they have rendered services to his own countrymen. Kuthami tells us that before the accession of this dynasty there were found in most cities of his land artists, whose business it was to make figures of animals (to be consecrated to the gods); but now this business had ceased; "for the mass of a people," he says, "adopt the religion of their kings." There seems to be an evident allusion here to the adoption of Islamism by the mass of the Babylonian people; all figures of living beings, it is well known, were regarded by the Moslems as a heathen abomination. And Gutschmid is probably correct in regarding the religion of Ishitha, the dominant religion of Kuthami's time, as intended to represent the Mohammedan system. The description given of the former applies also to the latter. It is spoken of as founded on gross superstitions, as having at its head a kind of popedom or spiritual caliphate, and as having gradually diffused itself over all Mesopotamia and Syria. Its head was viewed as successor or substitute of Ishitha, as the caliph was Mohammed's substitute. Thus all power among the Ishithians was centred in his person; and hence arose great intolerance and severe persecution of liberal thinkers-an allusion, seemingly, to religious persecutions carried on by several of the Abbasid caliphs. The polemic constantly maintained by Kuthami against the religion of Ishitha would thus represent the evident, though covert, hostility of Ibn Wahshiyyah to the relig

ion of Mohammed.

Chwolson, in defending the good faith of Ibn Wahshiyyah, urges that, though passionately desiring to obtain honor for his Chaldæan ancestors, he has reproduced many things which his Arab public would regard as absurd or impious. The reference here must be to the elements of heathen belief and of magical practice, which are incorporated in these works. But

for magic the Arabs have always shown a remarkable predilection; and this feature of the Nabathæan books has probably contributed very much to their popularity among that people. As to heathenism, the Arab reader would expect it as a matter of course, and would easily excuse it in an ancient heathen who lived and wrote nineteen centuries before Mohammed. Thus through the disguise which he adopted, Ibn Wahshiyyah was able to bring out his own religious views, and to carry on his covert attacks upon the faith of Islam, without either endangering his own personal safety, or defeating in any measure his other great object, that of winning credit and admiration for the ancient inhabitants of his country.

If it is thought surprising that a man of decided talents and extensive erudition should have been willing thus to surrender his own individuality, and to give up the reputation which belonged to him as an original writer, the case is not without parallel in literary history. A Scotchman of the last century put forward as translations from an ancient Highland bard, a series of poems, which were mainly, if not wholly, his own composition. Yet though Ossian set the world on fire, and was speedily rendered into all the languages of Europe, and found critics of reputation who placed him on the same throne with Homer, Macpherson never to the last acknowledged his own productions; "he died, and made no sign." But among the Orientals, and especially among the Arabs, the case is much less peculiar and surprising. In regard to Arabic authorship, we quote the just and striking remarks of Meyer in his recent History of Botany: "Even original writers, for such were not altogether wanting, sought to gain a reputation less for originality than for extent of reading, and even affected the appearance of mere compilers, representing what was really peculiar to themselves, as if it had been expressed long before, and they had only been able through their comprehensive learning to bring it out again from the darkness of oblivion. This way of writing was perhaps adopted in part from the pressure of despotism. Boldly to set forth one's own thought, might often be more hazardous than simply to repeat it in the words, or to deduce it from the words, of an ac

knowledged master who was long since dead. Such words would doubtless have far more weight with an unreasoning despot than the strongest argument of a contemporary whom he regarded as only a football for his own capricious humor."

The hopes excited by the confident announcement of an ancient Babylonian literature surviving in extensive specimens, have ended in disappointment. The light is extinguished, which for a moment seemed to flicker over the desolations of Babylon. The darkness of remote antiquity settles down again on the doomed city, whose prosperity and pride are attested, and whose utter ruin is predicted, by the ancient Hebrew prophets. Whatever accessions may hereafter be made to our knowledge of it, must be made, it should seem, from the careful study of its ruins, as well as the ruins of other great cities in the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris. The monuments of Nineveh and Babylon are covered with the arrowheads and wedges of a strange and complicated system of writing. A beginning has been made in the work of deciphering these characters; and though the results thus far obtained by Rawlinson, Hincks, Oppert, and others, have not been such as to command the unquestioning assent of scholars, we have yet ground to hope that investigation here will pass beyond the region of conjectures and tentatives, and will arrive at positive and reliable conclusions. But it is certain that the Nabathæan literature will furnish little or no material for illustrating the times of Babylonian greatness. The immense importance which would belong to it, if genuine, vanishes of course with the recognition of its spuriousness. Yet it is very far from being unimportant, and scholars will await with much interest its promised publication. It will present, as in a vast repository, the science, and especially the natural science, possessed by the eastern world a thousand years ago. And, what is perhaps yet more important, it will show the unscientific, or anti-scientific, elements of eastern thought, in the period of its composition; the ignorance and error which prevailed in reference to the history of past times; the monstrous, yet prosaic, inventions of legendary fiction; the superstitious beliefs and the scarcely less superstitious skepticism; the affectation of

superhuman wisdom and the pretension to a magical power over nature. At all events, it will be recognized as the most prodigious specimen the world has yet seen of literary imposture. Immense in extent, multifarious in contents, it represents the labor of a life-time, and embodies the learning of an age. After continuing for ten centuries to impose upon the Eastern world, it has found able and strenuous advocates in the West, and has not been unmasked without much expenditure of critical ingenuity and scholarly research.

ARTICLE IX.-CHURCH-GOING.

EVERY now and then somebody gives us the church-going statistics, from which it appears that the people do not go universally, not even extensively. Indeed, it is not unfrequently remarked: "People don't go to church as much as they used to."

How do you account for it? we asked of a friend who made this remark, not many days ago.

“Oh, they are carried elsewhere by the isms of the day,Adventism, Mormonism, Spiritualism, and every other new thing."

But delusions are not peculiar to our day; they have always existed, in every age. Do you mean to pronounce the people more foolish now than they have been in any former age?

"Well, no, probably not. I rather think there was more talent in the pulpit, in former days, than there is now."

If by talent you mean learning, and skill to use it, in accordance with the canons of logic and rhetoric taught in our schools of learning, we can't agree with you. The evidence all points the other way. Our schools, colleges, and seminaries have unquestionably made long strides in advance of the attainments of former days. The scholarship of the men of mark was on the whole never so comprehensive, nor so accurate, as now. So far, then, as scholarship has to do with filling our churches, the argument is in favor of our cotemporaries. And yet the fact is hardly to be questioned,-the people take less interest in church-going than formerly. Can there be any doubt that church services are a boon to man? or that they stand closely related to his best intellectual, moral, and spiritual condition? Surely not. Is the tendency of the age downward? We think not. Certainly the history of the past fifty years is a history of unparalleled progress. And no doubt the church attendance is numerically greater now than at any former time; and yet, it may be true, and probably is true, that