religious nature and destiny of man; and if he could consistently give a hundred pages to the influence of nature on the feelings and imagination, as he has done, he need not so strictly have avoided giving a single line on the teachings of nature in regard to a supreme Ordainer, from whom has come the plan of creation, which plan is clearly not the result of physical laws. But he chose his field of labor, confined himself of set purpose strictly to empirical investigations, worked in it with unprecedented success and with a worldwide enduring benefit to many, and we make no complaint; do not even blame him; for into the sweet fields of idealism, into the noble sphere of theology, others have entered and will yet enter and gather the abundant harvests, for which Humboldt himself has sown the seeds of truth with no sparing hand. He wished to be regarded as a teacher of natural science, nothing more. We accept him gladly, thankfully, as such, and render him our hearty thanks for a long life's contributions to our stock of empiric knowledge. But then, on the other hand, since he does not recognize the spiritual amid the glories and wonders of nature, we respectfully bid him step aside as a subordinate to the perfect teacher, one who has, in addition to his other qualities, the "upward-looking aspect of mind which is the crowning gift of all," and which seeks "the Deity in his manifestations."

There is one historic personage between whom and Humboldt there are certain points of likeness. We introduce the parallel partly to set forth more clearly the characteristics of Humboldt, and partly to recall attention to that part of the Cosmos omitted by him, namely, the universe as a manifestation of all-comprehensive mind and all-impulsive heart. The majority of mankind will confess to Humboldt's deficiency as the perfect philosopher of nature, so long as they believe in a personal God who is the source of life and happiness, and believe that matter, nature, truth, and emotion, or the world, knowledge, and life, are not to be violently sundered into hostile antagonisms, but are to be joined in a sacred union in which the spiritual shall dominate the sensuous. We refer to Emanuel Swedenborg; but to Swedenborg as a man of science, and not, be it remembered, as a theologic seer, for there were, so to speak, two Swedenborgs: the later or theologic one supervened upon the earlier or scientific one in the fifty-fourth year of life. Humboldt and Swedenborg were descended from good families, and stood in intimate, confidential relations to royalty; both had the same republican proclivities, were advocates of the legal equality and brotherhood of all the races of men; both were students from childhood, devoted mainly to the study of the mathematical and natural sciences; both were superintendents of mines, and wrote and pub

lished works of value on metals and mines, works still held in high esteem; both were notable scientific travelers; both had a practical genius. Humboldt could give suggestions for growing fine grapes, and Swedenborg for improvements in stoves; both disliked the purely metaphysical method and used the solid inductive one in investigation; both systematized rather than collected facts; both stood head and shoulders above their native cotemporaries in the vast breadth of their scholarship, which took in solar attraction and chemic forces, the circulation of the blood, and the revolution of suns and planets, and from the force-currents of a bit of magnetized iron they could surmise the planetary forces and orbits; both accepted the universality of the laws of nature, and taught that the movements of nature, even in their most graceful, fluent forms, are at bottom as mathematically precise as the rebound of a ball or the variations of algebraic equations; both were untiring drivers of the pen for more than threescore years, were "Captains of the heroes of the Writing Desk ;" both were grandly careless of mere artistic effect in their style of writing; both were simple in dress, unassuming, modest, kind-hearted, eminently gentlemanly in deportment and catholic in feelings; both gathered slowly but comprehended broadly and remembered tenaciously; both were bachelors living in unostentatious style; both were poetic by nature, and at times blended the imaginative and the scientific in the written thought, which seemed a union of grace and truth. Both pass from external facts into the domain of the emotional, where nature by its reflex action moves the feelings, kindles the poetic impulses, and prompts those intellectual creations of wonder, grace, beauty, and terror that pervade and overarch the whole of our natural life, as testify Greek statuary, the Gothic arch, the poetic sides of science and literature and art. But here Humboldt stops. Swedenborg passes alone into the region of faith, where appear the moral bearings and religious uses of science, where the Cosmos seems more than facts, and physical laws seem a revelation of intelligence and goodness; where philosophy and science are merged into life, where the intellect serves the moral sentiment, where the Deity is sought from his works. It is more for the spirit and aim of Swedenborg's dealing with science than for the net results that we value him, and we prefer an occasional stepping from the material to the spiritual with. the Swedish seer to an abiding amid the former with the German sage.

The world divides its teachers and thinkers into two classes, the materialists and the idealists. The materialist believes in houses and lands, in external history, the senses as the sole source of

knowledge, the universe as matter regulated by fixed discoverable laws, and the ministry of material uses, such as social wants, bread, freedom from oppressive toil, as the final causes of science. But the idealist affirms that the spiritual and material import of a fact are the reverse and obverse sides of the same; that nature is symbolic as well as servile, and her facts are significant of beauty and goodness as well as of utility. He sees an intellect through the geometry of the heavens, in the harmony of chemical proportion; a supernatural ordainer in the order in the universe; a moral governor in the moral, social, and individual compensations; a divine goodness and beauty in the abundant blessings and profuse beauty of the world. Flowers reduced to their ultimate classification so as to exhibit their relation to soil and climate, and the connection between root, stem, and flower for an instructive lesson; but when, from the idealist point of view, the great teacher teaches the goodness of the Creator and the loveliness and certitude of human trust, who does not see that it is a lesson of nature transcending that of simple empiricism?

"Consider the lilies of the field how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass . . . shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore, take no thought, saying, What shall we eat?" etc. The words wherefore and therefore emphasize this didactic use of nature. The whole passage is one of the finest instances we know of, illustrating how the insight of the reason is a minister to the devotional, trustful feelings of the soul, and leads to a serene faith which men ever require unless they have done violence to some of the noblest aspirations of our common nature. He has firmest hold of the feelings and thoughts of the world who is a minister of the ideal and the real in common. The Mystics even are a useful class, serving higher uses than grinding corn or grading railroads, inasmuch as they give to facts and principles, which the empiricist has exhausted and left, the higher aesthetic charm, the poetic uses and moral significance, which alone will prevent this wonderful, complicated universe from appearing as a mere congeries of material forms, as a piece of godless mechanism.

Where physical nature ends Humboldt pauses. A laborious life of near a century and no rise to the higher planes of thought, no answer to the demands of a first philosophy, no heed to the immortal longings of the soul. We still wait for the Christian philosopher, the true expounder of a universe which discloses "premeditation prior to the act of creation," and which, as it contains the thoughts

of the Deity, must yield to man, created in his image, lessons of life suited to an heir of immortality.

We said that the contest between faith and science was waning. It is even so. But this has been brought about by reconciling the two, not by the triumph of one over the other. It must be the same henceforth. We have no fears of the results of any scientific investigations. All scientific truths may be wrought into the experience of a perfect life, of a life that is rounded out according to God's ultimate idea of manhood. The astronomer will resolve nebula, weigh worlds, and bring the starry hosts within the domain of mechanics, without regard to Scripture statements. So let him work. The geologist will examine the great stone book, and translate therefrom the records of extinct organisms, and bring to light relics and memorials and forms of bygone ages, without regard to the book of Genesis. So let him work. The chemist will analyze and recombine matter with no eye for proofs of anything outside of his sphere of labor. So let him work. The ethnologist will study the varieties of the race in the forms of the skull and facial angles, in their anatomy, color, and hair, without regard to the Scripture doctrine of the unity of the race. A Layard exhumes Nineveh without seeking to confirm Jewish history. So let them work. For in the end all the lines of separate inquiry will ray inward to the same center, will establish, explain, or illustrate Bible truths. We think the duty of the clergy as the spiritual guides of men is clear: it is to welcome the truths of science in the spirit of a genial recognition of the laborers in science, as co-workers with them to the same end, namely, the glory of the Creator and the wellbeing of the creature. For it is in nature that we trace the fresh footprints of the Deity; in nature, fluent or solid, hide his precious thoughts, and man is the interpreter of the same. The times have changed and we must change with them. About Arius and Athanasius, primitive Millenarianism and Monasticism, it is well to study in connection with Christian doctrines; but the preacher of to-day should no less con well the lessons of the telescope, the microscope, the blowpipe, and the crucible, for just here are now some of the most gifted intellects of our race working with an enthusiasm and a reward unknown before. Here too lies the conflict with the infidel tendencies of the age. The smoke of the old metaphysical battles has well-nigh rolled away. It was the ring of the geologist's hammer that recently summoned to a contest on another field, that of the physical sciences. Yet even here the oneness of nature and revelation will be so shown as to increase man's confidence in the power, wisdom, and goodness of a God who is One. The physical sciences are radiant with promises of good cheer to man.

ART. VI.-THE PARSEES.

The Parsees, their History, Manners, Customs, and Religion. By DOSABHOY FRAMJEE. London: Smith, Elder, & Co. 1858.

Parsisme. By M. MICHEL NICOLAS. Revue Germanique.

Mazdeisme. By M. HAUG. Two articles in Revue Cotemporaine.

THOUGH few in number, the Parsees possess an interest for the Christian scholar surpassing that of any Oriental nation except the chosen people of God. Under the various names of Magians, Guebres, Gebirs, and Parsees, they have maintained a distinct national existence, a peculiar national creed, and a system of religious worship, varying in a marked degree from the nations by which they were surrounded, from a period prior to the birth of Abraham to the present day.

They are not, and never have been, as a people, idolaters. No idols have ever defiled their temples, no sacrifices have ever stained their altars: They have been stigmatized for ages as fire-worshipers, but they have always indignantly repudiated the charge, and we believe with truth, except, perhaps, in the case of the most ignorant among them. They preserve indeed what they call the sacred fire in their temples, but so did the Jews. They offer no sacrifices to it, but burn incense lighted from it in their temples. Their own account of this worship is, that they regard fire and the sun as special symbols, by which Ormuzd, the supreme being, manifests his good-will and beneficence toward men, and hence they are to be regarded as sacred, but not to be considered as objects of worship, or to be addressed as existences. As a people, the Parsees have been acknowledged, even by their enemies, in all ages, to be virtuous, chaste, brave, regardful of the rights of others, and eminently good citizens.

A people who have thus maintained their integrity for four thousand years have a claim to be better known and understood by Christian nations; and it is with a satisfaction in which we are certain our readers will participate, that we present a brief sketch of their history, their religious views, and their present condition, drawn from recent works published by themselves, and from the testimony of those who have long resided among them, and whose eminent scholarship, not less than their thorough familiarity with the Parsee customs and worship, qualifies them to be competent witnesses on the subject.

The descendants of Shem who settled in Persia and Media seem