of truth, honour, and justice, upon which the war was based. But how could this be done? How could they persuade the people of this country that all had been righteously done? Surmises are not enough in a blue book. Evidence must be given, and that of a tangible character. Whence could this be gained? The only authority upon which the government could rely, Burnes, had so completely vindicated the ruler whose integrity they required to impeach, that if his papers were sent out to the world the entire policy of the Government would be condemned as vile and iniquitous. In his letters the clearest evidence was furnished proving Dost Mahomed's true character and aims to be noble and upon our side! Under these circumstances it was resolved to mutilate his letters, so that, by means of omissions and textual modifications, they would be made to read precisely the reverse of what the writer intended-as if their author approved the policy of the Government, and considered the ruler of Cabul to be utterly untrustworthy. Black was made to be white; innocence was changed into guilt; and the forger pointed to Burnes as furnishing abundant proof of the soundness of their policy. He was publicly called the cause of that war. Every line calculated to lead to the belief of Dost Mahomed being an honest man was carefully suppressed, and in some instances where Burnes quoted from a letter language against him, in order to reply to it, the word's he quoted were given as his own, and his reply was omitted. A more scandalous case of fraud and forgery was never committed, and had any poor man been guilty of a similar act, in order to obtain ten pounds, he would have found his way to the bar of the Old Bailey, and thence to some convict establishment.

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The defensive plea put in by many is, that this atrocious proceeding dates some twenty years back. True, but time does not consecrate wrong, and as the same men are in power, we hold them to be still responsible. The Minister himself feels the force of the argument, and has ever felt it. In 1842, when, upon Mr. Baillie's motion, Lord Palmerston was questioned upon this subject, he boldly asserted in the House that "Lord Auckland had "adopted, and could not have done otherwise than adopt, the views of Alex"ander Burnes;" but he knew at that time the contrary was true. In 1848 when replying upon this charge of omissions, his Lordship declared that "the papers laid before the House contained a faithful report of the views pre"sented by Sir A. Burnes to the Government; but he knew that this was not the case. The other day he declared that "Burnes was deceived by the "Dost, and his opinions could not be acted upon." Thus, upon each occasion he has made a fresh but contradictory statement, and now he stands forward to justify the fraud practised upon the nation. Where, then, are all our securities? our boasts of freedom? our sense of honour? and our theory that, as English gentlemen conduct the Government, there is no danger of dishonourable doings? What is there we have to rely upon when the Government publishes forged documents? How are we any longer to place confidence in printed blue books? Nothing that has occurred during the past century has done more to destroy confidence in public men than has been accomplished by the proof of this treachery, forgery, and wilful lying; and unless the House of Commons does something whereby to redeem itself from the danger of being thus deceived, it will remain at the mercy of a forging minister. The matter has, however, larger and more serious issues than that; for such things may not pass unchallenged without evil resulting to the moral sense of the nation at large.

P. W. P.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE REFORMATION.-XIV.

SPIRITUAL TERRORISM.

SPAIN and Portugal were the only countries in which the Inquisition ever became a permanent institution, or wherein its principles were completely carried out. In France it soon died a natural death. In the Italian States it mainly served a political purpose, and was never a prominent institution; while in Germany it can scarcely be said to have been at any time established in its completeness. Only in Cologne was it for any length of time a recognised tribunal. While, however, this was so, it is nevertheless true that the influence of this institution extended itself over the whole of Continental Europe. The fear of heresy becoming prevalent in any particular district, the dread of a province or country becoming suspected of disaffection, and a means and reason being thus furnished for the Church to call for the establishment of this tribunal, must have tended to repress freethought and enquiry everywhere. Moreover, the constant visits of the itinerant Dominicans, who were ever ready to uphold the acts of the Inquisition (of which they were proud, as the development of the idea of their founder), must have been effectual to produce in the minds of the vulgar, to whom these itinerant preachers addressed their sermons, a false view of the right of the Church to repress thought; and with that to create the idea (so subversive of morality) that crime committed in the name of God, and for the service of the Church, was no longer crime but virtue.

In our review of the "Characteristics of the Reformation," it will become our business to trace the gradual growth in Europe of a feeling of restlessness, under this Spiritual Terrorism, rapidly settling into a determination to cast off the unbearable yoke laid upon the minds and consciences of the people; until at length, by the voice of Luther, the unuttered feelings of thousands found expression, and then the progress of the great revolt against the Church will be seen to be as rapid and thorough as the tyranny had been great and unrelenting. Our task will now be to watch the seeds of Reformation, painfully sown through persecution, amid sorrow and misery, but steadily though slowly germinating in the darkness of the ages of priestly domination, and at length springing up into vigorous life. It is a significant fact that even in Spain and Portugal, where the priest became the supreme despot, where every care was taken, not only to prevent the existence of the shadow of freedom, but to destroy all knowledge of its existence-to coerce people into forgetting its very name, these seeds bore vigorous fruit; teaching Priestcraft a lesson, if it could learn it, that, after all, its attempt is one which can never be successful, and that coerce and drill, and despotise over, and brutalize the human mind as it may, there will be still be left somewhat above its might, needing but the kindling spark to make it burst into a flame. The spark, in this case, was the voice of Luther in Germany, which was heard even in Spain-heard and responded to by many among the people; heard, too, by the Inquisition, which was thereby roused to a fresh life. Then, again, the Dominicans vindicated their character as the spiritual police of the Church, and became clamorous for the establishment of the Holy Office" in the several countries of Europe, in order to suppress the new heresy of Luther in like manner as before the Albigensian heresy had been suppressed. But they aimed in this at an impossibility; a new era had dawned upon the world. Moreover, the eyes of men were opened to the character

and results of a priestly tribunal, with powers of sentencing to death. The Dominicans had saturated the soil of Spain with blood, and the effort to stem the Reformation was therefore left to cleaner hands and subtler spirits than theirs. Their work was done; another must begin, and in this necessity we shall see the explanation of the rise of the Jesuits, who thenceforth supplanted the Dominicans as the defenders of the faith.

But what shall we say of these inquisitors? Are they to be classed with the rest of mankind, as standing on the same level with other men, having the same emotions and passions? Or are we to suppose that a peculiar class of beings, demi-human, demi-devilish, were provided by an Infernal Providence for the purposes of the Church, and to act as persecutors and inquisitors? Alas! we are sorrowfully compelled to admit that they were men like ourselves-men who had been loved, cherished, and cared for, nay, who perhaps had themselves loved and cared for others. In them we see what humanity may become, when it allows itself to become part of a great priestly system. And perhaps we are wrong in saying they were men-they were priests, and from the man to the priest is a long and a dreary road of degradation. For a man to have fallen so low as (whether interestedly or disinterestedly we care not) to teach, and perchance believe, that the Infinite God above intended that, for the aggrandisement of the power and wealth of the Church, His laws should be violated, His children maltreated and enslaved, is a fearful thing.

"But a priest is not necessarily an inquisitor." In the inquisitor, however, we have the full-blown priest, the ultimate result producible by subjecting men to the influence of a priestly system. That there were some bloodthirsty cannibal kind of men, who were concerned in the "Holy Office," and became familiars from the love of the work they had to do, is a thing we fear must be admitted; but we firmly believe (and for the honour and respect we bear to human nature we are glad to be able to believe) that there were more like Dominic, who did the work as a painful duty, as a dread necessity, imposed upon them in order to prevent the destruction of men's souls. 'Better a 'man suffer in this world than in the next,' was doubtless the sincere thought of many among those dark and fearful men. With a grim "charity" many such fanatics as these went about their dreadful task, even more to be pitied than the victims whom they tortured.

The history of the Church is to us a terrible history-because it is that of the gradual degradation of a noble idea. The idea of a Church, as a brotherhood of love and duty, as a moral bond existing between men determined to work out, as far as in them lies, the will of God on earth, is a right noble one. This was the idea of the early Christians, so far as they worked out the theory of a Church at all, and the bond subsisting between them and their bishops, even after the hierarchical element had made some progress, was a bond of love. Unassisted by external power, without any authority than one delegated by the freewill of its members, the early Church based itself on the idea of love; and so stable was the basis thus formed, that far down into the ages, long after the original reality was lost, the people still continued to love the Church.

Everything that is in its nature unjust, by a beautiful law running through life and history, becomes its own Nemesis; so with Priestcraft. As the ages rolled, it became its own destroyer. Gradually, as the priest usurped the place of the early pastor and teacher, as the Church of the early ages was replaced by the Church of Priestcraft, a change took place in the feelings of the people

towards it. The priesthood had now become an oligarchy, a caste distinct from the body of the people; the people no longer regarded them with feelings of affection, but the prevailing feeling was a superstitious reverence akin to fear. Throughout the Middle Ages the Church sought by its ceremonies, the gorgeous vestments of the priests, the massive ecclesiastical architecture, the pomp of its ritual observances, in manifold ways, in fact, to impress the minds of men with this feeling of reverence. How far she was successful in this may easily be judged when we duly consider the means employed. The Church, and all connected with it, were surrounded with an air of mystery well calculated to impress with awe the minds of a superstitious generation--nay, so well adapted for this purpose that the spell is around us yet.

Who can go into one of the old cathedrals, and, in the dim and mellow light, amidst the massive forms of the Gothic architecture, listen to the solemn music, the grand organ tones, resounding from the lofty domed roof, and dying away amid the distant arches, anon mingled with, and then replaced by, the sweet voices of unseen chanters, without feeling impressed with an emotion akin to awe? We do not say the feeling is a bad one-on the contrary, we believe it to be a good one; but only good when kept within its proper limits by the force of the cultivated reason. Then it has a high religious use and value. But, used as it was for the purposes of Priestcraft, in that mediæval Church, used to unduly impress the uncultivated minds of ignorant men, it was altogether bad, its use was a superstitious one, and men were rendered slaves by it. Who, too, can contemplate the fact mentioned by the historian, that at many monasteries of the Middle Ages a continual service was kept up without intermission, not for days or weeks or years, but for centuries, and not recognize in that another source of superstitious awe? Fancy the feeling with which the ignorant peasant would cast his eyes towards the mountain-convent, and see, night after night, that light for ever burning there, and listen to the eternal chanting of the monks as it came on the wings of the wind adown the mountain side. From birth to death the man of the Middle Ages was surrounded with an atmosphere of mystery by the Church, and naturally looked upon her priests-the hierophants of these mysterieswith awe and reverence, and thus became the willing slave of the Church.

But here again Priestcraft became its own Nemesis. It foolishly fancied that the power thus gained would last for ever; and it might have lasted longer than it did, but that the Church, in its false security, outraged the moral sense of mankind. Presuming upon the strong basis of reverence on which it was fixed, the Church allowed vices and abominations of all kinds to creep into her bosom, and, even in the midst of the mediæval darkness, the moral sense of men revolted. Then came the intellectual rebellion against Church authority, all the more powerful because it had a moral basis. The conscience and reason of the better men, and the more educated minds, were thus arraying themselves against the Church. What must the Church do? Reform herself? This, through a Hildebrand and others, she attempted, but the disease was ingrained; besides, to reform herself was to acknowledge her errors, and that would be the destruction of her infallibility. So Priestcraft sought and found another basis for Church authority-that of fear. The age of Spiritual Terrorism and the Inquisition, with its theory of persecution in the name of God, and for the sake of religion, with its practice of torture, its faggots, its torches, nnd its thumbscrews, was ushered in upon the world.

Thus, as the ages rolled, the idea on which Church authority was based was degraded from love to reverence, from reverence to fear. At first, living

in the hearts of the people; afterwards, in their superstition; and then by virtue of their terror. For two centuries this idea was paramount; and Priestcraft, glorying in its apparent conquest, proudly lifted its head, and a spiritual despotism, such as the world had never seen, was created. But once again the evil and unjust thing was to be its own Nemesis. Priestcraft had forgotten that there is a law above that of terror. Persecution was found ineffectual to stay human progress, and the day of spiritual terror culminated in the overthrow of the ancient Church throughout a great portion of Europe. JAS. L. GOODING.

THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF SAKYA (BUDDHA). § 1.-SACRED BUDDHIST BOOKS AND DATES.

ONE of the most popular classes of arguments used by the old school of writers upon the Christian evidences was to the effect that, if the Christian system were religiously untrue, it would not have succeeded historically so rapidly as it did; would not have found so many earnest men prepared at all hazards, not even halting at the loss of life itself, to stand forth and give it their support; would not have won for itself such a proud position on the page of history; and, above all, would not have succeeded in maintaining its position, in defiance of the assaults of its varied opponents. Only that class of preachers and teachers that are a hundred years behind their age-who reproduce the old sermons and essays-now depend upon that time-honoured, but worthless argument; still, as they constitute the majority of our modern teachers, by far the larger portion of the nation accept it as a demonstration. In the course of a few years this will be changed. The rising generation of preachers will repeat the sermons and essays now prepared by the few, and thus a more healthy state of thought and reasoning on the subject will be diffused abroad.

It is, however, remarkably curious that any person now living can cling to these absurd notions; for, if they were sound, then, in presence of recent evidences collected by the Mormons, we should be compelled to confess Mormonism, seeing it is evident more converts are made to that faith within a few years of its founder's death than in a like period were made to the cause of Christianity. If Mahometanism be introduced as a parallel, then Christianity will have no chance of carrying away the palm; for, clearly, more converts were made to the faith of the Prophet within ten years after his return to Mecca, than to the cause of Christianity within thirty years after Jesus's teaching in Jerusalem. Neither will it be questioned that the Arab followers of Mahomet were as heroic as those who rallied beneath the Christian symbol, for braver men than they who followed Omar cannot be found.

We allude to these instances not with the intent of prejudicing the cases, or to show that there is a perfect equality in value, but merely to establish that the rapid spread of an opinion, with the measure of earnestness of its advocates, cannot fairly be cited as furnishing anything in the shape of proof of its truth. Indeed, even if the soundness of this evidencial argument were admitted, it would not lead us to the acceptance of Christianity; on the contrary, it would lead us far away, and we should be logically compelled to accept a form of faith which is now generally repudiated; for our popular system is not believed by the majority of human beings. All the other religions, too, Hindu, Chinese, and American, have boasted their able and heroic