mountains, all the beauty of our rivers, all the magnificence of our prairies, and glory of our skies, and with these the heroism of our fathers and the energy of their sons, and then sing them forth in such sweet and noble strains as would charm the world. We conclude that nature, never lavish of great poets, has not yet given us ours. Our Dante, Shakspeare, or Milton, has yet to appear.

ART. V.-BUDDHISM.

1. Eastern Monachism: An account of the Origin, Laws, Discipline, Sacred Unity, Mysterious Rites, Religious Ceremonies, and Present Circumstances of the Order of Mendicants founded by Gorama Buddha, (compiled from Singhalese MSS. and other Original Sources of Information,) with comparative Notices of the Usages and Institution of the Western Ascetics, and a Review of the Monastic System. By R. SPENCE HARDY, Member of the Ceylon Branch of the R. A. S. London: 1850. 2. A Manual of Buddhism, in its Modern Development. Translated from Singhalese MSS. By R. SPENCE HARDY. London: 1853.

3. Die Religion des Buddha und ihre Entstehung. Von CARL FRIEDERICH Koeppen. Berlin: 1857.

NEXT to Christianity Buddhism is the greatest moral phenomenon in the history of the world. I say, next to Christianity, because we naturally recoil from putting any system in comparison with that which we know to be from heaven, and endowed with an internal energy manifestly divine. But if we will subordinate the religious scruple to a philosophic survey of the facts, and if, instead of confining our attention to a sect, or a modern form of Buddhism as an institution, and take in the scope of its history-its origin, its development, its great power, its widespread and time-long reign-we shall be forced to rise above the exception, and say, that Buddhism is the greatest moral phenomenon in the history of the world. A system which dates its rise from the time of Noah, and which, in the middle of the nineteenth century of the Christian era, is still strong and vigorous; a system which, in its origin, was the primal apostacy from the patriarchal religion, and became the foundation of the idolatries of the ancient world, and which has, with inconsiderable exceptions, embraced within itself the essential history of all the idolatries of the great nations both of ancient and of modern times; which, in its development, proved so flexible as to adapt itself to the varying phases of humanity, especially in its degradation and in a moderate degree in its culture; so systematic and compact that Christianity, which swept with an easy victory over the other nations, was rolled back from its domains as from an impassable bar

rier; so vital and enduring, and so potent, that even now, at the distance of near five thousand years from its origin, it holds in its thraldom more millions of souls than can be reckoned in all other religions together: a system so vast, so venerable, so majestic in its proportions, so immense in its power and in the extent and duration of its dominion, we surely have not characterized too strongly. Such a system must at all times command the attention of the philosopher, and, by the progress of events, it is just now coming to possess both a deeper and a more popular interest than ever before. What we may call Modern Buddhism, and that to which many treatises on the subject are confined as if embracing the entire history of the order, dates from the era of GOTAMA BUDDHA, about six and a quarter centuries before Christ. The MANUAL OF BUDDHISM and the EASTERN MONACHISM are, from their nature, concerned directly and mainly with the institutions of that form of worship as now existing, though the learned and indefatigable author has very properly enriched his works with some historic notices of the earlier times.

It will best meet the object we have in view, and serve to bring out the real importance of the works before us, to present first a brief sketch of the origin and outspread of this universal false religion. In doing this, we do not claim that a full and reliable history of Buddhism can be made out at the present day. There is a great gap in the history of the old world-many a "lacuna deflenda" -which we would gladly have filled up. Yet we have certain facts, and certain indubitable relics of facts, and we may say certain fragments of history, scattered here and there, which, by a just arrangement and composition, give an outline of that which we seek tolerably clear and consistent. And if history--as it has been, and I think well, defined-" consists of facts and reasoned inferences," then we may trust to the divine logic to clothe our framework of facts with flesh and blood.

We go back, then, to the time when Noah came forth from the ark, and looked out on a new earth rising fresh from the world of waters. The old world had sunk into a hopeless atheism, and by the signal vengeance of the Almighty had been buried in the all-devouring gulf. Ham, whether the oldest or the youngest* of the sons of Noah, was distinguished for enterprise and for a boldness bordering on impiety. Shem, who, if Ham was the oldest, must have been

We are inclined to think, contrary to the common opinion, that he was the oldest, and that he was grown to youth, perhaps to mature age, in the midst of the corruptions of the old world, before the special warning came to his father to prepare the ark; and the taint, therefore, which his character evidently received, not only survived the flood, but sent down its baneful influence on his posterity.

the youngest of the three brothers, was certainly born some twenty years after the call of Noah, while he was in the midst of the preparations for the impending judgment, and was daily preaching righteousness to his ungodly neighbors. The character of Shem was profoundly impressed with the religious sentiments which at that time pervaded the minds of his parents.

Of the sons of Ham was one named Cush, and another Phut, and of the sons of Shem was one named Asshur. These three among the grandsons of Noah stand out most conspicuous as the founders of the society of the new world; they impressed upon it their own characters and gave it destiny. A certain authority seems to have been accorded to the family of Ham, whether in right of primogeniture, or by virtue of his prowess. Cush, to whom the headship devolved, was, like his father, a man of enterprise, of lofty ambitions, and not particularly scrupulous of the right. In his old age-probably after his other children were grown to maturity-there was born to him another son, which, as is natural with the son of one's old age, became his special favorite. The families of Noah's descendants were yet united in one society. They intended to remain so. To effect that object they devised the magnificent scheme of the Tower of Babel. Over these united families the authority of Cush was predominant, and this son, trained up not merely as the favorite, but as the heir to his father's greatness, pushed his enterprises with a still bolder hand, and even rushed to an extreme of impiety that awakened in the feelings of the more prudent and religious a powerful reaction-a reaction, indeed, which resulted in nothing less than a defection from his authority and a dismemberment of his kingdom. The name of this favorite son and crown-prince was Nimrod, and his grand achievement in the founding of Babylon, and his peristent impiety in continuing to build the tower and the walls after the signal manifestation of the divine displeasure, gave him a prominence which has caused him to be regarded not only as the leader but the originator of the great enterprises by which his family became distingushed. A proper attention to the history, however, will show that Nimrod only entered into the plans of his father, and that he gained his special pre-eminence because that in his person the ambition of his line provoked an opposition which first sundered the family of Noah, and set them in hostility to each other, and that in the crisis of disruption he stood forth as the chieftain of the dominant tribe.

Proofs of the correctness of this general position, though not the most obvious, are yet abundant and of the most satisfactory kind. For if Nimrod were the head of this movement, the descendants

should be called of him. His name would naturally be commemorated by bodies of emigrants in their new abodes; his name would be carried by the backwoodsman to distant parts, and be perpetuated in the person of many a hopeful urchin whom a fond father would fain equal to their great sire; and not less would it reappear in the designation of nations and localities. Instead of Nimrod, however, Cush is the name that is thus planted through all the scattered abodes of the ancient world. The tribes of greatest action-the tribes that bear martial sway-that cultivate, on one side, the institutions of a fixed religion and government, and, on the other, that pioneer the wilderness, and, in their ruder state, skirt the borders of civilization, and by the terror of their arms cause the firmest thrones to tremble-these, everywhere, with limited exceptions, are descendants of Ham and not of Japheth, as our historians have generally represented; and in the line of Ham they are called Cushites and not Nimrodites. That the name prevailed throughout Central Asia, we need hardly take the trouble to state. It takes in that region the various orthographies of Cush, Cuth, Cas, and Sacs (σakai). In the form Chaldee it is completely disguised to the English eye, but its orthography is preserved in the Hebrew Kas-di (7). A little removed from this center, and filling the remoter parts of Asia and the adjacent parts of Europe, they swarmed as Scuths or Scyths. Under the name of Goths they had, at an early day, carried the seeds of empire westward, filling all middle and northern Europe. The Saca of the old Persian empire are the Saxons of Europe, who, joined with the Angli-a tribe still of the Goths which had received, by whatever accident, this distinctive appellation-have ruled Britain from the early ages of Christianity, and their descendants are now the chief representatives of liberty and civilization in both hemispheres.

But not only in the names of tribes have we the evidence we seek. Nature has planted her eternal monuments to the same great fact. We are told that in the Sanscrit language, ghar or ghiri, and in the Persic cau or coh, signifies a mountain. Cash-ghar, therefore, and Cau-cas, (with the Greek termination, Caucasus,) are the mountains of Cas or Cush. Accordingly we find this term as the name of the principle range of mountains in Armenia and along the north of India. From the western extremity of the continent eastward to the borders of China, posterity affixed the name of their renowned ancestor to those most majestic forms of nature. Whereever the Cushite dwelt, he repeated, as nature permitted, the commemorative Mount Cush. Nor will it seem too far-fetched by those accustomed to take in the general scope of history, to claim that

Cuz-co, the ancient mountain city of the ruling tribe of South America, brings its designation from the same source; especially when we see, independent of this, manifest connection of the traditions of the aborigines of the western continent with the early patriarchs of the old world.

As the designation of the country, we find the name Cush prevailing in Africa, in the southwestern peninsula of Asia, in Central Asia, and covering the Indies, both within and beyond the Ganges.

Here, then, we have not only the ruling tribes of the old world bearing the name of a common ancestor, and the fairest valleys reflecting the same appellation, but Mount Cush is also the name that distinguishes that grandest feature of the globe wherever the primitive civilization has traveled. From the centre of Asia, ranging out over the eastern continent, the name of this father of the race couches in the various mountain ranges, and traversing the ocean it reposes on the heights of the Andes.

Let the civil and military supremacy therefore of the house of Cush be admitted as preliminary to the question directly involved in our subject.

The religious head or priesthood of the posterity of Noah was evidently in the family of Shem. When the displeasure of the Almighty against the magnificent scheme of Cush was manifested, the more religious part were submissive to the intimations of the divine will. The persistent boldness of Nimrod, therefore, matured their scruples into a solemn protest and secession which sundered the hitherto united families of the new earth. Under the leadership of Asshur, the son of Shem, they migrated in a body to a point higher up the river, and, unlike the Plebs of Rome who, in the great popular secession, only pitched a camp in a neighboring mountain and negotiated reconciliation, the Shemites threw off the allegiance of their former ruler and founded a new empire. The chief city which they builded is, by a prolepsis common both to sacred and profane history, called Nineveh, though the Ninus whose princely virtues raised Assyria to a pre-eminence over Babylon, and gave the metropolis a monument to his own name, and thus ranked him in fame as the founder of the empire, flourished some six and a half centuries subsequent.

Perhaps a simple statement of the order of events, if rightly put, will serve better, by its manifest consistency, to make clear to the popular apprehension this obscure spot in the earliest postdiluvian history, than elaborate argument. The investigation is intricate, and the salient points we have put on record elsewhere, to which those interested can refer. We find these points established, if not Lib. I. Capp. 95, 106, 186, et all.

*Notes on Herod.