within very narrow limits, this noble ethical system contributed an important element to human progress.

"From the stoical principle of the brotherhood of man," which finds such forcible expression in the utterances of Epictetus, "came forth," it has been said, "the greatest influence of stoicism-that upon the ideas of Roman jurists, in international law.' "These ideas have profoundly influenced modern political thought, and even practical institutions of government; they are the one great bequest of stoicism to modern times." Doubtless also, familiarity with the sublime doctrine of the Stoics respecting the Supreme Being, together with their noble moral teaching, would be instrumental in preparing the upper classes of society for the adoption of christianity. Nevertheless, noble as was, in many respects, the religion of the Stoics, it brought no gospel to earth's suffering millions; it held out no assured belief in the life beyond the grave; it offered no grand individuality, in whom, beholding the realization of their loftiest ideal, men found a common object for their reverence and love: from these and other causes, into which it is here unnecessary to enter, stoicism, while exerting a purifying and elevating influence over the minds of its votaries, never penetrated to the masses of the community, and was utterly inadequate to stem the deep-seated corruption of the Roman Empire, already smitten with irremediable decay.

For the spirit which was to survive the ruin of ancient civilization, consequent upon the Fall of Rome, and which, breathing new life into its scattered fragments, was to reunite them into a living unity, we must look to christianity, as embodied in the Medieval Church, of which, in the" Divina Commedia " of Dante, we possess a poetical epitome.

Before passing, however, from the poets and poetry of classical antiquity, as illustrating the progress of humanity, to those of more modern times, we must return to the East, and consider the sources whence issued the life-giving energy destined to revolutionize the world.

BABYLONIA.

WHILE the poets and artists of Hellas, in fulfilment of their high mission, as "Prophets of the beautiful," were giving birth to their immortal creations; and while Rome was elaborating her system of jurisprudence, and laying the foundation of her vast empire, which rendered possible the diffusion of christianity; the Hebrew poets,psalmists and prophets, were, from age to age, developing those fundamental truths of religion upon which christianity is based.

That various elements of Chaldæan mythology entered largely into the Homeric hierarchy of the Olympian divinities; that many Hellenic myths, notably those of Adonis and Aphrodite, of Zeus and Europa, of Perseus and Andromeda, are of Semitic origin; that the culture of the prehistoric Hellenes was stimulated by the higher culture of the Babylonians, to which they had access through Phoenician channels,' are considerations which would alone suffice to invest, with the deepest interest, the sacred books of Babylonia. That interest is, however, intensified by the remarkable affinity which is found to exist not only between the poetry of the Chaldæans and that of the Hebrews, but also between many of their traditions and religious observances, as having been derived from a common source.

It is to the valley of the Euphrates that the Hebrews looked as the cradle of their race; Ur of the Chaldees being the reputed birthplace of their father, Abraham; moreover, during the Captivity, a period of seventy years,

See "The Origin of the Aryans," by Isaac Taylor.

they came more directly under the influence of the religious conceptions of Babylonia; hence, the affinity above alluded to, is sufficiently accounted for, and cannot excite surprise.1

Thus there is a curious parallelism between the exposure of Sargon, King of Accad, in his basket of rushes on the Euphrates, and the similar exposure of Moses in his ark of bulrushes, upon the Nile; light is also thrown by the cuneiform inscriptions upon many names and ritual practices recorded in the Old Testament ;-the observance of the sabbath, for example, was practised alike by the Hebrews and by the Chaldæans, in whose vocabulary it was explained as "a day of rest for the heart." Both had a history of the creation, and a narrative of the deluge, as a punishment for the wickedness of mankind; both also had a story of the building of the Tower of Babel, of God's wrath against the builders, and his consequent confounding of their counsel.

Deep interest, moreover, attaches to the "Penitential Psalms" preserved in the sacred books of Babylonia, on account of their similarity, in spirit and in form, to those contained in the Psalter of the Old Testament. Considering this remarkable coincidence between the sacred poetry of Chaldæa and of Palestine, some notice, necessarily very meagre, of the more ancient literature, may form a not unfitting prelude to a brief consideration of the inspired utterances of the Hebrew bards.

In prehistoric times, the Tigris and Euphrates valleys appear to have been occupied by Turanian settlers, known as Accadians, or "Mountaineers, from the mountainous region in the north-west, whence they probably issued."

While enjoying a certain amount of material prosperity, this primæval population were in a state of profound spiritual darkness, their religion being a system of degrading superstition.

1 For the following brief account of the religion and poetry of Babylonia, I am indebted to the "Hibbert Lectures" by A. H. Sayce, 1887; also to "Chaldæa," "Story of the Nations," by Zenaïde a Ragozin.

G

Their emergence from this spiritual degradation was doubtless accelerated by the immigration of the Semites, who, intermingling with the older inhabitants of the country, received from them the art of writing in a rudimentary form, together with other elements of civilization, while communicating, in return, the rudiments of a higher spiritual culture.

In the sacred books of Babylonia we are introduced to the earliest manifestation of the religious instinct in man, and can follow the religion of the Chaldæans through its successive stages of development, before and subsequently to the arrival of the Semites.

These books consist of three collections of sacred texts; one containing magic incantations and exorcisms; another hymns to the gods; and the third consisting of penitential psalms.

The magical texts, the earliest sacred literature of the Accadians, reveal a stage of religious development, wherein there was, as yet, no definite conception of God, while the moral element was entirely wanting.

Movement being identified with life, the universe was regarded as peopled by spirits innumerable, powerful for good or for evil, who were entirely beyond the ordinary control of man; to the agency of the latter, who were ever on the watch to do mischief, were attributed the various calamities to which men were subject, especially disease; one of the most dreaded of these spirits being the demon of pestilence; hence arose a body of sorcerers, or medicine-men, who claimed to know the spells and incantations by which these evil spirits could be controlled; accordingly, the main object of the magical texts is the cure and prevention of disease. Gradually, however, the superiority of the good over the evil spirits came to be recognized by the Accadians, who rose at length to the conception of creative gods, endowed with power to control and overawe supernatural beings of an inferior order; an advance which has been characterized as "the culminating point of the old Accadian religion." "Gods and spirits alike were still amenable to the spells

and exorcisms used by the sorcerer-priest, who had, however, lost much of his old character." "The very conception of a creative and beneficent deity_brought with it a service of prayer and adoration." "We leave the era which witnessed the rise of the magical texts, and enter on the era of the hymns." Some of these hymns are still partly magical in character; while some are of Semitic and some of Accadian origin. There are certain ancient litanies which bear witness to the higher level of religious thought to which the later Accadians had attained. The Litany, we are told, is earlier than the age of Sargon, of Accad, who flourished B.c. 3700, and whose reign inaugurated the supremacy of the Semitic over the Accadian population.

Among the beneficent deities, worshipped by the Accadians, the most potent were Ana, the spirit of Heaven, and Ea, the spirit of Earth and god of the deep; to the latter especially they appealed for protection when in terror of the malignant demons by whom they imagined themselves surrounded. Merodach, the son of Ea, whose office it was to act as mediator between his father and suffering mankind, was another favourite object of Accadian worship. "He was originally a solar deity, the sungod, and in this capacity is represented in the Assyrian myths and bas-reliefs, as champion of the bright powers of day, in their eternal struggle against night and storm. He is the same as the Baal of the Old Testament, and his temple at Babylon, as described by Herodotus, was regarded as one of the wonders of the world."

To Ud, another name of the sun-god, the Accadians looked up with infinite trust; to them the sun, “in all its midday glory, was a very hero of protection, the source of truth and justice, the supreme judge in heaven and on earth, who knows lie from truth, who knows the truth that is in the soul of man."

One of these Accadian hymns describes how, “at the sun's appearance in the brilliant portals of the heavens, and during his progress to their highest point, all the great gods turn to his light, all the good spirits of