as classified into a system; but, in fact, the Persians generally have the elements of this philosophy floating in their minds, as the natural product of their singularly imaginative temperament, their love of the ideal, and their want of fixed principles, either in religion or in philosophy. It is impossible, therefore, to state the number or proportion of those who cherish the principles of Sooffeeism. For the most part they do not appear as open sectaries, although they are to be found in every part of the empire, have their acknowledged head at Shiraz, and their chief men in all the principal cities. The late shah was supposed to belong to their party, although he was at the same time very rigid in the performance of his religious duties as a Moslem.

In what degree the prevalence of these principles may be regarded as an obstacle or an aid to the ultimate diffusion of the doctrine of Christ in this interesting country is a difficult. question, which the result alone can satisfactorily solve. Our own impression is, that the religion of Mohammed, by formally and deliberately shutting out the essential belief in Christ as the Son of God and the Redeemer, is an error so appallingly inveterate, that what

ever tends to sap and weaken its foundation is to be regarded as an advantage-as an unbolting the iron doors of the prison-house. It becomes us to speak reverently of the hidden purposes of God; but it may be that it is his design that the system of the false prophet should be thus weakened from within previously to its final overthrow. It is certain that the Sooffee sees nothing abhorrent to his principles in those great doctrines of Christian truth which orthodox Moslems regard with hatred and scorn.

This seems a suitable place for introducing the texts of Scripture which are commonly produced by Mohammedans in support of their own religion. We are indebted for the statement to Mr. Southgate :

"And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation,” Gen. xvii. 20. The Arabs, as is well known, claim Ishmael as their great progenitor. The Sheahs suppose the twelve princes here indicated to be the twelve Imaums of the family of Ali, whom they affirm to be the only lawful successors of Mohammed.

"I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him," Deut. xviii. 18. The Moslems pretend that no prophet like unto Moses has appeared, except Mohammed.

"And Moses said, The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from Mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them," Deut. xxxiii. 2. Here, say the Moslems, are foretold the three dispensations; that of Moses from Mount Sinai; that of Jesus from (as they affirm) Mount Seir; and that of Mohammed from Paran, by which, they suppose, are intended the mountains near Mecca.

"For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, and let him declare what he seeth. And he saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels," Isaiah xxi. 6, 7. This, according to the Moslem doctors, typifies the gospel and Islamism, and the two horsemen represent Jesus and Mohammed. The former having

entered Jerusalem upon an ass, and the camel being the principal animal in the country of the latter, they are considered as forming appropriate types of the two religions.

The forty-second chapter of Isaiah is supposed to be throughout a prophecy of Mohammed, on account, as it would seem, of the allusions to the destruction of idolatry, in the eighth and seventeenth verses, and to the Arabian tribe of Kedar in the eleventh. The first six verses of the sixty-third chapter are also claimed by the Moslem controversialists as prophetic of Mohammed, because they speak of war and blood, with which the religion of the Koran is acknowledged to be more familiar than the pacific dispensation of Christ.

The passages in the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of St. John's Gospel, which speak of the Comforter, are interpreted by the Moslems to allude to Mohammed. Here, they say, is one instance of the corruption of the Christian copies of the gospel. The original word #apáKANTOS, parakletos, they affirm should be TeρIKUTòs, periklutos, a word which, like Mohammed in Arabic, signifies illustrious, or noble. These texts will suffice at least to show that Moslem

scholars have exercised no little research and ingenuity in drawing arguments for their religion from the sacred Scriptures.

With a few words on the arts and sciences of the people, we may now conclude this volume.

The means employed by them in tilling the ground, appear to be just the same as those used by their ancestors in the most remote ages, and seem to be quite similar to those alluded to in the Scriptures. The ploughing is performed by means of a share drawn by two oxen, harnessed not to the horns but to a yoke that passes over the chest. This share is very short, and the coulter only slightly cuts the ground. As the furrows are made, the clods are broken with large wooden beaters, (Isa. xxviii. 24,) and the surface is smoothed with the spade, and with a harrow that has very small

teeth. The sickles used in Persia are not like ours, being scarcely bent in the blade. Threshing is performed either by the one scriptural mode of treading out the corn, or by the other scriptural mode of the "threshing instrument having teeth," mentioned in Isa. xli. 15, and elsewhere. This is a square wooden frame, containing two cylinders, placed parallel to