He, having willed to produce various beings from his own divine substance, first created the waters, with a thought, and placed in them a productive seed.

The seed became an egg, bright as gold, blazing like the luminary with a thousand beams, and in that egg he was born himself, in the form of Brahma, the great forefather of all spirits.

The waters are called Nara, because they were the production of Nara, or the Spirit of God; and hence they were his first ayana, or place of motion; he hence is named Narayana, or moving of the waters.

In that egg the great power sat inactive a whole year of the creator, at the end of which, by his thought alone, he caused the egg to divide itself.

And from its two divisions he framed the heavens above, and the earth beneath; in the midst he placed the subtle ether, the eight regions, and the permanent receptacle of the waters.

From the Supreme Soul he drew forth mind, existing substantially, though unperceived by sense, immaterial; and before mind, or the reasoning power, he produced consciousness, the internal monitor, the ruler.

And before them both he produced the great principle of the soul, or first expansion of the divine idea; and all vital forms endued with the three qualities of goodness, passion, and darkness, and the five perceptions of sense, and the five organs of sensation.

That, having at once pervaded with emanations from the Supreme Spirit, the minutest portions of fixed principles immensely operative, consciousness, and the five perceptions, he formed all creatures.

Thence proceed the great elements, endued with peculiar powers, and mind with operations infinitely subtle, the imperishable cause of all apparent forms.

This universe, therefore, is compacted from the minute. portions of those seven divine and active principles; the great

soul or first emanation, consciousness, and five perceptions; a mutable universe from immutable ideas.

Of created things, the most excellent are those who are animated; of the animated, those which subsist by intelligence; of the intelligent, mankind; and of men, the sacerdotal class. Of priests, those eminent in learning; of the learned, those who know their duty; of those who know it, such as virtuously perform it; and of the virtuous, those who seek beatitude from a perfect acquaintance with scriptural doctrines.

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Let every Brahman, with fixed attention, consider all nature as existing in the Divine Spirit; all worlds as seated in him ; he alone as the whole assemblage of gods; and he as the author of all human actions.

Let him consider the Supreme omnipresent intelligence as the sovereign lord of the universe, by whom alone it exists, an incomprehensible spirit; pervading all beings in five elemental forms, and causing them to pass through birth, growth, and decay, and so revolve like the wheels of a car.

Thus, the man who perceives in his own soul the Supreme Soul present in all creatures, acquires equanimity toward them all, and shall be absolved at last in the highest essence, even that of the Almighty himself.

The only firm friend, who follows men even after death, is Justice; all others are extinct with the body.

Food, eaten constantly with respect, gives muscular force and generative power; but eaten irreverently, destroys them both.

Bodies are cleansed by water; the mind is purified by truth; the vital spirit, by theology and devotion; the understanding, by clear knowledge.

O friend to virtue, that supreme spirit—which thou believest one and the same with thyself-resides in thy bosom perpetually; and is an all-knowing inspector of thy goodness or of thy wickedness.

Justice, being destroyed, will destroy; being preserved,

Beware, O

will preserve; it must therefore never be violated. judge, lest justice, being overturned, overturn both us and thyself.

Injustice, committed in this world, produces not fruit immediately, but, like the earth, in due season; and advancing by little and little, it eradicates the man who committed it.

Iniquity, once committed, fails not of producing fruit to him who wrought it; if not in his own person, yet in his sons; or, if not in his sons, yet in his grandsons.

He grows rich for a while through unrighteousness; but he perishes at length from his whole root upwards.

THE BRAHMO-SOMAJ-OR CHURCH OF THE TRUE God, A. D., 1870.

This modern church and reformation of Hinduism is based on no specifically revealed religion, but on the natural laws of the universe and the natural intuitions of the human soul. The Brahmo-Somaj has its origin, so far as its origin can be traced externally, forty years ago in the life and labors of Rammohun Roy. That great and noble man, convinced that the popular idolatries and superstitions of Hinduism did not belong to the real religion in its original form, established a little church in Calcutta for the simple worship of the Supreme Being, unencumbered by any of the prevalent beliefs and practices. He based this movement on the authority of the old Vedas, claiming, doubtless with truth, that their doctrines were pure theism. Yet he invited "all sorts and descriptions of people, without distinction," to join the movement, and tried to make it so catholic that all persons of monotheistic faith might be at home in it, whether they were Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians, or Jews. Practically, however, the church remained a Hindu Unitarian Church. But about twenty years ago this platform of the specific divine authority of the Vedas was abandoned, and the Brahmo-Somaj took for a basis of faith, "God's rev elation in nature and the religious instincts of man.”

And there

is where the the Brahmo-Somaj stands to-day. As its present great representative man, Keshub Chunder Sen, says, "It is an organized theistic church, Indian in its origin, but universal in its scope, which aims to destroy idolatry, superstition, and sectarianism, and propagate the saving truths of absolute religion, and the spiritual worship of the one true God, and likewise to promote the intellectual, moral, and social reformation of individuals and nations, and thus make theism the religion of life."

And since the day that the Bramo-Somaj took this stand on nature and the soul, it has made great advance. Two years ago it counted more than sixty churches in different parts of India, and the number has increased since that faster than before. Its adherents cannot be accurately reckoned in numbers, because they keep no regular record of membership; but it counts many thousands of members, and many Hindus of great influence, which is beginning to be felt in all the civil and social, as well as religious life of India. They have a most devout sense of religious consecration to their work, are selfsacrificing, heroic, and though in a perfectly peaceful way— aggressive. They believe in actively propagating their faith, and the movement has something of the zealous missionary spirit in which Buddhism began. There is a fervor about them which reminds one of Methodism. Yet their faith is eminently practical, too. They are engaged in all good reforms; they are fighting vigorously against caste, and for civil, social, and religious equality; they are laboring for the education of woman; they are especially bent on removing the oppressive laws and traditions which forbid intermarriage between persons of different castes, and the re-marriage of widows; and generally they are alive to all good works of charity, philanthropy, and advancing civilization.

Now it would not be true to say that no part of this religious reformation is due to the influence of Christianity. The Bramo-Somaj itself confesses its indebtedness to the Christian religion. Its members are well acquainted with the

Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, and highly appreciate the character and teachings of Jesus. But this influence of Christianity has been indirect. The dogmas which the Christian missionaries have generally taught as Christianity, the members of the Brahmo-Somaj utterly reject. They deny that Christianity has any specific authority as a divine revelation above that of other religions, and of course do not call themselves Christians. They accept what is true in the Bible and in the teachings of Jesus, just as they accept what is true in the Vedas and in the prophets of India, because it commends itself to their reason and intuition, and not because any book or prophet has uttered it. In fact the Brahmo-Somaj, the product of many religious and social forces, is an excellent illustration of the historic method by which it seems altogether probable that the various religions of the earth are to affect and modify each other.

It is especially easy to trace in the teachings of the BrahmoSomaj the influence of the liberal schools of theology in England, and of our own Theodore Parker. That stanch reformer, who struck such vigorous blows here in Boston, and whose body, burned out with the intensity of the life it carried, sank at its noon to rest in the beautiful soil of Italy, is now having his resurrection all round the globe. We hear of him not only through the United States and in England, but in all parts of Europe from Norway to Austria, in South America, in India, and even in such outlying regions of civilization as Australia and Southern Africa. He, at least, is one of the god-fathers of the Brahmo-Somaj.-W. J. Potter, New Bedford, Mass.

KESHUB CHUNDER SEN, a leading preacher of the BrahmoSomaj, writes to his English friends, on his return from England to Hindostan, from Egypt, October, 1870, as follows:

"Indeed the world is moving onward to the consummation of that universal Church which owns no other creed except the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. The history of the past points to it-the present age demands it;