raries was in those of the Neo-Platonists. Yet none of the Neo-Platonists ever attained the same purity of conception as evinced in these lines of St. Augustine. Nevertheless, this conception did not wholly satisfy St. Augustine himself. He thought that by such means every object would only be filled with God in degree, and according to size, the sparrow having a smaller proportion than the elephant, which would be unfairness.

Moreover, the question of Evil still absorbed him, and he could not understand how evil could be pervaded with God (which, indeed, is the strongest argument that can be brought against Pantheism).

But again I said, Who made me? Did not my God, who is not only good, but goodness itself? Whence, then, came I to will evil and nill good, so that I'am thus justly punished? Who set this in me, and ingrafted into me this plant of bitterness, seeing that I was most wholly formed by my most sweet God? If the devil were the author, whence is that same devil? And if he also by his own perverse will, of a good angel became a devil, whence, again, came in him that evil will whereby he became a devil, secing the whole nature of angels was made by that most good Creator?' '

These are pregnant, heart-stirring questions; questions which we imagine must have arisen in every thoughtful mind. It is no part of our treatise to pursue the history of St. Augustine further. He found an answer to all his inquiries, a solution of all his difficulties, in the bosom of the Catholic Church. Whether such a solution can be really there found; whether, indeed, a true solution of this mystery of Evil will ever be found in any church or any system of philosophy, is a question upon which we will refrain from giving an opinion.

These extracts have been selected from numerous extracts of the Con. fessions given by Mr. Maurice in his Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy,' who in his turn has taken them, as he tells us, from the translation in the . Oxford Library of the Fathers.

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CHAPTER II.

DIGRESSION CONTINUED.-RISE OF SCHOLASTICISM.

IT was from the East that the West had received her first crude notions of science and philosophy. It was to be through the influence of the East that she was indirectly to receive her first faint ideas of self-deliverance from the Dark Ages of misery and degradation.

In the spring of the year 569 A.D. was born at Mecca, a man who by some has been branded with the names of impostor and blasphemer, who by others has been honoured with the name of Apostle and Prophet of God. The name of this man was Mahomet.

There are many miraculous stories told about his birth, and during the period of his infancy, with which, however, we need not occupy ourselves. Divested of their fabulous adjuncts they merely tend to show that Mahomet was possessed of an intelligence far beyond his years. And as he grew to boyhood the spirit of inquiry was quickened within him by intercourse with pilgrims from all parts of Arabia. His uncle, Abu Taleb, too (besides his sacerdotal character as guardian of the Caaba), was one of the most enterprising merchants of the tribe of Koreish, and had much to do with those caravans which thronged the gates of Mecca and filled its streets with pleasing tumult. The arrival and departure of these caravans were exciting events to a youth like Mahomet, and carried his imagination to foreign parts. He could not repress the ardent curiosity thus aroused; and once, when his uncle was about to mount

his camel, and depart with the caravan for Syria, he clung to him, and entreated to be permitted to accompany him. 'For who; oh, my uncle,' said he, will take care of me when thou art away?'

The appeal was not lost upon his kind-hearted uncle, who remembered, also, that the youth was nearly of an age to enter upon the active scenes of Arab life, and of a capacity to render essential service in the duties of the caravan; The readily, therefore, granted his prayer and took him with him on his journey to Syria.

The route lay through regions fertile in fables and traditions, which it is the delight of the Arabs to recount in the evening halts of the caravan. The vast solitudes of the desert, in which that wandering people pass so much of their lives, are prone to engender superstitious fancies; they have accordingly peopled them with good and evil genii, and clothed them with tales of enchantment commingled with wonderful events which happened in days of old. In these evening halts of the caravan, the youthful mind of Mahomet doubtless imbibed many of those superstitions of the desert which afterwards dwelt in his memory and powerfully influenced his imagination. We especially note two traditions, which he most probably heard at this time, and which were afterwards recorded by him in the Koran. One related to the mountainous district of Hedjar. Here, as the caravan wound its way through silent and deserted valleys, caves were pointed out in the sides of the mountains once inhabited by the children of Thamud, one of the 'lost tribes' of Arabia, and this was the tradition concerning them:-They were a proud and gigantic race, existing before the time of the patriarch Abraham. Having fallen into blind idolatry, God sent a prophet of the name of Saleh to restore them to the right way. They refused, however, to listen to him, unless he should prove the divinity of his mission by causing a camel, great with young, to issue from the entrails of a mountain. Saleh accordingly prayed, and

lo! a rock opened, and a female camel came forth, which soon produced a foal. Some of the Thamudites were convinced by the miracle, and were converted by the prophet from their idolatry; the greater part, however, remained in unbelief. Saleh left the camel among them as a sign, warning them that a judgment from heaven would fall on them should they do her any harm. For a time the camel was suffered to feed quietly in their pastures, going forth in the morning and returning in the evening. It is true that when she bowed her head to drink from a brook or well, she never raised it until she had drained the last drop of water; but then in return she yielded enough milk to supply the whole tribe. As, however, she frightened the other camels from the pasture, she became an object of offence to the Thamudites, who hamstrung and slew her. Upon this there was a fearful cry from heaven, and great claps of thunder, and in the morning all the offenders were found lying on their faces, dead. Thus the whole race was swept from the earth, and their country was laid for ever after under the ban of heaven.

This story made a powerful impression on the mind of Mahomet, inasmuch that, in after-years, he refused to let his people encamp in the neighbourhood, but hurried them away from it as an accursed region.

Another tradition, gathered on this journey, related to the city of Eyla, situated near the Red Rea. This place, he was told, had been inhabited in old times by a tribe of Jews, who lapsed into idolatry and profaned the Sabbath, by fishing on that sacred day; whereupon the old men were transformed into swine and the young men into monkeys.

We have noted these two traditions especially because they are both cited by Mahomet as instances of divine judgment on the crime of idolatry, and evince the bias his youthful mind was already taking on that important subject.

After skirting the ancient domains of the Moabites and

Ammonites, the caravan arrived at Bosra, or Bostra, beyond Syria. In Scripture days it had been a city of the Levites, but now was inhabited by Nestorian Christians. It was a great mart, annually visited by the caravans; and here our wayfarers came to a halt, and encamped near a convent of Nestorian monks.

By this fraternity Mahomet and his uncle were entertained with great hospitality. One of the monks on conversing with Mahomet was surprised at the precocity of his intellect, and interested by his cager desire for information, which appears to have had reference principally to matters of religion. They had frequent conversations together on such subjects, in the course of which the efforts of the monk were in all probability mainly directed against that idolatry in which the youthful Mahomet had been educated; for the Nestorian Christians were strenuous in condemning, not merely the worship of images, but even the casual exhibition of them; indeed, so far did they carry their scruples on this point that even the Cross, that general emblem of Christianity, was in a great degree included in this prohibition.

Many have ascribed that knowledge of the principles and traditions of the Christian faith displayed by Mahomet in after-life to those early conversations with this monk ; it is probable, however, that he had further intercourse with the latter in the course of subsequent visits which he made to Syria.

Mahomet returned to Mecca, his imagination teeming with the wild tales and traditions picked up in the desert, and his mind deeply impressed with the doctrines imparted to him in the Nestorian convent. He seems ever afterwards to have entertained a mysterious reverence for Syria, probably from the religious impressions he had received there. It was the land whither Abraham the patriarch had repaired from Chaldea, taking with him the primitive worship of the one true God.