NUMBERS OF THE LIVING AGE WANTED. The publishers are in want of Nos. 1179 and 1180 (dated respectively Jan. 5th and Jan. 12th, 1867) of THE LIVING AGE. To subscribers, or others, who will do us the favor to send us either or both of those numbers, we will return an equivalent, either in our publications or in cash, until our wants are supplied. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually for to pay commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. TIME. -away; TIME speeds away — away Time speeds away-away-away; The friends that loved, the friends that blest, Time speeds away-away -away; SORROW. UPON my lips she laid her touch divine, She fixed her melancholy eyes on mine, And would not be denied. I saw the West-wind loose his cloudlets white, 1 heard, and shrunk away from her afraid; Accept, and bid me stay!" I turned and clasped her close, with sudden strength, And slowly, sweetly, I became aware And now I look beyond the evening star, THALASSA. I LOOK across the land and sea, In silence to his reedy nest, The even bells break from the coast, Sweet eyes look ever from above. Be still, sad heart, and sink to rest! " THE POET. Once a Week. "SWEET" did you say that my verse was? The soundless songs that entrance me, Songs learned when my soul was beginning, I hear those harmonies ever, As they rang when it bathed in the brightness Spectator. From The Cornhill Magazine. BY MATTHEW ARNOLD. bodies of Protestant Dissenters, to do them justice, are never wanting; to a perception that the case against the Church of England may be yet further improved EVERYBODY has this last autumn been by contrasting her with the genuine article either seeing the Ammergau Passion Play in her own ecclesiastical line, by pointing or hearing about it; and to find any one out that she is neither one thing nor the who has seen it and not been deeply inter- other to much purpose, by dilating on the ested and moved by it, is very rare. The magnitude, reach, and impressiveness, on peasants of the neighbouring country, the the great place in history, of her rival, as great and fashionable world, the ordinary compared with anything she can herself tourist, were all at Ammergau, and were pretend to. Something of this there is, no all delighted; but what is said to have doubt, in some of the modern Protestant been especially remarkable was the afflu- sympathy for things Catholic; but in genence there of ministers of religion of all eral that sympathy springs, in Churchmen kinds. That Catholic peasants, whose re- and Dissenters alike, from another and a ligion has accustomed them to show and better cause,- from the spread of larger spectacle, should be attracted by an ad- conceptions of religion, of man, and of hismirable scenic representation of the great tory, than were current formerly. We moments in the history of their religion, have seen lately in the newspapers, that a was natural; that tourists and the fashion- clergyman, who in a popular lecture gave able world should be attracted by what an account of the Passion Play at Ammerwas once the fashion and a new sensation gau, and enlarged on its impressiveness, of a powerful sort, was natural; that many was admonished by certain remonstrants, of the ecclesiastics there present should be who told him it was his business, instead attracted there, was natural too. Roman of occupying himself with these sensuous Catholic priests mustered strong, of course. shows, to learn to walk by faith, not by The Protestantism of a great number of sight, and to teach his fellow-men to do the Anglican clergy is supposed to be but the same. But this severity seems to have languid, and Anglican ministers at Ammer-excited wonder rather than praise; so far gau were sympathizers to be expected. | had those wider notions about religion and But Protestant ministers of the most un- about the range of our interest in religion, impeachable sort, Protestant Dissenting of which I have just spoken, conducted us. ministers, were there, too, and showing To this interest I propose to appeal in favour and sympathy; and this, to any one what I am going to relate. For the Paswho remembers the almost universal feel- sion Play at Ammergau, with its immense ing of Protestant Dissenters in this coun- audiences, the seriousness of its actors, try, not many years ago, towards Rome the passionate emotion of its spectators, and her religion,- the sheer abhorrence brought to my mind something of which I of Papists and all their practices,- could had read an account lately; something not but be striking. It agrees with what produced, not in Bavaria nor in Christenis seen also in literature, in the writings of dom at all, but far away in that wonderDissenters of the younger and more pro- ful East, from which, whatever airs of gressive sort, who show a disposition for superiority Europe may justly give itself, regarding the Church of Rome historically all our religion has come, and where religrather than polemically, a wish to do jus- ion, of some sort or other, has still an emtice to the undoubted grandeur of certain pire over men's feelings such as it has institutions and men produced by that nowhere else. This product of the remote Church, quite novel, and quite alien to the East I wish to exhibit while the rememsimple belief of earlier times, that between brance of what has been at Ammergau is Protestants and Rome there was a meas-still fresh; and we will see whether that ureless gulph fixed. Something of this may no doubt, be due to that keen eye for Non-conformist business in which our great bringing together of strangers and enemies who once seemed to be as far as the poles asunder, which Ammergau in such a re markable way effected, does not hold good | shown. He passed several days there in and find a parallel even in Persia. meditation. The place appears to have made a great impression on him; he was entering a course which might and must lead to some such catastrophe as had happened on the very spot where he stood, and where his mind's eye showed him the Imam Ali lying at his feet, with his body pierced and bleeding. His followers say that he then passed through a sort of moral agony which put an end to all hesitation of the natural man within him. It is certain that when he arrived at Shiraz, on his return, he was a changed man. No doubts troubled him any more: he was penetrated and persuaded; his part was taken." This Ali also, at whose tomb the Bab went through the spiritual crisis here recorded, is a familiar name to most of us. In general our knowledge of the East goes but a very little way; yet almost every one has at least heard the name of Ali, the Lion of God, Mahomet's young cousin, and Count Gobineau, formerly Minister of France at Teheran and at Athens, published, a few years ago, an interesting book on the present state of religion and philosophy in Central Asia. He is favourably known also by his studies in ethnology. His accomplishments and intelligence deserve all respect, and in his book on religion and philosophy in Central Asia he has the great advantage of writing about things which he has followed with his own observation and inquiry in the countries where they happened. The chief purpose of his book is to give a history of the career of Mirza Ali Mahommed, a Persian religious reformer, the original Bâb, and the founder of Babism, of which most people in England have at least heard the name. Bab means gate, the door or gate of life; and in the ferment which now works in the Mahometan East, Mirza Ali Mahommed,-who seems to have been made acquainted by Protestant mission- the first who, after his wife, believed aries with our Scriptures and by the Jews in him, and who was declared by Maof Shiraz with Jewish traditions, to have homet in his gratitude his brother, delestudied, besides, the religion of the Ghe- gate, and vicar. Ali was one of Mabers, the old national religion of Persia, homet's best and most successful captains; and to have made a sort of amalgam of he married Fatima, the daughter of the the whole with Mahometanism,-presented Prophet; his sons, Hassan and Hussein, himself, about five-and-twenty years ago, were, as children, favourites with Maas the door, the gate of life; found dis- homet, who had no son of his own to succiples, sent forth writings, and finally be- ceed him, and was expected to name Ali came the cause of disturbances which led as his successor. He named no successor. to his being executed, on the 19th of July, | At his death Ali was passed over, and the 1849, in the citadel of Tabriz. The Bâb and his doctrines are a theme on which much might be said; but I pass them by. except for one incident in the Bâb's life, which I will notice. Like all religious Mahome-devolved by right on Ali and his children. tans, he made the pilgrimage to Mecca; Ali, lion of God as in war he was, held and his meditations at that centre of his aloof from politics and political intrigue, religion first suggested his mission to him. loved retirement and prayer, was the most But soon after his return to Bagdad he pious and disinterested of men. At Abumade another pilgrimage; and it was in Bekr's death he was again passed over in this pilgrimage that his mission became favour of Omar. Omar was succeeded by clear to him, and that his life was fixed. Othman, and still Ali remained tranquil. "He desired"-I will give an abridg- Othman was assassinated, and then Ali ment of Count Gobineau's own words chiefly to prevent disturbance and blood"to complete his impressions by going to shed, accepted the caliphate. Meanwhile Kufa, that he might visit the ruined the Mahometan armies had conquered mosque where Ali was assassinated, and | Persia, Syria, and Egypt; the Governor where the place of his murder is still of Syria, Moawiyah, an able and ambitious first caliph, or vicar and lieutenant of Mahomet in the government of the state, was Abu-Bekr; only the spiritual inheritance of Mahomet, the dignity of Imam, or Primate, man, set himself up as caliph, his title was recognized by Amrou, the Governor of Egypt, and a bloody and indecisive battle was fought in Mesopotamia between Ali's army and Moawiyah's. Gibbon shall tell the rest:-"In the temple of Mecca three Charegites or enthusiasts discoursed of the disorders of the church and state; they soon agreed that the deaths of Ali, of Moawiyah, and of his friend Amrou, the Viceroy of Egypt, would restore the peace and unity of religion. Each of the assassins chose his victim, poisoned his dagger, devoted his life, and secretly repaired to the scene of action. Their resolution was equally desperate; but the first mistook the person of Amrou, and stabbed the deputy who occupied his seat; the prince of Damascus was dangerously hurt by the second; Ali, the lawful caliph, in the mosque of Kufa, received a mortal wound from the hand of the third." The events through which we have thus rapidly run ought to be kept in mind, for they are the elements of Mahometan history: any right understanding of the state of the Mahometan world is impossible without them. For that world is divided into the two great sects of Shiahs and Sunis; the Shiahs are those who reject the first three caliphs as usurpers, and begin with Ali as the first lawful successor of Mahomet; the Sunis recognize Abu-Bekr, Omar, and Othman, as well as Ali, and regard the Shiahs as impious heretics. The Persians are Shiahs, and the Arabs and Turks are Sunis. Hussein, one of Ali's two sons, married a Persian princess, the daughter of Yezdejerd the last of the Sassanian kings, the king whom the Mahometan conquest of Persia expelled; and Persia, through this marriage, became specially connected with the house of Ali. "In the fourth age of the Hegira," says Gibbon, "a tomb, a temple, a city, arose near the ruins of Kufa. Many thousands of the Shiahs repose in holy ground at the feet of the vicar of God; and the desert is vivified by the numerous and annual visits of the Persians, who esteem their devotion not less meritorious than the pilgrimage of Mecca." our researches into Mahometan history a We cannot do better than again have recourse to Gibbon's history for an account of this famous tragedy. "Hussein trayersed the desert of Arabia with a timorous retinue of women and children; but, as he approached the confines of Irak, he was alarmed by the solitary or hostile face of the country, and suspected either the defection or the ruin of his party. His fears were just; Obeidallah, the governor of Kufa, had extinguished the first sparks of an insurrection; and Hussein, in the plain of Kerbela, was encompassed by a body of 5,000 horse, who intercepted his communication with the city and the river. In a conference with the chief of the enemy he proposed the option of three conditions - that he should be allowed to return to But, to comprehend what I am going to Medina, or be stationed in a frontier garrelate from Count Gobineau, we must push | rison against the Turks, or safely con |