It will here be necessary to explain the characteristic differences between Buddhism and Brahmanism.

Buddhism is idolatry in its more simple and incipient state: Brahmanism is idolatry in its more matured, regular, and complicated form. Buddhism was the worship of the Sun as the visible emblem of deity, united with the veneration of their first deified ancestor, whether Adam, or Noah, or Ham, or Chus, under the form of the graven image of a man, who was uniformly considered as an incarnation of the deity. Though the ritual of both was the same, there was this wide, and remarkable difference, that the Buddhists erected no temple to the honor of their God, as they considered the whole world to be his temple: they did not venerate a variety of images; their bomage was paid but to one, although they believed in repeated incarnations of the divine Being. Buddhism in short was the union of theism and morality, with the perverted doctrine of the belief in the Shechinah as a visible symbol of God's pre sence, and the doctrine of the incarnation. It must have differed but little at the beginning from the worship of the Patriarchs: and its votaries would have been induced in great numbers to give credence to the bold pretensions of Nimrod when he assumed the title of the promised Incarnate, the divine Sovereign announced to the world from the fall of man. Epiphanius expressly asserts that this heresy existed from the flood to the building of the tower; that is, the corruption began, and made progress so imperceptibly, that it was impossible to ascertain when or where it originated. It was in great measure the natural consequence of the appointed dispersion from Nachshevan; and it no where openly opposed, or disturbed, much less attacked or persecuted, the unperverted worshippers of Jehovah, among the pristine patriarchial families.

In this state of things Nimrod assumed the name of the incarnate Son, and attracted to his standard, not only the dependants and branches of the family of Ham, but thousands of the corrupted votaries of the kindred heresy. At Shinar began the dominion of Brahmanism; of that system of faith and practice which, in after times, degenerated into the most abandoned and atrocious infamy. As the corruption was gradual, we can scarcely imagine that the usurper would venture to encourage the profligate lives and creed, which afterwards disgraced his tribe; and it is most probable that some ages elapsed before the abominable code was matured to that excess and loathsomeness, which established murder and prostitution as religious ceremonies; and which debauches the imagination of the most cautious and

virtuous, who attempt to trace the details of its unutterable corruptions. Brahmanism is the worship of the host of heaven; of the various heads of the tribes of Chus, or of the eminent primitive ancestors of mankind, who were all said to have been incarnations of a benevolent deity. It perverted to lust the doctrine of the incarnation, and to cruelty and murder the doctrine of the atonement. It subsequently taught a variety of mingled, philosophical, astronomical, and inconsistent theories; which by the general conquests, and sometimes by the mild influence of the arts and knowledge of the Cuthites, who were dispersed from Shinar, were gradually incorporated in the creed of their more regular, quiet, peaceable, and less informed brethren. Yet many ages must have elapsed before the lineaments of this portrait were matured. The human mind cannot tolerate any sudden, abrupt or violent innovation in religion. We are justified therefore in supposing that Nimrod made at first but that one attempt recorded in the Scripture, to innovate, by additional errors, upon the simple heresy of the Buddhists. We shall see with what success his design was crowned, and endeavour to trace the origin of the more flagitious, and (I grieve to say) still permanent corruptions of the primitive truth.

Between these two sects began civil and religious dissensions, which terminated in fierce and cruel wars, in the dispersion of the Cuthite followers of Nimrod, and, according to the oriental traditions, in the destruction of the pretended incarnate. The question is, from what cause did these wars originate, when both parties were agreed in essentials? Mr. Faber has collected a vast mass of proof that the institution of castes commenced at Shinar, and I have not met sufficient reason to differ with him on this point, though this circumstance seems to add at first sight some difficulty to the question, from what cause the dissensions originated at Shinar among the apostates from the true religion. On closer examination, however, this very institution of castes affords a complete solution to the difficulty.

Mr. Faber has shown that a large body of the unmixed Cuthim of the military caste, being peculiarly attached to the Buddhic superstition, left their brethren, and retired to that high country which extends from the Euxine to Upper India; these were afterwards known by the name of Scythians, and were the ancestors of the Germans, the Goths, the Chinese, and Birman nations; now Mr. Bryant has shown that great dissensions took place at the dispersion between the two parties, and there must have been some adequate cause to induce not merely the inferior tribes, but even a large part of the more privileged and envied

taste to secede from the dominion of Nimrod. The provocation must have been proportionably great: the innovation in their religion must have been of the most offensive nature, though by no means so glaringly odious as the subsequent gradations of vice and error. The first cause will appear to have been the building of the tower, and the second, the introduction of actual immorality into the corrupted religion of the patriarchs.

"They found a plain in the land of Shinar," says the inspired narrative," and they dwelt there, and they said one to another, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach to heaven, and let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city, and the tower which the children of men built. And the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth, and they left off to build the city."

I have omitted the clauses which relate the confusion of languages, as this was the result and not the cause of the divisions to which we refer. To save time, I shall paraphrase the words instead of entering into a long discussion on their meaning; premising only that, as I have already observed in the 37th number of the Classical Journal, the Cuthites only, though with an immense proportion of the whole of the human race then existing, were concerned in the building of the tower, and the settlement at Shinar; the rest had retired to their respective settlements, appointed by their ancestor Noah. The passage may be thus paraphrased:

They found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there many years, without attempting any farther innovation in the already much corrupted patriarchal religion; although Chus and Nimrod were incessantly engaged in extending the influence of their family, in employing a certain number of the most eminent in hunting, and in securing to themselves and their partizans, the whole civil, military, and sacerdotal power.-At length, when Nimrod had gradually obtained, and permanently secured considerable influence, he, and the chieftains of the several families attached to him, proposed that some bond of union be established to prevent their dispersion. Let us build a city, capable of receiving all our followers, and let us build a tower in preservation of the ancient religion, that we may still commemorate the arkite rites, and maintain the honor of those ancestors who were incarnations of the deity: this tower shall be lofty as Ararat. Let us make a name, of distinction for ourselves; we will adopt the dove as our banner, (vide Bryant) and by thus forming ourselves into one united family, we shall prevent our

dispersion over the earth, as our other brethren of Japhet and Shem have been dispersed from Nachshevan. The Cuthim began to build; but because it was the appointment of the Almighty that the several regions of the globe should be occupied according to his own decree, and not as man chose, the conduct of these apostates was overruled to the accomplishment of the divine purpose, partly by miraculous means, and partly by those consequences, which are ever the result of a violation of the known commands of God. Their language was confounded that they did not understand one another's speech: it was confounded by destroying their uniformity of language; but in what manner this was done cannot be accurately ascertained: and, in consequence of the numerous innovations of Nimrod in the ancient religion, which were as steadily resisted by one party as they were attempted to be imposed by the other, the whole collected tribes divided, quarrelled, fought, and dispersed.

Such seems to be the full meaning of this passage of Genesis. Now if we can ascertain from external or internal evidence the nature of these intended, and in many respects these effected, innovations of Nimrod, we shall at once solve the remaining difficulties connected with the origin of idolatry. We here see two separate parties; each of whom had apostatised from the worship of Jehovah; each retained a common ritual; each celebrated the arkite worship; each venerated the host of heaven, and exalted their deceased ancestors to the stars; each had thought their interest, their happiness, or their fame, would be promoted by their union at Shinar; yet tradition has commemorated the most cruel wars, and Scripture has related the sudden dispersion of the assembled multitude. They had already continued many years in one spot, and some overwhelming resistless cause must have compelled their separation. We cannot imagine that the mere erection of a high tower could have produced this effect: although it is well known that the Buddhists at the very earliest periods had the utmost aversion to the worship of God within temples, and Eschylus expresses the general reason when he calls the sky the temple of the sun; as if that majestic emblem of deity could not be confined within walls. The innovations of Nimrod, then, which offended his Buddhite brethren, were the introduction for the first time of that fearful compound of lust and cruelty, which degraded and characterised the abominable idolatries of Paganism. It was not the building of the tower, which of itself would have either incurred the interposition of providence, or the opposition of their brethren; it was that shameful union of murder and ob

scenity which is implied in scripture in the history of the dispersion. Moses wrote to a people who were well acquainted with the rites and ceremonies of the temple-worship of the heathens; and they as much understood that these enormities, to which we are alluding, formed a part of the religion of Paganism, as we should infer that the liturgy was read to the people, when we were informed of the erection of a cathedral.

AFRICAN FRAGMENTS.

BY JAMES GREY JACKSON.

No. II. [Continued from No. XLVI. p. 286.]

"The inattention of men in general to the fulfilment of the divine predictions, does not proceed so commonly from principles of infidelity, as from ignorance of facts;-pure ignorance of historical facts."-Dr. Buchanan's Christian Researches in Asia, 11th Ed. p. 196.

THE

HE following prophecy concerning the Jews is remarkably verified in the several regencies of Barbary, and particularly in the empire of Marocco.

"Thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all the nations whither the Lord shall lead thee; among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest." Deut. xxviii. 37, 65.

The Jews were to become an astonishment and a proverb, and a reproach among all the nations, because they shed the blood of the Saviour of the world, and called down the vengeance of heaven upon their heads by exclaiming, "His blood be upon us and upon our children." Now, it is not surprising, as Dr. Buchanan observes,' that Christians should reproach them for such a crime, but we behold the Muhamedan at this day (who does not believe in our Saviour, as the Saviour, but as a prophet only) punishing the Jew without any other cause or motive, than, because he is a Jew!

In the cities, towns, and provinces of the empire of Marocco, the life of the Jew can be compared to nothing so aptly as to Egyptian bondage. The greatest, the richest Jew in the country, is liable to be, and often is, insulted and buffetted by the meanest Muselman with impunity; they are obliged to carry a distinguish

Vide his Christian Researches, p. 214. 11th Ed.