In that vast Oval ran a shudder of shame. The Baths, the Forum gabbled of his death,

And preachers linger'd o'er his dying words,

Which would not die, but echo'd on to reach

Honorius, till he heard them, and decreed That Rome no more should wallow in this old lust

Of Paganism, and make her festal hour Dark with the blood of man who murder'd man.

(For Honorius, who succeeded to the sov ereignty over Europe, supprest the gladiatorial combats practised of old in Rome, on occasion of the following event. There was one Telemachus, embracing the ascetic mode of life, who setting out from the East and arriving at Rome for this very purpose, while that accursed spectacle was being performed, entered himself the circus, and descending into the arena, attempted to hold back those who wielded deadly weapons against each other. The spectators of the murderous fray, possest with the drunken glee of the demon who delights in such bloodshed, stoned to death the preacher of peace. The admirable Emperor learning this put a stop to that evil exhibition. -Theodoret's Ecclesiastical History.)

If it be a mosque people murmur the holy prayer, and if it be a Christian Church, people ring the bell from love to Thee.

Sometimes I frequent the Christian cloister, and sometimes the mosque.

But it is thou whom I search from temple to temple.

Thy elect have no dealings with either heresy or orthodoxy; for neither of them stands behind the screen of thy truth.

Heresy to the heretic, and religion to the orthodox,

But the dust of the rose-petal belongs to the heart of the perfume seller.

Akbar and Abul FAZL before the palace at Futehpur-Sikri at night.

'LIGHT of the nations' ask'd his Chronicler

Of Akbar 'what has darken'd thee tonight?'

Then, after one quick glance upon the stars,

And turning slowly toward him, Akbar said

'The shadow of a dream-an idle one It may be. Still I raised my heart to heaven,

I pray'd against the dream. To pray, to do

To pray, to do according to the prayer, Are, both, to worship Alla, but the prayers, That have no successor in deed, are faint And pale in Alla's eyes, fair mothers they Dying in childbirth of dead sons. I vow'd Whate'er my dreams, I still would do the right

Thro' all the vast dominion which a sword,

That only conquers men to conquer peace, Has won me. Alla be my guide!

But come, My noble friend, my faithful counsellor, Sit by my side. While thou art one with

me,

I seem no longer like a lonely man In the king's garden, gathering here and there

From each fair plant the blossom choic

est-grown

To wreathe a crown not only for the king But in due time for every Mussulmân, Brahmin, and Buddhist, Christian, and Parsee,

Thro' all the warring world of Hindustan.

Well spake thy brother in his hymn to heaven

"Thy glory baffles wisdom. All the tracks Of science making toward Thy Perfect

ness

Are blinding desert sand; we scarce can spell

The Alif of Thine Alphabet of Love."

He knows Himself, men nor themselves nor Him,

For every splinter'd fraction of a sect Will clamour "I am on the Perfect Way,

Cry to the lotus "No flower thou"? the palm

Call to the cypress "I alone am fair"? The mango spurn the melon at his foot? "Mine is the one fruit Alla made for man."

Look how the living pulse of Alla beats Thro' all His world. If every single star Should shriek its claim "I only am in heaven"

Why that were such sphere-music as the Greek

Had hardly dream'd of. There is light in all,

And light, with more or less of shade, in all

Man-modes of worship; but our Ulama, Who" sitting on green sofas contemplate The torment of the damn'd" already, these

Are like wild brutes new-caged-the

Whom? even "your persecutors"! there methought

The cloud was rifted by a purer gleam Than glances from the sun of our Islâm. And thou rememberest what a fury shook

Those pillars of a moulder'd faith, when he,

That other, prophet of their fall, proclaimed

His Master as "the Sun of Righteousness,"

Yea, Alla here on earth, who caught and held

His people by the bridle-rein of Truth. What art thou saying? "And was not Alla call'd

In old Irân the Sun of Love? and Love The net of truth?"

A voice from old Irân! Nay, but I know it-his, the hoary Sheik,

On whom the women shrieking "Atheist" flung

Filth from the roof, the mystic melodist Who all but lost himself in Alla, him Abu Safd

-a sun but dimly seen Here, till the mortal morning mists of earth

Fade in the noon of heaven, when creed

and race

Shall bear false witness, each of each, no

more,

But find their limits by that larger light,
And overstep them, moving easily
Thro' after-ages in the love of Truth,
The truth of Love.

The sun, the sun! they rail At me the Zoroastrian. Let the Sun, Who heats our earth to yield us grain and fruit,

And laughs upon thy field as well as mine,

And all the more, when these behold their Lord,

Who shaped the forms, obey them, and himself

Here on this bank in some way live the life Beyond the bridge, and serve that Infinite Within us, as without, that All-in-all, And over all, the never-changing One And ever-changing Many, in praise of Whom

The Christian bell, the cry from off the

mosque,

And vaguer voices of Polytheism
Make but one music, harmonising, "Pray."
There westward-under yon slow-fall-
ing star,

The Christians own a Spiritual Head; And following thy true counsel, by thine aid,

Myself am such in our Islâm, for no
Mirage of glory, but for power to fuse
My myriads into union under one;
To hunt the tiger of oppression out
From office; and to spread the Divine
Faith

Like calming oil on all their stormy creeds,

And fill the hollows between wave and

Who fitted stone to stone again, and Truth,

Peace, Love and Justice came and dwelt therein,

Nor in the field without were seen or heard

Fires of Súttee, nor wail of baby-wife, Or Indian widow; and in sleep I said "All praise to Alla by whatever hands My mission be accomplish'd!" but we hear

Music: our palace is awake, and morn Has lifted the dark eyelash of the Night From off the rosy cheek of waking Day. Our hymn to the sun. They sing it. Let us go.'

HYMN.

I.

Once again thou flamest heavenward, once again we see thee rise.

Every morning is thy birthday gladdening human hearts and eyes.

Every morning here we greet it, bowing lowly down before thee,

Thee the Godlike, thee the changeless in thine ever-changing skies.

11.

Shadow-maker, shadow-slayer, arrowing light from clime to clime,

Hear thy myriad laureates hail thee monarch in their woodland rhyme.

Warble bird, and open flower, and, men, below the dome of azure

Kneel adoring Him the Timeless in the flame that measures Time!

NOTES TO AKBAR'S DREAM.

He

The great Mogul Emperor Akbar was born October 14, 1542, and died 1605. At 13 he succeeded his father Humayun; at 18 he himself assumed the sole charge of government. subdued and ruled over fifteen large provinces; his empire included all India north of the Vindhya Mountains-in the south of India he was not so successful. His tolerance of religions and his abhorrence of religious persecution put our Tudors to shame. He invented a new eclectic religion by which he hoped to unite all creeds, castes and peoples: and his legislation was remarkable for vigour, justice and humanity.

'Thy glory baffles wisdom. The Emperor quotes from a hymn to the Deity by Faizi, brother of Abul Fazl, Akbar's chief friend and minister, who wrote the Ain i Akbari (Annals of Akbar). His influence on his age was immense. It may be that he and his brother Faizi led Akbar's mind away from Islám and the Prophet-this charge is brought against him by every Muhammadan writer; but Abul Fazl also led his sovereign to a true appreciation of his duties, and from the moment that he entered Court, the problem of successfully ruling over mixed races, which Islám in few other countries had to solve, was carefully considered, and the policy of toleration was the result (Blochmann xxix.).

Abul Fasl thus gives an account of himself 'The advice of my Father with difficulty kept me back from acts of folly; my mind had no rest and my heart felt itself drawn to the sages of Mongolia or to the hermits on Lebanon. I longed for interviews with the Llamás of Tibet or with the padres of Portugal, and I would gladly sit with the priests of the Parsis and the learned of the Zendavesta. I was sick of the learned of my own land.'

He became the intimate friend and adviser of Akbar, and helped him in his tolerant system of government. Professor Blochmann writes Impressed with a favourable idea of the value of his Hindu subjects, he (Akbar) had resolved when pensively sitting in the evenings on the solitary stone at Futehpur-Sikri to rule with an even hand

all men in his dominions; but as the extreme views of the learned and the lawyers continually urged him to persecute instead of to heal, he instituted discussions, because, believing himself to be in error, he thought it his duty as ruler to inquire.' 'These discussions took place every Thursday night in the Ibadat-khana a building at Futehpur-Sikri, erected for the purpose' (Malleson).

In these discussions Abul Fazl became a great power, and he induced the chief of the disputants to draw up a document defining the divine Faith' as it was called, and assigning to Akbar the rank of a Mujahid, or supreme khalifah, the vicegerent of the one true God.

Abul Fazl was finally murdered at the instigation of Akbar's son Salim, who in his Memoirs declares that it was Abul Fazl who had perverted his father's mind so that he denied the divine mission of Mahomet, and turned away his love from his son.

Faizi. When Akbar conquered the NorthWest Provinces of India, Faizi, then 20, began his life as a poet, and earned his living as a physician. He is reported to have been very generous and to have treated the poor for nothing. His fame reached Akbar's ears who commanded him to come to the camp at Chitor. Akbar was delighted with his varied knowledge and scholarship and made the poet teacher to his sons. Faizi at 33 was appointed Chief Poet (1588). He collected a fine library of 4300 MSS. and died at the age of 40 (1595) when Akbar incorporated his collection of rare books in the Imperial Library.

The Warring World of Hindostan. Akbar's rapid conquests and the good government of his fifteen provinces with their complete military, civil and political systems make him conspicuous among the great kings of history.

The Goan Padre. Abul Fazl relates that one night the Ibadat-khana was brightened by the presence of Padre Rodolpho, who for intelligence and wisdom was unrivalled among Christian doctors. Several carping and bigoted men attacked him and this afforded an opportunity for the display of the calm judgment and justice of the assembly. These men brought forward the old received assertions, and did not attempt to arrive at truth by reasoning. Their statements were torn to pieces, and they were nearly put to shame, when they began to attack the contradictions of the Gospel, but they could not prove their assertions. With perfect calmness, and earnest conviction of the truth he replied to their arguments.'

Abû Sa'id. 'Love is the net of Truth, Love