preacher in the Marien Church, and, in 1788, Provost of Berlin. He was a powerful and a polished preacher, with a clear head and a pure heart, and most conscientiously used his distinguished talents in promoting the best welfare of the churches and schools of Berlin, and, as a distinguished author in various ranks of literature, gained the respect and esteem of all his contemporaries. His "Reading Book for all Classes;" his "Weekly Conversations on the Characteristics of Mankind, and on the Earth and its Inhabitants;" and also his "Travels," give a sufficient proof of his useful activity. He was very early initiated into the fraternity, and was extremely active in it. In 1798, he was elected, by the Grand National Mother Lodge at Berlin, its Grand Master, and in this office he took the first and most distinguished part in introducing the rectified system into that Grand Lodge. In his memory, the lodge founded an exhibition, which is given under the title of the Zollmerical Freemasons' Exhibition. The lodge considered this a more worthy monument of his useful services than one of stone.

Zoroaster.-Properly Zerdutscht, or Zerethosch thro, a celebrated eastern philosopher, whose history is veiled in great obscurity. He is said to have lived in the time of King Darius Hystaspis, 519 years before Christ; that he was well skilled in all Oriental wisdom; and that he was instructed in the knowledge of the true God by an Israelitish priest. He was acknowledged by Darius and his Persians as an ambassador of God. He is not the founder, but the reformer, and very probably merely the extender, of the religion of the Magi. Some philosophers mention two persons of the name of Zoroaster; but in probability_there was only one. His religious opinions are contained in the "ZendAvesta," the Persian Liturgie, of which there is a German translation by Klenken, in three vols. Riga, 1775. The original of this work was written in the ancient, now dead, language Zend; some of them in the also dead language Pehlvi, and others are translated into the Sanscrit, and into the ancient and modern Persian. According to the ZendAvesta, the principal doctrines of Magismus are the following. There are two principles, from one of which every moral and physical good in the earth is derived, and from the other everything that is wicked. The good principle is called Ormuzd, and the evil Ahriman. Both were originally created good by Zatrea of Ormuzd, Ahriman became wicked, and, from that time to the present, there has been a continual combat between the good and the bad principle. The first men were created pure and immortal, but they sinned. There will be a reward for the good after death; the state of the damned is a state of purification. After 12,000, for so long the world will exist, the good will be victorious over the bad for ever. The Grecian work which we have, under the title of the Oracles of Zoroaster," is of later origin, and most probably the production of gnostic or modern Platonica.

[Thus concludes the labour of our much esteemed Bro. Watson, who, in the translation of an important and valuable work, has "done the state some service." His labours have extended over a series of years, during which many and oft have we received grateful testimony from kindred spirits, who, like himself, prize Freemasonry for its purity. If our own acknowledgments can add to the weight of others, we give them with all sincerity, and "hearty good wishes that length of years, and happiness to enjoy them, may attend a brother who has proved himself “free and accepted."

HISTORICAL VIEWS OF PROGRESS.

OUTLINES OF LECTURE II.

BY RICHARD HART.

It would save mankind a vast deal of aimless hypothesis and causeless conjecture, if, instead of endeavouring to improve theoretically upon the wisdom of the mode in which the affairs of the world proceed, they were to take things simply as they are or have been, and reason upon them as accomplished facts. But, instead of pursuing this common sense and obvious course, they are constantly occupied in presenting them in some new and unreal point of view, leaving out some of the main and essential facts, or adding new and suppositious circumstances; in fact, enacting Hamlet with the part of Hamlet omitted, and then drawing inconclusive and practically worthless conclusions, from which no lessons of wisdom or guidance for the future can be extracted by the shrewdest alchemy of intellectual research and investigation.

Take a recent instance. The fall of Louis Phillippe. We have had it pronounced with all the force of oracular wisdom and ex post facto prophecy, that if Louis Phillippe had remained firm, if he had not dismissed his Ministers, if the troops had been kept well in hand, if they had not been forbidden to fire upon the people, he, Louis Phillippe, would still have been king of the French, the barricades and the men of the faubourgs notwithstanding.

Here is a bundle of ifs, for the contemplation of which we are asked to lose sight of broad realities and substantial facts. And to what end forsooth? To the end that we may lose the knowledge to be gained from the study of practical truths in speculations upon airy and substantial nothings, which, at the first touch of memory would fade away, and, like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wreck behind. What boots it to us to know what Louis Phillippe might have been, if he had done something which he did not do, when we know what he did and what he is?

The past life of Louis Phillippe-his clinging to peace and peaceful professions, in the midst of preparations for war-his tortuous and underground policy-his daring, where he had craftily before-hand satisfied himself that the risk was small-his unscrupulousness in following out his designs-his false confidence in the firmness and stability of his overturned power, were all the natural and introductory steps to that blindness of danger, when it stood within arm's length of him-to that persistence in despotic purposes-to that facility with which he sacrificed his advisers which preceded his fall from power.

He had ascended the ladder step by step, till his foot was upon the topmost round, and then, more intent upon further ascent, than upon the means of ascending, he strove to mount still higher, found that there was no support for his footing, and fell.

The causes had arrived at their culminating point, the measure was full, and the effect followed. He had strict stern justice meted out to him, in the form of cause and effect; the chain of circumstance was formed, he himself was a link, and with it his power was dragged down. We know all this, what need then of teasing us with ifs, which never were and never can be aught else?

No! let us cease to perplex ourselves about what would and might have been, and seek to know what has been, what is, and what must be. Let us descard the unsubstantial chimeras and phantom fancies of

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imagination, when imagination ventures out of her own domain, and intrudes into the region of facts. Let us, instead of battling with the ghosts of speculation, grapple with the tangible existences of substantiality, and wrest from them the truths of the future. That is the only way the cause of truth can be aided, or the battle of progress won. In thinking of the past, we will seek to avoid the error, to steer clear of the rock upon which much of philosophy has been wrecked; to leave far on one side the quicksand upon which history has so often stranded. We will endeavour to take the plain straightforward path of fact-content with causes as they have been-with effects as they are.

A greater wisdom than ours presides. We can note a few of its movements, but can scarcely generalize upon its designs. A few links of the universe are within our grasp, but the infinite chain, stretching through and out of space, into the great void beyond-out of time into eternity is too vast for our finite minds. The attempt to grasp it, would be as though the phantoms of our sleeping visions sought to analyze the being of us, the dreamers.

Our merely human minds, our sympathies, our passions, our feelings, our hopes, our fears, our doubts, our suspicions, our loves and hatreds, place us below the point of view whence we could correctly note the actions of that great power, which in and by and beyond all things, rules all things, never for a moment diverging from the broad track of fixed law, never hoping, dreading, doubting, or suspecting, because, having perfect knowledge, it moves steadily on, with the certainty and impassability of a vast self-impelled and self-governed machine to a destined end.

And even granting that we could attain the precise point of sight-if we could gain the mastery over ourselves-if we could attain perfect calmness-if we could banish all hope and dread and sympathy-if we could prevent the wish from being father to the thought,-still beings bounded by space could not hope to measure spacelessness; existences meted by time could not hope to compass eternity: as well essay to move the world without an independent atom, on which to stand or fix the fulcrum of our lever.

Astronomers may scan the stars and trace the footsteps of omnipotence from globe to globe, from starry zone to shining belt, and mist-encompassed nebulæ. They see only effects. Causes are beyond their mental sight, and far beyond their material vision lie countless orbs teeming with motion and with life, producing disturbing forces which they know not of. Truly there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

Traces of the great spirit of nature are visible everywhere, and nowhere more palpably than in the facts of history. Nowhere, indeed, so palpably; elsewhere we often fail to trace effects to causes; there, cause and effect form part of the same visible chain, often of the self-same link.

Still we must not be presumptuous-even there we cannot walk erect -the light is too uncertain for our eye-the ground too rugged and broken for our footstep. We must grope our way from fact to fact, often losing the clue to guide us through the labyrinth, often at a loss to know or guess the cause of what we see.

A circumstance once launched into the world, never ceases to act; a drop of water flowing from the fountain head, exercises a determinate action upon the broad stream rushing into the ocean. An existence is never lost. All influences, whether good or evil, are eternal in their

operation. The first object upon which the attention is fixed, helps to mould the future life. Sun and star and planet, attract and repulse, and ever keep an even balance. The web is twisted, warped, and overlaid, here a bright thread, there a sombre skein; but from first to last, from the issuing of form out of chaos, to the final plunge of time into eternity, the connection is continuous, the line unbroken.

We grope along but darkly in our estimate of history. We know not how many facts, influencing our present, weaving our future, lie buried in those ages, the records of which are lost for ever. We cannot guess, much less know, what solutions of vexed problems, ancient and modern, are enshrined in the cave temples of India, involved in the hieroglyphics of Egypt.

We tread at best in but a partial and uncertain light; there the spark flickers up into a flame, here it is hidden in impenetrable darkness. Let us discard presumption and move with caution. Let theory tread as lightly over past facts, as reverential men tread over the resting places and memories of the dead.

In our last lecture, we glanced at three great empires: the Jewish, the Grecian, and the Roman. We saw them rise from obscurity-emerge into the light of a partial civilization, and sink again into darkness.

Nature is full of analogies. Each sphere revolving on its axis, now basks in day, now sinks in darkest night; but only to prepare for a new dawn. Each revolution aids it on its onward course, for it moves in a circle greater than its own; and the motion which brings it alternate light and shade, propels it, in the system of which it forms part, round its great centre. So each nation, revolving on itself, now rising up to the light of civilization, now returns to the darkness of barbarism; and the motion which causes its vicissitudes, aids the permanent progress of the great world.

Each of the nations we have mentioned, took some steps on the road of progress. Could not each have continued its onward journey? If so, why did each falter, stop short, and fall?

The answer is, it could not. Each, like each separate sphere, was revolving upon its own centre: each had a special principle of motion. Full and complete progress is to be fulfilled by a whole, not by a part alone -by a system, not by a star-by all mankind, not by one nation. There is a common salvation for all the children of man. This nation or that may nearly compass the course, but progress will never be perfect till it is universal. All men are bound together by a common bond of union : all are involved in a common fate. All races must attain to perfect happiness or none. They are all children of a common parent, the earth; all subject to the same laws, all influenced by the same causes; they are all parts of the same body-all atoms which go to make up the whole of nature. As well then might we expect to have the arm diseased, and the body free from a participation in the pain, as suppose that the miseries of one race will not visit themselves upon another.

All who believe in the ultimate happiness of humanity, must believe in the happiness, not of a part, but of the whole; else their belief is selfcontradictory, a house divided against itself, and it cannot stand.

This is one of nature's great laws, teaching us not only the beauty and wisdom, but the necessity of charity, in more persuasive accents, than ever issued from the lips of sage or prophet.

Now a light breaks in upon us. Now we begin to see darkly why the Jewish nation could not stand-why it ought to have fallen as it did

fall. Let it be understood, that if the principles which govern any race, are not sufficient for the happiness of all races, they are not sufficient for the happiness of that race itself, and the curtain begins to rise, the mist to disperse.

The Jews were avowedly living under a special dispensation-they alone were to receive benefit from their creed-the Gentiles and all other nations were authoritatively excluded from being participators in their salvation. Their hope was particular and therefore partial; it was veiled in symbols, which had interest and significance for them alone: to them it was all, to others it was nothing; and therefore it contained its own condemnation. The faith of the Jews was not sufficiently broad to fill all the earth, and that which is not sufficient, must of necessity come to nothing; were it otherwise, we might arraign the wisdom and the justice of nature's great and wise scheme.

But the Jews did not live in vain. There is nothing completely in vain. All observation leads us, nay impels us to that conclusion. In all nature, we cannot find a single instance of waste of power, a single unnecessary contrivance. The creed of the Jews was special and particular; but reflection tells us, that we must have the special and particular, before we can have the general and universal. All things have a beginning, a starting point. The fire which wraps a city in flames, is kindled at one point. The rays of light which cover the earth, diverge from a single focus.

The creed of the Jews was special and particular it is true; it was not large enongh to include all mankind, or The Temple would still be standing; but it was based on a general and universal principle, on FAITH, of which all men are capable. Their application of that principle was too narrow and confined, and when they fell, their application only fell with them-not the principle itself.

It was necessary for the benefit of all that the Jews should fall, so that faith might be set free and all men admitted within its pale. Nature connives at no monopolies. But it was necessary too that they should have existed, so that faith might have a beginning—a foundation -a point from which to act; and it is necessary, too, in a world where the reign of faith has not yet been established, that the Jew, degraded, humiliated, fallen from his high estate, should wander among us, preserved by faith-holding fast to it as his anchor-nothing without it— so that the strength of faith may be proved till proof becomes unnecessary. The Jews are the exemplars of faith-dispersed among all nations, but still a nation-mixed with all races, but blended with none-subject to all laws, but obeying their own-broken and scattered, but still held together by faith, and by its light looking for eventual pardon and reestablishment in the chosen land.

May we not say of them, "whatever is, is right?" May we not say to them, that the advent of that for which they hope, shall be, when all humanity is enfranchised, when all men have a common faith, when the universal principle has an universal application?

As the Jews lighted up the fire of faith, so the Greeks kindled the flames of thought, set philosophy afoot, and gave birth to art.

It does not need argument to prove the necessity of philosophy for our happiness, our civilization-in short, our progress. All men who think, are ready to acknowledge the obligations we are under to the Greeks, the advantages we have derived from their mental labour.

In order to answer the question-Was it necessary they should have