and proved to every fair-minded man that he was an evangelist and not a Nihilist. But the priests, the head man of whom was the teacher of the Czar and is all-powerful with him, hated the movement of Paschkoff from the start, just as night owls hate the light of the sun. They want no reform of the church, no reform of the hearts of men. They want to remain in office and in power, they want to retain their influence over the misled and ignorant people. At last these night-owls have got it all their own way. By a decree of the Russian Government Count Korff was exiled from Russia like a great conspirator and evil-doer. Count Paschkoff was asked whether he was willing to declare solemnly that he would give up circulating tracts, and when he refused he was given two weeks' time to leave Russia forever. The printed tracts, which had already been approved by the Censor, were, ordered to be burned.-Illus. Chris. Weekly. SHAMANISM. The old, old religion of Asia, which is so old that it might well be thought to have passed ages ago into the limbo of forgotten superstitions, has not yet quite died out. It has been dispossessed of its fairest provinces by Christianity and Mohammedanism in the west. It has been ejected from southern and central Asia by various forms of belief, notably Buddhism-though it still is found, partially represented at all events, among some of the pre-Aryan tribes of India. It has been supplanted among the Mongols of Gobi by the strange religion of the Lamas; yet upon Buddhism and Lamaism, and also probably upon Confucianism, it has left its impress. It still lingers among some of the Turanian tribes of Siberia. Among the Bouriats, the Ostiacks, the Tungous, and the Samoides, there are yet many thousands of heathen who cling to that old religion, commonly known as "Shamanism," which is probably the most an cient of all false beliefs under the sun. As a form of belief it may be described as being partly nature-worship, partly demonolatry, and partly a deification of the faculties of the soul of man. As nature-worship, Shamanism assumed the form which we should expect in peoples mainly engaged in pastoral and agricultural pursuits. "Heaven" was deified as being the active beneficent power of nature, and as such was almost personified. So that hence arose the impression among European travelers that the Mongol tribes believed in a Supreme God. But this was probably a mistake. "Heaven" was regarded as the active life-giving power, but the followers of the Shaman religion have had no idea under that name of any personal Supreme God. . . The Shaman may be said to exercise the function of the priest, soothsayer, and sorcerer. It was he who, on all accustomed occasions, offered up the prayers of the people, as, for instance, at their great half-yearly festivals in spring and autumn, when the grateful nomads, rejoicing in the renewed face of nature, or in the harvest fruits, brought to the gods offerings of mare's milk, spirit, and grass, and sacrificed horses and mares-white mares being held then in special regard. Upon the entering on any important undertaking, prayers to the protectorgod will be offered by the Shaman. In diseases it is for the Shaman to ascertain what evil spirit has caused the disease, and what offering he requires from the sick man. It is for him to exorcise the spirit, and with his incantations to drive the spirit into a selected animal, which is then killed. Or, as is more usually the case, the Shaman pretends to draw out the demon from the sick man into his own body. This he does with those ceremonies with which we are familiar, as practiced among all heathen tribes who hold to demonolatry, as by the medicine men of North America, and the Kahunas of the Sandwich Islands. It is generally allowed by those who have witnessed these scenes, which are still enacted among some of the Mongol tribes of Siberia, as, e. g., the Bouriats, that the Shaman plays his part with great skill, and gives to many the idea that he really is possessed. The belief of the Mongols themselves in the Shamans, their influence over the spirits, their power of prophecy, and ability, when they choose, to cure diseases, is firm and general. And, indeed, even by the more ignorant of the Russians in Siberia, they are regarded as magicians, and believed, in their tricks and conjurations, to be gifted with preternatural power.-Joseph Sheepshanks, in Mission Life. HOPE FOR AFRICA. The report was received some time since that Henry M. Stanley, the distinguished African explorer, had resigned his position as the head of the King of Belgium's International African Association. He last week reached England, on his return to civilization, to the highest honors and emoluments of which he is preeminently entitled for his unparalleled services to the cause of science and humanity. Among the many who have penetrated the barriers to the interior of the Dark Continent which have so long resisted the entrance of modern civilization, his name easily stands the highest. After again and again traversing the continent and solving great geographical problems, he has now completed his grand work by opening a highway for trade and missions to the heart of the interior along the course of the mighty river which he had previously traced to its sources in the great central lakes, and which he would call by the name of the great missionary explorer, Livingstone, whom he found when he had been long lost to the world. Since his return he has received the approval of the King of Belgium for his services, who has conferred on him the decoration of the Order of Leopold. It is a fit sequel to this noble work of an American explorer that the gospel is to be given to the teeming tribes thus revealed to the world by the efforts of an American missionary society. The stations along the Congo of the Livingstone Inland Mission established by Mr. Guinness have been transferred to the American Baptist Missionary Union, who thus enter upon a work successfully organized and in operation. With the establishment of a Free State in the Congo Valley, guaranteed by the great Powers of Christendom, the way may be prepared for the fulfilment of the prophecy, "The labor of Egypt and merchandise of Ethiopia shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine ; they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee, and there is none else.-Illus. Chr. Weekly. THE PLAGUE IN THE EAST. This frightful pestilence was once believed to have arisen in Egypt, about the sixth century of the Christian era. But it is now well established that it appeared in Greece, once at least, in the ninth century before Christ, and again in the seventh, and again three times in the sixth, and once in the fifth. In the ninth and eighth centuries before Christ, the disease raged in Syria and Asia Minor. It has been described by Rufus of Ephesus, in the third century before the Christian era. Oribasius, a celebrated Greek physician of the fourth century of the Christian era, quotes from this author a sentence describing the disease as it appeared in Libya, in Egypt, and Syria. Dioscorides, a writer of the first Christian century, gives a lengthened description of the pest as it appeared in his day in Libya. Other ancient physicians have also given vivid descriptions, which make it certain that it was well known from remote antiquity. The plague usually originates in the alluvial plains of great rivers, as that of the Nile, the Euphrates or the Indus. It would seem to owe its existence to the accumulation of foul emanations in the neighborhood of human habitations, in a damp soil, among the poor and filthy populations of Africa and Asia. Occasionally, however, it arises in dry regions, as near Benghazi in Tripoli, on a sandy soil, or in the mountainous regions of Persia, near Ararat, or in Kurdestan. Some ancient epidemics, familiarly known as plague, are not of the character above described. For example, the plague which raged in Athens in the days of Pericles was not the pestilence in ques tion. The first notable epidemic of the Egyptian plague in Europe was in the year 542 A. D., during the reign of Justinian. It was taken by the physicians of Constantinople for a new disease. It was imported from Pelusium, in Lower Egypt, and continued for half a century its ravages through a considerable part of the then civilized earth. Pro copius declares that ten thousand persons died of it in a single day in Constantinople. It spread to Italy, Gaul, Spain. Gregory of Tours says: "The epidemic invaded the centre of France, and the mortality was so considerable that it was impossible to fix the number of its victims. Coffins and boards having failed, ten or more bodies were buried together in a common trench." Two varieties of the plague prevailed in Europe during the middle ages. One was the ordinary Egyptian pest, and the other was known as the black death, or the Indian plague. Of the first there were numerous epidemics in Europe from the days of Justinian to the year 1828, when it ceased to rage in that continent. The authors of the middle ages were not exact in their accounts, and differ much as to the number and duration of the epidemics. It would appear, however, that there were not less than thirty two visitations between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, the last of which lasted for twelve years. According to a list preserved in the great mosque of Cairo, there were ten epidemics of the plague in Egypt during the eighteenth century. The famous black death, which is considered by the highest authorities to be a peculiarly malignant type of the Egyptian plague, arising in the delta of the Indus, and perhaps independently in China, entered Europe in 1347 with the Mongols, and within three years spread to every country of that continent and caused a loss of human life unparalleled in the history of the world. Venice lost one hundred thousand; London the same; Vienna, seventy thousand; Florence and Avignon each sixty thousand; Paris, fifty thousand. Smolensk was quite depopulated, only fifteen of its inhabitants surviving. It raged in similar proportions throughout Europe, which was then estimated to contain one hundred millions of souls. During three years twenty-five millions are computed to have perished; that is, a quarter of the whole population. The visitation of this terrible scourge lasted thirteen years. It was during the first year of its prevalence that Boccaccio places the scene of his ideal Decameron. A party of Florentine ladies and gentlemen are represented as having fled from Florence and shut themselves up in quarantine in a villa near Fiesole, and abandoned themselves for ten days to unrestrained gaiety, in the hope of banishing the dreaded pestilence from their thoughts. Many authors have concurred in describing the moral debasement which accompanied and followed the great epidemics of the plague at this period. The last outbreak of the plague in Egypt was in 1845. Quarantines, the increasing attention to public hygiene and judicious management of the epidemics had stamped it out of Europe (with a few exceptions, in the case of countries near the East) for more than half a century. Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, in 1858, and again in 1874, it appeared in Benghazi, near the coast of Tripoli, but did not spread widely in northern Africa. Subsequently it appeared in the plains of the Euphra tes, in the neighborhood of Hillah and Hindié in 1867 and 1876; and in Resht, Persia, in 1878. The mortality of the visitation in Bagdad in 1876 was 2,649, of whom 2,426 died in the months of April and May. The proportion of deaths to population was only five per cent. In the year 1878 a pestilence resembling the plague broke out in the district of Vetlianka, in southeastern Russia. Although quite fatal in that district, its ravages were soon stopped by sanitary measures taken by the Russian Government, and it has not reappeared.— Dr. G. E. Post, of Syria, in S. S. Times. From the Gardeners' Monthly. RURAL. LONGEVITY OF TREES.-At the meeting of the Botanical Section of the Academy of Natural Sciences, of Philadelphia, Thomas Meehan remarked that there was nothing phenomenal in the great age of the mammoth Sequoias, as other trees on the Pacific Coast exhibited great age. In order to ascertain whether more than one annual circle of wood is formed in each year, he tested the matter in various ways. For instance, a pine or spruce would be found to make an average growth of a foot a year up to fifteen years old; from that to about thirty years, nine inches; from that on, six inches; after that a stage was reached where the erect growth ceased to any considerable extent, and the growth force seemed turned towards the lateral branches. In the pine forests of the Pacifie Coast there was no danger of error in fixing the age of the average tree of sixty feet high at about fifty years. Whenever such a tree was cut down, and an opportunity afforded to count the circles, they would be found to correspond so nearly with the calculated age, as to prove that it was quite safe to assume a single circle for a single year. Then there was a remarkable degree of uniformity in the diameter of these annual growths in most trees, so that when once we had the number of circular lines to an inch, and the diameter of the tree, we could tell its age near enough for general purposes. In some pine trees growing on very rich soil, he had found as few as about four circles to an inch. For instance, a section of a Pinus Lambertiana in Mariposa, four feet across, had but 189 circles; but here the increased size of the trees corresponds with the larger annual circles. Trees of this species of pine here measuring thirty, and a few thirty-three feet round were not uncommon. No matter, however, how vigorous may be the growth of trees under fifty or over one hundred years, they decrease with age, and we may safely allow six rings to an inch in these older sugar pines, which would make the 33 feet tree 396 years old. The outer growths of sequoia were very narrow. He counted as many as eighteen to the inch, while the rings in the interior of cross-sections would show about six to the inch. Allowing twelve as the average per annum, a tree of thirty-three feet diameter would give 2,376 years old, which is about the same as given by actual count of the rings. been a grand old tree in its day. It had evidently been broken off years before it was blown down, but the length of the trunk up to where it had been broken was 132 feet, and four feet in diameter at that height. But allowing as much as twelve to an inch, it would give for the point cut across, six feet, an age of 432 years. At Kaigan Harbor, latitude 55°, the Sitka spruces were very large, and of great height. He measured two of the largest, which were twenty-one feet in circumference each. Allowing eight to the inch, as in the tree of the same species at Harrisburg, it gives 336 years as the age of the tree. So far as appearances went, these trees were in the height of vigor, and there seemed no reason, judging from experience in other cases, why these trees might not flourish for a hundred years yet. Mr. Meehan had no doubt that these trees in these latitudes in Alaska would easily have a life of 500 years. Turning now to the Atlantic States, we find 200 years as the full average term of life for its forest trees, with the exception, perhaps, of the plane (Platanus occidentalis), which is the longest lived of all. Trees famous for longevity in Europe are comparatively short lived here. In the old Bartram Garden near Philadelphia, and where the trees can be little more than 150 years old, nearly all are past their best. The English oak (Quercus Robur), which in England is said to live for a thousand years, has grown to full size and wholly died away in this garden, and the foreign spruces are on the down grade. The great cypress (Taxodium distichum), and which must have made an average growith of four lines a year, has also begun to show signs of deterioration. Silver firs (Abies pectinata) in the vicinity of Philadelphia known to be planted in 1800 are decaying. is the general experience. This In seeking for the cause of this difference we are accustomed to look at the relative humidity of the atmospheres of Great Britain and the Atlantic United States. Evergreens like Cerasus LauroCerasus, Laurus nobilis and Viburnum tinus, which will endure a temperature of 25° below freezing point in Great Britain, are killed by 10° in Philadelphia; and, it is believed, by the dryer atmosphere causing a heavier drain for moisture on the vital powers of the plant to supply. A strain which will wholly destroy plants in some instances, must have an enervating influence where it does not wholly destroy, and this would naturally be exhibited in shortening the life of the tree. The climate of Alaska had the same favoring influences we found in Great Britain. The warm Sea of Japan flowed against its south-eastern face, along which the trees referred to were found. The atmosphere was always moist, and severe weather almost unknown. At Sitka, in latitude 57°, as much as 100 inches of rain had fallen in a single year. The harbor was rarely frozen-boats came in and went out at all times of the year. were some winters when no ice of any consequence was seen. These were circumstances favorable to At Harrisburg, or Juneau, in latitude 58°, a Sitka spruce (Abies Sitkensis) cut down gave 149 rings from center to circumference-298 lines in a trunk three feet across. This gave an average of about eight to an inch in this 149-year-old, threefoot tree. At Wrangel, latitude 56° 30', a tree of the Western Hemlock (Abies Mertensiana) which had been blown down and afterwards divided by a cross-cut saw at four feet from its base, gave eighteen lines to an inch, and the annual growths seemed very regular almost to the centre of the tree. It was six feet in diameter, and must have longevity in trees. There Mr. Meehan concluded by remarking that Dr. Lindley had said somewhere that his researches had failed to show that there was any period of duration of life set for any tree, and that if circumstances favored there seemed no reason why trees might not live for an indefinite period, and therefore arguments offered in connection with the "wearing out of varieties" based on what is called the "natu. ral life of a tree" had little force. Mr. Meehan believed his observations on the longevity of trees on the Pacific Coast confirmed Dr. Lindley's views. At any rate, there seemed nothing phenomenal in the age of the Sequoia gigantea, as other species partook of similar longevity to a great extent. "Thou shalt be crowned! but not alone, And casting at His feet thy crown." M. A. Marriage Allen concludes in this number her very interesting notes of observations, during travel, on "The Colored People of the Southern States." The Voice from Southampton" follows, which has been usually one of the Examiner's closing utterances. We will reserve remarks upon it until after making brief mention of the remaining ar ticles. Of these the next is a review, by William Pollard, of a discourse by Dr. Parker, President of THE FRIENDS' REVIEW. the Congregational Union, on "Orthodoxy of PHILADELPHIA, NINTH MO. 6, 1884. FRIENDS' QUARTERLY EXAMINER (CONCLUDED.) -Mary E. Beck writes, in this number, with her accustomed earnestness and animation, on "Christ as our King." Part II follows, of Hannah Maria Wigham's essay on "The Society of Friends as a Branch of the Christian Church." Francis B. Gummere's poem on the unveiling of the bust of John Bright at Friends' School, Providence, finds a genial place next, in the Examiner. Then follows a prose poem, with chosen verses from other hands interspersed, on "The First Singer of the Church," by Jane Budge. Its opening words are, words.are, "And who was this? A lowly peasant maiden in a little Eastern town, who nigh 2000 years ago lifted up her voice in a song which has become immortal, and she said: 'My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.'" All of this sacred triumphal psalm is here appropriately quoted. Near the end of the article are some much less familiar words, by the author of theSchonberg-Cotta family"; of which these are a part: "Thou shalt be crowned, O Mother blest, Our hearts behold thee crowned e'en now, First singer of the Church! are thine. Heart." As already said, this is the converse view to that presented in the essay on "Doctrine and Modern Thought." Incidentally, W. Pollard gives an account of the manner in which the "General Epistle" of London Yearly Meeting is prepared: "We may put our Yearly Meeting's Epistle by the side of the Congregational address, as being in many respects the abiding feature of the gathering, and as having a similar object, that of speaking an effective and seasonable word to the scattered churches and members of the body. The writer was lately asked by an intelligent man, to whom the processes of Quakerism were somewhat novel, by what method this Epistle was usually evolved, so as to be in harmony with the characteristics of the community, especially with its high estimate of the direct guidance of the Divine Spirit. In describing to him the method adopted by the Yearly Meeting, one felt afresh how theoretically perfect it is for the object aimed at the preparation, under Divine guidance, of a timely and fitting address from the mother church to its members everywhere. "For this purpose an assembly so thoroughly. democratic and at the same time so profoundly theocratic as the Friends' Yearly Meeting, would not tolerate the work of one man, however gifted. It must be a united effort in which, to use Apostolic words, 'the whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, may make increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.' For this end the whole meeting, consisting of some hundreds of thoughtful religious men, after hearing a number of systematically prepared reports from all parts of the country, reverently wait on the Lord, having faith in the Real Presence of His enlightening and guiding Spirit. Thus waiting and trusting and seeking to be led and helped, the religious condition and work and needs of the Society are freely, but seriously, discussed by a number of men of differing ages and experiences, as duty seems to call ; and the meeting then resolves itself into a large Committee for further detail; after which about twenty Friends, of varied experience, and of Chris tian discernment, are set apart to gather up and put into shape the exercise of the meeting at large. If we follow these men into the greater privacy of their solemn deliberations, we shall find further reverent waiting on the Lord-which is the Quaker manifestation of the old Christian discipline contained in the words, 'prayer and fasting,'-and further careful consultation on the topics that had been brought forward. Finally, a sub-committee of three or four are appointed to prepare a paper embodying the thoughts and truths that had taken hold of the meeting; and, some days later, their work is considered, step by step, in the same grave and cautious manner. The outcome of all this is a piece of mosaic, the work of many minds, the fruit of that fundamental credo of the Society of Friendsthe diversity of gifts, exercised under the headship of Christ." On the leading subject of his discourse, it is said, "Dr. Parker reminds us-and he spoke with the approval of a large meeting of representative men -that 'We may be theologians, but not Christians; ecclesiastics, but not children of God; clever, but not good; controversial, but not prayerful.' "He says further, contrasting the Scriptural word 'doctrine' with the scholastic word 'dogma,''There is something about the word "dogma which seems to bear the finger-prints of the pedant or the priest.' "And again note the following, which all'Evangelicals' should ponder deeply: 'We must remember that in seeking a creed we may easily lose a faith. In defining God we may be unconsciously creating an idol. There is an idolatry of phrases as well as an idolatry of images. For this reason I am most anxious to connect pureness of heart, sweetness and lowliness of soul with the doctrine of Christ rather than with the dogmas of the priest.' There is in my opinion quite an easy possibility of certain theological propositions being overdiscussed, to the great hindrance of practical godliness and beneficence.' The end of all religious inquiry, instruction and attainment, is pureness of heart, meekness of spirit, loving obedience to our Father's will, oneness with God in every thought and wish.' 'I am not conscious of bearing false witness when I say that in speaking of the Christian minis ter there is a strong temptation to glide over the recital of moral and spiritual qualities, in order to praise his intellectual energy, his literary accomplishments, and his charming eloquence. Let us take care lest we thus make a priest of him! I give that repeated warning with the deepest solemnity of spirit. Once let it be supposed that only he can be a true minister of Christ who can read so many languages and pass so many examinations, or who has been trained in certain places for certain periods, you concede the vital point in any argument and in support,of sacerdotalism. The priest begins where the man ends. Our ministers must not be separated from our people by any arbitary authority of man. Congregationalism must maintain the priesthood of believers, and claim for all true hearts a place amongst the clergy of God.' "There is much here that sounds to a Friend very familiar doctrine, and yet one somewhat misses the idea so prominent on this subject to the Quaker mind-the need of fresh anointing and guidance for the ministry on each occasion, or, as our old Friends used quaintly to describe it, being baptized into the state of the meeting.' This will be called mysticism by some; but it is none the less, in our view, the New Testament teaching and method; and when carried out with active living faith in the qualifying power of the Holy Ghost, the resultant service is of all ministry the most heart-reaching; most truly the word in season, and, however unattractive oratorically, the most certain to be accompanied with spiritual power. The man who is ever ready to preach or pray, and who feels no need of fresh anointing, will be apt to be selfreliant, rather than God-reliant, and can in that spirit never rise to the height of this great service. "It has been often said or implied by emotional people that Religion is not knowledge, but feeling.' Possibly some of the mistaken proclivities of the present day towards sensationalism in religion are due to this notion. But it must not be inferred that the supremacy rightly accorded to orthodoxy of heart in any degree supports this view. Dr. Parker meets such one sidedness by a caution against the tendency which would idolize mere sentiment as the highest expression of Christianity.' He has no unity with those who think that religion is mere emotion, and a frame of mind.' Perhaps the incompleteness referred to was more fully met by some comprehensive words once used in the Friends' Yearly Meeting on this very point, Religion is not mere knowledge; it is not even covered by the word "feeling." It is knowledge, feeling, action." |