could trace their lineage unbroken to Cohtan or Joktan, the son of Eber, the son of Shem, the son of Noah.

The singular and whimsical medley of doctrines that go to make up the Druze religion could have been produced only in the times succeeding the first promulgation of Islamism. From the earliest ages the Oriental mind in India and Persia had anxiously occupied itself with speculations about the material creation, the origin, nature and destiny of spirits, and the great moral mystery in the source of evil. The multitudinous theories and creeds which naturally grew out of these questionings are familiar to students in the history of Christianity, when from its progress having brought it into contact with the westward march of these Eastern ideas, a host of heresies sprang up, under the varied forms of Gnosticism, to vex the orthodox church. While Christian and Persian systems were vigorously engaged in mutual proselytisms, the Moslem broke in upon them with a sword and a summary ultimatum. The Persian, whose religion was only theoretical, turned Mohammedan, for he could subsequently easily adjust his new to his old faith; but the Christian's faith was historical, and therefore had to be exclusively adhered to, or renounced altogether. The consequence is that Christianity has maintained its existence through a long calamitous course of centuries, to our own day, while the old Persian religion, as a distinct sect, has well nigh wholly disappeared. It was not long, however, in reappearing in a Moslem dress. A schism soon rose in Islam, about the succession to the caliphate, which has continued ever since, the orthodox Moslems acquiescing in its passing to Abubeer and Omar, which the Sheea or Persian Moslems, energetically repudiate, in favor of Ali ibn Abu Taleb, the chivalrous cousin of Mohammed, and who married his daughter Fatima. Meantime the amazing success of Mohammed in his role of prophet, naturally gave origin to hundreds anxious to be reverenced as apostles, as he was, so that in a short time a swarm of Inbeyeh, Nateks, Asyad, and Imams, appeared with all manner of visions, and revelations, and new systems, which, in order to secure followers, had to be made up of previous materials, and therefore presented a

mixture of Jewish, Christian, and Moslem ingredients, dissolved in an Indo-Persian menstruum. As the caliphs were bound to use the sword against each heresy as it arose, the Arabian empire of Baghdad, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, seemed but a reproduction of the Byzantine empire, in the fifth and sixth, and met also with the same fate. One of the most prevalent of these Moslem heresies was the sect of Batenians, or those initiated into the inner truths of religion, who, while outwardly professing Islamism, yet secretly associated with it such errors as that God had, in successive ages, appeared to men in a human form, and lastly, in the person of Ali ibn Abu Taleb, some of them incarnating him again in the descendants of Ali. The great doctrines of the incarnation of the Deity, and of the preëxistence and metempsychosis of human souls, can be very early traced among the Hindu religions. These doctrines appear to have gained entrance among the Arab Hammiar tribes, which, as we have already intimated, can be accounted for by their long relations with Persia, previous to their emigration to Mt. Lebanon.

At this time a royal dynasty arose in Egypt, which rested its claims to the caliphate in a descent from Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed, and wife of Ali, and was thereby peculiarly recommended to the Sheea or Persian sect of Moslems.

The founders of this dynasty were warlike, so that their supremacy soon prevailed in Syria over the declining rule of the 'Abbasides of Baghdad. On the death of El Aziz, the fifth caliph, he was succeeded by his son, El Hakem Bi-ammerillah, or the governor by the decree of God, when only eleven years of age. With the wretched influences of irresponsible power and license, and the unceasing adulation of eastern servility operating thus from childhood on a naturally bad character, Hakem grew up as fitful and brutal a tyrant as ever appears even among Oriental despots. He began life a furious Moslem, and, as orthodox defender of the faith, persecuted the poor Jews and Christians with dreadful cruelty, because they refused to acknowledge Mohammed as a Prophet. Soon after he persecuted those Moslems who would not admit Ali to equal honors with Mohammed, and finally raged

against Moslems and Christians alike for failing to admit the supernatural claims which he set up for himself, putting to a cruel death many of his confidential ministers and generals to whom he had more than once owed his life. Many of his actions, indeed, were more those of a violent maniac than a sane tyrant. After a capricious and dangerous patronage to almost every sect, to be followed by a frantic effort to exterminate it, he seemed at last to lean towards the Batenians, the more apparently because the family of Ali was held in such reverence by them. At this juncture a Persian Batenian, named Hamzé, ingratiated himself with Hakem, and soon suggested an important improvement on the Batenian system, that whereas they made the discovery that Ali and his sons were divine incarnations, long after they were dead, Hakem should put in his claim and enjoy the honors while he was alive. This proposition found great favor, and Hamzé, under the royal protection, began to preach in the mosques of Cairo, that Hakem was a gracious manifestation of the Almighty himself, and the last that was to appear to the sons of men. Strange to say, Hamzé made enough disciples to raise a large corps of missionaries, who were sent to India, Persia, Syria and Spain, and were generally directed to make their proselytes from among the Batenians. Meantime, this new gospel was very grievous to the old Moslems, and Hamzé was often in great personal danger from his bold preaching; but Hakem's sword was so quick and cruel that few lived long who threatened the life of his apostle. But the greatest success attended the missionaries among the Hammiar tribes of Mt. Lebanon, the Tenookh Emirs particularly having become converts so early that one cannot help suspecting that political considerations quickened their faith considerably. The death of Hakem, however, in 1021, suddenly arrested the progress of the sect. He is presumed to have been secretly assassinated by his sister, (whom he was intending to put to death), for he disappeared without any trace of him being left. Upon this, Hamzé and his disciples were obliged to secrete themselves, and their sect in Egypt was soon exterminated. Hamzé himself appears to have lived in retirement for some years, busily

occupied in systematizing the doctrines of the sect, which he embodied in epistles to the believers in Syria and India, exhorting them to hold to the truth during persecution, for that Hakem had withdrawn from the world to prove the faith of his followers, and to give an opportunity for those who had joined his religion from worldly motives, to fall away and perish; but that ere long he would return from the borders of China, to smite his enemies with great destruction, and give his kingdom to his elect.

The Druzes call their religion the religion of the Unity of God, and term themselves the Unitarians. God is incomprehensible, for he can have no attributes so that men can attach an idea to him. "Praise be to Thee," says Hamzé, in one of his epistles, "O Thou who art separated far above all created beings by the might of thine excellency, who never ceasest to exist in any time or place, indefinable in Thine essence, whom no description can reach, to whom no quality is applicable. Thou art God, the One, the True, the All-powerful, incapable of increase or decrease, Creator uncreated, Author of all things, without rival. Thy surpassing glory is too exalted to be associated with tongues or language.' ." Accordingly, what are generally called the attributes of the Deity, such as his Will, Justice, etc., Hamzé teaches to be created personifications or emanations from him, and are called, in the Druze religion, the Ministers-of which, there are five principal ones-and Druze theology consists in knowing who and what they are. The First, and the only one whose creation is the immediate work of the Divinity, is the Universal Intelligence, called also the Cause of Causes. He contains in himself all the dogmas and all the truths of religion, which he holds direct from the divinity, and by him and the other four ministers, who were emanations from him,-namely, the Universal Soul, the Word, the Preceding and the Following,-were created first the whole complete race of human spirits, before a single one entered a body, and then the material universe. This Universal Intelligence, Hamzé modestly assumes to be himself! He says: "I am the chosen of the Lord. He formed me out of his brilliant light before there existed place, or

power, or genii, or men, four million nine hundred thousand years before the appearance of Adam." Throughout this long period he ceased not to preach the Unity of God, to the spirits of men; but he met, it appears, with very indifferent success, owing to the fact that the stiffnecked race lent their ears to the teaching of the Rival, or Satan. This latter being, curiously enough, was an emanation, caused by the Deity, from the Universal Intelligence, as a punishment for the Intelligence becoming puffed up with pride on account of his own perfections. Meantime the Divinity, out of his love to the human race, and to teach them the way of truth, that is his Unity, has at nine different times appeared to the sons of men, in a human form, and on each occasion was accompanied by his first minister, Hamzé, and the other four ministers, each of them in the persons of the prophets and sages of old. Hamze's notions of historic succession, however, were rather confused, for he tells us he was Pythagoras before he was Elijah, and Elijah before he was David. It will be perceived, therefore, that with the Druzes, Hamzé almost ranks with the Deity himself. He alone has direct access to the divinity, as mediator between God and men. To Hamzé is to be given Hakem's sword, in the last day, and he is then to be the Judge of all men. Bohaeddin, Hamzé's chief apostle, whom he pronounced to be the incarnation of the Universal Soul, labored much to convert Christians to the faith, and in an epistle addressed to Constantine VII, he says that Hamzé was the Messiah, and calls him the Logos, the Spirit of Truth, the Anointed, and the Son of God, Hakem being the Father. Many of Hamze's own precepts for the guidance of his disciples enjoin a severe morality and temperance, so that it was not long before the sect was divided, very much as those professing the Christian name among ourselves are, into the religious and the worldly classes. The 'Ockals, or the Initiated, are the only ones among the Druzes who have any religious exercises at all. They meet together, men and women, in solitary edifices, called Khulwies, on the tops of mountains, and engage in secret in reading their religious books and