the earlier day, there was an anticipation of this more quiet scene, so now beneath this overflowing life, there lurks the suspicion of some more troubled hour, when Summer shall mourn to herself, and call on all the earth and heavens, and the heart of man to share in her wierd lamentation. Thus is revealed another phase of her prodigal life, the most inexplicable, yet the most bewitching of her moods, drawing us to her with painful longings and dim yearnings, that we do not comprehend, and at the same time making the mortal heart within us to tremble and grow faint before her awful whisperings of some nameless mystery. There is mystery enough in the joy that we feel in Nature's life but we ask in deeper wonder, "Can trouble live with April days,

Or sadness in the Summer moons ?"

and

This comes with the passage of the long, still afternoon, when the broad sunshine falls unchecked. Weariness and utter loneliness fill the soul as the sunlight streams through the still air, and rests on the quiet earth; it seems as if a very spirit stole to us from Nature, yet came not from without, but was with us from the beginning; a familiar spirit, yet so unfamiliar with its dreary languishing, and wailing remembrances, that we bow in awe and wonder, as before some superior stranger. The passing hum of the wild bee is painfully clear, and the keen agony of undefined emotion that is fearful in its intensity, floods our souls from all the hot and quivering air, and from the full sunlight that will not cease, but pours its life steadily and unchangingly upon the weary earth. In its presence forgetting the deep heavens, the tall forests and the streams, we see but Summer concentrating all her life, to pour it in one channel, and yet in all her force of vitality so wildly sad. But why should that sunshine which is so profoundly symbolical of our twofold life, be filled with such mournful meaning? Is there a sadness in life that is the synonyme of joy? Who that has entered the inner shrines of his own spirit, has not felt this mysterious sadness, and recognized it as the mourning of the spirit that, let it struggle as it will to the farthest penetralia, it can never know itself as it is, for the veil of flesh is between. So when Summer, in her most abounding life, floods the earth with her sunlight, and in light and heat would reveal herself, there is a;sadness in feeling that the very condition of such a revelation, must ever be a bar to its perfection. Thus she mourns in deep grief, on long, cloudless afternoons; thus she vitalizes all heaven and earth, but to make them her mourners, and appeals to man that he may be in sympathy with her. And her great high-priests, the poets

of the earth, have answered to her call, as this dreary ballad from one who has had near communion with her can testify:

But Summer enfolds within her the wonder not only of herself, but of all the seasons. There is no remarkable beauty in the starting of the grass, nor in the first unfolding of the leaves; but it is the promise of life, the dawn of life itself, that gives such deep meaning. to the brightening skies of Spring. So Autumn is sad because it is the hiding of Summer's face, the waning of life. There is no reason why the falling of the leaves should be unutterably mournful; nor that the sound of the winds should be that of wailing; but that there is in every movement the evidence of decaying power. So Winter comes gloomy and horrid with death. Thus either rejoicing in her coming, or mourning her departure, do the seasons borrow from her all the magic of their meaning. And the old question returns with new force. Who is Summer, and why should she lord it supreme over the seasons, and over the hearts of men? What are all these mysteries of movement; these fitful changes playing on her face, as the lights and shadows play on the restless aspen? Like every other wonder,

the source and solution of these is in ourselves; for every mystery is involved in the deeper, the only mystery of spirit. Forbidden, though spiritual, to commune with spirit face to face, we turn with earnest sympathy to that, which as the fullest manifestation of ourselves, we feel must be the fullest manifestation of spiritual power; life active, intelligent, emotional. But all our external life comes under the subtle forms of movement.

In the glad romps of youth, where motion is quick and fresh, in the slower motions of manhood, in the full flush of meridian strength, we see the mysterious connection of movement with the inner life of the spirit, as the interpreter of that life, chronicling for the outward world the slightest shade of variation, and stamping it legibly in the flushings of the cheek, the glance of the eye, in the magic gesture of the orator, and the graceful carriage of the untaught child. So in dancing brooks, in proudly waving forests, and in all the myriad phases in which the all-golden Summer appeals to us in Nature's life, chronicled for us. Hence our joyful sympathy with the glad day-break of Summer; hence the earnest meaning in her solemn noons; for we feel the unfathomable life of a spirit in the rich scene. And hence, as we have half explained, is the mysterious yearning with which we are drawn in the sad afternoon, when the Spirit of Summer baffles itself in the very attempt at a more perfect revelation of itself. Here, too, is the explanation of that thrill with which we hear of the dim Orient. Visions of a life luxuriant, unconquerable, intense beyond conception, float before the mind at the word; for it is there that Summer has built her most splendid palaces, and arrayed herself in such gorgeous apparel as she never shows with us. Hence it is, that childhood hearing indistinctly of the east, dreams of Summer seas and everlasting verdure, where she repeats herself in endless rounds, wandering

"On from island unto island at the gateways of the day,

Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies,
Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise,
Droops the heavy-blossomed bower, hangs the heavy fruited tree-
Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea."

But we need not stop with what some may call a mere blind feeling; there is a philosophy in Summer; the true philosophy of spirit. It is perfectly philosophic, that we should not only feel, but believe, that there is something more than a blind force of Nature that bursts into the splendor of sunset, or steals upon us in the sweet fragrance of the lily; and believing this, that we should turn to it with eager longing. Had not the philosophic, though ungenial Greek, lived in the midst of everlasting

Summer, he would never have fixed a Naiad in every stream, or a Dryad in every wood; for it was Summer, who, though she could not quicken him to a life spiritual through communion with her, yet taught him the dictum of philosophy, apparently forgotten by modern metaphysicians, that force finds its ultimate origin in spirit alone; and that not by any long-linked chain of abstract forces. For where were the economy in sustaining such a series to be the media of action to that primal power, which, in the very creation and sustenance of these mediate forces, shows itself capable of dispensing with their aid; the power competent to the creation of such mediate forces being of necessity fully commensurate with the power that could immediately produce the desired results. Such a transference of man's method of procedure in the world of matter, made ready to his hand, to the power that created and upholds the universe is as unphilosophic in its violation of the law of parsimony, as it must be unsatisfactory to every one who sees more than a dead mechanism in the process of Nature. More philosophic was the Greek, than we who boast a philosophy that has caught a new life from the revelations of Christianity; for although he could not see the hand of one divinity alike marshaling the pomp of the heavens, and unfolding the wealth of the earth, yet was he too far-sighted to believe that mere abstract forces, blind and vague, could build a temple so mighty as that in which he dwelt.

So we rejoice in Summer's life as one kindred with our own, but at the same time learn from her fleeting hours, that even as she fades, so must all external life of the spirit fade. That dawn of life, its meridian glory, and that slow approach of the night of death, which are the course that. we must run, the seasons run before us; and if no other companion is given us, with whom to exercise the divine privilege of sympathy, great Nature is born for us: she grows to a miracle of beauty, and declines before us. So she runs her ceaseless rounds, that the children of men may have before them the mirror of all their little life, and that, unsatisfied with such meagre manifestations, they may aspire to that life of which Nature can give no type, which is found only in communion with the Father of our spirits, where no veil can come between.

ISLAM.

THE dawn of the seventh century found the eastern Church divided, and corrupt in doctrine. The career of the first preachers of the Gospel had scarcely closed, when error, no longer restrained by their presence, began to spring up in the various scenes of their labors. Speculation took the place of a rational trust; controversy began to be rife, and the unity of the Church was destroyed by faction.

Though the church had spread until she had overstepped the limits of the Roman Empire, yet the farther she advanced from the birthplace of her faith, the farther she departed from its pristine purity and simplicity. Under Constantine the great, Christianity had supplanted the pagan mythology of Rome, and been raised to the dignity of a state religion. This caused a further departure in its principles, from the teachings and example of its divine author, for the atmosphere of a court was unsuited to nourish a spirit of simple and earnest piety. Thus in conforming to the pomp and splendor of its earthly patrons, it lost its transforming power; it was itself transformed, and its vitality crushed beneath an oppressive weight of forms. At this time, also, numerous sects had arisen in the Church; each one, absorbed in the defence of its peculiar tenets, and contending solely for their ascendancy, assigned to them a disproportionate rank, and thus lost sight of the fundamental principles and object of their common faith.

Such was the condition of the oriental Church, when there arose a gigantic system of delusion, destined to crush for a time all conflicting heresies, and to unite all, Jew, Christian and Idolater, as the followers of a new faith. That faith was Islam; its founder Mahomet. The land of blooming gardens and arid deserts; the land of the magi and the astrologer, gave him birth. He was of noble descent, belonging to that tribe which constituted the hereditary priesthood of his country, and was largely gifted by nature with all those qualities of mind and body, necessary to a successful career. Bold in the conception of his plans, resolute and unscrupulous in their execution, of easy manners and pleasing address, his character was strengthened and adorned by an eloquence that was irresistible.