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AN ARABIC LEGEND. Moses, once preaching to the people, displayed so much eloquence, that his audience inquired whether a man. existed wiser than himself; to which he replied in the negative. God rebuked him in a vision, and informed him that his Servant Kedher was more intelligent, and that he would find him at a place where two seas met, and where a fish that he was directed to carry in a basket should disappear. Accompanied by his servant Joshua, Moses traveled to a great distance, and at length reached a spot where the seas of Greece and Persia met. Here the fish unaccountably disappeared, and soon after they met Kedher. Moses requested to be received as his disciple; Kedher replied: "Verily, thou canst not bear with me, for how canst thou patiently suffer those things, the knowledge of which thou cost not comprehend? Moses promised implicit obedience, and was commanded not to inquire the meaning of anything that he saw until Kedher explained it voluntarily. To this Moses agreed, and both set out upon a journey together; and as they passed by the seashore, they saw a ship, into which Kedher ascended, and struck cut two of her planks with an axe. Moses inquired the cause, but being reproached for breach of contract, he apologized, and they continued their course. Soon after, they met a beautiful youth, whom Kedher slew. Moses, horror-stricken, remonstrated against the crime, but being again reminded of his agreement, he was forced to be silent. After this, they wandered till they were weary and hungry; they soon approached the city of Tarsus; here they asked for food and shelter, but the inhabitants refused to receive them. In this city there was a wall ready to fall down, but Kedher set it upright, by merely stroking it with his hand. Upon this, Moses desiring an explanation, Kedher declared that they should part, but first condescended to explain his enigmatical conduct. The ship belonged to ten poor brethren, five of whom were broken with age, and were supported by the labors of the other five; the king of the country had resolved to seize all the vessels in his dominions, and this was only rescued from his clutches by being rendered for a time unserviceable. The boy was the unbelieving son of believing parents, who would have been perverted had he continued to live; but now God had resolved to supply his place with a daughter, who should both be a prophetess herself, and the mother of a prophet that should convert a nation. Finally, the wall concealed a treasure belonging to orphans, who were as yet unable to make use of it; the prophet had, therefore, secured the wall for its preservation; and in all his actions he had been influenced, not by his own will, but by God's immediate directions. Moses heard the explanation with submission, and returned to the camp of the Israelites with a more modest opinion of his own abilities.-Taylor's History of Mohammedanism.

PURGATORY. Virgil has made the sufferings in the other world, preparatory to admission into Elysium, as related by Anchises to Eneas, to correspond with the trials to which candidates were sub. jected in the mysteries. Bishop Warburton refers to that part of the poem which describes the nature and end of purgatory, but does not quote the passage. The following is the passage from Davidson's prose translation (Eneid vi, 735-748) :

Even when, with the last beams of light their life is gone, yet not every ill, nor all corporeal stains are quite removed from the unhappy beings, and it is absolutely unavoidable that many vicious habits, which have long grown up with the soul, should be strangely confirmed and riveted therein. Therefore are they afflicted with pains, and pay the penalties of their former ills. Some, hung on high, are spread out to whiten in the empty winds; in others, the guilt not done away with is washed out in a vast watery abyss, or burned away in fire. We have, each of us, a dæmon, from whom we suffer, till length of time, after the fixed period is elapsed, hath done away with the inherent stains, and hath left celestial reason pure from all irregular passions. aud the soul, that spark of heavenly fire, in its original purity and brightness, simple and unmixed; then are we conveyed into Elysium, and we, who are the happy few, possess the fields of bliss."

TWO BRIGHT MASONS. (Vol. XIII, 236.) Edward V. Kenealy, in his "Book of Enoch," Vol. II, p. 24, says:

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"The learned author of the Anacalypsis' [Godfrey Higgins] used to say that the Duke of Sussex and himself were the only persons in England who knew the secrets of Masonry; he might have added a third, who, nevertheless, is not a member of the Order."

We presume that Dr. Kenealy meant himself as the third person.

THE MOSLEMS. James Smith, in his work, "The Divine Drama of History and Civilisation," p. 262, says of the Moslsms and their faith: "When they do convert, they convert by authority or dictation, not by logic. But their doctrine, divested of its accessories, its chaff and straw, is a vortex that draws all other doctrines into it by mere ab. sorption. The Jew admits it; the Christian cannot deny it; the Deist acknowledges it; the Unitarian preaches it; the Philosopher subscribes to it; the Brahmin admires it; the Buddhist believes it; everybody owns it, except a few isolated exceptions who have nothing to substitute for it."

IS THE ALPHABET IN SINGLE VERSES IN THE BIBLE? James Herdson, of Tobermory, England, asks the foregoing question, and then answers it partly himself, saying, " there are several verses in the authorized version of the Bible that contain all of the letters, except some one." He says, "the writer's main object in proposing this query was to encourage a compliance with the Divine commandSearch the Scriptures' (John v, 39." He then gives the following references to verses, containing all the alphabet except some letter: Joshua vii, 34; I Chron. xii, 40; Ezekiel xxviii, 13; Hagga: 1, I, contain all except the letter q. II Kings xvi, 15; I Chron. iv, 10, contain all except the letter x. Ezra vii, 21, contains all except the letterj. In the New Testament, Galatians i, 14, contains all except the letter k. In addition to these, Samuel Bills, of Hawton, Eng., cites I Kings i, 9; and II Chron. xxxvi, 10, as containing all except the letter g.

The "Pythagorean

TRIALS OF ABRAHAM. (Vol. XIII, p. 10.) Triangle," a semi Masonic work by George Oliver, p. 231, give the ten trials of Abraham, which are only partially given in the last vol. ume of this magazine :

1. Quitting his native country. 2. His flight to Egypt from the famine of Canaan. 3. First seizure of Sarah in Egypt. 4. War for the rescue of Lot. 5. Taking Hagar at the request of Sarah. 6. Circumcision. 7. Second seizure of Sarah in Gesar. 8. Expulsion of Ishmael. 9. Expulsion of Hagar. 10. Offering of Isaac.

THE SPHINX. As the subject of the Sphinx has caused so much speculation in the comparatively modern times, as to its origin and purport, the author of the "Identity of the Druidical and Hebrew Religions" gives the following solution: "The Sphinx was a representation of the signs of Leo and Virgo joined together, in commemoration of the inundation of the Nile, which occurs when the sun is in those signs. The Egyptians had always a sort of astronomical mystic reverence for the three signs of the Zodiac, Cancer, Leo, and Virgo."

"If thou art capable of comprehending the mystery of Azâzél, thou wilt learn the mystery of His Name, for it has similar associates in Scripture. I will tell thee by allusion the portion of the mystery; when thou shalt have 33 years, thou wilt comprehend me."-Aben-Ezra.

LIVES OF MAHOMMED. The following biographies are those we have in stock :

The Lives of Mahomet and his Successors. By Washington Irving. Two volumes. 8vo. ; pp. 374+500=874. London, 1850.

An Apology for the Life and Character of the Celebrated Prophet of Arabia, called Mohamed, or The Illustrious. By Godfrey Higgins. 8vo. pp. 110. London, 1829.

The Life of Mahomet.

Translated from the French original written by the Count of Boulainvilliers. 8vo. pp. 400. London, 1731. "Tis true, composing is the nobler part,

But good translation is no easy art."-ROSCOMMON.

The True Nature of Imposture Fully Displayed in the Life of Mahomet, with a discourse annexed for the Vindication of Christianity from this Charge, offered to the consideration of the Deists of the Present Age. By Humphrey Prideaux, D. D., Dean of Norwich. 8vo. pp. 200. Seventh edition. London, 1718.

THE KORAN. There are quite a number of translations of the Korân, some of which are :

The Korân, commonly called the Alcorân of Mahomet. Translated from the original Arabick into French, by the Sieur De Ryer, the whole now faithfully translated into English. First American edition. October, 1806. Springfield. Printed by Isaiah Thomas, Jun.

The Korân, commonly called the Alcorân of Mohammed. Translated into English from the original Arabic. With explanatory notes taken from the most approved commentators. To which is prefixed a Preliminary Discourse. By George Sale. Many editions of this translation.

El-Korân. Translated from the Arabic; the Suras arranged in chronological order; with notes and index. By J. M. Rodwell. Second revised and amended edition. London, 1876.

Selections from the Kur-ân. By Edward William Lane. A new edition revised and enlarged, with an introduction by Stanley Lane Poole. London, 1879.

The Corân. Its Composition and Teaching; and the testimony it bears to the Holy Scriptures. By Sir William Muir. London, 1878.

An Introduction to the Qurân. By Gustav Weil. Translated from second edition, with notes and references to the Qurân and to other authorities, by Profs. Frank K. Sanborn and Henry W. Dunning. A

series of articles published in the Biblical World, 1895, commencing in the March number.

Irving, Boulainvilliers, and Prideaux spell the name, Mahomet; Higgins, with a few exceptions, Mohamed; Ernest de Bunsen, Mahomed; Lane, Mohammad; Edward V. Kenealy, Mahommed; Sale, Mohammed; Rodwell, Muhammad; and there are several variations by others.

There are seven principal editions of the Korân, two at Medina, one at Mecca, one at Cufa, one at Bassora, one in Syria, and the common or vulgate edition. The first contains 6,000 verses, the second and fifth 6,214, the third 6,219, the fourth 6,236, the sixth 6,226, and the last 6,225; but the number of words and letters is the same in them all, namely, 77,639 words, and 323,015 letters.

SYSTEMS OF SATELLITES. Curiously enough, if we examine the different systems of satellites, we find a general contrast in size between the members of outer and inner groups. The two outer satellites of Jupiter are much larger than the two inner ones; and the same relation holds between the four acknowledged satellites of Uranus; while of the eight Saturnian satellites, the four outer ones seem to be decidedly larger than the four inner ones. Moreover the largest of Jupiter's moons is not the outermost, but the third; and of Saturn's moons the largest is not the eighth, but the sixth. To these interesting facts which Herbert Spencer has pointed out, I will add one which he has not observed. If, in looking to the sizes of the moons, we consider the thickness of their genetic rings, as determined by comparing the size of a moon with the size of its orbit, we find in the Jovian system a regular increase in the thickness of the rings, from the outermost to the innermost. Similar evidence from the Saturnian system is not yet forthcoming, since the masses and even the volumes of Saturn's moons have not yet been determined with sufficient accuracy for this purpose. Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, by John Fiske, Vol. I, p. 368.

THE FIRST FORGETFUL PERSON. Adam, so soon forgetting the divine command, has occasioned some Arabian etymologists to derive the word Insân, that is, "man," from nasiya, "to forget"; it has also given rise to the following proverbial saying: Awwalo nâsin awwalo nnsai, that is "The first forgetful person was the first of men," alluding to the like sound of the words.

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