charity form only a small and subordinate part of his obedience. He must abstain from the innocent enjoyment of the bounties of nature, with a rigour which lessens the comforts of social intercourse, and even in some degree represses the noble emotions of friendship and affection. He must approach the Deity, not at the seasons of his own gratitude, but at prescribed hours, which often arrive without the preparation of his heart; and which return with such frequency, and must be practised with such exactness, as tend surely to create ostentatious hypocrisy, or abject pusillanimity; to slacken punctuality into indifference, or inflame zeal into fanaticism. In whatever situation he is placed, he must perform ablutions which often interfere with the practical duties of life; and of which the forms and circumstances would be ridiculous in the recital, if, indeed, they deserved not a severer appellation, when considered as the evidences of virtue and piety*.

:

To fill up the measure of his devotion, the Mohammedan must leave his friends, his family, and his country, and expose himself to the dangers of a tedious journey, through barren sands, and beneath a burning sky, to visit the temple of Mecca, with ceremonies which alike corrupt the understanding and degrade the dignity of a rational and immortal beingt. Such are the duties to which the followers of Mohammed are bound and little must the prophet have known of the human heart, if he imagined that the prescription of such a ritual was serviceable to the cause of real piety; if he believed that, by the introduction of burthensome ceremonies, he insured the sincerity of religion; or, if he ventured to hope, that any other consequence could arise from such precepts, than the observance of the forms of devotion without its spirit, and the confinement of the emotions of virtue to that precise limit, within which they were circumscribed.

Such is the tendency which this religion has, from its intrinsic and distinguishing properties, to affect our moral agency; and since every cause must be judged of by its proper effects, enough, I trust, has been advanced to prove, that

* Vide Chardin, as below, tom. iv. cap. 4, and cap. 7.

"The two great claims to the superior approbation of the prophet, and which give distinction to individuals, are the pilgrimage to Mecca, and the having learned to repeat the Koran by heart, or transcribed it with scrupulons elegance. By these performances, the much envied titles of Hadji and Hafiz are solely to be acquired."-Dallaway's Constantinople, p. 63. On the little good that has resulted from these idle pilgrimages, both among Christians and Mohammedans, see "Les Voyages de Chardin," Amstel. 1735, cap. viii. p. 179. “Les Persans disent de ces mauvais pélerins, qu'ils ont enterrè leur couscience aux sepulcres qu'ils ont été visiter."

Mohammedism is naturally hurtful to the intellectual, the social, and the religious character of man.

In the effects produced by it on the character of its professors, we have an exact counterpart to St. Paul's description of the heathen world, at the time when the light of Christianity first dawned upon it*. Such, indeed, is man in his natural state; and such he is likely to continue till brought to the knowledge, and under the influence, of the Gospel. Nor can we enough adore the goodness of God, for the beneficial effects produced on civil society by the Christian dispensation, even where its best and highest purposes fail of being fulfilled. Most desirable would it be to ameliorate the temporal and spiritual condition of these people, by their participation of Gospel blessings; but to do them any great good, what new and untried arts of communicating knowledge must be attempted!" Survey their actual condition, from the Atlantic to the Ganges, from Adrianople to Tombuctoo. Go through these countries-if treachery, and fraud, and merciless cruelty will permit the traveller to pass among them-and take the actual measure of their mental and moral condition. accuracy of philosophy will suffer no injury, by our inferring the broad conclusion, that moral feeling of responsibility, and even moral perception of right and wrong, appear to be well nigh extinct among them. The inert mass of these multitudes of men, created after the similitude of God! seems to roll onward in one tide of ignorance, apathy, and crime. No uplifted voice among them startles his fellow with the cry, Whither are we going?' No one of them stretches out

the hand to catch at some hoped-for rescuet.'

The

Since, in their opinion, the simple assent of the mind to the two great dogmas of their belief-the unity of God, and "the Divine mission of the last and greatest of his prophets,' —will be followed with the possession of heaven, immediately or remotely, according to the degree of virtuous conduct in the believer, we can readily conceive that conversion from a creed so consolatory and so easy, must be rare. No such question will agitate their minds, as that of the jailor, “What must we do to be saved?" Nor is it likely they would listen with patience to the answer that a Christian missionary will give to it, or to the self-denying doctrines of His religion who was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners."

I cannot better conclude this article than in the powerful and persuasive language of a distinguished and eloquent * See Jackson's "Account of Morocco," 4to. 1809. Jowett's "Christian Researches," p. 251.

prelate, who, in comparing the authors or founders of these two systems of religion, sets their character in such a clear point of view, as to force conviction on the minds of his readers.

"Go to your natural religion: lay before her Mohammed and his disciples arrayed in armour and in blood, riding in triumph over the spoils of thousands and tens of thousands, who fell by his victorious sword: shew her the cities which he set in flames, the countries which he ravaged and destroyed, and the miserable distress of all the inhabitants of the earth. When she has viewed him in this scene, carry her into his retirements: shew her the prophet's chamber, his concubines and wives: let her see his adultery, and hear him allege revelation and his Divine commission to justify his lust and his oppression.-When she is tired with this prospect, then shew her the blessed Jesus, humble and meek, doing good to all the sons of men, patiently instructing both the ignorant and the perverse. Let her see him in his most retired privacies: let her follow him to the Mount, and hear his devotions and supplications to God. Carry her to his table to view his poor fare, and hear his heavenly discourse. Let her see him injured, but not provoked: let her attend him to the tribunal, and consider the patience with which he endured the scoffs and reproaches of his enemies. Lead her to his cross, and let her view him in the agony of death, and hear his last prayer for his persecutors, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do?'

"When natural religion has viewed both, ask, Which is the prophet of God? But her answer we have already had, when she saw part of this scene through the eyes of the centurion who attended at the cross: by him she spake, and said, Truly this man was the Son of God!'*"

• Bishop Sherlock's "Sermons," vol. i., ser. IX., in fin.

427

MOHAMMEDAN INDEPENDENT SECTS*.

THE AFGHANS.

THE Afghans are a nation in the interior of Asia professing a species or form of Mohammedism, partly of the Sonnite and partly of the Schiite sects. Their country, called Afghanistan, is said to extend from 29° to 35°, N. lat, and from 629 to 73° E. long., bordering upon the kingdom of Persia, and lying to the west of China †.

Sir W. Jones and several other men, of respected authority, have conjectured that the Afghans, who, according to their own traditions, are the posterity of Melic Talut, i. e. King Saul,-are descended from the Ten Tribes of Israel, led away captive by Salmaneser, king of Assyria, and banished to Halah and Habor, along the river Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. They remark, that the Afghan nation differs most widely, in many respects, from every other people professing the faith of Mohammed; most especially in their great toleration and kindness towards strangers of a different religion, in their hospitality, in their abhorrence of the system of slavery, and in the superiority of rank held by their women in society, over any custom of the like kind in Mohammedan countries. Nor is the resemblance of the Afghan character to the law and customs of the Jews less remarkable, in their chiefly contracting marriages with their own tribes and their own nation; in the obligation incumbent upon every Afghan to marry the widow of his deceased brother, if his brother die without issue; in their permission of divorces; and in the singular practice of the Ghil-jies, one of their tribes‡, resembling the feast of Tabernacles.

See above, p. 411.

+ The Afghans are also known by the name of Solaimani, either because they were formerly the subjects of Solomon, King of the Jews, or because the inhabit the Mountains of Solomon, near Kandahar. They call themselves Pushtoons or Puckhtoons, while termed Afghans by others, and the Pushtoo is their native language. They consider Kandahar their chief city; although Cabul, of which their country is a province, is the capital of their present monarchs. Their country was originally called Roh, and from hence is derived the name of the Rohillas; and they are sometimes termed Patans from the Hindi verb Paitnu, “to rush," in allusion to their alacrity in attacking the enemy.

They are not only divided into different tribes, but also into many

sects.

Though any one of these singular coincidences might, by itself, be deemed of little consequence, yet when taken together they must be considered as of some weight.

Besides, their own history and belief, as also the belief of the Persians and Mohammedans around them, coincide with their asserted Israelitish descent. An intelligent Afghan, who was lately at Serampore, remarked, that his countrymen were "Beni Israel, but not Yuhodi"-i. e. children of Israel, but not of Judah, or Jews. Mr. Chamberlain, a resident missionary, in a letter, dated 23d April, 1814, says, "A very great number of the Afghans are indisputably the descendants of Abraham; their language (the Pushtoo) comprising a greater number of Hebrew words than any other in India." To all this may be added, that, according to Pomponius Mela and other ancient geographers, Media was only a hundred leagues distant from the frontier of modern Afghanistan. "In the provinces of Cashmire and Afghanistan," says Dr. Buchanan," some of the Jews submitted to great sacrifices rather than change their religion, and they remain Jews to this day; but the greater number yielded, in the course of ages, to the power of the reigning religion. Their countenance, their language, their names, their rites and observances, and their history, all conspire to establish the fact*."

On the other hand, the Honourable Mountstuart Elphinstone, who has given a fuller account of this nation than has hitherto appeared in print, differs altogether from the above opinion; and endeavours to confute the supposition of their Jewish descent, and to prove that the Afghans are not exotic, but aboriginal. "All this theory," he says, "is plausible, and it may even be true; but if it be attentively examined, it will easily be seen that it rests wholly on a very vague tradition, enveloped in the profoundest obscurity+."

The extinction among the Afghans of the Hebrew and Chaldee dialects cannot be admitted as an argument in bebalf of either side of the question; for the Jews in China and some

"Christian Researches," p. 238, edit. 1819, where the learned Doctor refers his reader to "Foster's Travels."

+ In the observations and facts by which Mr. Elphinstone endeavours to support his hypothesis, in his work entitled "An Account of the King. dom of Canbul, which comprises a View of the Afghan Nation.”—M. Langles, in detailing the literary labours of Protestant Missionaries in the East, in the third Number of the " Archives du Christianisme," published at Paris in March 1818, seems to incline to the same opinion; as does Sir John Malcolm and others. In support of the former opinion, see the 2d vol. of the "Asiatic Researches," and the 1st vol. of Mr. Faber's "General and Connected View of the Prophecies," &c.