ment I gave myself up as lost.

I

had seen enough of this kind of thing to know that my feet were on the verge of mortification. There was scarcely time to amputate, had any been at hand to do it, and had I been willing to preserve life at such a price. Only one thing could save me, and I resolved to try it. I ordered Paul to bring a bottle of brandy; I put a piece of silver between my teeth, and bade him pour the spirits over my feet. I can give you no idea of the excruciating torture I then endured. Whilst it lasted, assuredly no martyr's sufferings ever exceeded mine. It was agony - - but it was safety. I bit the florin nearly in two, and broke this tooth." (Here the doctor drew up his lip and exhibited a defective tooth, in company with some very white and powerful grinders.) "The martyrdom saved me; I recovered, but the new integuments, which in time covered my scarred feet, seem chilled by the recollection of their predecessors' sufferings, and from that day to this I have never had my feet otherwise than cold. But here we are at Orleans, sir, and yonder as I expected stands my old Préville."

The train stopped as he concluded, and a fine-looking veteran, with white bair, an empty sleeve, and a silken patch over one eye, peered inquisi

tively into the carriages. Like most Englishmen, I have a particular aversion to the Continental fashion of men kissing and hugging each other, but I confess I beheld with interest and sympathy the cordial embrace of these two old comrades, who then quickly separated, and, with hands grasped, looked joyously and affectionately into each other's faces, whilst a thousand recollections of old kindness and long comradeship were evidently swelling at their hearts. In his joy, my travelling companion did not forget the attentive listener, whose journey he had so agreeably shortened. Turning to me, he presented me to the general, as an Englishman and a new acquaintance, and then cordially invited me to pass the rest of the day at his house. But the business that took me to Orleans was urgent, and my return to Paris must be speedy. And had it been otherwise, I think I still should have scrupled to restrain, by a stranger's presence, the first flow of intimate communion to which the two friends evidently looked forward with such warm and pleasurable feelings. So I gratefully declined, but pledged myself to take advantage of the doctor's hospitality upon my next visit to Orleans. When that occurs, I shall hope to glean another Russian Reminiscence.

Egyptians, the Hebrews,-but do not let it be supposed that the wisdom of the ancient world ends here. Do not suppose that nothing is to be learned from the old history and writings of China-that land where social ethics and utilitarian science were first carried to comparative perfection; or from the ancient Hindoos, who first pre-eminently devoted themselves to the study of the spiritual nature of man, and in whose lofty speculations may be found the germ of almost every system of philosophy, whether true or false, to which the European world has given birth. Hegel and Spinosa are but Hindoos reviving in the eighteenth century. Auguste Comte, with his boasted new science of Positivism, is but a systematiser of the doctrines of Confucius and the old philosophers of China,-and what are magnetism, clairvoyance, and suchlike researches at present making into the spiritual powers of man, but unconscious repetitions of what has been known or imagined in India for three thousand years?

Had the human race formed from the first but one nation-swayed by but one great impulse, and enlightened but by its own single experience, how comparatively stationary would have been the condition of the species! But severed into separate communities, each seeking truth for itself, and, as intercommunication became wider, comparing its experiences with those of its neighbours, the march of mankind has been greatly accelerated. There have been a hundred searchers after truth instead of one. It is only now, however, in these latter days, that mankind are beginning to perceive and reap the benefit of the beneficent scheme of Providence which has so long kept them secluded in location and antagonistic in feeling. It is in those days of running to and fro upon the earth-when commerce, and railways, and steam-navigation are uniting the most distant regions-that the varied stores of knowledge which have been accumulating in private hoards through long centuries are now being thrown into general circulation. The more advanced nations are teaching the less enlightened. But the gain is not all on one

side; and the former will be unworthy of their high position, if they fail to perceive in how very many things they may receive instruction from those whom they regard as their inferiors. The whole tendency of the rapidly increasing communication between the various nations and countries of the earth is to shake men loose from local prejudices, and, by expanding the mind, to fit it for the reception of that pure and entire truth, towards the attainment of which the human mind is journeying, and to which the matchless plans of Divine Providence are slowly but surely conducting the human race. To the eye of the philosopher, the world is a prism through which Truth is shining-and the nations are the various colours and hues of the spectrum into which that light is broken. Hitherto mankind, split into sections, has only exhibited those scattered and disunited, but brilliant, rays,—truth refracted and coloured by the national mind through which it passed; but now, in the fulness of time, the process is being reversed. The long training of isolated nations is drawing to a close; the barriers of space or feeling which shut them in are being thrown down; an interchange of intellectual as well as material benefits is commencing; and the dissevered rays of partial knowledge are beginning to be reunited into the pure and perfect light of truth.

Let, then, some Newton or Humboldt of history-some one who grudges not a lifetime of genius to the task, and to whom Providence may give length of days,-let such an one take up the theme of those old nations. By the might of his graphic pen let him evoke them and their crumbled empires from the dust, and place them in their pristine glory before the eye of the reader. Let him paint the people, the land in which they dwelt, the temples in which they worshipped;

let him glance with graphic touch over the leading points of their history, the master-spirits who influenced, and the poets who adorned it ;-let him depict the arts of life and the arts of beauty which characterised them; and, hardest task of all, let him dive into the depths of

their religion and philosophy-not the fantastic crust of superstition, but the more spiritual dogmas which lie below; and, wasting but little time upon what was false, set himself to eliminate the true, and place it once more before the world. In this way let him paint the Chinese, stout, squareset, and supple,-ever labouring contentedly in their rice-fields, and delighting in social intercourse; but also, with a free and martial spirit, of which the world is now incredulous, repelling with slaughter the nomade hordes of Central Asia which subsequently overthrew the mighty empires of the West. Let him depict the country covered with district-schools, and the people trained in social morals by a Government system of education, centuries before the birth of Christ. Let him set forth the practical good sense and kindliness of spirit which characterised the inhabitants of that vast empire, as well as their eminence in the social and industrial arts of life; yet glance with brief but warning words at the materialistic tendencies, alike in creed and practice, by which these good qualities were in some degree counterbalanced. Or turn to the Hindoo, with his slim and graceful figure, symbolising the fine and susceptible spirit within. See him among the flowery woods, luxuriant vegetation, and countless sparkling waters of the Indian land,-so spiritual and alive to the impressions of the external world, that he feels bound in lively sympathy with every living thing around him, whether it be beast or bird, tree or flower,-and in the faith of the most imaginative pantheism that the world ever saw, regarding himself and all created forms as incarnations of the Deity, animated directly by the spirit of the great Creator; and, a firm believer in the transmigration of souls, regarding every object around him with plaintive tenderness, as possibly the dwelling of the soul of some lost friend or relative. See him under his mastersentiment of love. That passion, almost universally in the ancient world, was a mere thirst of the senses; and the few instances in which it figures in the literature of Greece and Rome, it is made to strike its victims like a frenzy. But among the Hin

doos we perceive it often sweetened and refined by sentiment,—a spiritual as well as a sensuous yearning,— purer, as ardent, more pervading than the love-passion of contemporaneous nations. And the same spirituality of nature which made the Hindoo thus, fitted him also for the subtlest and loftiest flights of speculation,-savouring little of the utilitarian, indeed, but tending to gratify the soul in many of its highest and purest aspirations. Caste, unknown in China, was in India all-prevalent; and there, also, we meet in its sternest form that spirit of devoted asceticism by which the mystics of the East, and subordinately even in the Christian Church, have striven to exalt themselves above the level of humanity by extinguishing all earthly passion, and so drawing into nearer communion with the Deity.

Or pass to Egypt, and behold the now desolate valley-land of the Nile reinvested with its old splendour and fertility. Let a thousand irrigating canals spread again over the surface, re-clothing the land with verdure; while up from the sands spring miles of temples, pyramids, and endless avenues of sphinxes, obelisks, and gigantic statues. And Thebes with its "hundred gates," its libraries, and stately palaces,-and Memphis with its immense population, whose bones are still seen whitening the desert sands whereon the city once bloomed amidst verdure, reappear with crowds of artisans and professional men, carrying the division of labour almost as far as it is done in modern times; while all around a rural population is tending herds or tilling the thrice-fertile soil; and, wearily and worn, innumerable bands of captives

Nubians from the south, Negroes from the desert, Arabs from across the Red Sea, and Syrians and Assyrians from Euphrates to the foot of Mount Taurus-are toiling in digging canals, in making bricks, or in quarrying, transporting, or raising to their place, those huge blocks of granite which fill with astonishment the engineers even of our own times. Turn from all this pomp and bustle and busy hum of life, along that silent mile-long avenue of double sphinxes; and, passing beneath the stupendous