Bourbon was then prime minister; the circumstance having been related to him, he ordered money and clothes to be given to the Chinese, and sent him back to his own country, whence it is not thought that many literati will come and see us in future. It would have been more politic to have kept this man and treated him well, than to have sent him to give his countrymen the very worst opinion of the French.

About thirty years ago, the French Jesuits sent secret missionaries to China, who enticed a child from his parents in Canton, and brought him to Paris, where they educated him in their convent of La Rue St. Antoine. This boy became a Jesuit at the age of fifteen; after which he remained ten years in France. He knows both French and Chinese perfectly, and is very learned. M. Bertin, comptroller-general, and afterwards secretary of state, sent him back to China in 1763, after the abolition of the Jesuits. He calls himself Ko, and signs himself, Ko,

Japan. It is said, that a Russian nobl man-indignant at this jesuitical insolenc which reaches the farthest corners of t earth, even after the extinction of t Order-has resolved to find some mea of sending, to the President of the Tr bunal of Rites at Pekin, an extract Chinese from these Memoirs, which ma serve to make the aforesaid Ko, and th Jesuits who labour with him, bett known.

ANGELS.

SECTION I.

Angels of the Indians, Persians, &c.
The author of the article ANGEL in th

Encyclopedia, says that all religions hav
admitted the existence of angels, althoug
it is not demonstrated by natural reason.

We have no reason but natural reason What is supernatural is above reason. I mistake not, it should have been, severa religions (and not all) have acknowledge the existence of angels. That of Numa that of Sabaism, that of the Druids, tha of the Scythians, and that of the Phoni Jesuit. cians and ancient Egyptians, did not adIn 1772, there were fourteen Jesuits inmit their existence. Pekin, amongst whom was brother Ko, who still lives in their house. The Emperor Kien-Long has kept these monks of Europe about him in quality of painters, engravers, watch-makers, and mechanics, with an express prohibition from ever disputing on religion, or causing the least trouble in the empire.

The Jesuit Ko has sent manuscripts of his own composition from Pekin to Paris, entitled, Memoirs relative to the History, Arts, and Sciences of the Chinese, by the Missionaries at Pekin. This book is printed, and is now selling at Paris by Nyon the bookseller. The author attacks all the philosophers of Europe. He calls a prince of the Tartar race, whom the Jesuits had seduced, and the late Emperor Yong-Chin had banished, an illustrious martyr to Jesus Christ. This Ko boasts of making many neophytes, who are ardent spirits, capable of troubling China even more than the Jesuits formerly troubled

We understand by this word, ministers of God, deputies, beings of a middle order between God and man, sent to make known to us his orders.

At the present time, in 1772, the Brahmins boast of having possessed in writing, for just four thousand eight hundred and seventy-eight years, their first sacred law, entitled the Shastah, fifteen hundred years before their second law, called Veidam, signifying the word of God. The Shastah contains five chapters: the first, of God and his attributes; the second, of the creation of the angels; the third, of the fall of the angels; the fourth, of their punishment; the fifth, of their pardon and the creation of man.

the manner in which this book speaks of
It is good, in the first place, to observe
God.

First Chapter of the Shastah.
God is one: he has created all it is a

:

perfect sphere, without beginning or end. {
God conducts the whole creation by a
general providence, resulting from a de-
termined principle. Thou shalt not seek
to discover the nature and essence of the
Eternal, nor by what laws he governs:
such an undertaking would be vain and
criminal. It is enough for thee to con-
template day and night, in his works, his
wisdom, his power, and his goodness.
After paying to this opening of the
Shastah the tribute of admiration which is
due to it, let us pass to the creation of the
angels.

angelic bands, amongst whom was Raabon, the next in dignity to Mozazor. Forgetful of the blessing of their creation, and of their duty, they rejected the power of perfection, and exercised the power of imperfection. They did evil in the sight of the Eternal; they disobeyed him; they refused to submit to God's lieutenant and his coadjutors Vishna and Siva, saying, We will govern! and, without fearing the power and the anger of their Creator, disseminated their seditious principles in the celestial army. They seduced the angels, and persuaded a great multitude of them to rebel; and they forsook the throne of the Eternal; and sorrow came upon the The Eternal, absorbed in the contem-faithful angelic spirits; and, for the first plation of his own existence, resolved, in { time, grief was known in heaven.

Second Chapter of the Shastah.

the fulness of time, to communicate his

Angels.

glory and his essence to beings capable of Chapter IV.-Punishment of the Guilty feeling and partaking his beatitude as well as of contributing to his glory. The Etemal willed it, and they were. He formed them partly of his own essence, capable of perfection or imperfection, according to their will.

The Eternal, whose omniscience, prescience, and influence extend over all things, except the action of the beings

whom he has created free, beheld with grief and anger the defection of Mozazor, Raabon, and the other chiefs of the angels.

The Eternal first created Brahma, Vishna, and Siva, then Mozazor, and all the multitude of the angels. The Eternal Merciful in his wrath, he sent Brahma, gave the pre-eminence to Brahma, Vishna, Vishna, and Siva, to reproach them with and Siva. Brahma was the prince of the their crime, and bring them back to their angelic army; Vishna and Siva were his duty; but, confirmed in their spirit of incoadjutors. The Eternal divided the an-dependence, they persisted in their revolt. gelic army into several bands, and gave to each a chief. They adored the Eternal, ranged around his throne, each in the degree assigned him. There was harmony in heaven. Mozazor, chief of the first band, led the canticle of praise and ador-sand ation to the Creator, and the song of obedience to Brahma, his first creature; and the Eternal rejoiced in his new creation. Chapter III.-The Fall of a Part of

The Eternal then commanded Siva to

the Angels.

From the creation of the celestial army, joy and harmony surrounded the throne of the Eternal for a thousand years multiplied by a thousand; and would have lasted until the end of time, had not envy ized Mozazor and other princes of the

march against them, armed with almighty power, and hurl them down from the high place to the place of darkness, into the Ondera, there to be punished for a thouyears multiplied by a thousand.

Abstract of the Fifth Chapter.

At the end of a thousand years, Brahma, Vishna, and Siva, implored the clemency of the Eternal in favour of the delinquents. The Eternal vouchsafed to deliver them from the prison of the Ondera, and place them in a state of probation during a great number of solar revolutions. There were other rebellions against God, during this time of penitence.

It was at one of these periods that God

created the earth; where the penitent angels underwent several metempsychoses, one of the last of which was their transformation into cows. Hence it was that cows became sacred in India. Lastly, they were metamorphosed into men. So that the Indian system of angels is precisely that of the Jesuit Bougeant, who asserts, that the bodies of beasts are inhabited by sinful angels. What the Brahmins had invented seriously, Bougeant, more than four thousand years after, imagined in jest-if, indeed, this pleasantry of his was not a remnant of superstition, combined with the spirit of system-making, as is often the case.

Sabbath was observed among the Persian in the most ancient times. th

The second angel presides over seventh day, and is called Debadur. The third is Kur, which probably wa afterwards converted into Cyrus. He i the angel of the sun.

The fourth is called Mah, and preside over the moon.

I

Thus each angel has his province. was among the Persians that the doctrine of the guardian angel and the evil ange was first adopted. It is believed tha Raphael was the guardian angel of the Persian empire.

Such is the history of the angels among the ancient Brahmins, which, after the lapse of about fifty centuries, they still continue to teach. Neither our merchants who have traded to India, nor our missionaries, have ever been informed of it; for the Brahmins, having never been edified by their science or their manners, have not communicated to them their secrets. It was left for an Englishman, named Holwell, to reside for thirty years at Benares, on the Ganges, an ancient school of the Brahmins, to learn the ancient sacred Sanscrit tongue, in order at length to enrich our Europe with this singular knowledge; just as Mr. Sale lived a long time in Arabia, to give us a faithful translation of the Koran, and information relative to ancient Sabaism, which has been succeeded by the Mus-were born to them, elegant and beautiful. sulman religion; and as Dr. Hyde continued for twenty years his researches into everything concerning the religion of the Magi.

Angels of the Hebrews.

The Hebrews knew nothing of the fall of the angels, until the commencement of the Christian era. This secret doctrine of the ancient Brahmins must have reached them at that time; for it was then that the book attributed to Enoch, relative to the sinful angels driven from heaven, was fabricated.

Angels of the Persians.

Enoch must have been a very ancient writer; since, according to the Jews, he lived in the seventh generation before the Deluge: but as Seth, still more ancient than he, had left books to the Hebrews, they might boast of having some from Enoch also. According to them, Enoch wrote as follows:

"It happened, after the sons of men had multiplied in those days, that daughters

"And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamoured of them, saying to each other, Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children.

"Then their leader Samyaza said to them, I fear that you may perhaps be indisposed to the performance of this enter

The Persians had thirty-one angels.The first of all, who is served by four other angels, is named Bahaman; he has the inspection of all animals except man, overprise; whom God has reserved to himself an immediate jurisdiction.

God presides over the day on which the sun enters the Ram; and this day is a Sabbath, which proves that the feast of the

"And that I alone shall suffer for so grievous a crime.

"But they answered him and said, We all swear;

"And bind ourselves by mutual exe

crations, that we will not change our intention, but execute our projected undertaking.

Then they swore all together, and all bound themselves by mutual execrations. Their whole number was two hundred, who descended upon Ardis, which is the top of Mount Armon.

"That mountain, therefore, was called Armon, because they had sworn upon it, and bound themselves by mutual execra

tions.

God, or of their defeat, or of their fall into hell, or of their hatred to mankind.

Nearly all the commentators on the Old Testament unanimously say, that before the Babylonian captivity, the Jews knew not the name of any angel. The one that appeared to Manoah, father of Sampson, I would not tell his name.

When the three angels appeared to Abraham, and he had a whole calf dressed to regale them, they did not tell him their names. One of them said, "I will come "These are the names of their chiefs: to see thee next year, if God grant me Samyaza, who was their leader-Uraka-life; and Sarah thy wife shall have a barameel, Akabeel, Tamiel, Ramuel, Danel, Azkeel, Sarakuyal, Asael, Armers, Batraal, Anane, Zavebe, Samsaveel, Ertael, Turel, Yomyael, Arazyal. These were the prefects of the two hundred angels, and the remainder were all with

son.'

Calmet discovers a great affinity between this story and the fable which Ovid relates in his Fasti, of Jupiter, Neptune, and Mercury, who, having supped with old Hyreus, and finding that he was afflicted with impotence, urined upon the skin of a "Then they took wives, each choosing calf which he had served up to them, and for himself; whom they began to ap-ordered him to bury this hide watered prech, and with whom they cohabited; teaching them sorcery, incantations, and the dividing of roots and trees.

them.

"And the women, conceiving, brought forth giants;

"Whose stature was each three hundred cubits," &c.

The author of this fragment writes in the style which seems to belong to the primitive ages. He has the same simplicity. He does not fail to name the persons, nor does he forget the dates; here are no reflections, no maxims. It is the ancient Oriental manner.

with celestial urine in the ground, and leave it there for nine months. At the end of the nine months, Hyreus uncovered his hide, and found in it a child, which was named Orion, and is now in the heavens. Calmet moreover says, that the words which the angels used to Abraham may be rendered thus:-A child shall be born of your calf.

Be this as it may, the angels did not tell Abraham their names; they did not even tell them to Moses; and we find the name of Raphael only in Tobit, at the time of the Captivity. The other names It is evident that this story is founded of angels are evidently taken from the on the sixth chapter of Genesis :-"There Chaldeans and the Persians. Raphael, were grants in the earth in those days, Gabriel, Uriel, &c., are Persian or Babyand also after that, when the sons of God lonian. The name of Israel itself is came in unto the daughters of men, and Chaldean; as the learned Jew Philo exthey bare children to them, the same be-pressly says, in the account of his depucame mighty men which were of old, tation to Caligula. men of renown." Genesis and the book of Enoch perfectly agree respecting the coupling of the angels with the daughters of men, and the race of giants which sprung from this union; but neither this Enoch, nor any book of the Old Testament,

We shall not here repeat what has been elsewhere said of angels.

Whether the Greeks and the Romans ad

mitted the Existence of Angels. They had gods and demi-gods enow speaks of the war of the angels against to dispense with all other subaltern beings.

Mercury executed the commissions of
Jupiter, and Iris those of Juno; never-
theless, they admitted genii and demons.
The doctrine of guardian angels was ver-
sified by Hesiod, who was cotemporary
with Homer. In his poem of The Works
and Days, he thus explains it :-

When Gods alike and mortals rose to birth,
A golden race the immortals formed on earth
Of many-languaged men; they lived of old,
When Saturn reigned in heaven-an age of gold.
Like Gods they lived, with calm untroubled mind,
Free from the toil and anguish of our kind.
Nor sad decrepid age approaching nigh,
Their limbs misshaped with swoln deformity.
Strangers to ill, they Nature's banquet proved,
Rich in earth's fruits, and of the blest beloved:
They sank to death, as opiate slumber stole
Soft o'er the sense, and whelmed the willing soul.
Theirs was each good: the grain-exuberant soil
Poured the full harvest, uncompelled by toil:
The virtuous many dwelt in common, blest,
And all unenvying shared what all in peace possessed.
When on this race the verdant earth had lain,
By Jove's high will they rose a Genii train:
Earth-wandering dæmons, they their charge began,
The ministers of good and guards of man:
Veiled with a mantle of aerial night,

O'er earth's wide space they wing their hovering flight;
Dispense the fertile treasures of the ground,
And bend their all-observant glance around;
To mark the deed unjust, the just approve,
Their kingly office, delegate from Jove.

ELTON'S Translation.

The farther we search into antiquity, the more we see how modern nations have by turns explored these now almost abandoned mines. The Greeks, who so long passed for inventors, imitated Egypt, which had copied from the Chaldeans, who owed almost every thing to the Indians. The doctrine of the guardian angels, so well sung by Hesiod, was afterwards sophisticated in the schools: it was all that they were capable of doing Every man has his good and his evil genius, as each one had his particular

star

Est genius natale comes qui temperat astrum.

angel of Marcus Brutus, which appeared to him before the battle of Philippi.

SECTION II.

The doctrine of Angels is one of the oldest in the world. It preceded that o the Immortality of the Soul. This is no surprising philosophy is necessary to the belief that the soul of mortal man i immortal; but imagination and weaknes are sufficient for the invention of being superior to ourselves, protecting or per secuting us. Yet it does not appear tha the ancient Egyptians had any notion c these celestial beings, clothed with a ethereal body, and administering to th orders of a God. The ancient Babylc nians were the first who admitted this the ology. The Hebrew books employ th angels from the first book of Genes downwards: but the book of Genesis w not written before the Chaldeans had be come a powerful nation: nor was it unt the captivity of Babylon that the Jew learned the names of Gabriel, Raphae Michael, Uriel, &c. which were given t the angels. The Jewish and Christia religions being founded on the fall Adam, and this fall being founded on th temptation by the evil angel, the devil, is very singular that not a word is said i the Pentateuch of the existence of th bad angels, still less of their punishme and abode in hell.

The reason of this omission is evident the evil angels were unknown to th Jews until the Babylonian captivity; the it is that Asmodeus begins to be talke of, whom Raphael went to bind in Upp Egypt; there it is that the Jews fir Socrates, we know, had his good an-hear of Satan. This word Satan wi gel; but his bad angel must have governed him. No angel but an evil one could prompt a philosopher to run from house to house, to tell people, by question and answer, that father and mother, preceptor and pupil, were all ignorant and imbecile. A guardian angel in that event will find it very difficult to save his protégé from the hemlock.

We are acquainted only with the evil

Chaldean; and the book of Job, an ir habitant of Chaldea, is the first that make mention of him.

The ancient Persians said that Sata was an angel or genius who had mad war upon the Dives and the Peris, the is, the Fairest of the East.

Thus, according to the ordinary rule of probability, those who are guided b reason alone might be permitted to think