days long gone by, she has been narrow, proud and persecuting; not that when the dark ages were drawing to a close, she was unwilling to walk in the light, and clung tenaciously to old habits. We are every day made aware of the power of ancient usages, and are ourselves victimised as well as profited by them. And where those usages have been connected with all that is most sacred, and handed down from father to son, very great allowances must be made. But our quarrel is that ages have passed away, and ample time has been given for changes such as better knowledge should have ushered in, and still that church makes her boast of being ingloriously the same. She spoils all by either adding to or diminishing from the Word of God. She❘ believes in prayer, but after the exercise is over her devotees must dip their fingers in something called "holy water;" she exercises faith in Christ as Saviour and Mediator, but she elevates the Virgin Mary to a place of reverence equal if not superior; she believes in the Sacraments as means of grace, but she adds five of her own to the two of the New Testament, and then spoils them all by insisting upon a Purgatory still beyond them, which is to be the scene of a further purification. Yea, she believes in the Scriptures as the Word of God, but she says, "Our traditions must interpret them;" and, as of old, they make them "of none effect.' The advice given by the Bishops met at Bononia to Julius III. contains the honest truth at all events, and one only wonders that the unmistakable inference was not drawn by Roman Catholics, and is not drawn yet. They recommend that as little of the Gospel as might be should be read to the people in the Vulgar tongue; "for," they say, "if one diligently considers that Book (the Bible) and compares it with what is done in our church, he will find them very contrary to each other, and our doctrines not only to be different from it, but repugnant to it." So the old question remains: as both cannot be right, which is? When God turned the captivity of His people, and they were found once more in Jerusalem, we read that "all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the watergate; and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel." They had been brought into trouble through neglecting it, through the worshipof them that were no gods, and. through forbidden practices, and now they cry out to have it read to them. And what was the answer made? Was it that the Book which they inquired after was very difficult to understand, and only intended for learned men? Was it that God. had practically superseded it, and¬ that if they wanted to know anything, Ezra, being in the true suc--cession of those who first received it, would explain it to them? Not so: we are told that the Book was opened "in the sight of all the people," and that it was read, and that the sense was given, and they were "caused to understand the reading," and "all the people wept, when they heard the words of the Law." Surely the day will yet come when Tertullian's description of a heretic will be acknowledged to be the right one, namely, such an one as flies away from the light of Scripture. Great changes are going on all around, and never was there such a circulation of God's Word. Meanwhile, let us who have it be surethat never was there greater cause to hold to it, and to give the sense, and cause it to be understood, that now, as of old, all the people may feel its truth, its force, and its sufficiency. EARLY CHALDEAN LEGENDS. THE fourth and fifth tablets are The two heroes journey through this forest which excites their admiration, and they hold conversation about its magnificence. The end of the expedition cannot be made out farther than that it is successful. Hambaba is slain and his palace plundered. Izdubar now becomes supreme monarch of liberated Babylonia, but at this point his calamities begin. His prowess and manly strength attract the notice of Ishtar, the goddess-queen of Erech, who pursues him with her love, offering him great splendour and riches with wide-spread conquests if he will be her husband. But the king knows that Ishtar's love is fatal to her favourites. He refuses her offers in a long speech, in which he recounts the ruin of those whom she had formerly thus exalted. Country after country mourns for Dumazi, her husband; the wild eagle she loved and then broke his wings; the lion lost his claws which she "drew out by levers;" the horse pleased her for a few hours and then was seized with shaking and abandoned. She loved a ruler of the country and turned him to a leopard and his dogs devoured him. She loved Isullanu and struck him and changed him to a pillar and set him up in the ground. "And me," he concludes, "thou dost love and like to them thou wilt serve me." Then Ishtar, enraged at the slight, ascends into heaven to her father Anu, and prevails on him to create a divine bull which assails Izdubar and Heabani, but they overthrow and slay it and send a portion of the body to Ishtar who makes great lamentation over the bull. This conflict is represented on a cylinder engraved in Mr. Smith's volume. Ishtar then, having been in heaven, resolves to descend into hell to obtain help against Izdubar, and there follows a most remarkable narrative exhibiting the belief of the early Babylonians respecting the life after death. Our information is derived partly from the continuous series of the tablets we are now dealing with, and partly from another work which though distinct from this plainly refers to the same subject. TABLET VII. COLUMN IV. "1. [To Hades, the country unseen] I turn myself "2. I spread like a bird my wings. "3. I descend, I descend to the house of darkness, to the dwelling of the god Irkalla "4. to the house entering which there is no exit, "5. to the road the course of which never returns; "6. to the house in which the dwellers long for light, "7. the place where dust is their nour ishment and their food mud. "8. Its chiefs also are like birds coV. ered with feathers. "1. To Hades the land of "2. Ishtar the daughter of Sin (the Moon) her ear inclined; "3. inclined also the daughter of Sin her ear, "4. to the house of darkness, the dwelling of the god Irkalla. 12. Ishtar on her arrival at the gate of Hades, "13. to the keeper of the gate a command she called : "14. Keeper of the waters open thy gate, "15. open thy gate that may enter. "16. If thou openest not the gate and I am not admitted, "17. I will strike the door and the door posts I will shatter, "24. Let me go and thy speech repeat to the queen Ninkigal. "25. The keeper entered and called to Ninkigal "26. this water thy sister Ishtar 30. like the bite of an insect it "31. Will her heart support it, will her spirit uphold it; "34. Let her mourn for the husbands who forsake their wives. "35. Let her mourn for the wives who from the bosoms of their husbands depart, "36. for the children who miscarry let her mourn, who are not born in their proper time," etc. trembles While Ishtar is detained below, everything goes wrong in the world. of love on earth. Shammas, the Sun, goes weeping into the presence of Hea the king of heaven, and after representing to him the evils from which the world is suffering, beseeches his aid. Hea makes a composite creature, whom Mr. Smith calls the Sphinx, and sends it down into the lower regions. Ninkigal at its approach and launches curses against it. But at last she has to yield, and issues the order to Simtar to restore the spirit of Ishtar. She is brought out from "the palace of judgment," seated on a golden throne, and the water of life is poured over her, she is conducted back through the seven gates, and at each one the articles of her apparel and ornaments are returned to her, and finally she reappears in the light of day. Thus ends the perilous visit of Ishtar to the realm of the dead; but she has not obtained power over Izdubar. The subsequent portion of that hero's adventures is extremely obscure and fragmentary. He is smitten with a grievous sickness; he dreams two or three more dreams which Heabani cannot interpret; a new enemy threatens him, and he exhorts Heabani to fight; either by this or by some other foe the wise satyr is slain, and Izdubar makes great lamentation over his loss. He then starts upon a long journey which takes him through many mythical regions inhabited by strange beings compounded of men and animals. The object of his wanderings is to find one 66 'Hasisadra, son of Ubaratutu," from whose advice he is to gain relief. He crosses a terrible desert, and, after encounters with many fabulous monsters, meets a boatman named Urhamsi, with whom he takes a long voyage of one month and fifteen days over the waters of death. There is an account of his making a great spear, the purpose of which is not apparent. Ultimately he meets a personage called Ragmu-seri-ina-namari (a name so long that even the author of the tablets has to shorten it to Ragmu), to whom he recounts his conflict with Hambaba and the death of Heabani. He is then introduced to the presence of Hasisadra, from whom, among other things, he learns what to us is the most interesting part of these legends, the story of the Flood, in which Hasisadra himself takes the position of Noah. It is told in answer to a question of Izdubar's: why it is that Hasisadra has been admitted alive to the assembly of the gods. "45. Adrahasis his mouth opened and spake and "46. said to Hea his lord: "47. Any one the ship will not make... "48. on the earth fixed I may see also the ship "51. the ship making which thou commandest me "52. which in . . . . "3. in its circuit 14 measures .... its frame. "4. 14 measures it measured.... over it. "5. I placed its roof.... I enclosed it, "6. I rode in it on the sixth time; I "41. arose, from the horizon of heaven extending and wide. "42. Vul in the midst of it thundered, and "43. Nebo and Saru went in front, "44. the throne-bearers went over mountains and plains "45. the destroyer Nergal overturned, "46. Ninip went in front and cast down, "47. the spirits carried destruction. "48. In their glory they swept the earth; "49. of Val the flood reached to heaven. "50. the bright earth to a waste was turned." "15. To "16. "17. were sacrificed oxen. dust and wine in receptacle of goats. "18. I collected like the waters of a river, also "19. food like the dust of the earth also "20. I collected in boxes with my hand I placed. "21. Shammas material "23. The reed oars of the ship I caused to bring above and below. it. "24. "25. All I possessed the strength of it, all I possessed the strength of it silver, "26. all I possessed the strength of it gold, "27. all I possessed the strength of it the seed of life, the whole "28. I caused to go up into the ship; all my male servants and my female servants, "29. the beast of the field, the animal of the field, the sons of the people all of them I caused to go up. "30. A flood Shammas made and "31. He spake saying in the night : I will cause it to rain heavily, "32. enter to the midst of the ship and shut thy door. "33. That flood happened of which "34. he spake, saying in the night: I will cause it to rain from heaven heavily. "35. In the day I celebrated his festival "36. the day of watching fear I had. "37. I entered to the midst of the ship and shut my door. "38. to close the ship to Buzursadirabi the boatman. "39. the palace I gave with its goods. "3. The strong deluge over the people, reached to heaven. "4. Brother saw not his brother, they did not know the people. In heaven "5. the gods feared the tempest and "6. sought refuge; they ascended to the heaven of Anu. "7. the gods like dogs fixed in droves prostrate. "8. Spake Ishtar like a child, "9. uttered Rubat her speech : "10. all to corruption are turned and "11. then I in the presence of the gods prophesied evil. "12. As I prophesied in the presence of the gods evil, "13. to evil were devoted all my people and I prophesied "14. thus: I have begotten my people and "15. like the young of the fishes they fill the sea. "16. The gods concerning the spirits were weeping with her; "17. the gods in seats seated in lamentation, "18. covered were their lips for the coming evil. "19. Six days and nights "20. passed, the wind, deluge and storm overwhelmed. "21. On the seventh day in its course was calmed the storm, and all the deluge "22. which had destroyed like an earthquake, "23. quieted. The sea he caused to dry, and the wind and deluge ended. "24. I perceived the sea making a tossing; |