6 ings through the different animal forms which she was destined to inhabit. And substantially the same account is brought us by the missionary who has studied the religion of the southern tribes of Africa: They believe in the transmigration of souls; and also that while persons are still living they may enter into lions and alligators, and then return again to their own bodies' (Livingstone, p. 642). Mr Shooter (Kafirs of Natal, p. 162) corroborates this statement also, adding that 'departed spirits are believed to revisit the earth and appear to their descendants in the form of certain serpents.' Bondage to fear. The gloomy terror everywhere inspired alike by the religions of the wild American and by those of Oceanica (e. g. Part III. pp. 131, 132, 184) has found its counterpart again among the various tribes of Central Africa: 'Their religion, if such it may be called, is one of dread. Numbers of charms are employed to avert the evils with which they feel themselves to be encompassed. Occasionally you meet a man, more cautious or more timid than the rest, with twenty or thirty charms hung round his neck' (Livingstone, p. 435). Again: 'There is nothing more heart-rending than their death-wails. When the natives turn their eyes to the future world, they have a view cheerless enough of their own utter helplessness and hopelessness. They fancy themselves completely in the power of the disembodied spirits, and look upon the prospect of following them, as the greatest of misfortunes. Hence they are constantly deprecating the wrath of departed souls, believing that, if they are appeased, there is no other cause of death but witchcraft, which may be averted by charms' (p. 440). Circumcision. I have already had occasion to notice the prevalence of this rite in Southern Africa, and also pointed out some traces of it in the Egypt of the Pharaohs, as well as in far distant parts of heathendom: see above, pp. 106, 107, and n. 1, and the references there given. Black and white men. The following declaration of a 'raindoctor,' as recorded by Dr Livingstone (p. 24) is identical with a tradition already noted (Part III. p. 185) in speaking of the Fíjí islands: 'He made black men first, and did not love us, as he did the white men. He made you beautiful, and gave you clothing and guns, &c.; but toward us he had no heart. gave us nothing, except the assegai and cattle and rain-making; and he did not give us hearts like yours. We never love each He C. A. E. IV. 16 other.' A legend of precisely the same import (Part III. p. 193, n. 2) is still preserved among the Tongans (and not improbably among some other of the Polynesian islanders). There too it is the elder son who is depraved and idle, and his children who are destined to change colour, and to pass from white to black, by reason of some moral delinquency of their progenitor,- because the heart is bad.' Attention has been drawn Veneration of the Ficus Indica. already to the marvellous frequency with which the nations of South-Eastern Asia and the wilder tribes of Oceanica have betrayed their reverence for the banyan-tree or Indian fig (Part III. p. 179): but, strange as this may seem, the regions of Central Africa explored of late years by Dr Livingstone have yielded further testimonies of precisely the same kind. In speaking of the Balonda, he says (p. 290): 'They regard this tree with some sort of veneration as a medicine or charm.' And again, referring to a village in the Barotse valley, he writes (p. 495): 'At this village there is a real Indian banyan-tree, which has spread itself over a considerable space by means of roots from its branches...It is curious that trees of this family are looked upon with veneration, and all the way from the Barotse to Loanda are thought to be preservatives from evil.' The examples here adduced of some original tie connecting the barbaric tribes of Southern and Central Africa, not only with the earliest masters of the land of Egypt, but with primitive layers of population in Asia, in America, in Oceanica, will serve a highly moral purpose, if they tend to silence the suspicions now again in circulation with regard to the admissibility of Africans into the family of man. I deem it a most cruel falsehood to maintain that any even of the lowest negro tribes are unsusceptible of mental and moral culture; but instead of urging my own opinion, I transcribe the words of one who, by his long and patient study of the question, earned a fairer claim to speak about it than a multitude of philo-slavers: "The civilisation,' writes Prichard, 'of many African nations is much superior to that of the aborigines of Europe during the ages which preceded the conquests of the Goths and Swedes in the north, and the Romans in the Southern parts. The old Finnish inhabitants of Scandinavia had long, as it has been proved by the learned investigations of Rühs, the religion of fetishes, and a vocabulary as scanty as that of the most barbarous Africans. They had lived from immemorial ages without laws, or government, or social union; every individual the supreme arbiter, in every thing, of his own actions; and they displayed as little capability of emerging from the squalid sloth of their rude and merely animal existence. When conquered by people of Indo-German race, who brought with them from the East the rudiments of mental culture, they emerged more slowly from their pristine barbarism than many of the native African nations have done. Even at the present day there are hordes in various parts of Northern Asia, whose heads have the form belonging to the Tatars, and to Slavonians and other Europeans, but are below many of the African tribes in civilisation.' THE END. CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. By the same Author. History of the Christian Church, from Gregory the Great to the Reformation. (A.D. 590-1600.) Two Vols. crown 8vo. cloth, 218. Vol. I. History of the Church from Gregory the Great to the Excommunication of Luther. With Maps. Vol. II. History of the Reformation in the Church. Each volume may be had separately. Price 10s. 6d. "Displays a profusion of learning, great accuracy and honesty in collecting and collating authorities, a clear as well as a concise narrative of events; and the Author always refers to the authorities on which the history is grounded."-CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER. "As a manual for the student of Ecclesiastical History, we know no English work which can be compared to Mr HARDWICK's book. It has two great merits, that it constantly refers the reader to the authorities, both original and critical, on which its statements are founded; and that it preserves a just proportion in dealing with various subjects."-GUARDIAN. "A more satisfactory manual than England has hitherto produced.................Mr HARDWICK has laboured learnedly and diligently, at first hand, among the sources and authorities for the ecclesiastical history of the period of which he writes; and has produced a work really original, as far as such a work can be; independent in its judgments; written with taste and feeling; and offering, in its large body of notes, aids and guidance to the fullest investigation the subject can possibly receive."-NONCONFORMIST. History of the Articles of Religion. To which is added a Series of Documents from A.D. 1536—1615. Twenty Sermons for Town Congregations. Crown 8vo. cloth 6s. 6d. Cambridge, January, 1858 A LIST OF New Works and New Editions, PUBLISHED BY MACMILLAN AND CO. ANNOUNCEMENTS. NEW LIFE OF MILTON. The Life of John Milton, narrated in connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of his Time. By DAVID MASSON, M.A., Professor of English Literature in University College, London. 8vo. VOL. I. Comprehending the Period from 1608 to 1639. [Shortly. AUTHOR'S NOTE. *"Ir is intended that the title of this Work should indicate its character. Such an alternative title as 'The Life and Times of Milton' might suggest more familiarly, perhaps, the precedents which the Author has had in view. While his first object has been to narrate the Life of Milton fully, deliberately, and minutely, with as much of additional fact and illustration as might be supposed to result, even at this distance of time, from new research and from a further examination of the old materials, he has not deemed it |