Manufactures must, of

tion, must needs too be scanty in amount. course, share the fate of Commerce, the one being stimulant and feeder to the other. And with the drooping of both these, must lie dormant the industry and inventive activity, which else find scope in many a useful and ornamental art. A fervid sun and a soil responding with plenty to the slightest labor, at once diminish the sum of the physical wants, and produce for them an abundant supply, and so unite in multiplying inducements to quietude and inaction.

Now these several causes combined, go far, we think, toward accounting for the fixed, unvarying character of the East, and its transmission, from age to age, of the same institutions and usages of life. And in this immutability of the popular character and life, lies a plausible explanation of their submission to systems of Government always completely arbitrary, and often tyrannous and cruel to the extremest degree. And do not these absolute and oppressive Sovereignties, in connexion with the aforenamed Geographical peculiarities, cast much expository light on the tremendous Religions of the East? In any case, these Religions, once established, must needs react, by their formidable character and crushing weight, to perpetuate that condition of things, and that form of human nature, out of which they originally sprang.

Turn now to the map of Europe. You behold a continent at once limited in extent, and exceedingly diversified in physical features. Numerous inland seas and navigable streams furnish highways readymade for easy, rapid, and secure Commercial interchanges, while, in its varieties of soil and mineral products, this territory yields abundance of Commercial material. Commerce stimulates, if not creates, Manufactures, and the twain call into being a thousand sciences and arts, and furnish scope for industry in innumerable forms. No farspreading deserts separate one community from another; few mountain-ranges lift their dividing walls between neighboring nations; no natural obstacle, in a word, bars the free communication of each with all other parts of the continent, or forbids the propagation of whatever light may spring up in one quarter, to all quarters beside. A region not too vast for neighborhood and unity, and yet extended enough to allow free expansion; not in its parts so like as to beget a wearisome monotony, nor yet so dissimilar as to distract and forbid wholeness of impression; traversed in every direction by noble streams, and holding in its bosom many a sea, where the fleets of Commerce or the navies of War may ride without impinging; a region, in one word, where a various and liberal Nature is alive with a perpetual and efficient activity, does it not seem, at the first glance, to be the indigenous abode of human energy, movement, change, progress?

We have already spoken briefly of Religion under one aspect, as aiding to illustrate the influence of Physical Geography on Civilization. We are now, rather more at large, to contemplate it under a different view, as being itself an agent in the work of Civilization. For the sake of definiteness, we shall continue our parallel between the Oriental and European worlds. As before intimated, Religion borrows not only its exterior semblance, but much of its informing spirit from the character of the community in which it exists. But,

once established, it becomes in turn a Creator, and exerts a most potent agency in moulding a nation's character and ways of life. The differing characters of the East and the West may be traced, in a very considerable degree, to their religious diversities.

The Oriental Religion is the Religion of Nature; that is, the result of Reason acting on the materials furnished by the ordinary phenomena of the great system, whereof ourselves are a part.

The Religion of Europe is the Religion of Revelation; a system coming from immediate, extra-natural inspiration, and therefore reflecting in its character the perfection of its original. The European differs, we apprehend, from the Oriental system mainly in the three particulars following:

I. In teaching, in contradistinction to the Pagan multiplicity of Divinities, that God is one- in sovereignty alone unmatched in power and perfections.

II. In proclaiming with distinctness and emphasis the soul's immortality, and the intimate dependence of the character and condition of the coming life on the character and condition of the present. III. In ordaining benevolence to Man, as an indispensable part of duty to the Supreme Power.

Now it needs but a glance to perceive that these three doctrines must be exceedingly prolific in momentous results, and that wherever they are practically recognized, they cannot but stamp a deep and peculiar impression on the general mind. The concentration of the religious sensibilities on a single Object absolutely perfect, must contribute largely to their healthfulness and vigor, while it raises the general tone of moral sentiment and purpose.

The distinct disclosure of an interminable life beyond the present, introduces into the mind an element of incalculable force, and suited to agitate our nature through the entire compass of its activities. The doctrine is a dim one to the Eastern contemplation, as it has been ever to the Pagan perception. Disfigured with chimeras like the Metempsychosis, it is shorn immeasurably of the clearness and operative force with which it stands in the Christian faith.

And, finally, the doctrine of Benevolence, or Social Love, has wrought with prime efficiency in moulding the European Civilization. With most emphatic truth was it called by its Author a new commandment.' For of Pagan antiquity, and of the East even now, the practical doctrine is, that men should love their friends and hate their enemies.' The lines which enclose kindred, clan, tribe, or country, are bounds which unevangelized Benevolence rarely overpasses with its good offices. Whatsoever lies beyond, is mostly enemy's territory, a legitimate field for pillage and waste, and where the ordinary maxims of justice and mercy have no binding force of appliance. The illuminated Greek fixed the single scornful epithet of Barbarian' on all beyond the borders of his tiny peninsula, and the high-hearted Roman beheld, with equal moral sensibility, and similar gratification, the lions of the Lybian desert and the Dacians of the Danube mangle each other in mutual slaughter.

It is totally the opposite with the Social Love of the Christian Code. It suffers no restriction on the reach of its kind offices. It tolerates no limitation on its sympathy or its charitable functions. It breaks

down every barrier that lifts itself to separate man from man. It expunges from its vocabulary the very name of enemy. And wherever man is, of whatever color, country, name, or character, there it recognizes a fitting object not only of justice and mercy, but of love and active kindness.

Of such a doctrine as this, the practical working is not confined to its excellent moral influences, and its auspicious bearing on human happiness. It operates to band men more closely and generally together in every way, in their wishes and hopes, their schemes, enterprises, and endeavors. There is no more striking feature of the present age, than the wide prevalence of the principle of Association. The improving changes which for the last few years have been rapidly passing over the face of the world, owe more to this than to all causes beside. The individual strength and means which could effect little or nothing, are enabled, when combined, to work results that seem rather like magic than sober reality. The denizens of the 'land of the cypress and myrtle,' and the dingy tribes of the far Isles of the Sea, are brought, by Association, beneath the healing beams of the Sun of Righteousness.' And by Association the extremes of a wide continent are drawn into close neighborhood, and immense oceans are flitted over on vaporous wings, in the face of opposing tempest and tide.

Now, while all perceive how largely these wondrous results are traceable to the principle of Association, few perhaps recognize, what is nevertheless true, that this potent cause is the legitimate result of the second great Law of the Christian code. And here we may see verified, what is doubtless the fact universally, that the practical adoption of Christian principles works auspiciously for the life that now is, as well as for that which is to come.

But we are admonished to bring our remarks to a close. Of the thousand practical reflections suggested by our theme, we will give utterance to but one, and that is, Despise nothing; despise no Civilization is a single grand process, developing under the auspices of the Supreme Perfection, and from the grandeur of the work, a dignity and importance are thrown on every person and every thing entering into the boundless complication. Therefore, despise