author's argument. Discussing, in Book I., "The Nature of all Law," as expressed in creation, reason, and revelation, he advances in the succeeding volumes to the special questions in hand. In sketching the life and literary work of Hooker, we must think of him as, first and last, a theologian and churchman-we might say, a literary ecclesiastic. He grasped, as no man of his day did, the historical and ethical meaning of the religious movements then transpiring. Separating all that was incidental to partisan debate from that which inhered in the very nature of things, he aimed to define and defend the position of the Established Church and explain its principles. With a deep regard for the character of Calvin, he was conscientiously disposed to a more flexible creed. Averse to the claims of Cartwright and the Puritan dissenters, he aimed to justify his position before the English religious public, seeking especially to show that, in connection with the Word of God, there must be a resort to human law and reason in the exposition of sacred truth and Church polity. Though he seems, at times, to magnify the province and prerogatives of reason, so as to make it a dangerous factor in matters of faith, there is no real rationalism involved either in motive or actual research. His distinctively theological power is seen at its best as he descants, in turn, upon the vital doctrines of Christianity-the Trinity, the end of God in creation, in Providence, human responsibility, Christ's character and work, and the final authority of Scripture. It was thus reserved for Hooker as a theologian to give the fullest and clearest statement as yet given of these cardinal truths. A contemporary of Donne and Hall and Andrews, he was a no less celebrated forerunner of Chillingworth and Taylor and Fuller, the first systematic theologian of the English Church and, indeed, of English letters. Of his philosophical character, and especially of his style in English prose, we have spoken elsewhere.* A thinker and a scholar; a theologian, a preacher, and an author; a simple-minded man and a devoted Christian disciple-his name stands forth prominently in an age when names of note were numerous. We think of Hooker in rightful connection with Spenser and Bacon and Raleigh and Ben Jonson, not only because of their common relationship to the Elizabethan age, but in view of a deeper and more intimate relationship of character and mental vigor. In such books as Hallam's "Literature of Europe," Minto's " English Prose Literature," and Hazlitt's or Whipple's "Literature of the Age of Elizabeth," interesting facts are given with reference to this worthy exponent of sixteenth century England and English. We have often felt that we should have been glad to have heard one of his celebrated morning discourses, whose design was, as Walton tells us, "to show reasons for what he spoke." For some reason or another best known to his contemporaries, he has come down through English history as * English Prose and Prose Writers. the "judicious" Hooker. No appellation could better have designated the conspicuous quality of his mind and character. He had judgment, in the sense of good understanding, and in the sense of a wise and charitable discretion; so that in his more private, pastoral life in the rural districts of England, as in the more public and official life of London, he was ever the same safe adviser and a considerate friend of all who stood in need of friendly offices. His apparent lack of judgment, as seen in his temporary expulsion from Oxford, may be attributed to his youthful years, although, from the testimony of Rainolds, who was expelled with him, and from other trustworthy evidence, the matter must be charged to the account of the vice-president of the college, Doctor John Barfoote. A more serious reflection upon his discretion is seen in the fact of his untimely marriage and his ready indorsement of Mrs. Churchman's views, who insisted that he needed personal care and that her daughter Joan could probably be induced to fulfil such a mission. Quaint Izaak Walton finds relief concerning it in the doctrine of a particular providence, and insists "that affliction is a divine diet." But, as Burns tells us, the best of men, as the best of schemes, "gang aft agley" and most especially "in the matters and affairs of love." All faults conceded, however, history has confirmed his reputation as a solid, substantial, sober-minded man, not given to frivolities, and withal of a kind and generous nature, and wholly intent upon giving a good account of himself to God and to his age, "serving his generation," as David did, "according to the will of God." As we study his portrait given us by Walton we seem to see the distinctive features of a large-hearted and large-minded man. We learn that, even when a schoolboy, he was a "questionist," ever anxious and inquisitive as to the truth; so that when he came to the great ecclesiastical problems of his time, he sought to meet and solve them in the philosophic spirit. A good scholar, a good writer, a good preacher, and a good pastor, no marvel that his mother "often blessed the day in which she bare him," and loved him as Monica did Augustine. How the world needs these sterling men! How the Church and the college, literature and society, need them to conserve and support and defend and diffuse the truth! Just as in old English days, Alfred and Orm prepared the way for Wiclif, and he, in turn, for Caxton and Latimer, so Hooker, at the very opening of the modern era, prepared the way for Warburton, and Barrow, and Chillingworth, and Cudworth, and Chalmers, and that truly apostolic succession of English worthies for whose continuance the English world is ever praying. MEN speak of a consuming zeal for truth, when the only thing that consumes them is their prejudice. III.-A HINDU MISSIONARY IN AMERICA. (BY F. F. ELLINWOOD, D.D., NEW YORK CITY. PERHAPS the very clearest evidence of all that Christian missions are fast leavening the general sentiment of India is found in the fact that the various Somajes, in their attempts to reform the corrupt Hinduism which they now openly discard, have embraced almost without qualification the whole body of Christian ethics. Even the Arya Somaj, though bitter in its opposition to Christianity, and claiming that the Vedas are the only source of divine inspiration, presents in its published catechism a body of ethics evidently borrowed from Christianity and widely at variance with the whole spirit of Hinduism. The fact that this applied Christianity is graced with Vedic labels cannot long deceive the educated and intelligent classes of India, much less the outside world. Its true source will in time be acknowledged. But if Vivekananda is correctly reported, he made some graver misrepresentations than any that have been named, so grave as virtually to deny the concurrent testimony of all European residents in India during the last three hundred years. He said he had become tired of answering such questions as these: "Do Hindus burn their widows, and do they throw their children to the crocodiles of the Ganges?" If he had simply said "No, they do not, now that these customs have been made capital crimes by the Anglo-Indian Government," he would have stated the exact truth. But he answered in such a way as to convey the impression that such customs had never had a place in Hinduism. Suttee, he said, existed only as a matter of occasional and unpreventable suicides: it had no connection with religion and was opposed by the priests. He pointed his denials by adding, " And they do not burn their witches." The murder of female infants he treated with ridicule. I shall be pardoned for giving a few facts in reference to widow-burning and female infanticide. The awful crime of the suttee in India was made known to Europeans as early, at least, as the time of Alexander's conquest, B.C. 327. When the Baptist missionaries began their work a hundred years ago, both widow-burning and female infanticide were still rife, as they had been for more than twenty centuries, and these heroic men took measures at once to arouse the sentiment of Christian Europe as well as the efforts of the East India Company. Carey, Marshman, Ward, and Buchanan have all left published records of heart-sickening scenes of widow-burning of which they were eye-witnesses; and before the governmental authorities took any step in the matter, they made investigations on their own account through their native helpers. Carey learned of 438 cases of widow-murder which occurred within thirty miles of Calcutta in 1803. In 1817 reports were made to the civil magistrates of 706 cases in Bengal, and in 1818 the number was 839, making 1,545 in two years. Although great pains were taken to conceal the real facts concerning the custom which, by this time, all the foreigners branded with disgrace, yet, between 1815 and 1826, no less than 7,500 wifemurders were entered upon the public registers in Bengal alone; and if we extend the estimate to all India pro rata and then multiply the number by all the years of at least twenty-two centuries, we shall see that millions on millions of Hindu wives have suffered torture at the behest of a religious system which Vivekananda asks the intelligent communities of America to regard as the ancient source of all true wisdom. The abolition of the suttee cost a long and historic struggle. Instead of its having been a matter of a few fanatical suicides wholly at variance with the spirit of Hinduism, it has long been a vital part of Hinduism. Though it was apparently unknown to the early IndoAryans, and nowhere appears in the Vedas or in Manu, yet it finds sanction in the Mahabharata and the Puranas, and was in full force, as we have seen, long before the Christian era. It is said to have sprung from a legend of the devotion of a mythological wife of one of the gods, and it was sedulously fostered by the Brahmans as a means of exalting their importance and enriching them with costly gifts. See, for example, the list of presents bestowed upon them at the burning of eleven wives and concubines of Roujert Singh at Lahore in 1839. I have stated that there is no authority for the suttee in the Vedas. All the best modern scholars, however, now charge upon the Brahmans the awful crime of having changed a passage in one of the hymns of the Veda in such a way as to gain an alleged authority. Whoever will turn to that scholarly work of the late Prof. W. D. Whitney entitled "Oriental and Linguistic Studies," pages 52 to 57, may find a full history of this Satanic interpolation in what originally was a beautiful hymn, describing the funeral ceremony attending the death and burial of a husband. Prof. Whitney says: "Authority has been sought for the practice (of suttee) in a fragment of this very hymn, rent from its natural condition and a little altered. By the change of a single letter the line which is translated 'the wives may first ascend unto the altar' (for a last leavetaking of the husband), has been made to read 'the wives shall go up into the place of the fire."" Monier Williams and other Vedic scholars make the same charge. An explanation has already been given of the interest which the Brahman priests have in perpetuating the custom. The fact also that the relatives of the self-immolating widow are interested in using their influence is easily explained by a passage in one of the Puranas which states that " a widow burning herself on the fire of her husband brings personal benefit to her own father's family and to the family of her husband." It can be easily understood that such a heritage was one which fanatical families might not easily forego. Sir As early as the fifteenth century, the Mohammedan mogul, Akbar, tried to suppress the custom, but the influence of the Brahmans was too strong for him. When Carey, Marshman, and other missionaries began to agitate the subject in India and in England, they were cautioned lest they should so antagonize Hindu sentiment as to endanger the British supremacy. This argument was urged with great force by Lord Ellenborough in the House of Lords. The measures which were used against the system were at first very moderate. A law was passed in 1813 that a civil magistrate should always be present at the burning to see that no compulsion was used. This was necessary because, as witnessed by Carey and others, the bodies of the living and the dead were confined by a pole or a bent bamboo held down by the relatives of the widow, lest in her agony she should break away and fail to accomplish her immolation. In 1824 and in 1827 further measures were taken against the system, but only such as could be enforced "consistently with all practicable attention to the feelings of the people"; and when in 1829 Viceroy Lord William Bentick determined to destroy this monstrous system at all hazards, he found himself embarrassed not only by previous temporizing acts of Parliament, but by widespread protests from timid English residents as well as influential Hindus. Yet he persevered. When, finally, his order was issued making widowburning a capital crime, "the orthodox Hindus of Calcutta, comprising the great majority of the upper classes, the great landholders, the wealthy bankers and merchants, astonished and enraged at the decision of the viceroy, prepared a memorial to the British Parliament demanding a restoration of their rights." What will Vivekananda say to the fact, officially attested, that eight hundred leading Hindus in Calcutta signed this remonstrance, setting forth that this cruel rite was based upon immemorial usage as well as upon precept, both being equally sacred; "that Hindu widows immolated themselves under the sanction of religious custom; that that act was not only a sacred duty, but a high privilege; that the measure would be regarded with horror and dismay throughout the company's territory"? The question whether missionaries have exerted any influence in bringing about these humane reforms is well answered by the fact that when the despatch was received at Government headquarters, stating that Parliament had confirmed Lord Bentick's order, a special message was sent to the Serampore missionaries congratulating them on "the triumph of a measure for which they had labored for twenty-five years." As for throwing children into the Ganges, where they are devoured by the crocodiles, Vivekananda bases his argument against the charge upon natural conditions, thus implying that it has ever existed. "The Ganges," he says, "is a rapid stream, and I never saw a crocodile in its waters. So much," he triumphantly exclaims, "for the story about the crocodiles!" Of this I have simply to say that |