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innovation, and checks free inquiry; she muzzles the press; she chains the mind in darkness, teaching the doctrine that ignorance is the mother of devotion; she withholds the Bible from the people, denying their ability to interpret it aright. She dares not leave man to follow his reason and conscience, illuminated by the pure word of God. She even reads her devotional service in an unknown tongue, apparently fearful lest the laity should catch some sparks of truth, and begin to think for themselves. She deprives them, first, of religious, and then, if possible, of civil liberty; forbidding them to pursue, in their own way, either their temporal or eternal happiness. She encroaches on their personal, social, and civil rights. She naturally forms distinctions and castes in society: she elevates a few, making them popes, princes, priests, the guides and governors of the others. But the masses she degrades to a point below even the beasts they drive or the clods they turn: she denies them the right, a right which the meanest objects of nature enjoy, to act in accordance with the laws of their being. She forbids them to think and reason; she makes them slaves to the fixed and unalterable past; slaves to her own insti tutions and forms. She would remain stationary from age to age, and keep the world stationary with her. This might be well, if the race of man had reached the "ne plus ultra" of perfection. But the golden age of the world has not yet arrived; and she will never usher it in; she retards its approach. The Lutheran church in Germany is, at the present moment, arrayed against the spirit of reform: it resists the progress of liberal principles and civil freedom. And in Italy, the grand obstacle in the way of liberty and a free government is found in the church. The laity favor reform; but pope, cardinals, bishops, and priests oppose it; and, if the spirit of freedom is smothered there, it will die by the hands of formalism. It accords with her nature to do such a work; a work which spiritualism abhors.

Look at the different effects of the two systems as they stand out prominently marked on the inhabitants of Ireland and Scotland. They lie side by side, and are under the same civil government, but subject to different systems of religion, the one formal, the other spiritual. The Emerald Isle has received lavishly the gifts of nature her fertile fields, her gently-rising hills and lovely vales might make her the glory of all lands. How different, in natural advantages, from Scotland, the

"Land of gray fern and rugged wood,

Land of the mountain and the flood."

Now why is it that Scotland, the land of rocks and lochs, is so comparatively prosperous, while Ireland, rich and productive Ireland, is

1849.]

Element of Infidelity.

745 in a condition so calamitous? Why are the inhabitants of the one so well instructed, comfortable, and happy, and those of the other so generally uneducated, destitute, and distressed? The difference is not to be found in the native character of the people. The Irish are a brave, hardy, and teachable race. Her O'Connells, Emmets, Currans, and Sheridans, are proof positive that her children, in intellectual efforts, are capable of all that man can do. The difference between them and their Scotch neighbors is owing, almost solely, to the difference in their systems of religion. The one is under the dominion of formalism, which checks improvement and enslaves the mind; the other has a spiritual religion, which encourages progress and elevates the soul, teaching it a due self-respect and self-confidence, by admitting it to a personal audience and daily intercourse with God himself. Look the world over, and almost all the pure spiritualism in existence will be found with the Saxon race. And that race has advanced the farthest in everything which respects the improvement and happiness of man. It has in it the germ of the world's renovation. It is now doing even more than the whole world beside, to elevate and bless mankind. And wherever, among the Saxons, spiritualism is purest, there the element of reform is the most powerfully operative. In England, the spirit of progress is not to be found in the Established Church; it is with the Dissenters. It was so in the times of the revo lution under Cromwell. The Roundheads moved England forward a century, in everything which respects the welfare of the people. And our pilgrim fathers have made us what we now are, a nation of elevated and happy freemen. And if, as a nation, we ever accomplish anything for the renovation of the world, it will be done through the influence of this same principle. We are even now silently leavening all the nations of the earth. Wherever formalism holds the ascendency, there a work of reform is absolutely demanded. And in many lands it is already begun. A leaven of spiritualism has been infused into almost all the countries of Europe. It is a powerful element, working for the overthrow of almost every form of evil.

There is, too, a third element there, which, before any great reform is consummated, generally arises and performs an important part in the work; I mean the element of infidelity. The people begin to think for themselves. They see the falsity and absurdity of the formal religion in which they have been educated; and, in rejecting that, they lose faith in all religion, and become open or secret sceptics. They are ready to aid in overthrowing the superstitions which have long held them in bondage; and so they become, in the work of reform, the coadjutors of spiritualism. Infidelity and spiritualism are indeed antagonistic VOL. VI. No. 24.

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principles, as disbelief and faith must ever be; but as fire and water, two opposite elements, may unite in the destruction of a ship, so spiritualism and infidelity may cooperate in the overthrow of formalism. So was it in the times of Luther; so is it now, in England, France, Austria, Italy, and other countries of Europe, where the work of revolution and progress is going forward. So is it in Egypt, where a deepseated scepticism respecting the Mohammedan system and a strong disposition to reject all religion, extensively prevails. So is it also in many pagan nations of Asia, where the people have had their faith in idols undermined, and are nearly ready to renounce and overthrow the whole fabric of idolatrous worship. Though the spiritual element, in these cases, acts in conjunction with the infidel one, still it does not fraternize with it. It stands on its own platform, and does its own work, though aided by other hands. It is opposed as well to infidelity as formalism; and often remunerates the former for the aid she affords in destroying the latter, by giving her a religion of truth, a spiritual religion, which elevates her from the dark regions of doubt and disbelief to the cheering light of hope and faith. It may seem an evil that spiritualism should ever be joined with such an ally. It has sometimes given her a bad name, according to the old adage, a man is known by the company he keeps." She has been unjustly charged with all the wild excesses of infidelity; still she does not sympathize with her ally, nor is she contaminated by the union. She not only pursues steadily her work of reform, but also not unfrequently persuades her infidel ally, who has aided in overturning hoary systems of error, to assist in rearing on their ruins a pure and holy faith. She understands her duty. She knows the wide field of her labors and future conquests. She knows she is the reforming spirit of the age and of the world. She has surveyed the lands yet to be possessed. She has no intention of compromising with any form of evil, or putting off her armor, or halting in her work, till the world is thoroughly redeemed from every form of superstition, sin, and woe. She looks down the vista of coming years, and beholds her glorious triumphs. With the eye of faith she pierces the mists that now encompass her, and contemplates the loveliness and beauty of the regenerated earth. She hears the sweet harp of prophecy, as it predicts this day of joy and peace to man; a day when the world shall bask in the sunlight of knowledge, and bloom with a moral beauty even fairer than Eden's.

"Oh! scenes surpassing fable, and yet true;

Scenes of accomplished bliss! which, who can see,
Though but in distant prospect, and not feel
His heart dilate with foretaste of the joy?

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By Professor Morgan J. Smeads, William and Mary College, Va.

1. Wörterbuch der Galla Sprache. 1er Theil. Galla-English Deutsch (Dictionary of the Galla Language. Part I. Galla-English German). By Charles Tutschek; edited by Lawrence Tutschek, M. D. nich, 1844.

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2. Dictionary of the Galla Language. Part II. English-Galla. By Charles Tutschek; edited by Lawrence Tutschek, M. D. Munich, 1845.

3. Grammar of the Galla Language. By Charles Tutschek; edited by Lawrence Tutschek, M. D. Munich, 1845.

MUCH interest has been manifested during the last twelve years, by the benevolent in Europe, in behalf of the eastern nations of Africa. Particular attention was directed to them by the writings of Mr. Krapf, a missionary sent out, if we mistake not, by a society in England, formed for the purpose of promoting civilization in Africa, of which Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, Bart., is president. Later, this interest was greatly increased by the publication of the works upon the language of the Gallas, which we have placed at the head of this Article. Before proceeding specially to treat of these, it will be proper to communicate to our readers some information concerning the nation itself.

Under the general name of Galla is comprised a numerous people, divided into many distinct tribes, which inhabit the southern part of Abyssinia, and a large extent of country on the east, south, and west of it. Mr. Krapf, in his "Imperfect Outlines of the Galla Language,"

gives the names of about sixty tribes. The Tigré chain of mountains, about 13 deg. N. Lat., forms (according to the observations of the English traveller Salt) the boundary which separates them, on the north-east, from the dominions of the Ras or governor of Tigré. How far they extend towards Central Africa, has not yet been discovered; the barbarity of the people and their extreme jealousy of strangers having hitherto prevented travellers from penetrating the country to any considerable distance.

The name Galla, according to Bruce, signifies shepherds; but Mr. Tutschek derives it from the verb gala, in their language, which signifies to go home, or to seek a home; and supposes it must have an intimate connection with "" the historical fact that the Gallas, driven from their homes, by some cause or other, in the year 1735, rushed in torrents towards Abyssinia, and made that country their home.”1 This emigration commenced, however, in the early part of the sixteenth century; and the people bore the name of Gallas considerably prior to the time of the invasion assigned by Tutschek. It would, besides, be a very singular phenomenon that a nation should change its name from the single circumstance of emigration to another land. Others again have conjectured, from some similarity of name and habits of life, that they are one and the same people with the savage tribes of negroes (the Giaga, Shagga, Agalla, Galla) of Matambo and Congo, But neither this supposition, nor that which ascribes to them a common origin with the tribes in Guinea, bearing the name of Gala,2 has been confirmed by proofs adduced from language or other sufficient grounds. The opinion of Bruce is rendered probable by the fact that they formerly led a pastoral life, and fed on milk, butter, and the flesh of their herds; and that it was only after their settlement in Habesh, that they learned the arts of agriculture and the baking of bread. The primeval seat of these Galla hordes has not yet been fully ascertained. The account they commonly give of themselves is, that they came from the interior of the country towards the north; that they came from the south, is confirmed by Salt, who says that an uninterrupted connection still exists between those in Abyssinia and the barbarous tribes that stretch out towards the interior of Africa in that direction. Ludolf also3 says, that in the year 1537, the Gallas forced their way from the province of Bali into Abyssinia; and this opinion has been adopted by Prof. Ritter, who styles them " die Aethiopischen Gallas."

1 Preface to Dictionary of the Galla Language, Part I.

2 See Ritter's Erdkunde, Vol. I. p. 229.

3 Hist. Aethiop. Lib. I. c. 16.

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