named Jamba Dwip, around which rolls the sea of salt water; next follows the second circular island, and around it the sea of sugar-cane juice; then the third, and around it the sea of spirituous liquors; then the fourth, and around it the sea of clarified butter; then the fifth, and around it the sea of sour curds; then the sixth, and around it the sea of milk; then the seventh and last, and around it the sea of sweet water. Beyond this last ocean is an uninhabited country of pure gold, so prodigious in extent that it equals all the islands with their accompanying oceans in magnitude. It is begirt with a bounding wall of stupendous mountains, which enclose within their bosom, realms of everlasting dark

ness.

The central island, the destined habitation of the human race, is several hundred thousand miles in diameter; and the sea that surrounds it is of the same breadth. The second island is double the diameter of the first, and so is the sea that surrounds it. And each of the remaining islands and seas in succession, is double the breadth of its immediate predecessor. So that the diameter of the whole earth amounts to several hundred thousand millions of miles-occupying a portion of space of manifold larger dimensions than that which actually intervenes between the earth and the sun! Yea, if our imagination could take the wings of the morning and dilate itself into a capacity for grasping what approximates the infinite; and if it could enable us to form the conception of a circular mass of solid matter, whose diameter exceeded that of the orbit of Herschell, the most distant planet in our solar system, such a mass would not equal in magnitude the earth of the Hindu Mythologists!

In the midst of this almost immeasurable plain, from the very centre of Jamba Dwip, shoots up the highest of mountains, Su-Meru, to the height of several hundred thousand miles; in the form of an inverted pyramid; having its summit, which is two hundred times broader than the base, surmounted by three swelling cones,-the highest of these cones transpiercing upper vacancy with three golden peaks, on which are situate the favourite residences of the sacred Triad.

At its base, like so many giant centinels, stand four lofty hills, on each of which grows a mangoe tree several thousand miles in height,-bearing fruit delicious as nectar, and of the enormous size of many hundred cubits. From these mangoes, as they fall, flows a mighty river of perfumed juice; so communicative of its sweetness, that those who partake of it, exhale the odour from their persons all around to the distance of many leagues. There also grow rose apple trees, whose fruit is "large as elephants;" and whose juice is so plentiful, as to form another mighty river, that converts the earth over which it passes, into purest gold!

Such is a brief notice of the geographical outline furnished by the sacred writings of the world on which we dwell. In turning to the other superior worlds, we obtain a glimpse of some of the revelations of Hindu astronomy.

The second world in the ascending series, or that which immediately over-vaults the earth, is the region of space between us and the sun; which is declared, on divine authority, to be distant only a few hundred thousand miles. The third in the upward ascent, is the region of space intermediate between the sun and the pole star. Within this region are all the planetary and stellar mansions. The distances of the principal heavenly luminaries are given with the utmost precision. The moon is placed beyond the sun as far as the sun is from the earth! Next succeed at equal distances from each other, and in the following order :-the Stars, Mercury, (beyond the stars!) Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Ursa Major, and the Pole Star. The four remaining worlds (beyond the Pole Star) continue to rise, one above the other, at immense and increasing intervals. The entire circumference of the celestial space is then given with the utmost exactitude of numbers.

In all of these superior worlds, are framed heavenly mansions, differing in glory,—destined to form the habitation of various orders of celestial spirits. In the seventh or highest, is the chief residence of Brahma,-said by one of the divine

sages to be so glorious, that he could not describe it in two hundred years; as it contains in a superior degree every thing which is precious, or beautiful, or magnificent in all the other heavens. What then must it be, when we consider the surpassing grandeur of some of these? Glance, for example, at the heaven which is prepared in the third world, and intended for Indra,-head and king of the different ranks and degrees of subordinate deities. Its palaces are all of purest gold-so replenished with vessels of diamond, and columns and ornaments of jasper, and sapphire, and emerald, and all manner of precious stones, that it shines with a splendour exceeding the brightness of twelve thousand suns. Its streets are of the clearest crystal, fringed with fine gold. It is surrounded with forests abounding with all kinds of trees and flowering shrubs, whose sweet odours are diffused all around for hundreds of miles. It is bestudded with gardens and pools of water,—warm in winter, and cool in summer,-richly stored with fish, waterfowl, and lilies blue, red, and white, spreading out a hundred, or a thousand petals. Winds there are, but they are ever refreshing :storms and tempests and sultry heats being unknown. Clouds there are, but they are light and fleecy, and fantastic canopies of glory. Thrones there are, which blaze like the corruscations of lightning, enough to dazzle any mortal vision. And warblings there are, of sweetest melody,—with all the inspiring harmonies of music and of song, among bowers that are ever fragrant and ever green.

Such descriptions, however, are not like those of the Bible, chiefly figurative and emblematic; designed faintly to represent the glories of an abode which " eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive." No: they are all to be understood in strictest literality. In the heaven of Indra there are no objects of contemplation except those of external sense,-no gratifications beyond those of carnal tastes and desires, appetites and passions. It is at best but a sort of terrestrial paradise, such as the heart of man may well conceive,—a paradise without aught of paradisaical innocence or purity.

There, holiness and communion with God and love the bond of perfectness, all of which unite in constituting the ineffable bliss of the heaven of the Bible, are utterly unknown.

The substantial fabrics of all worlds having now been framed and fitted up as the destined abodes of different orders of being, celestial, terrestrial, and infernal, the question next arises, How or by whom were produced the varied organized forms which these orders of being were designed to animate? Though hosts of subtle essences, or spirits, or souls, flowed forth from Brahm, all of these remain inactive till united to some form of materialism. From this necessity the gods themselves are not excepted. While the souls of men, and other inferior spirits, must be enclosed in tabernacles fashioned out of the grosser elements; the souls of the gods, and all other superior spirits, must be made to inhabit material forms, composed of one or other of the infinitely attenuated and invisible rudimental atoms that spring direct from the principle of consciousness.

Who, then, is the maker of these endlessly varied forms? To Brahma, the first person of the triad, was the office, almost exclusively, assigned. Hence is he styled the Creator. But creator he is not in the only proper and genuine sense of that term. In that lofty sense, even the Supreme Brahm is not a creator. Brahm and Brahma are both alike only producers, or educers, or, at the best, mere fabricators of pre-existent materials. Brahma, then, is in no sense Creator, though, in a strictly literal sense, he may, like Grecian Jove, be truly designated "the father of gods and men."

Interminable as are the incoherencies, inconsistencies, and extravagancies of the Hindu sacred writings, on no subject, perhaps, is the multiplicity of varying accounts and discrepancies more astounding than on the present. Volumes would not suffice to retail them all. Brahma's first attempts animated being were as

at the production of the forms of eminently unsuccessful as they were various. At one time, he is said to have performed a long and severe course of ascetic

devotions to enable him to accomplish his wish, but in vain; at another, inflamed with anger and passion at his repeated failures, he sat down and wept ;-and from the streaming tear-drops sprang into being, as his first-born, a progeny of ghosts and goblins of an aspect so loathsome and dreadful, that he was ready to faint away. At one time, after profound meditation, different beings spring forth, one from his thumb, a second from his breath, a third from his ear, a fourth from his side, and others from different members of his body; at another, he assumes sundry strange qualities to effectuate his purpose, or he multiplies himself into the forms of dif ferent creatures, rational and irrational. But enough of such monstrous legends-legends which may well serve as a dark back-ground to exhibit and enhance the contrast presented by the Mosaic record of the creation. For, what contrast or contrariety can possibly be greater than that which obtains between the painful, experimental, and often abortive, attempts of Brahma to produce the forms of animated being, and the simple but sublime declaration of Jehovah? Let us make man in our image,"”-viewed in conjunction with the words immediately added by the inspired historian, "So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he him; male and female created. he them."-Or, again, with the equally irresistible command, "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth, in the open firmament of heaven: Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth, after his kind;"-" and it was so."

As the result of all his toilsome labours and experiments there did proceed from Brahma, directly or indirectly, a countless progeny of animated beings that people the fourteen worlds which constitute the universe.

The seven inferior worlds are plentifully stored with fierce giants, and savage hydras, and huge serpents, "pourtrayed in every monstrous figure which imagination can suggest,”— with the dire and tremendous Sheshanaga for their king, "whose thousand heads are encompassed each with a crown