th sympathy, friendship, happiness and
love.

This religion needs no creed, no profession of faith, no incense, no
prayer, no penance, no sacrifice. Its whole duty consists in comforting
the afflicted, assisting the unfortunate, protecting the helpless, and
in honestly fulfilling our duties to our fellow mortals. In the language
of Confucius, the ancient Chinese Sage, it is simply "to behave to
others as I would require others to behave to me."

"Do unto others as you would they should do unto you," says Jesus; and
in the Epistle of James, we are told that "Pure Religion and undefiled
before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in
their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

The same benign and generous conduct is commended in even grander and
nobler language in the lectures to the French Masonic Lodges: "Love one
another, teach one another, help one another. That is all our doctrine,
all our science, all our law."

It is believed that the learned dissertation of Lord Brougham on
the _Origin of Evil_, which is annexed to this work, will need no
commendation to ensure its careful perusal.

PETER ECKLER.

THE FALLEN STAR, or, THE HISTORY OF A FALSE RELIGION

by E. L. Bulwer

AN ALLEGORY OF THE STARS.

And the Stars sat, each on his ruby throne, and watched with sleepless
eyes upon the world. It was the night ushering in the new year, a night
on which every star receives from the archangel that then visits the
universal galaxy, its peculiar charge.

The destinies of men and empires are then portioned forth for the coming
year, and, unconsciously to ourselves, our fates become minioned to the
stars.

A hushed and solemn night is that in which the dark gates of time
open to receive the ghost of the dead year, and the young and radiant
stranger rushes forth from the clouded chasms of eternity. On that
night, it is said that there are given to the spirits that we see not, a
privilege and a power; the dead are troubled in their forgotten graves,
and men feast and laugh, while demon and angel are contending for their
doom.

It was night in heaven; all was unutterably silent, the music of the
spheres had paused, and not a sound came from the angels of the stars;
and they who sat upon those shining thrones were three thousand and ten,
each resembling each.

Eternal youth clothed their radiant limbs with celestial beauty, and on