n faith which we admire in the temptation of Abraham;
and we feel that the time will come, nay, that it is coming, when the
voice of the Angel of the Lord will reach those distant islands, and
give a higher and better purpose to the wild ravings of their
religion.

It is among these tribes that the missionary, if he can speak a
language which they understand, gains the most rapid influence. But he
must first learn himself to understand the nature of these savages,
and to translate the wild yells of their devotion into articulate
language. There is, perhaps, no race of men so low and degraded as the
Papuas. It has frequently been asserted they had no religion at all.
And yet these same Papuas, if they want to know whether what they are
going to undertake is right or wrong, squat before their karwar, clasp
the hands over the forehead, and bow repeatedly, at the same time
stating their intentions. If they are seized with any nervous feeling
during this process, it is considered as a bad sign, and the project
is abandoned for a time--if otherwise, the idol is supposed to
approve. Here we have but to translate what they in their helpless
language call 'nervous feeling' by our word 'conscience,' and we shall
not only understand what they really mean, but confess, perhaps, that
it would be well for us if in our own hearts the karwar occupied the
same prominent place which it occupies in the cottage of every Papua.

_March, 1858._

III.

THE VEDA AND ZEND-AVESTA.

THE VEDA.

The main stream of the Aryan nations has always flowed towards the
north-west. No historian can tell us by what impulse these adventurous
Nomads were driven on through Asia towards the isles and shores of
Europe. The first start of this world-wide migration belongs to a
period far beyond the reach of documentary history; to times when the
soil of Europe had not been trodden by either Celts, Germans,
Slavonians, Romans, or Greeks. But whatever it was, the impulse was as
irresistible as the spell which, in our own times, sends the Celtic
tribes towards the prairies or the regions of gold across the
Atlantic. It requires a strong will, or a great amount of inertness,
to be able to withstand the impetus of such national, or rather
ethnical, movements. Few will stay behind when all are going. But to
let one's friends depart, and then to set out ourselves--to take a
road which, lead where it may, can never lead us to join those again
who speak