exhaustive and most interesting consideration of Persian influence upon
the Hebrew faith and thought--through the conquests of Cyrus and
Alexander--and through Maurchæism and Gnosticism--down to Christendom.

Mahometanism is, in our author's mind, the culmination of the religion
of personal will, and he devotes many glowing and instructive pages to
bringing out the meaning and heart of the religion of Islam, especially
in its later and in its more spiritual developments. The final object of
the volume is to show the relation of the religion of personal will to
universal religion.

Of course our author has not been foolish and unfair enough to portray
the perversions and lapses of this particular type of Oriental faith and
ethics; but his aim has been to set forth its essential principles and
to show how they spring from the universal root.

The study of comparative religions, and hence of the universal religion,
is one of the characteristics and glories of our time. Once every people
despised, as a religious duty, every nation and every religion but its
own, and sword and fagot were employed, as under divine command, to
exterminate all strange manifestations of religious sentiment. Now the
advance guard of civilization is giving itself to devout and thankful
study of all the religions under the sure impression that they will
prove to be one in origin and essence: and so a sweeter human sympathy
and a more complete unity are beginning to be realized among men.

No man has in most respects been better fitted for this study than was
the lamented author of these books. Mr. Johnson was almost or quite "a
religious genius," with an enthusiasm of faith in the invisible and the
idea, which few men have ever shown; and his devoutness was equalled by