no present for Tiki was compelled to stay outside the house where the brave of past ages are assembled, in rain and darkness for ever, shivering with cold and hunger. Another view is, that the grand rendezvous of ghosts was on a ridge of rocks facing the setting sun. One tribe skirted the sea margin until it reached the fatal spot. Another (the tribe of Tangiia, on the eastern part of Rarotonga) traversed the mountain range forming the backbone of the island until the same point of departure was attained. Members of the former tribe clambered on an ancient "bua" tree (still standing). Should the branch chance to break, the ghost is immediately caught in the net of " Muru." But it sometimes happens that a lively ghost tears the meshes and escapes for a while, passing on by a resistless inward impulse towards the outer edge of the reef, in the hope of traversing the ocean.

a straight line from the shore is a round hollow, where Akaanga's net is concealed. In this the very few who escape out of the hands of Muru are caught without fail. The delighted demons (taae) take the captive ghost out of the net, dash his brains out on the sharp coral, and carry him off in triumph to the shades to eat.

'For the tribe of Tangiia an iron-wood tree was reserved. The ghosts that trod on the green branches of this tree came back to life, whilst those who had the misfortune to crawl on the dead branches were at once caught in the net of Muru or Akaanga, brained, cooked, and devoured!

'Ghosts of cowards, and those who were impious at Aitutaki, were doomed likewise to furnish a feast to the inexpressibly ugly Miru1 and her followers.

1 Miru of Mangaia and Aitutaki is the Muru of Rarotonga.

'The ancient faith of the Hervey Islanders was substantially the same. Nor did it materially differ from that of the Tahitian and Society Islanders, the variations being such as we might expect when portions of the same great family had been separated from each other for ages."

We see in these Polynesian legends a startling mixture of coarse and exalted ideas as to the fate of the soul after death.

Mr. Gill says that there is no trace of transmigration of human souls in the Eastern Pacific. Yet he tells us that the spirits of the dead are fabled to have assumed, temporarily, and for a specific purpose, the form of an insect, bird, fish, or cloud. He adds that gods, specially the spirits of deified men, were believed permanently to reside in, or to be incarnate in, sharks, sword-fish, &c., eels, the octopus, the yellow and black-spotted lizards, several kinds of birds and insects. The idea of souls dwelling in animal bodies cannot therefore be said to have been unknown to the inhabitants of the Polynesian Islands.

If it is asked, what we gain from a comparison of the opinions on the fate of the soul after death as entertained not only by highly civilised nations, such as the Hindus, the Persians, and the Greeks, but likewise by tribes on a very low level of social life, such as the Haidas and Polynesians, my answer is that we learn from it, that a belief in a soul and in the immortality of the soul is not simply the dream of a few philosophical poets or poetical philosophers, but the spontaneous outcome of the human mind, when brought face to face with the mystery of death.

The last result of Physical Religion.

The last result of what I called Physical Religion and Anthropological Religion is this very belief that the human soul will after death enter the realm of light, and stand before the throne of God, whatever name may have been assigned to him.

This seems

indeed the highest point that has been reached by natural religion. But we shall see that one religion at least, that of the Vedânta, made a decided step beyond.

LECTURE VIII.

TRUE IMMORTALITY.

Judaism and Buddhism,

T is strange that the two religions in which we

IT

find nothing or next to nothing about the immortality of the soul or its approach to the throne of God or its life in the realm of light, should be the Jewish and the Buddhist, the one pre-eminently monotheistic, the other, in the eyes of the Brâhmans, almost purely atheistic. The Old Testament is almost silent, and to be silent on such a subject admits of one interpretation only. The Buddhists, however, go even beyond this. Whatever the popular superstitions of the Buddhists may have been in India and other countries, Buddha himself declared in the most decided way that it was useless, nay, wrong to ask the question what becomes of the departed after death. When questioned on the subject, Buddha declined to give any answer. From all the other religions of the world, however, with these two exceptions, we receive one and the same answer, namely, that the highest blessedness of the soul after death consists in its approaching the presence of God, possibly in singing praises and offering worship to the Supreme

The Vedanta Doctrine on True Immortality.

There is one religion only which has made a definite advance beyond this point. In other religions we meet indeed with occasional longings for something beyond this mere assembling round the throne of a Supreme Being, and singing praises to his name; nor have protests been wanting from very early times against the idea of a God sitting on a throne and having a right and left hand. But though these old anthropomorphic ideas, sanctioned by creeds and catechisms, have been rejected again and again, nothing has been placed in their stead, and they naturally rise up anew with every new rising generation. In India alone the human mind has soared beyond this point, at first by guesses and postulates, such as we find in some of the Upanishads, afterwards by strict reasoning, such as we find in the Vedânta-sûtras, and still more in the commentary of Sankara. The Vedanta, whether we call it a religion or a philosophy, has completely broken with the effete anthropomorphic conception of God and of the soul as approaching the throne of God, and has opened vistas which were unknown to the greatest thinkers of Europe.

These struggles after a pure conception of Deity began at a very early time. I have often quoted the passage where a Vedic poet says

'That which is one, the poets call by many names, They call it Agni, Yama, Mâtarisvan.'

(Rv. I. 164, 46.) You observe how that which is spoken of as one is here, as early as the hymns of the Rig-veda, no