to enrich theology. His impress is already seen on every living church in Christendom; and the circumstances of his position no more account for the extraordinary impulse which has been given by his labours than they explain any other spiritual movement in the kingdom of God. The principle which he so frequently applies to others is no less applicable to himself. From without nothing is effected; all must be developed from within. His great usefulness must be traced to his eminent holiness, which has embalmed his name in the memory of Germany as her model professor, and in the church at large, as the teacher to whom, of all others, she most willingly defers as the witness to Christ in history.

ART. VII.-Secret Societies:-The Assasins-The Thugs-The Vehm-Gerichte-The Jesuits.

We propose to turn aside for a little to the contemplation of those anomalous unions generally termed Secret Societies, by whom the principle, "Let us do evil that good may come," has been formally enunciated and acted on. Four strange sodalities emerge successively to our view, all existing at different periods, and amid different forms of social life, and all equally professing to be the champions of religion and virtue. The Assassins-the Thugs-the Secret Tribunals of Westphalia-the Jesuits! On each of these we shall turn a cursory glance, and show how much they have been identified in principle, and with what correspondence of character and means they have pursued their perverted mission. Two of them have already passed away; the third languishes on the point of extinction; while the fourth, the latest and mightiest of them all-although doomed ultimately to perish among the ruins of that seven-hilled city of which it has been the chief protector-is still instinct with life, and doing its deadly work in the midst of us.

We begin with the Assassins, and their founder, Hassan Sabah. The early career of this man, as far as it can be traced in eastern tradition and the history of Mirkhand, gave distinct indications that his would be no common destiny. He would be the originator of a new faith, or at least the leader of a sect. Even from boyhood, he had been inured to craft and dissimulation, for as he belonged to the sect of the Sheahs, where that of the Soonites prevailed, he was obliged to conceal his obnoxious opinions, and outwardly conform to the

dominant faith. After a course of solitary study that extended over several years, during which he must have meditated many a strange theory, he resolved to commence his mission through the agency of political power, that great instrument of Asiatic religious conviction. With this view, he presented himself at the court of Malek Shah, the third sovereign of the Seljukian dynasty, as soon as the latter had mounted the throne. His arrival was opportune; for the new king required a financial statement of the revenues and expenditure of his growing empire, but for such a balance-sheet the vizier demanded a whole year of preparation. Hassan boldly undertook to complete the task in forty days, and accomplished it. A feat so wondrous excited against him that fierce jealousy for which Asiatic courts have always been famed, so that, instead of being rewarded with the vizierate, he was obliged to flee for his life, and became a wanderer in many lands. This was about the year 1078. During these migrations, he allowed himself to be converted from the harmless sect of the Sheahs to that of the Ismailites, a class of Moslems whose chief delight was in mystical doctrines and secret initiations; and in this way he was fully trained for that strange work which he afterwards accomplished. Having finally settled in Persia, where he made many converts as an Ismailite Dai or missionary, and obtained both wealth and political influence, he made himself master in 1090 of the hill fort of Alamoot, in the province of Irak, which he forthwith proceeded so greatly to enlarge and fortify as to render it impregnable to the ordinary modes of besieging. There, surrounded by throngs of enthusiastic followers, the homeless wanderer had become a powerful prince. But he had far other work in hand than to contend with rival sheikhs and plunder wealthy caravans. All this was but the attainment of the first step in a career that was to make him more than Shah or Sultan. He would be lord of the conscience and director of its faith; he would now establish and advance his own religious doctrines from the impregnable fortress of Alamoot, until the whole east should do homage to their authority, and to himself as their living representative.

The order which Hassan had so long contemplated was soon established under the name of Assassins, a word that was forthwith to become one of terror wherever it was heard. As might be expected, he was himself the uncontrolled sovereign of the order, under the title of Sheikh al Jebal, or mountain chief, which European writers were pleased to translate into "Old Man of the Mountains." Refining upon the doctrines of the Ismailites which he had embraced-and which, by the way, had enjoyed for one of their prophets Mokhanna with the Golden Mask, better known to the lovers of English poetry as

These

the "Veiled Prophet of Khorasan"-Hassan Sabah instituted seven steps or degrees, into each of which his disciples were initiated, from the first principles of implicit faith to the last stages of universal doubt or unbelief. The seventh class, which consisted of a chosen few who could be trusted, and from whom the leaders of the order were selected, were indoctrinated in a mystical Pantheism, that viewed God as every thing or nothing, according to the pleasure of the believer. These favoured entrants into the veiled church of mystery were taught that all religions were alike; that the distinctions of virtue and vice were fluctuating according to time and place; and that every means was lawful by which their own creed could be advanced -that is to say, the Ismailite doctrines, which were a transcendental Islamism, supposed to be better suited to an oriental imagination than the mere literal interpretation of the Koran. Such were the directors of this strange society-men who had hearts to conceive and hands to plan any amount of treachery or atrocity, for the advancement of their religious cause. But still, instruments were needed who would execute what was planned without fear and without scruple. were only to be found among the mass of blind believers, to whom the esoteric doctrines were unknown; and from among them therefore the Fedani or devoted ones were chosen, and fitted for the task of slaying and circumventing. These men, like the Janizaries of Turkey, or the Mamelukes of Egypt, had been stout healthy children, purchased from their parents, and reared in the doctrines of Ismailism, but only taught as much as would raise them to the height of fanaticism, and make them the implicit slaves of their spiritual guides; and on their admission into the honoured ranks of the Fedani, they were invested with the costume of a white robe and red boots, the former to indicate their purity, and the latter that their steps were to be in blood. To these were also added a red cap and girdle, as if they could not be too closely reminded of the character and complexion of their duties. But when they were sent upon a mission, disguise was necessary, and therefore they assumed not only the costume, but the language, the manners, and even the religious practices of the people, into whose streets and houses they glided like an unsuspected pestilence. Even the cloak of the Christian monk or the red cross of the crusader was no obstacle to these fanatical Moslems, who donned them as readily as the Fakir's robe, in the name of Allah and the prophet. The manner in which they were sent forth upon their errand was also characteristic of the principles in which they were trained. They were to reckon no sin half so grievous as the blunder of detection; to pursue their purpose not only with every kind of simulation and fraud, but

in defiance of torture and death; and when impalement or crucifixion rewarded their success, they were to welcome martyrdom with triumph, and embrace it as a bride. For paradise itself was to be the reward of their obedience-and a paradise, too, not only assured them by a mere promise, which after all might be fallacious, but a reward of which they had already enjoyed a blessed foretaste, as an infallible earnest and assurance. It was in this that the demon-like sagacity of Hassan Sabah was especially manifested. On receiving his perilous commission, the Fedani was drugged with hashish, an intoxicating preparation of hemp; and thus prepared for enjoying every thing through an enchanted medium, he was conveyed into the mysterious gardens of the Sheikh al Jebal, where, surrounded by flowers, and odours, and music, and the murmur of waterfalls, and throngs of beautiful women, who informed him that this was the abode of the blest after death, in which a house was prepared for his return, he was permitted for a few brief hours to revel in every imaginable luxury, until sleep overpowered him, under which he was restored to the hard realities of this nether sphere. But on awakening, he felt assured that he had indeed been in heaven; and under this new inspiration, he rushed forth upon his terrible task, that he might return to these beautiful bowers, and the bright houris by whom they were tenanted.

Such was the fearful army of Hassan Sabah, the lord of Alamoot, and such its fitness for all his purposes. The master of seventy thousand such followers, who were devoted to his will with an ardour and implicitness which mere loyalty has never equalled, he was more than a sovereign,-he was the dictator of sovereigns. No palace could hide, no guards protect from his displeasure; and the meanest of his emissaries, because he was reckless of his own life, was fully master of that of any other man. It was not long before the effects of this were apparent, for the mightiest potentates were glad to pay him tribute; and when they demurred, they died. Hassan in the meantime pursued his work with a relentlessness of purpose that filled the East with consternation, and knowing that his power was founded upon the implicit religious belief of the many, he would allow no external indication to escape from the initiated few by which this belief might be shaken. A fearful proof of this was given in the fact, that he put his own son to death for drinking wine contrary to the prohibition of the Koran. For thirty-five years his reign continued, during which his dominion, comprising hill-forts without number, extended over the provinces of Irak and Cuhistan, and finally established itself among the mountains of Lebanon, where it came in contact with the crusaders of the West-men almost

as devoted to the pope as the Assassins to their sheikh, and who believed that heaven was to be won by open bloodshed rather than the war of the dagger, to which they were unaccustomed. But although he had raised himself to such preeminence, Hassan did not parade his grandeur before the world he was too fond of the substance of power to amuse himself, like a child, with its shadow; and during the whole of his reign, we are told that he left his apartment only on two occasions. There he sate an incarnate mystery, an invisible power, ruling everywhere, felt and dreaded everywhere, and seen nowhere, while even the voices of kings were hushed into a whisper when they uttered his terrible name. At length he died, a very old man, and died childless; for his son, who had shown himself so unfit to succeed him, had perished by his own father's merciless doom.

After this, it is unnecessary to enter more particularly into the history of the Assassins. Their terrible deeds, which were felt over the whole Eastern world, re-echoed through every country of Europe, to which the report of them was brought by the soldiers of the crusades; and from the Tanais to the Tweed, men shuddered at the wild legends of that mysterious personage, half-man half-demon, whom they called "the Old Man of the Mountains." Commencing as a religious order, and conducted upon the same principle under a series of elected grand-masters, its argument of conviction was the dagger, and its baptism was a baptism of blood, while in every movement it sought to establish its own interests by the acquirement of a universal supremacy. For was not its cause the cause of heaven? and ought it not, therefore, to rule and be obeyed? At length the Asiatic princes, weary of a despotism under which nothing was sacred or safe, and feeling their own helplessness to resist, implored Mango Khan, the great Tartar conqueror, to free them from this strangling night-mare. Mango listened to their petition, and sent his brother at the head of a powerful army, with orders to smite and give no quarter; and seldom has such a sanguinary order been more righteously given, or more punctually obeyed. Alamoot and the hill-forts were taken, and the Assassins were every where slaughtered without distinction of age or sex. Fourteen years afterwards, the Syrian branch of the order was visited with a similar destruction by the great Mameluke sultan, Bibars. In this way the unholy institution, after the cup of its iniquity had been filled, was visited with a congenial retribution: it had ruled like a pestilence, and it was swept away by a whirlwind. The remnants whom the sword had failed to overtake would still have rallied, but it was too late; and though their descendants retained the fanatical doctrines upon