within the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Antioch by the Council of Nicæa; but there is a long interval between the fourth and the seventeenth centuries, and we should like to know from him, at what period the connection between the Malabar and Oriental Churches began, what the connection was at the outset, what modifications it underwent in course of time, and what were the immediate causes for the Syrians of Malabar seeking "the alliance" which at present exists betwixt them and the Jacobite "Patriarch of Antioch." The Malpan is doubtless aware that the claim is put forward on behalf of the Nestorian "Patriarchs of Seleucia-and-Ctesiphon," of their having for a long period consecrated the Bishops over the Church in Malabar, and that recently some of the Syrians there have sought to revert to the earlier "alliance" by endeavouring to obtain the consecration of one of their priests by the Chaldæan Patriarch at Mosul. Accurate information on these points would be invaluable, and we suggest the task to those learned Syrian Malpans who seem to be wasting their best energies in unworthy intestine squabbles.

The Rev. G. B. Howard sends us the following remarks on the above letter, numbered in correspondence with its paragraphs]:

"3. Here is the passage from the Day Dawn. It says of Athanasios Matthew The former history of one of them is well known to many. He is a native of this country, and some years ago was sent to Madras for education, with another young man of his own class. After being some time under instruction, and having his mind well stored with general knowledge, whilst his heart, it is feared, remained unimpressed, he fell into the snare of the devil, and was dismissed from the institution where he had been learning.1 He then started for Antioch, and by various ways and means, to which it is not necessary more than to allude, he reached Mardin, where the Patriarch was residing. Although he well knew there was at that time a Metran over the Syrian Churches in Travancore, it is said he represented matters in such a light as to get himself consecrated, and then returned to this country. For a long time he was not well received by many of the Churches, and after much dissension another man was sent to supersede him. It is needless to say how he retained his position; but the other man, who is called Bawa (Cyrillos)' &c.-Day Dawn in Travancore, by A. H., Cottayam: C. M. Press, 1860, p. 63.

"The Day Dawn, therefore, does not in this passage state that he was dismissed from the Syrian Church. But mark now the lecture, in the 'Proceedings of the South India Missionary Conference, held at Octacamund, April 19th, May 5th, 1858' (printed Madras, 1858), by the Rev. Henry Baker, jun. :—

"One of the present Bishops (of the Christians of St. Thomas) is a man who has had a good English education in our institution, but was dismissed by us, as unfit for the ministry, although he had been one of the Syrian Deacons who had adhered to the Missionaries at the time of the separation. On finally leaving us, he went to Mardin, in Mesopotamia, was there made a Bishop, and is the one now recognised by the Governments of Travancore and Cochin.' (Paper, page 68.)

1 "The italics are mine.-G. B. H."

"Now, observe: He is stated by Mr. Baker to have been one of the Syrian Deacons who adhered to the Missionaries at the time of the separation. This is equivalent to saying that when a Deacon he was dismissed from the Syrian Church: for after that separation all who adhered to the Missionaries were formally excommunicated. This we have on the testimony of Mr. Baker and Mr. Peet (Madras Church Missionary Reg., vol. iv. p. 113, and vol. vi. p. 110, and other parts of the same work). What is excommunication but dismissal from the Church?

"4. I think it is pretty clear that the letters of the Metropolitan of Orfa, and of the Patriarch Elias II. the consecrator of Athanasios, which speaks of him as anathematized (accursed and anathematized,' p. 40 of the little book), and both of which are in my possession (the originals, I mean), are NOT forgeries. I should like to have the documents compared.

"6. So Mar Athanasios invited whom he pleased, and left out the rest! This is an admission with a vengeance. And the matter had been all cut

and dried beforehand.

"As to the corruptions said to have been removed by Mar Athanasios : (1) Mariolatry, (2) Invocation of Saints, (3) Masses for the Dead, (4) Denial of the Cup to the Laity, (5) Desecration of Sunday by wedding feasts:-I should call in question the accuracy of No. 4, for I believe there is abundant evidence that the Cup (or at any rate the consecrated bread dipped in the consecrated Cup) was given to the laity before Athanasios's time. But granted all this reformation: that fact does not make a bad claim good, or remove the force of a lawfully pronounced excommunication. I believe, on the authority of the Patriarch Elias II.'s letter, now in original before me, that the present Athanasios Matthew was excommunicated by him, and that, too, on charges which, so far as I am aware, have never yet been shown to be without foundation. To d' ev vikátw. "G. B. H."

[We have also to append a comment by the Rev. G. P. Badger.]

"Kashisha Filipos adduces the fact of the abundance, in Malabar, 'of Syrian priests in all directions,' to confute the statement made to me by the native Syrians at Mosul, that Mar Athanasios was originally admitted to priest's orders by the imposition of the hands of a dead Bishop. If this means that among the Malabar Syrians any number of presbyters may ordain a presbyter, I can only say that I was unaware of the practice. It certainly does not obtain among the Syrians of Mesopotamia.

"I have a vivid recollection of what the Syrians at Mosul told me on the occasion. It was to the following effect:-That on the arrival of the 'black' priest, Mattai, from Malabar, finding that he was a man of superior intelligence and well versed in controversy with the Latins, the Mosulean Jacobites were so charmed with his eloquence that they entreated him to celebrate in their church. This he declined to do for some time, on the ground that his ordination was open to question, having been conferred on him by the imposition of a dead Mutrân's hands. All his scruples, however, were overruled by the enthusiasm of his co-religionists, and he did celebrate at Mosul. From the latter place--so the Jacobites averred-he

proceeded to Mardîn, where he was ordained deacon and priest, and consecrated bishop by the Patriarch. It would not be difficult to ascertain whether such was the case or not. If it was, then it may fairly be assumed that the candidate's previous ordination was not considered valid by the Patriarch.

"I beg to observe that the Mosulean Jacobites, in what they said of their foreign guest, intended no reflection upon his conduct as regards the ordination and consecration, although in his subsequent intercourse with the community some among them were led to entertain suspicions of his Jacobite orthodoxy, and especially of his leaning towards nonconformists. "GEORGE PERCY BADGER."

A RITUAL IRREGULARITY IN THE MISSION FIELD. SIR,-Your correspondent, "A Member of the Central African Mission Committee," complains that Bishop Tozer's sub-deacons have actually "assisted at the altar," and have even read the Epistle and the Confession! I will not follow your correspondent into all his charges, but I should like to ask him a few questions. How does he know that the office of subdeacon was instituted to relieve the diaconate at all, or that the duties of sub-deacon were ever those of the deacon, i.e. proper to the deacon's office? If the Church refused "any part in the public ministry" to subdeacons, how does he explain their office and their name? Will he say they were only doorkeepers? And is not that a part of the public ministry? But let him look at St. Clement's Liturgy, and he will find that they had an office assigned them closer to the altar, i.e. to minister water for the ablution of the priest's hands.

Then about this Laodicean Council. Will your correspondent kindly say where that Council forbids their entrance within the altar rails? I have read its Canons repeatedly-not now for the first time—and I think he will find it hard to make good his position. The 21st Canon won't do it.

As to his complaint of the Bishop allowing his sub-deacons "to stand between God and the people in confession," simply because he allows them to say the Confession in the Communion Office, your critic is clearly not aware that in the 1st and 2d Books of King Edward, and in all that followed down to the last Review, this very Confession was appointed to be said by some one of the congregation, or else by one of the ministers, &c.

As in the Apostolic Canons, so also in the quoted "Laodicean Council," the sub-deacons are reckoned in the ranks of the clergy. The modern word lay-deacon is a contradiction in terms.

Let me only add that I have no connection with Bishop Tozer's Mission. INDICUS OLIM.

[We think that the peculiar circumstances of Bishop Tozer's Mission are sufficient in themselves to excuse the practice in question, even if not exactly rubrical.-Ed.]

Review.

The Revival of Christianity in Syria: its Miracles and Martyrdoms. Related by "P." London: Stanford. (Reprinted from the Tablet.) THE remarkable incidents narrated in this pamphlet, following as they do upon the accounts recently received of the Bâbs, or Bâbis, in Persia and at Baghdad, would seem to indicate a simultaneous movement among some sections of Islâm towards Christianity. As far as our scanty knowledge of the Bâbis goes, they appear to be one of the numerous esoteric sects whose attention has of late years been directed to the study of the Christian Scriptures as a source of Divine enlightenment. "The Christian Revival in Syria" is referred by "P." to a widely different origin. He evidently coincides with those who on becoming acquainted with his alleged facts "will expect to hear that Christianity has revived spontaneously, unaided by missionaries, catechists, or consuls," in the "fanatical Moslem land" of Syria, especially in Damascus. "The conversion of the Mahometans," he subjoins, "has begun at last, without England's sending out, as is her custom, shiploads of Bibles, or spending one fraction upon it;" and as "Saul of Tarsus became St. Paul, not by reading, nor by conversations with Christians, but by the direct interposition of Jesus Christ," even so, according to the writer, miraculous intervention alone is to be accredited with the conversions which he enumerates.

The movement is stated to have begun in 1868 among a small body who had been initiated into the Shadili order of Moslims by one Abd el Karim Matar. This order of Dervishes was founded by Abd el Husayn Shadili, who died at Mecca, A.D. 1258. It admits of two main divisions, the Sharai and Ghair-Sharai; that is, the Orthodox and the Heterodox. The vital tenets of the latter are stated to be the following:

"1. God alone exists. He is in all things and all things are in Him -evidently mere pantheism. 2. All things visible and invisible are an emanation from Him, and are not really distinct from Him-this is the Eastern origin of the classical European divine particula auræ.' 3. Heaven and hell and all the dogmas of positive faiths are allegories, whose esoteric meaning is known only to the Sufi. 4. Religions are a matter of indifference; that, however, is the best which serves as the means of reaching true knowledge, such as El Islam, whose philosophy is Tasawwuf (Sufi-ism). 5. There is no real distinction between good and evil, for all things are one, and God fixes the will of man, whose actions, therefore, are not free. 6. The soul existed before the body, and is confined in it like a bird in a cage. Death, therefore, is desirable to the Sufi, whose spirit returns to the Deity whence it emanated-evidently the 'Anupadishesha Nirvana' of the Hindu, absolute individual annihilation. 7. The principal duty of the Sufi is meditation on the unity, which advances him progressively to spiritual perfection, and which enables him 'to die in God.' Without Fayz Ullah' (Grace of God) this spiritual

NO. CCXCIV.

unity cannot be attained; but God favours those who fervently desire such unification."

There is nothing new in these tenets, all of which have been held by some or other of the numerous sects of the Persian Sûfis for centuries. Safi, pl. Suffa, pure, and Suf, wool, of which the garments of the Sûfis are generally made, are the words from which the appellation has been supposed to be derived; it is more likely, however, that the designation was adopted from the Arabs, who first borrowed it from the Greek term Zopoí. Sir John Malcolm's lucid description of these extraordinary devotees (in his Hist. of Persia, vol. ii. pp. 385-6) leaves nothing to be desired. Summarizing their peculiar doctrines and practices, he says:

"The Sooffees represent themselves as entirely devoted to the truth, and as incessantly occupied in the adoration of the Almighty, an union with Whom they desire with all the ardour of divine love. The Great Creator is, according to their belief, diffused over all creation. He exists everywhere and in everything. They compare the emanations of the Divine Essence, or Spirit, to the rays of the sun, which are, they conceive, continually darted forth and re-absorbed. It is for this re-absorption in the Divine Essence, to which their immortal part belongs, that they continually sigh. They believe that the soul of man, and that the principle of life, which exists throughout all nature, is not from God, but of God."

There are four stages through which a man must pass before he attains to that of divine beatitude. The first is that of Humanity, which supposes the disciple to live in the observance of the precepts and rites of the established religion; the second is termed the Road, on attaining which he may abandon all religious forms and ceremonies; the third is the stage of Knowledge, when he is deemed to have acquired inspiration; in the fourth and last "his corporeal veil will be removed, and his emancipated soul will mix again with the glorious Essence from which it had been separated, but not divided."

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As the Shadili, therefore, is neither a new creed nor one peculiar to themselves, there are no à priori grounds to account for its professors having been supernaturally singled out to be the recipients of Christian privileges. The author, indeed, does mention that through their influence not a Christian life was lost in their quarter during the dreadful massacre of 1860. Many," he adds, "were hidden by the people in their houses, and were sent privily away without the walls after the three days of bloodshed had passed;" whereupon he piously suggests that these acts of mercy on their part were specially remembered in the grace to which they were subsequently called. It would be presumptuous to pronounce an opinion either way on this suggestion; at the same time it appears to us that "P.," if not so fully bent on attributing the conversion of the Shadilis exclusively to miraculous intervention, would not have overlooked the possible beneficial influence which the Christians while under their protection may have exercised upon them.

After two years spent in praying night and day for enlightenment, Abd el Karim Matar and his acolytes were assured by a vision that