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April, 1875.] BOOK NOTICES. 119 But virtue over practised lends The understanding firmer swny ; And understanding day by day More widely virtue's rule extends. 63. Secret sin not unobserved. Mann, VHI. 84 (conf. Mahabh. I. 3015 ; Manu YHI. 91) :— " None sees me," so, when bent on sin, The fool imagines, vainly bold : For gods Ma evil deeds behold — The souL too, sees, — the man within. The following maxim will be recognized as very different in its teaching from anything Biblical, and it is on one of the points that differentiate Christianity from other systems. 64. Hopelessness of reclaiming the had. Bha- minivilasa, I. 93 : — Whoe'er the bad by kindness tries To gain, — bat vainly ploughs the skies, The viewless wind with water laves, And paints a picture on the waves. The criminal law does not quite recognize the next as teaching the whole truth. 68. Bin removed by repentance. Manu, XL 229-201 :— Whenever men with inward pain And self-reproach their Bins confess, And stedfast, never more transgress, Their souls are cleansed from every stain ; As serpents shed their worn-out skins, These men are freed from cast-off sins. 69. Noble Characters. Sahityadarpana, 322 :— A man whom wealth has never spoiled, A youth by reckless vice unsoiled, A ruler wakeful, — self-controlled, Be these among the great enrolled. 70. The pro*} others not to le cneud. Mahabharata, XII. 3380-1 - On thee to smile though fortune never deign, Her favourites' happier lot with calmness bear ; For prudent men from wealth they do not share, But others' own, enjoyment ever gain. 71. Th§ saint sh <>/ ki$ v. Muuu. VI. 45, and Mahabh. XII. 892i> (conf. Job, xiv. 14) :— del oof th> hermit long for death, Nor cling to this terrestrial state : As slaves their master's summons w;_ So let him, called, resign his breath. The next and last was well worth quoting on account of the parallel the lines offer to Horace's well-known verse— Odes, IV. ix. 25 ff. 72. "Vixtrefh't-s emU Agamemnona" ifcc. Bil- hana fa SarSgadhara Faddhati, S&manyakavi* pramsa, 13 (12):— Without a bard his deeds to sing Can any prince be known to fame P Of old lived many a valiant king Of whom we know not even the name ! Comment is needless : the sentiments are ren- dered with great fidelity into easy verses, that will be read with much more interest than any mere prose version, however terse and pithy. A portion of the preface has already been given (pp. 79-81). In it Dr. Muir observes that " it is worthy of remark how many more parallels to what have been commonly v regarded as exclusively and peculiarly Christian maxims and precepts are presented by Indian than by Greek and Boman literature." Greek and Boman literature, however, is largely historical, and it is principally to phi- losophical writers and poets wo must look for moral maxims. And the wliole body of such classical authors who lived before the influence of Christianity began to tell on Roman thought, and whose works have come down to us, ought first to be compared in extent with the huge tomes of Sanskrit philosophy and mythology ; for, the larger the field over which the human mind 1ms exorcised its energies, the more traces may naturally be expected of its ethical b. And secondly, is it not a mistake to suppose that sentiments such as those y Dr. Muir are to be regarded as exclusively and peculiarly Chris- tian ? If the Bible were to be looked on merely as a revelation of certain moral truths, it might be startling to find many of them anticipated in other quarters. But the case is very different : there were ethics before there were Christian ethics, and, as has been well remarked, " it would be a grievous deficiency" if Christianity, regards the whole anterior world except the !i t stood in relation to nothing which men had thought, or felt, or hoped, or believed ; with no other co-efficient but the Jewish, and resting on no broader historic basis than that would supply." Christianity accepts those moral maxims, these presentiments of the truth, as being, so far as they are entitled to have weight* confirmations of it, witnessing to its suitableness to the moral wants and aspirations of humanity. Hut the good- liest maxim possesses n -ver save in its coherence to a body of truth. Such sa3'ings as these collected by Dr. Muir, or by Von Bohlcn (Das Alte Intlien, vol. I. p. 364), abound in every code of morals, but they want the coherence which peculiarly distinguishes the ethical system Of the Bible. As Lactantius remarks (Inst. Dip, vii. 7} : " Xullam sectam fuisse tain deviam, neo philosophorum queudam tarn inanem, qui non viderit aliquid o vero. Quodsi cxtitisset aliquii, ijui veritat-em, sparsam per singulos, per sectas