in her pocket, to keep her seat. "How could I put her out in a night like this?" You couldn't, good conductor, because you have a kind heart;-but I have fallen in with conductors, who I fear would have been less merciful.-Though not in a sleeping car, I enjoyed a glorious sleep almost all the way home. In fact so overwhelmed was I with drowsiness, that I think I could have slept through the argument of my Chicago friends, or the dialogue of the high officer and the great President. The new conductor, also kind-hearted,-happened to recognize me though asleep, and did not wake me up for my check from West Brookfield to Boston,-for which good office he will long live in the grateful remembrance of a sleepy traveller.

NUMBER EIGHT.

THE PARABLE AGAINST PERSECUTION.

First published by Lord Kames in 1774 as having been communicated to him by Dr. Franklin-Soon discovered in Jeremy Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying-Next found in the dedication to the Senate of Hamburg of the Latin translation by George Genz of a Rabbinical work-Afterwards traced to the "Flower-Garden" of the celebrated Persian poet Saadi-Some account of Saadi-Possibly still to be found in some Jewish writer-Defence of Dr. Franklin against the charge of pla giarism-Quoted by Sydney Smith before the Mayor and Corporation of Bristol in 1829-The parable given entire from Dr. Franklin's works.

No composition of the kind is so famous, perhaps, as the "Parable on Persecution." This is owing, partly, to its intrinsic beauty both of substance and form. The moral lesson which it inculcates is of the purest and loftiest kind; and the form in which this moral is clothed is singularly attractive. Its celebrity, however, is mainly to be ascribed to the circum stances attending its publication, or rather re-publication in a revised form,-under the name of Dr. Franklin.

In 1774 Lord Kames, in the second volume of his "Sketches of the History of Man," introduced the substance of this parable, with these words: "The following parable against persecution was communicated to me by Dr. Franklin of Philadelphia, a man who makes a great figure in the learned world, and who would still make a greater figure for benevolence and candor, were virtue as much regarded in this declining age as knowledge." Such is Lord Kames' remark, in the first edition of his book, as I find it quoted by Mr. Sparks in the second volume of the works of Franklin. In the third

edition of Lord Kames' "Sketches," which lies before me, and purports to be "considerably improved," the words in italics are omitted, probably for political reasons.

The parable was given as follows in his Lordship's Sketches, though not, as will presently appear, with entire accuracy, as communicated to him by Dr. Franklin :

"And it came to pass after these things, that Abraham sat in the door of his tent, about the going down of the sun. And behold a man bent with age coming from the way of the wilderness leaning on a staff. And Abraham arose, and met him, and said unto him, 'Turn in, I pray thee, and wash thy feet, and tarry all night; and thou shalt arise early in the morning, and go on thy way.' And the man said, 'Nay; for I will abide under this tree.' But Abraham pressed him greatly; so he turned, and they went into the tent: and Abraham baked unleavened bread, and they did eat. And when Abraham saw that the man blessed not God, he said unto him, 'Wherefore dost thou not worship the most high God, creator of heaven and earth?' And the man answered and said, 'I do not worship thy God, neither do I call upon his name; for I have made myself a God, which abideth always in my house, and provideth me with all things.' And Abraham's zeal was kindled against the man, and he arose and fell upon him, and drove him forth with blows into the wilderness. And God called unto Abraham, saying, 'Abraham, where is the stranger?' And Abraham answered and said, 'Lord, he would not worship thee, neither would he call upon thy name; therefore have I driven him out from before my face into the wilderness.' And God said, 'Have I borne with him these hundred ninety and eight years, and nourished him, and clothed him, notwithstanding his rebellion against me; and couldst not thou, who art thyself a sinner, bear with him one night?'"

From Lord Kames' work this parable was taken by the late Hon. Benjamin Vaughan of Hallowell, but then of London, in his edition of Dr. Franklin's writings. Mr. Vaughan, as is well known, was the intimate friend of Dr. Franklin, and published in London, in 1779, the first English edition of Franklin's miscellaneous essays. From the time of its appearance in this volume, the Parable began to attract notice, was often repeated, and greatly admired as a most happy illustration of an all-important moral truth.

Though not communicated to Lord Kames by Dr. Franklin as his own composition, it was naturally enough inferred from the manner in which it was brought forward, that such was the case. A good deal of surprise was accordingly manifested, when it was discovered, not long after, that a parable of substantially the same import was found in Jeremy Taylor's "Liberty of Prophesying;" (published in 1657,) in the following words:

"I end with a story which I find in the Jews' Books. When Abraham sat at his tent-door, according to his custom, waiting to entertain strangers, he espied an old man stooping and leaning on his staffe, weary with age and travelle, coming toward him, who was an hundred years of age; he received him kindly, washed his feet, provided supper, caused him to sit down; but observing that the old man eat and prayed not, nor begged for a blessing on his meat, asked him why he did not worship the God of heaven? The old man told him that he worshipped the fire only, and acknowledged no other God; at which answer Abraham grew so zealously angry, that he thrust the old man out of his tent, and exposed him to all the evils of the night and an unguarded condition. When the old man was gone, God called to him, and asked him where the stranger was; he replied, 'I thrust him away because he did not worship thee;' God answered him, 'I have suffered him these hundred years, although he dishonored me, and couldst not thou endure him one night, when he gave thee no trouble?' Upon this, saith the story, Abraham fetcht him back again, and gave him hospitable entertainment and wise instruction. Go thou and do likewise, and thy charity will be rewarded by the God of Abraham."

Bishop Taylor, having quoted "the Jews' Books" as the source of the Parable, search began to be made for it in every direction among Jewish writers, but without success. At length it was discovered. In the Latin dedication to the Senate of Hamburg, of a Rabbinical work, entitled the "Rod of Judah;" the translator, George Genz, gives the story substantially as found in Jeremy Taylor's "Liberty of Prophe sying." The work of Genz was published at Amsterdam, in 1651. The Latin passage is quoted at length by Mr. Sparks and by Bishop Heber, in a note to his life of Jeremy Taylor,

but it approaches so near the version contained in "the Liberty of Prophesying," that it is hardly worth while to extract it in this place. There are, however, some differences. For instance, in the Latin preface of Genz the answer is, “I am a fire-worshipper, and ignorant of manners of this kind; for our ancestors have taught me no such pious observance; ' perceiving with horror from his speech, that he had to do with a profane fire-worshipper, and a person alien to the worship of his God, Abraham drove him from his table and his abode, as one whose intercourse was contagious, and as a foe to his religion."

But though there were considerable differences of this kind in the versions, it was thought highly probable, not to say certain, from the substantial similarity of the parable in the preface of Genz to "the Rod of Judah," that Jeremy Taylor derived it from that source; and as it was the preface by a Jew to a Rabbinical work, it was not inaccurately, though rather vaguely, credited by him to "the Jews' Books." The inquiry of course immediately arose as to the authority on which it was given by Genz. He himself cites simply "nobilissimus autor Sadus," 99 66 a most noble author Sadus." Who was Sadus?

Conjecture was not long at fault on this point. It was soon discovered in India, that this remarkable composition, which seemed like a shadow to fly as it was approached, was substantially contained, not in any "Jews' Books," (as Jeremy Taylor supposed, for the reasons just stated,) but in the Bostan or "Flower Garden" of the celebrated Persian poet Saadi, unquestionably the individual referred to by Genz under the Latinized name of Sadus. An English translation of the Parable from this ancient Persian poem was published in the Asiatic Miscellany at Calcutta in 1789, and is quoted from that work in the note of Bishop Heber to the life of Jeremy Taylor, above alluded to. It is somewhat more dif