roof, capital, period, &c., grammar, geography, addition,
&c.

[21] See _Le Parlement_, Dec. 15, and other French papers.

[22] Among the many unfair statements of the Parisian press is an
article in _Le Rappel_, of Oct. 29, copied by many other papers, in
which this Tangena ordeal is described as if it was now a practice of
the Malagasy, the intention being, of course, to lead its readers to
look upon them as still barbarous; the fact being that its use has been
obsolete ever since 1865 (Art. XVIII. of English Treaty), and its
practice is a capital offence, as a form of treason. The Malagasy Envoys
are represented as saying that their Supreme Court often condemned
criminals to death by its use!

[23] See Tract No. II. of the Madagascar Committee.

[24] See Lord Granville's speech in reply to the address of the
Madagascar Committee, Nov. 28.

[25] The Admiral, so it is reported on good authority, congratulated the
Queen and her Government on having solved the question of Madagascar by
showing that the Hova could govern it. He also said that France and
England were in perfect accord on this point, and on the wisdom of
recognizing Queen Ranavalona as sovereign of the whole island. See
_Daily News_, Dec. 14. This will no doubt be confirmed by the
publication of the official report which has been asked for by Mr. G.
Palmer, M.P.

THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF THE WORLD.

PART THE FIRST.

I.

I suppose there are few students of man and of society to whom the
present religious condition and apparent religious prospect of the world
can seem very satisfactory. If there is any lesson clear from history it
is this; that, in every age religion has been the main stay both of
private life and of the public order,--"the substance of humanity," as
Quinet well expresses it, "whence issue, as by so many necessary
consequences, political institutions, the arts, poetry, philosophy, and,
up to a certain point, even the sequence of events."[26] The existing
civilization of Europe and America--I use the word civilization in its
highest and widest sense, and mean by it especially the laws,
traditions, beliefs, and habits of thought and action, whereby
individual family and social life is governed--is mainly the work of
Christianity. The races which inhabit the vast Asiatic Continent are
what they are chiefly from the influence of Buddhism and Mohammedanism,
of the Brahminical, Confucian, and Taosean systems. In the fetichism of