temple, under the notion that he had "brought Greeks into the temple," and so "polluted the holy place," Acts xxi. 28, 29. It is very different with the Persians, who admit Europeans (but not native Christians) into their mosques without scruple-except perhaps a few to which a peculiar sanctity is ascribed on account of the tomb of some great saint or imaum being inclosed within its walls. But it is rather as shrines than as mosques that they are accounted so sacred, and that access to them is difficult. We have known that in villages which afforded no other accommodation for travellers, the humble barn-like mosque has been devoted to the reception of parties of Europears; and it has even happened that while under this arrangement we have been refreshing or reposing ourselves within the mosque, the villagers have assembled for morning and evening worship upon its flat roof.

The mosques themselves of this country differ very materially from those of Turkey. The manner in which a Turkish town is aggrandized in the external view by the beautiful round towers, or minars, which shoot up in all directions, is almost entirely wanting in Persian

cities, which, unless built on the side of a hill, exhibit a dull and level uniformity, broken only by the trees which rise with the city, unless by a dome here and there, rising to some extent above the dead uniformity, and unless a close inspection enables the eye to trace the long line of low domes which mark the situation of the covered bazaar. The Turks, as a people, may claim little merit in this elegant distinction of their cities, as they seem merely to have imitated and perpetuated the form of the Christian churches which they found in the fair lands which the providence of God has for a season subjected to their rule. All their principal mosques are on the model of that of St. Sophia, at Constantinople, and many of the old ones in Asia Minor, which are of the same form as those now built, bear manifest signs of having been once Christian churches. Thus in the Turkish mosque we may consider that we have the form of the churches which arose in the lands which first received the gospel of Christ; and that in fact the tidings of salvation to a ruined world, through a crucified Redeemer, were once set forth in many of the buildings which now witness the prostrations of a Christrefusing people.

In some of the principal cities, the domes of the principal mosques and mausoleums are of sufficient size to attract attention in a general view; but the effect is as nothing compared with the Turkish minars, of which there are often more than one to a single mosque, rising from a square base in one white cylindrical shaft into the sky, and the uniformity of their surface broken only by the small galleries from which the criers send forth the call to prayer. Of this appendage the Persian mosques are almost entirely destitute, in the shape described; but in some cases in great cities, round towers rise to no great height from the roof of the mosque, and are formed of bricks, the outer surfaces of which are glazed in variegated colours. They are designed only for ornamental effect, and are never applied to the same purpose as in Turkey, having indeed no galleries for the purpose, and the call to prayers being given from the roof.

In other respects the Persian mosques are, in their exterior, altogether unlike those of Turkey. Instead of being the most conspicuous objects in a city, the traveller may often pass them without observing them, or hear the call to prayer close by without being

able to discover the place from which it proceeds. The mosques sometimes open immediately upon the streets, and present the same low, bare, mud wall with the other buildings. The interior in these cases is corresponding; a low though spacious apartment, with a level ceiling, supported on plain pillars, and the whole without ornament or pretensions of any kind. The interior of a Turkish mosque, though generally plain enough according to European notions, is rich compared with those of Persia. There is no pulpit or furniture of any kind, excepting a straw mat, and a small seat for the preacher. There are no decorations, often not an inscription on the walls, a stone on which simply indicates the direction towards which the worshipper must turn in prayer.

CHAPTER VII.

SOOFFEEISM.-ARTS AND SCIENCES.

Ir is impossible to write of Persia with the view of affording some notion of the religious, as well as social condition of the people, without noticing, however slightly, the principles of what is called Sooffeeism, which has taken a strange hold of the national mind.

The term Sooffee, which means "wise," or "pious," and is metaphysically used to denote a religious man, is supposed to be derived from the term saaf, "pure," or 66 clear;" or, from suffa, which signifies purity. Some have traced it to soof, "wool," or "wool-bearing," in allusion to the coarse woollen garments usually worn by its teachers. It is worthy of remark, that these terms are all from the Arabic; and that the accounts we have of the Sooffees are comparatively of a modern date, being all subsequent to the conquest of Persia by the caliph