Almost all treaties being accompanied by the sign of the cross, and by an oath which was frequently administered over some relics, everything was thus brought within the jurisdiction of the Church. Rome, as metropolitan, was supreme judge in causes, from the Cimbrian Chersonesus to Gascony; and a thousand feudal lords, uniting their own peculiar usages with the canon law, produced in the result that monstrous jurisprudence of which there at present exist so many remains. Which would have been better--no laws at all, or such as these? It was beneficial to an empire of more vast extent than that of Rome to remain for a long time in a state of chaos; for, as every valuable institution was still to be formed, it was easier to build a new edifice than to repair one whose ruins were looked upon as sacred. The legislatrix of the North, in 1767, collected deputies from all the provinces which contained about twelve hundred thousand square leagues. There were Pagans, Mahometans of the sect of Ali, and others of the sect of Omar, and about twelve different sects of Christians. Every law was distinctly proposed to this new synod; and if it appeared conformable to the interest of all the provinces, it then received the sanction of the empress and the nation. The first law that was brought forward and carried, was a law of toleration, that the Greek priest might never forget that the Latin priest was his fellow-man; that the Mussulman might bear with his Pagan brother; and that the Roman Catholic might not be tempted to sacrifice his brother Presbyterian. The empress wrote with her own hand, in this grand council of legislation, "Among so many different creeds, the most injurious error would be intolerance." It is now unanimously agreed that there is in a state only one authority; that the proper expressions to be used are, "civil power," and "ecclesiastical discipline"; and that the allegory of the two swords is a dogma of discord. She began with emancipating the serfs of her own particular domain. She emancipated all those of the ecclesiastical domains. She might thus be said to have created men out of slaves. The prelates and monks were paid out of the public treasury. Punishments were proportioned to crimes, and the punishments were of a useful character; offenders were for the greater part condemned to labor on public works, as the dead man can be of no service to the living. The torture was abolished, because it punishes a man before he is known to be guilty; because the Romans never put any to the torture but their slaves; and because torture tends to saving the guilty and destroying the innocent. This important business had proceeded thus far, when Mustapha III., the son of Mahmoud, obliged the empress to suspend her code and proceed to fighting. SECTION II. I have attempted to discover some ray of light in the mythological times of China which precede Fohi, but I have attempted in vain.