* In Lev. xvi. 30; xxiii. 27, 28; and Numb. xxix. 7, there are directions given to the Jews, that on a certain day they are "to afflict their souls," and a threat is added, that "whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that self same day, he shall be cut off from amongst his people." There is no specific direction as to the method of afflicting the soul; but it is to be associated with absolute laziness, for whatever soul doeth any work on that day shall be destroyed (Lev. xxiii. 28-31). The law is evidently a very modern one, as we do not find it referred to in the Ancient Jewish records, and the idea of atonement was introduced by the Talmudic Pharisees. 3. The Hebrews always showed during the Old Testament times a great aptitude to adopt the faith of outsiders--and as the Jewish people were in great abasement and misery at the period when it is probable that the Buddhist missionaries came into Syria, they would be prepared for the doctrine that they were suffering for bygone sins. The idea that men in the present were sometimes punished for sins done in the past was a Hebrew as well as a Hindoo idea, else Saul's sons would not have been hanged for their father's misdeeds, or the Amalekites have been slaughtered by Samuel, because their forefathers had some centuries before fought with Israel and been conquered by Moses and Joshua. 4. That after the Persian reign it is certain, that three Jewish sects existed,--the Pharisees, the Essenes, and the Sadducees--the last alone being purely Mosaic, and the two first being very like the Buddhists. To strengthen the links of evidence, we may now say a few words about the remarkable sect of the Essenes, premising our belief that it was founded by missionaries of the faith of Sakya Muni, whose doctrines and practice became, subsequently, modified by Mosaism, just as Christianity was considerably remoulded by Talmudism, or, to use an example nearer our own times, as the Christianity preached by European missionaries to the New Zealanders has been altered by the natives, in accordance with their ancient ideas. To them the Old Testament is the Bible, the New Testament is of no value.