Being—and giving with it Direction and Guidance to the highest goal of Perfection by the contemplative Way of Divine Love. On the wings of the highest religious enthusiasm, the Sofi, rising above all the outward forms of positive Religions, adores the Eternal Being, in the completest abstraction from all that is sensuous and earthly, as the purest Source of Eternal Light. Mevláná Jeláleddín thus soars, not only like other Lyrical Poets, such as Hafiz, over Suns and Moons, but even above Space and Time, above the world of Creation and Fate, above the Original Contract of Predestination, and beyond the Last Judgment, into the Infinite, where in Eternal Adoration he melts into One with the Eternal Being, and infinitely loving, becomes One with the Infinite Love—ever forgetting himself and having only the great All in his view.'[1] Thus far the learned Von Hammer. But let us also hear the judgment of the East itself, of which this is only a Western echo, as it may be gathered from Devletshah, the greatest native biographer—the Dr. Johnson we may appropriately say—of the Persian Poets. Of Jeláleddín, he says:— 'His pure Heart is filled with Divine Mysteries, and through his eradiating Soul streams the Infinite Light. His View of the World leads the thirsty in the Vale of the Contemplative Life to the refreshing Fountain of Knowledge; and his Guidance leads those who have wandered in the Wilderness of Ignorance into the Gardens where Truth is really known. He makes plain to the Pilgrim the Secrets of the Way of Unity, and unveils the Mysteries of the Path of Eternal Truth: As when the foaming Sea high swells in Wave upon Wave, It casts out Pearls upon Pearls on every Shore they lave.' And to cite only one Turkish Authority—for the Turks claim Jeláleddín as their own, although a Persian of royal race, born at Balkh, old Bactra, on the ground of his having sung and died at Qoniya, in Asia Minor (the Iconium of Paul and Barnabas and Timothy and St. Thecla), whence he was called Rumi 'the Roman,' usually rendered 'the Greek,' as wonning within the confines of old Oriental Rome. This is how Fehîm Efendi, the Turkish Historian of the Persian Literature, himself a Poet, begins his Sketch of the Life of the great poetic Mystagogue:— 'As the ideal of Searchers after Truth here below, as the pattern of the Pure, the Mevlana is honoured by great and small among the people, by the aristocrat and the common man. In all circles his words are held in high honour; among all the wise his knowledge is greatly esteemed; and no pen has had the power to praise him, and to celebrate his excellence worthily, or to describe it in fitting terms. And should the fancy hold it can His praise completely reach; Mevlana's praise it ne'er shall scan— How say it then in speech?'