must remember that Eastern sovereigns are never approached except through the mediation of their chamberlains; and the three offices will therefore correspond with those of the Holy Trinity, the King of Kings, the Mediator, and the Door of Grace. From this triad proceed five other persons, called aitâm, or monads, whose function is that of creation, and order. Their names are those of persons who played a conspicuous part in the early history of Islam ; but they are evidently identical with the five planets known to the ancients, and their functions correspond exactly to those of the heathen deities whose names the planets bear. The Nuseiriyeh hold the doctrine of a Fall, believing that they originally existed as shining lights and brilliant stars, and that they were degraded from that high estate for refusing to recognise the omnipotence of 'Ali. The mystic Trinity, 'Ams, is supposed ίο have appeared seven times upon the earth, once in each of the seven cycles into which the history of the world is divided. Each of these manifestations was in the persons of certain historical characters, and each avatar was accompanied by a similar incarnation of the antagonistic or evil principle. The devil of the Nuseiriyeh is always represented as a triune being, and, carrying out the principle of affiliating their religious system upon the history of Mohammedanism, they have made the opponents of 'Ali represent the personification of evil, as he himself and his immediate followers are the personification of good. Thus Abu Bekr, 'Omar, and 'Othmàn, are considered by the Nuseiriyeh as the conjunct incarnation of Satan. They believe in the transmigration of souls, and that after death those of Mohammedans will enter into the bodies of asses, Christians into pigs, and Jews into apes. As for their own sect, the wicked will become cattle, and serve for food ; the initiated who have given way to religious doubts will be changed into apes ; and those who