RELIGION, EDUCATION, FINE ARTS. 



521 



do. Writing is taught by tracing with a pencil 

 letters sunk into a stiff card. This manner of 

 writing can be read by seeing persons only. 

 The point systems Braille's andWaite's 

 are generally used by blind persons to com- 

 municate with each other. In the Illinois In- 

 stitution for the Blind the use of the type- 

 writer is being taught, and it is said that some 

 excellent work has already been done by the 

 pupils. In the study of music the notes are 

 read to the pupil, who writes them down in 

 the Braille or Waite systems, and then studies 

 them at the instrument until they are memo- 

 rized. In most schools books in raised print 

 are used. The first book of this character was 

 printed in Paris in 1784 by M. Valentine 

 Haiiy. 



Gnostic, a word sometimes confounded 

 with agnostic, and employed in a loose and gen- 

 eral way to designate a freethinker. Correctly 

 speaking, gnosticism is the term applied to 

 various forms of philosophical speculation 

 which sprang up in the early history of the 

 Church. They were generally regarded as 

 heretical, but the term itself means simply 

 knowledge, and does not contain any idea of 

 antagonism to Judaism or Christianity. There 

 were three main schools, or centers, of gnostic 

 speculation : the Syrian of Antioch ; the Alex- 

 andrian of Egypt, and that of Asia Minor, rep- 

 resented by Marcion of Pontus. Gnosticism 

 represents the first efforts to construct a philo- 

 sophical system of faith, and the main ques- 

 tions with which it concerned itself were the 

 same which in all ages have agitated inquiry 

 and baffled speculation the origin of life 

 and origin of evil, how life sprang from an 

 infinite source, how a world so imperfect as 

 this could proceed from a supremely perfect 

 God. All of the schools agreed in the exist- 

 ence of an infinitely Supreme Btmig, their dif- 

 fe^Jiices arising in their various speculations 

 to account for the passage from the higher 

 spiritual world to this lower material one. In 

 the Alexandrian thought, evil is but degen- 

 erated good. The Syrian school assumed the 

 existence of two living, active, independent 

 principles, good and evil. The former system 

 embraced Judaism as a divine institution, 

 although inferior and defective in its manifes- 

 tation of the divine character ; the latter re- 

 jected it as being wholly the work of the Spirit 

 of Darkness. The anti-Judaical spirit was de- 

 veloped to the extreme in Marcion and his 

 followers. The gnostics accepted Christ, but 

 in different and modified lights. According 

 to the Alexandrian school, he is a higher 

 Divine Being, proceeding from the Spiritual 

 Kingdom for the redemption of this lower ma- 

 terial kingdom ; but however superior, he is 



yet allied to the lower angels and the Demiur- 

 gos, who is an inferior manifestation of 

 Deity partaking of the Divine nature, the in- 

 termediary between the Infinite Spirit and the 

 material world, and the immediate creator and 

 governor of this world. The Syrian school, 

 on the other hand, regarded Christ as a being 

 totally distinct from the Demiurgos, who was 

 in their system not the representative and 

 organ of the Supreme Spirit, but a rival Spirit 

 of Darkness ; and hence, in coming into this 

 lower world, he was invading the realms of the 

 powers of darkness, in order to seek out and 

 rescue any higher spiritual natures who were 

 living here under the power of the Evil One. 

 Gnosticism has been well termed an extraordi- 

 nary conglomeration of Monotheism, Panthe- 

 ism, Spiritualism, and Materialism. It was 

 vague, confused, and irrational for the most 

 part, and yet its influence in the world was not 

 altogether bad. It compelled Christian teach- 

 ers to face the great problems of which it at- 

 tempted the solution in so many fantastic forms. 

 It expanded the horizon of controversy within 

 as without the Church, and made the early 

 fathers feel that it was by the weapons of rea- 

 son and not of authority that they must win 

 the triumph of Catholic Christianity. It may 

 be said to have laid the foundations of Chris- 

 tian science ; and Antioch and Alexandria, the 

 centers of half -pagan and half-Christian specu- 

 lation, became the first centers of rational 

 Christian theology. The several schools began 

 to decline after the middle of the third cen- 

 tury. Their doctrines were revived several 

 times by certain sects in the middle ages, but 

 have had no considerable body of adherents 

 since the thirteenth century. 



Hades. The word " hades " is from the 

 Greek. Its etymology is somewhat doubtful, 

 but it is generally believed to have come from 

 the verb eidein, meaning to see, and the nega- 

 tive particle a. Hence it may mean what is 

 out of sight, the invisible, or, where nothing 

 can be seen, the place of darkness. In Homer 

 the name is applied to Pluto, the lord of the 

 lower regions, perhaps because he was the 

 deity who had the power of making mortals 

 invisible. The Greeks, however, gave up the 

 latter application of the word, and when the 

 Greek Scriptures were written the word was 

 always used to designate the place of departed 

 spirits. It was the common receptacle of 

 departed spirits, the good as well as the bad, 

 and was divided into two parts the one an 

 Elysium of bliss for the good, the other a 

 Tartarus of punishment and grief for the 

 wicked, and its locality was supposed to be 

 underground in the mud regions of the earth. 

 In the very early stages of Grecian history no 



