Theosophy is a name often applied to the systems of the speculative mystics of the mediaeval and later times, as Eckhart, Bonn, Schelling and others. The term is now applied to the tenets of the Theosophical Society, founded at New York (1875) by Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky (d. 1891 ) an American Russian. The search after divine knowledge, the investigation of the powers of man and of the hitherto unexplained laws of nature, the study of Eastern philosophy, and the establishment of a universal brotherhood, are some of the objects which it sets before itself. The most striking tenet of theosophy to outsiders is that which asserts that man is possessed of hitherto undeveloped powers over nature, in which respect it has affinities with mediaeval Rosicrucianism and modern Spiritualism.

The Holy Alliance was a league formed in 1816 after the fall of Napoleon by the sovereigns of Russia, Austria and Prussia, whereby they pledged themselves to rule their peoples like fathers of families, and to regulate all national and international relations in accordance with the principles of Christian charity. But the alliance was made in actual fact a means of mutual encouragement in the maintenance of royal and imperial absolutism, and an instrument for suppressing free institutions •and checking the aspirations for political liberty struggling into realization amongst the nations of the Continent. The league died a natural death after the lapse of a few years.

Wakes and lyke-wakes are very different things. A lyke or liche wake is a watching of the dead body (Ang.-Sax. lie) all night by the friends and neighbors of the deceased. It used to be a scene of revelry and mourning, the object being to watch the body from being interfered with by evil spirits. The other " wake " is about equal to "vigil," and every church had its wake on the anniversary of the saint. A religious service was given, but, as the crowd became great, hawkers and minstrels assembled, and the wake became a fair, held in the churchyard. In 1285 Edward I. forbade fairs to be held in churchyards, but the practice continued to the time of the Reformation.

Among the Jews the Talmud is a book held in high veneration, containing the Mishna, or oral law, and the Gemara, or commentary on the Mishna. There are two forms, or editions of the Talmud. (1) the Palestinian (commonly called the Jerusalem Talmud) completed about the middle of the fifth century and (2) the Babylonian Talmud completed towards the end of the sixth century. The latter is the larger and more valuable of the two. The Talmud is divided into Halaka, or legal part, and Hagada, or legendary part. The Halaka still rules Jewish life, especially in regard to dietary laws, marriages and festivals, and is the authoritative text-book of all rabbinic tribunals.

The Flagellants were fanatics who appeared at sundry times in Europe, and marched about in procession along the streets and public roads to appease the wrath of God. They marched two and two, singing dolorous hymns, mingled with groans, and every now and then stopped to whip each other with scourges to " atone for the sins of the people." They first appeared in the eleventh century under St. Peter Damian; again in 1268, when Reinier, a Dominican, formed them into a sect; again in 1349, when Germany was attacked with the pestilence called the Black Death; again in 1574, when Henri III. of France joined the sect. They still exist in Italy, France, Mexico and New Mexico, but their number is small.

The natives of Botocudes, one of the hottest regions of the earth, believe that heaven will be a land of cool streams and shady groves entirely cleared of all underbrush and cacti! All desert-dwellers, it is said, die expecting to awake in a wooded land supplied bountifully with cold water. Natives of the frozen north have paradise pictured as a land of warm sunshine, with glowing fires overhung with pots of boiling whale's blubber, and easeful couches of fur scattered here and there. The Caroline islanders, who are passionately fond of liquor, but who are in mortal dread of breaking their necks by falling from one of the millions of cliffs with which their islands abound, believe that paradise will be a land as level as a floor, where one can get drunk and not be in constant dread of cracking his cervical vertebrae.

The Catholic sisterhood known as Beguines was organized in the Netherlands in the twelfth century. They are still extant in Germany, but there is at Ghent the noted Beguinage of St. Elizabeth, with seven hundred sisters, who live in a separate quarter of the town in one hundred and three little brick-built cottages, with eighteen convents and two churches, arranged in streets and squares within a common wall, open to the visits of strangers. Living here a life of retirement and piety, the Beguines, in their simple dark dresses, go out as nurses to the hospitals and perform other acts of kindness among the poor. Though they are under no monastic vow, it is their boast that none is known to have quitted the sisterhood.

The Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, was founded by Ignatius Loyola, and confirmed by Paul III. in 1540. It was monarchical in its constitution and secular, while all other Catholic societies are more or less democratic and regular. The head of the society is called the General, or Prcepositus Generalis, and holds his office for life. This General has absolute command over the whole society, and from his decisions there is no appeal. The four objects of the society are: (1) the education of youth; (2) the education of others by preaching, etc.; (3) the defense of the Catholic faith against all heretics and unbelievers, and (4) the propagation of the Catholic faith among the heathen. The Jesuits wear no monastic garb, but dress like any other of the "secular clergy," and live in no religious house, but in private dwellings.

Candlemas is an ecclesiastical festival observed on 2d February in honor of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, when she presented the infant Jesus in the temple. The great feast of expiation and purification (Februa) in ancient Rome was held on the 15th of February. Its institution as a Christian festival took place in the reign of Emperor Justinian in 541 or 542. A principal part of the celebration is a procession of light-candles - hence the name. There is a tradition all over Christendom to the effect that a fine Candlemas portends a severe spring. Sir Thomas Browne in his Vulgar Errors quotes a Latin distich expressive of this idea. In Scotland the prognostication is expressed in the following distich: If Candlemas is fair and clear.