(but thou) makes the moon to increase and to decrease? This I wish to know, except what I already know.

"Who holds the earth and the skies above it? Who made the waters and the trees of the field? Who is in the winds and storms that they so quickly run? Who is the Creator of the good-minded beings, thou Wise? Who has made the kindly light and the darkness, the kindly sleep, and the awaking?

"Who has made the mornings, the noons, and the nights, they who remind the wise of his duty?"

In a later part of the Zend-Avesta, Zoroaster asked Ormuzd what was the most powerful spell to guard against evil. He was answered by the Supreme Spirit that to utter the twenty different names of Ahura-Mazdâ protects best from evil, and thereupon Zoroaster asks what these are. He is told that the first is, "I am;" the sixth, "I am wisdom," and so on until the twentieth, which is "I am who I am, Mazdao.' Highest of all, Ahura-Mazdâ was said to have below him angels who did his bidding. "Immortal Holy Ones," whose names seem to be echoes of the Vedic gods, and by whose aid good deeds are wrought, and gifts bestowed upon men.

things (the ancient Persians looked upon ants, snakes, and all vermin, as agents of the evil powers); and to do all that will increase the well-being of mankind. Men were not to cringe before the powers of darkness as slaves crouch before a tyrant, they were to meet them upstanding, and confound them by unending opposition and the power of a holy life.

To such high thoughts, to be sweetened and kept in vigor by pure deeds, did this noble man give utterance, and we may believe that much of truth underlies the sketch which the good Baron Bunsen has drawn of the assembling together of the people at the command of Zoroaster that they might choose between the nature-gods of their fathers and the Lord whom he would have them serve

Bunsen pictures the assembly as gathered on "one of the holy hills dedicated to the worship of fire in the neighborhood of the primeval city of marvels in Central AsiaBactria, the glorious, now called Balkh." Thus Zoroaster speaks in the Zend-Avesta:

"Now I shall proclaim to all who have come to listen, the praises of Thee, the allwise Lord, and the hymns of the good Spirit.

"Hear with your ears what is best, perceive with your mind what is pure, so that every man may for himself choose his tenets before the great doom. May the wise be on our side!

44

Those old spirits who are twins, made known what is good and what is evil in thoughts, words, and deeds. Those who are good, distinguished between the two, not those who are evil-doers.

When these two Spirits came together, they made first life and death, so that there should be at last the most wretched life for the bad, but for the good blessedness.

I should say that the feeling between those who clung to the older faith and the followers of Zoroaster grew so bitter that the gods of the Vedic hymns became demons in the Zend-Avesta. In that book Indra is an evil being; in the Vedic belief Ahura is a demon. The Devas of the Veda are the Daevas or evil spirits of the Zend-Avesta, and the converts to the new religion had to declare that they ceased to worship the Devas. It is well nigh certain that Zoroaster believed in one God, and explained the mystery of evil as the work of demons ruled by an archfiend "Angra-Mainyus," the "Sinful-minded," afterward known as Ahriman. In the course of time, as men saw that the powers of good and evil seemed equal, neither being able to conquer, Ahriman was held to be as supreme over evil as Ormuzd was over good. The Supreme mind that had fashion-world; ed all was forgotten, and the universe was regarded as a battle-field whereon these two waged unceasing war, not as between Indra and Vritra, for a herd of heavenly cows, but for dominion over all things, Ahriman having, like Ormuzd, ranks of angels who served him.

The thought of evil around him and within him caused Zoroaster to feel heavy at heart, but it did not make him fold his hands in despair. In the Gâthâs or oldest part of the ZendAvesta, which contains the leading doctrines of Zoroaster, he asks Ormuzd for truth and guidance, and desires to know what he shall do. He is told to be pure in thought, word, and deed; to be temperate, chaste and truthful: to offer prayer to Ormuzd and the powers that fight with him; to destroy all hurtful

"Of these two Spirits the evil one chose the worse deeds; the kind Spirit, He whose garment is the immovable sky, chose what is right; and they also who faithfully please Ahuramazda by good works.

"Let us then be of those who further this oh Ahuramazda, oh bliss-conferring Asha! (truth). Let our mind be there where wisdom abides.

"Then indeed there will be the fall of the pernicious Druj (falsehood), but in the beautiful abode of Vohumano (the good spirit), of Mazda and Asha, will be gathered forever those who dwell in good report.

'Oh men, if you cling to these commandments which Mazdâ has given, which are a torment to the wicked and a blessing to the righteous, then there will be victory through them.'

In this old faith there was a belief in two abodes for the departed; heaven, the "house of the angels' hymns," and hell, where the wicked were sent. Between the two there was a bridge, over which the souls of the righteous alone passed in safety; the wicked

fall into the dark dwelling-place of Ahriman. There are also traces of a resurrection and judgment - day, which will be foretold by Sosiosh, son of Zoroaster, who shall come as the Messiah, or Prophet of Ormuzd, to convert the world and slay the arch-fiend Ahriman, or, as another account relates, to purify the earth by fire, consume all evil, and bring forth from the ashes a new heaven and a new earth, wherein righteousness alone shall dwell.

The few rites and ceremonies which Zoroaster imported into his religion were doubtless such as were familiar to the Aryans when together, and were mainly the offering of Homa and of fire. The Persian Homa or Haoma is the same as the Hindu Soma, and hymns to it occur in the Zend-Avesta. Ormuzd being the source of light. has for symbols the sun, moon, and planets, and also fire, which is regarded as his pure creation, and therefore most sacred of all things upon earth. The offering of fire has continued to the present day, nor is the flame ever suffered to go out. The Zoroastrians had neither temples nor idols, and the fire was kept burning in an inclosed space, the chief rites of worship being performed before it.

The Pârsi still faces some light-giving object, as the sun or fire, when he offers his • prayer, and the priests cover their faces when they approach the flame, lest it be defiled by their breath. It is, however, untrue to speak of the Pârsis as worshiping fire; they simply regard it as an emblem of divine power and honor it accordingly. Life being the gift of Ormuzd and therefore dear to him, no sacrifice of blood was offered in the early centuries of the religion, but many corruptions have since crept in and overlaid this once purest and noblest of all the creeds of

Asia.

Xerxes (the Ahasuerus of Spture), these are names well known to us, and under them and other kings Persia remained powerful for centuries until it was conquered by the Arabs, when the old Zoroastrian faith gave place to Mohammedanism Professor Max Müller remarks: "There were periods in the history of the world when the worship of Ormuzd threatened to rise triumphant on the ruins of the temples of all other gods If the battles of Marathon and Salamis had been lost and Greece had succumbed to Persia, the state religion of the enpire of Cyrus, which was the worship of Ormuzd, might have become the religion of the whole civilized world.

But this was not to be; and there now remain in Asia only a few hundred thousand Pârsîs, some of whom dwell in the old land, while the grea'er number have settled in and around Bombay.

Their creed is of the simplest kind; it is to fear God, to live a life of pure thoughts, pure words, pure deeds, and to die in the hope of a world to come. It is the creed of those who have lived nearest to God and served him faithfullest in every age, and wherever they dwell who accept it and practice it, they bear witness to that which makes them children of God and brethren of the prophets, among whom Zoroaster was not the least.

The Jews were carried away as captives to Babylon some 600 years before Christ, and during the seventy years of their exile there, they came into contact with the Persian religion and derived from it ideas about the immortality of the soul, which their own religion did not contain. They also borrowed from it their belief in a multitude of angels, and in Satan as the ruler over evil spirits. The ease with which man believes in unearthly powers working for his hurt prepares a people to admit into its creed the doctrine of evil spirits, and although it is certain that the Jews had no belief in such spirits before their captivity in Babylon, they spoke of Satan (which means an adversary) as a messenger sent from God to watch the deeds of men and accuse them to Him for their wrongdoing. Satan thus becoming by degrees an object of dread, upon whom all the evil which befel man was charged, the minds of the Jews were ripe for accepting the Persian doctrine of Ahriman with his legions of devils. Ahriman became the Jewish Satan, a belief in whom formed part of early Christian doctrine, and is now but slowly dying out. The history of Persia is full of interest. What fearful ills it has caused, history has It was the first among the Aryan nations to many a page to tell. The doctrine that rise into importance. Under Cyrus, whose Satan, once an angel of light, had been cast name and deeds are spoken of in the Old from heaven for rebellion against God, and Testament, it became a mighty empire, had ever since played havoc among mankind, whose boundary stretched from the Indus to gave rise to the belief that he and his demons Asia Minor, and it was during his reign that could possess the souls of men and animals the Jews were freed from their captivity at at pleasure. Hence grew the belief in wiz Babylon and returned to Palestine. Darius,ards and witches, under which millions of

Since death was the dark deed of Ahriman, the dead body has ever been looked upon with horror, and as the Pârsis believed that the evil demons had secured it, it could not be permitted to pollute the pure elements which Ormuzd had created: earth, fire and water. So it was put on some exposed place; some "Tower of Silence," where birds of prey devoured the flesh, and the sunlight bleached the bones, which were afterward buried in the earth; and such is the practice to this day. But the Zoroastrians had a good hope that the demons had not touched the pure soul, which passed away beyond the eastern mountains to the sun-lit paradise of the holy, and there entered into rest.

ereatures, both young and old, were cruelly | mere dreamer, and, with the view of calling tortured and put to death.

is said to have been held two hundred and fifty-one years before Christ, so that long before Christianity was founded we have this great religion with its sacred traditions of Buddha's words, its councils and its missions, besides, as we shall presently see, many things strangely like the rites of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Buddhist scriptures are called the "Tripitaka," or three baskets," being in three parts. The first "pitaka" contains rules of discipline; the second, the discourses of Buddha; and the third treats of philosophy and the subtle doctrines of the religion. The words of Buddha, handed on from age to age, and preserved in the memories of men, were at last set down in writing. They grew, as our Scriptures have grown, much entering into them which Buddha never said, but all the writings at last received as the sacred records of his teaching and religion.

him a second time, even using force, but was defeated by the power of the ten great virtues of Buddha, the weapons of the evil one and of his soldiers being changed into beautiful flowers as they fell upon Buddha, and the rocks becoming nosegays as they were hurled at him; whereupon the spirits who had watched over his birth and who now followed his life on earth rent the air with shouts of joy at his victory. Afterward the tempter sent his three daughters, one a winning girl; one a blooming virgin; and one a middleaged beauty, to allure him, but they could not. Buddha was proof against all the demon's arts, and his only trouble was whether it were well or not to preach his doctrines to men. Feeling how hard to gain was that which he had gained, and how enslaved men were by their passions so that they might neither listen to him nor understand him, he had well nigh resolved to be silent, but at the last deep compassion for all beings made him resolve to tell his secret to mankind that they too might be free, and he thus became the founder of the most popular religion of ancient or modern times. The spot where Buddha obtained his knowledge became one of the most sacred places in India. He first preached at Benares, or, as they say, "turned the wheel of the law," a phrase which may have given rise to the wheels on which some of his words are inscribed and which are set in motion by wind or water. He met with great opposition from the Brahmans, but kept on his way, converting the high and the low until in his eighty-fifth year he died peacefully while sitting under a tree. His remains were burnt amidst great pomp, and quarrels arose for the possession of the fragments. They were at last divided into eight portions, over each of which a tope (a Hindu word for a bell-shaped building raised over relics) was built. Of course the usual legends teeming with stories of wonderful miracles grew around his memory, and this notwithstanding that he told his disciples the only true wonder | was to "hide their good deeds and to confess before men their sins." The myths and traditions of the Buddhists about the universe and the things therein are absurd in the ex-ing the dead body of her boy in a forest, she

treme.

Very soon after his death a general council of his disciples was held to fix the doctrines and rules of the religion. Buddha had written nothing himself, and the council is said to have chosen from his followers those who remembered most of his teaching. It is interesting to note that among these were two men, one of deep earnestness and zeal; the other of most sweet nature, loving Buddha much and most beloved by him; reminding us of two of Christ's disciples, Peter and John.

Two other councils were afterward held for the correction of errors that had crept into the faith, and for sending missionaries into other lands. The last of these councils

Among the traditions concerning Buddha, there is one which tells of a young mother whose child died and whose dead body, in her great love and sorrow, she clasped to her bosom, and went about from house to house asking if any one would give her some medicine for it. The neighbors thought her mad, but a wise man, seeing that she could not or would not understand the law of death, said to her, "My good girl, I cannot myself give medicine for it, but I know of a doctor who can attend to it." She asked who it was and was sent by the wise man to Buddha. After doing homage to him she said, "Lord and master, do you know any medicine that will be good for my boy?" Buddha replied that he did, and told her to fetch a handful of mustard seed, which must be taken from a house where no son, husband, parent, or slave had died. Then the woman went in search, but no such house could she find, for whenever she asked if there had died any of those, the answer cane from one, "I have lost a son;" from another, "I have lost my parents;" and from all, Lady, the living are few, but the dead are many." At last, not finding any house where death had not been, the truth broke in upon her, and leav

returned to Bu idha, and told her tale. He said to her, "You thought that you alone had lost a son; the law of death is that among all living creatures there is nothing that abides," and when he had finished preaching the law, the woman became his disciple.

Once upon a time Buddha lived in a village, and in the sowing season, went with his bowl in hand to the place where food was being given by a Brahman, who, seeing him, spoke thus:

"O priest, I both plough and sow, and having ploughed and sown, I eat; you also, O priest, should plough and sow, and having ploughed and sown, you should

eat.'

"

"I too, O Brahman, plough and sow, and