History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

CHAP, V.] BISHOP MEURIN. 215

fire, which acts as a perpetual monitor to us to preserve piety and purity, idolatry? The answer cannot be doubted.

These considerations will show even the casual reader that any charge of idolatry against the Parsis would be altogether groundless. If there be any who choose to persevere in the accusation, the following words of Bishop Meurin, the learned head pastor of the Roman Catholics of Bombay, are a sufficient reply :—“T am, therefore, very far from supposing that the pure fireworship is idolatry. Whoever accuses the Parsis of that most heinous of crimes, and is not able to prove that they believe fire or the sun to be God Himself, is certainly guilty of the most detestable sin of calumny.” This learned divine in his pamphlet entitled Zoroaster and Christ, wherein he, in answer to the questions of a Catholic layman, shows some points of similarity between Christianity and Zoroastrianism, says: “ Zoroaster restored not only the unity of God but also the most ancient and characteristic Aryan form of divine service, the worship of fire, as the most suitable representative of God, corresponding to their high idea of God as Eternal Light.” Further on he says: “A pure and undefiled flame is certainly the most sublime natural representation of Him who is in Himself Eternal Light.”

We will now say a few words about the antiquity of the reverence paid to fire. According to that