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

CHAP. V.] RELIGIOUS SIMILARITIES, 217

paid to fire by the Parsis of the present day is not of a recent date. It was prevalent in one shape or other among almost all Aryan nations. It points to the conclusion that all these Aryan nations must have “borrowed their ideas, forms, and expressions relating to the Divinity from light and fire” at a time when their forefathers dwelt in one land, the Ayriana Vaeja of the Avesta and the Aryavat of the Vedas. In fact, it may be declared that we have no knowledge of any religion which failed to pay its share of reverence to Sun and Fire.

It is worth while to quote Bishop Meurin again on this pomt. He says: “It must, therefore, not surprise us to find a great similarity between those noble ancient Aryan ideas and names of God with those which the Mosaic religion exhibits in its sacred text.” A little further on he says: “The Jewish religion was only a preparation and prefiguration of the Christian. If, then, we find shining flames and burning fires as emblems of God’s majesty and presence used in the most important and essential circumstances of the Jewish religion, in the vocation of Moses, the deliverance of the Israelites from the Egyptian bondage, their guidance through the desert, the proclamation of the ten commandments, the ark of the covenant, the first sacrifice, the perpetual occupation of the altar, and the predictions of the future Messiah and of His Church, I believe we have a full right to expect