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

CHAP, V.] LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 223

purity, and incorruptibility of that element as bearing the most perfect resemblance to the nature and perfections of the good Deity. For the same reason the Persians showed a particular veneration to the sun, which was founded on their belief that it is the noblest creature of the visible world. . . .

“He taught that there is one supreme, independent, and self-existent Being.”

Sir John Malcolm, in his splendid work on the history of Persia, acknowledges that the reproachful name of fire-worshippers is not merited by the Parsis. He says: “God,” he (Zoroaster) taught, “existed from all eternity, and was like infinity of time and space. ‘There were, he averred, two principles in the universe—good and evil. Light was the type of good, darkness of the evil spirit; and God had said unto Zoroaster, ‘My light is concealed under all that shines.’ Hence the disciple of that prophet, when he prays in a temple, turns towards the sacred fire that burns upon its altar; and when in the open air towards the sun, as the noblest of all lights, and that by which God sheds His divine influences over the whole earth, and perpetuates the works of His creation, . . .”

Captain J. A. Pope, who has studied the Parsi religion, and has deliberately expressed his opinion on the morality of that faith, thus writes :— “They (the Parsis) follow as near as possible the tenets of