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

INTRODUCTION. xxix

The tops of the highest mountains are the places chosen for sacrifices. Hymns and prayers are the principal worship; the supreme God who fills the wide circle of Heaven is the object to whom they are addressed,’ Yet at the same time, in the true spirit of a polytheist, he accuses them of adoring earth, water, fire, the winds, and the sun and moon. But the Persians of every age have denied the charge, and explained the equivocal conduct which might appear to give a colour to it. The elements, and more particularly fire, light, and the sun, whom they call Mithra, were the objects of their religious reverence, because they considered them as the purest symbols, the noblest productions, and the most powerful agents of the divine power and nature.”

I have made it my principal object in the chapters on Religion to show beyond the shadow of a doubt that we are not fire - worshippers, but God - worshippers. Fire is a symbol of divinity in our eyes, and nothing more. In this we resemble the great number of Christians who belong to the Church of Rome. The charge has been repeated as much from habit as from any pretence to definite knowledge, and, as the historian of the Roman Empire has stated, it was one which the ancient Persians had to combat as well as the modern Parsis. It will be the greatest possible satisfaction to me if the facts collected in the following pages should put the last nail in the coffin of this popular fallacy.

On the subject of our great prophet Zoroaster, who ranks by universal consent with Moses and Mahomed, Confucius and Sakya Muni, I have sought to give all the knowledge that we possess of this author of