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and when they did, were insufferably stupid and prosy. Though the whole college of Gebers were to assert it," he says, we should never believe that

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even the least clever of charlatans could have written the nonsense with which your two last volumes are filled. Either Zoroaster was devoid of common-sense, or he did not write the book you attribute to him. If the first, you should have left him to obscurity; if he did not write the book, it was impudent to publish it under his name. You have then either insulted the public by offering them worthless stuff, or cheated them by palming off falsehoods on them, and in both cases you deserve their contempt." On this theme the changes were rung for years with little variety and less good-breeding. "The least reason I shall offer" (for rejecting the authenticity of the book) "is the uncommon stupidity of the work itself," is the verdict of another English scholar.

14. Time and more advanced scholarship have vindicated the memory of Anquetil Duperron. They have long ago assigned to him his true place, established the great and real worth of the work he did, and also its shortcomings. For though it would enter nobody's head nowadays to deny the authenticity of the books he undertook to translate, his rendering of them is so faulty, carried out on such altogether wrong principles, as to be utterly unavailable—the monument at once of a great achievement and a great failure. He had neither the right method nor the right tools. He trusted entirely to his instructors, the Parsi Desturs, or high-priests, and

their word-for-word translations into modern Persian, never dreaming how unreliable their knowledge was. He was aware, indeed, that the mass of the Parsis hear and recite their sacred texts parrot-wise, without understanding or deeming it needful to understand a single word of them, satisfied with scrupulously performing the ceremonies and rites of the worship they were taught. But he was told that on their higher clergy rested the obligation to study the ancient dead languages of their race, so as to hand down from generation to generation the sense and spirit of their religious law as well as its outer forms. How could he suspect that, in carrying the vessel, they had spilt most of the contents, and that their main-stay was a thread of tradition, continuous, indeed, but growing more and more corrupt and unreliable? So he wrote down every word in modern Persian, as his Desturs gave it, then rendered that literally into French, and-to do his opponents justice half the time it did not “make sense."

15. Thus it seemed as though one puzzle had only been exchanged for another, scarcely less hopeless. A great and clear mind was needed to disentangle it and carry on the work which had been dropped from sheer inability to grasp it. Such a mind turned up only sixty years later, in the person of another French Orientalist, EUGÈNE BURNOUF. He thought he saw his way to a more correct understanding of the Parsi sacred books, by means of a more rational and exhaustive method, and although the experiment really lay outside of his special line of studies, he undertook it, more to open the road for others and

"show them how," than with a view to follow it to the end himself. True, he brought to the task a tool which Anquetil had lacked-a perfect knowledge of Sanskrit, the most ancient surviving language of the Aryans of India and the sister tongue of that in which the so called Zoroastrian books were originally written. Curiously enough, this tool, which was the means of establishing Anquetil's claim to honor and recognition, even while exposing his shortcomings, was in a measure supplied by his bitter foe and detractor, Sir William Jones; for it was this great scholar who, being called to India to fill a high official position, first took up the study of the classical language of ancient India himself, and inspired his fellow-workers and subordinates with the same enthusiasm, earning for himself the title of founder of those Sanskrit studies which were to become so principal a branch of the then dawning science of Comparative Philology. The great likeness which was discovered between the ancient languages of the Aryans of India and of Erân suggested to Burnouf that by bringing to bear Sanskrit scholarship on the Eranian texts, the traditional but mostly unintelligent rendering of the Parsi Desturs might be controlled and corrected, and a closer comprehension of their Scriptures attained than they could at all achieve. One chapter was all he worked out according to this plan. But on what scale and with what thoroughness the research was conducted, is shown by the fact that it fills a quarto volume of eight hundred pages.

*

*"Commentaire sur le Yaçna," published in 1833-35.

16. All the work that has since been done on this field was carried out along the lines laid down in this first attempt of Burnouf's-a monumental treasury of erudition and ingenuity. But the matter in hand is singularly arduous and obscure, and although patient scholarship has indeed succeeded in restoring the lost religion attributed to Zoroaster in its main features and general spirit, in tracing the various elements which entered into its progressive development, yet many and many are the points still under dispute, the passages-sometimes most important ones-of which we have several conflicting versions, among which even the trained specialist finds it impossible to make a decisive choice. In many ways there is less uncertainty even about cuneiform decipherment. Still much is done every year, and even as matters stand now, we know enough to warrant us in pronouncing the religion so almost miraculously preserved by a handful of followers one of the finest, wisest, loftiest the world has seen. As it was the religion of the race which, in the order of history, takes the lead at the point to which our studies have brought us, we shall pause to gain some knowledge of it, and thus be prepared to follow that race's doings more understandingly and appreciatively.

II.

THE PROPHET OF ERÂN-THE AVESTA.

I. THE religions of the world, apart from their intrinsic differences, may be divided into two great classes those that have sacred books, and those that have not. The sacred books of a religion embody all its teachings in matters of faith, theology, and conduct. They tell its followers what they should believe, what they should do and avoid doing, how they should pray, worship, conduct themselves on the momentous occasions of human life. All these instructions the faithful are not to take as simply advice for their general guidance, but as absolutely binding, to be believed without discussion, to be obeyed without demurring. When any question arises bearing on religious doctrine in any way, the devout believer ought not to use his own judgment, but to refer to his Sacred Book, or to its privileged interpreters, the priests. This, indeed, is the most commendable and the safer course, as the layman is liable to mistakes from imperfect training and incomplete knowledge; while the priest must perforce understand what he devotes his life to study. A doubt as to the absolute truth of any statement, or as to the necessity or righteousness of