RELIGIOUS BELIEF AS A BASIS OF MORALITY. 87 



of a higher law of social life and a superior form of civilization 

 was genetically connected namely, the sacred duty of fostering 

 and gladdening the spirit of the earth (personified as the goddess 

 or angel Armaiti), by tilling the soil and making it fruitful. 

 Husbandry is holiness to the Lord. In the third fargard of the 

 Vendidad this conception of agriculture as a sacred calling is 

 particularly enlarged upon and enforced. The earth is there 

 compared to a beautiful woman, who fails to fulfill her noblest 

 functions so long as she remains virgin and barren. " He who 

 cultivates barley cultivates righteousness, and extends the Maz- 

 dayasnian religion as much as though he resisted a thousand 

 demons, made a thousand offerings, or recited a thousand 

 prayers." Indeed, the best way to fight evil spirits is to redeem 

 the waste places which they are supposed to inhabit. The spade 

 and the plow are more effective than magic spells and incanta- 

 tions as means of exorcism. An old Avestan verse, which is 

 quoted in inculcation and encouragement of tillage, and may 

 have been sung by Iranian husbandmen as they sowed the seed 

 and reaped the harvest, celebrates the influence and efficacy of 

 their toil in discomfiting and driving out devils : 



" The demons hiss when the barley's green, 

 The demons moan at the thrashing's sound; 

 The demons roar as the grist is ground, 

 The demons flee when the flour is seen." 



[These lines have also in the original a sort of rude rhyme or 

 assonance peculiar to ancient poetry : 



" Yadh yav6 dayat aat dafeva gis'en, 

 Yadh s'udhus dayat ^at daeva tus'en ; 

 Yadh pistro dayat aat da^va uruthen, 

 Yadh gundd dayat aat daeva perethen." 



Vendid&d, iii, 105-108, Spiegel's ed.] 



If the Mazdayasnian religion, as revealed in the Avesta, illus- 

 trated in a remarkable manner the Benedictine maxim laborare 

 est orare, it had no sympathy with the melancholy salutation 

 memento mori, with which the Trappist greets the members of 

 his silent brotherhood. As taught by the Iranian prophet and 

 still practiced by the modern Parsis, it is pre-eminently a religion 

 of thrift, and enjoins as a sacred duty the honest accumulation 

 and hearty enjoyment of wealth. Poverty and asceticism have 

 no place in its list of virtues. Voluntary abstinence from the 

 pleasurable things of the good creation is an act of base ingrati- 

 tude and treason toward the bountiful giver of them. He who 

 despises them is a contemner of Ahuramazda and an ally of the 

 devas, and contributes thus far to the triumph of evil in the 

 world. The righteous man should not dwell upon the idea of 



