THE Z0R0A8TRIAN CONCEPTION OF A FUTURE LIFE. 249 



gift of God; a belief in Re-incarnation, the doctrine of Karma, 

 means that we expect, little by little, through countless ages, to 

 improve ourselves and to earn our reward. 



The Rev. J. J. B. Coles felt that the paper to which they had 

 listened that afternoon was a distinct contribution to the compara- 

 tive study of religions. It was helpful to note that every system of 

 theology, ethics, or philosophy had come to grief ; there must be 

 some underlying scientific reason. There were now only about 

 100,000 Parsees left, most of them in or near Bombay; what has 

 been the cause of the deep decay of Parseeism ? Those who had been 

 in India, as he had been for ten years, would have no difficulty in 

 suggesting the cause. The Parsees to-day were among the great 

 commercial leaders of India, and when a religious people take to 

 commercial pursuits and money-making, their religion becomes 

 corrupted. This was the way that the religion of Israel had 

 become corrupt, and it is a proof of the inspiration of Holy 

 Scripture that no other nation has preserved as their own sacred 

 books a record which so utterly condemns their own conduct. The 

 indifference to their exalted doctrine, which we note in the Parsees 

 of to-day, is due to their commercial spirit. The covenant made by 

 God with Noah was for the purpose that men might not 

 congregate in great cities, but should spread themselves freely over 

 the whole world. 



Professor Langhorne Orchard thanked Professor Moulton for 

 his paper. The interpretation which the Greeks gave to the name 

 Zoroaster, " Living Star," was most appropriate to him, for he was 

 a light for his time. As to the date of Zoroaster, he must concur 

 with Mrs. Maunder rather than with Professor Moulton. Nothing 

 invalidated the arguments by which she assigned him to the 

 seventh century B.C. Zoroaster's great work was that he taught 

 that the character of a man determined his destiny. One implica- 

 tion from the paper he did wish to traverse, namely, that the 

 doctrine of immortality was unknown to the Jews until shortly 

 before the closing of the canon of the Old Testament. Our Lord 

 had shown clearly that the doctrine of immortality was contained 

 in the revelation made to Moses at the burning bush, "God is not 

 the God of the dead, but of the living." The creed of Zoroaster 

 was a noble one, but he could add nothing to the Jewish and 

 Christian religions, for these came direct from God. 



