['Ill: ZOKOASTRIAN CONCEPTION OF A FUTURE LIFE. 



251 



first was that their prayers and religious hooks were in a dead 

 language, so that the ordinary people could not follow and under- 

 stand them. The second cause was that the Parsees had adopted 

 many Hindu customs, though they differed from the Hindus in 

 their beliefs, yet, perhaps for political reasons, they had adopted 

 certain Hindu practices. 



A Member said that there was one lesson that we might learn 

 from the afternoon's paper, namely that we ought not to build fresh 

 temples for religious systems that had proved themselves to be 

 failures. These systems might indeed be first steps to a knowledge 

 of God, but we had received a higher revelation and he thought it 

 was waste of time to discuss them. 



Mr. J. 0. Cokrie said that Zoroastrianism lacked one thing. The 

 absence of sacrifice indicated a deficiency in the sense of sin. This 

 accorded with Ahura Mazda being the All- Wise, rather than the 

 All-Holy. 



The Chairman regretted that Professor Moulton had not been 

 able to remain till the close of the Meeting : he was obliged to 

 return to Manchester that evening, and had had to leave to catch 

 his train. All would have wished to hear his answer to the 

 discussion. 



With reference to the doctrine of Immortality, that was certainly 

 believed in by the Jews and other nations at an early date. The 

 Babylonians and Assyrians held, some two thousand years before 

 Christ, that there was a life after this present existence. It was 

 not certain what they considered to be the means for attaining 

 thereto, but the principal thing seemed to be faithfulness to the god 

 whom a man worshipped. 



We were far from knowing all the details of the Babylonian 

 theory of immortality, but he who acquired it had the unspeakable 

 joy of the Deity's unending companionship in the world beyond the 

 sky. Apparently, also, that faithful servant of his god had to be 

 buried in due form, and his grave had to be cared f or. 



Whilst always recognizing, as we all did, the immeasurable 

 superiority and perfection of the Christian religion, we ought not to 

 indulge that feeling of contempt for past religious systems which we 

 find exemplified (for example) among the Mohammedans. It has 

 been recorded that they called the antiquities which they dug up 

 for us in Babylonia and Assyria "rubbish of old unbelievers, " 



