THE GUEBRES. 
47 
of their eternal fire. Pilgrims openly resorted thither, even so 
late as the middle of the last century. But now, if perchance 
any lonely little community of this utterly desolate people, is 
found amongst the villages of Persia ; if they wish to perform 
any of their religious rites, they must be done in the closest 
secrecy. 
Indeed, from the restraints and fear under which they have 
been held for so many generations, both the doctrines of their 
faith, and the most solemn rites of their worship, having sunk into 
nothing more than a few hasty prayers, muttered to the sun as 
supreme god; and what they call commemorative ceremonies, 
are now only sad confused shadows of their former religious 
festivals ; for the little that is left of the Mithratic creed, amongst 
the remnant of its priesthood in Persia, is so faintly compre¬ 
hended, that all the flame of the sacred fire, still kept burning 
at Yezd, is insufficient to throw a gleam, of any retraceable 
connection between their present vague belief, and the once 
venerated faith of their ancestors. 
What can be more sublime, and indeed demonstrable of a one 
great primeval revelation to man, than the idea attributed to the 
early Persians of the nature of God, and the duty of man! Newton 
particularly remarks on it with admiration, as the original of the 
magian’s pure system of religion ; but which they afterwards 
corrupted into Mithratic dreams, and the superstitions of an 
idolatrous worship. In the very earliest times, under the Paishda- 
dian dynasty, or Distributors of Justice, the religion of Persia was 
certainly of this unadulterated kind, namely, “ a firm belief that 
one supreme God made the world by his power, and governs it 
by his providence; and that he demands from man, a pious fear, 
love, and adoration of him ; a due reverence of parents and 
