PARSEEISM. For some time after the confusion of tongues the nations remained in the vicinity of the tower of Babel. Then they began to disperse, all but one nation. This one journeyed only a short distance to the south and founded the empires of Assyria and Babylon, the Persia of later days. Here we find traces of that idolatrous worship which soon passed into Parseeism. Zoroaster was the man who was instrumental in reforming the ancient Assyrian religion. Zoroaster retained the worship of the sun and of fire, and taught that there were two gods, a good god and an evil god, Ormuzd and Ahriman. There are only a few Parsees left to-day and the old Assyrian religion is entirely extinguished. AFRICAN RELIGION. The nations who passed south-west across Northern Arabia and Sinai, finally came to Africa. In Egypt we find relics of a very high civilization, and they seem to indicate that one of the greatest of the nations of the earth settled there. Their worship was of the sun, moon and stars and of animals. The River Nile, upon which their very life depended, was soon received as an object of worship. Some part of those who came to Egypt wandered up the Nile and passed south and west to Central Africa. Here they were brought in contact with nature in its wildest forms. There was little need of tilling the soil for crops, as nature produced of herself so abundantly in this tropical climate. The heated atmosphere did away with the necessity either of substantial dwellings or of more than a little clothing. Hence the nations had little to do, and as the old proverb says, “Satan finds mischief for idle hands to do,” he soon, evidently, set these nations to occupy their time in quarreling among themselves. Thus the most brutal habits were brought about and the traces of their original nobility and civilization were rapidly destroyed. Theirs was a quick degeneration. Together with their civilization their religion decayed, until they were left with a religion hardly worth the name, and were little above the apes and gorillas inhabiting the wild woods about them. But they could never become wholly animalized, they always retain some traces of their religious faith. WESTERN EUROPE.