=Avesta.=—Sprung from the same ancient Aryan tongue as the Sanscrit of India, and distinguished by the same richness of inflection, is Avesta, the earliest language of Persia, still preserved to us in the Persian Scriptures known as _the_ Avesta. The Veda and the Avesta have been described as “two rivers flowing from one fountain-head;” and beyond a doubt the Vedic Aryans and the Avesta-speaking Persians were originally one community, conversing in a common tongue. The Avesta was first made known to Europeans by a French orientalist; Anquetil Duperron (_on^{g}k-teel’ deu-pa-ron^{g}’_), who went to India for the express purpose of discovering the sacred books of the Parsees. With great difficulty he at length possessed himself of the much-desired Avesta manuscripts, and in 1771, after long and patient effort, he gave his countrymen men the first translation of the Avesta into a European tongue. The language has since been carefully studied, and in our own day has at last been mastered. Time wrought many changes in it; the Persian of Xerxes’ reign differed much more from the Avesta of antiquity than our present language does from the English of Chaucer. Further modifications and the introduction of Arabic elements have made modern Persian still more unlike the ancient vernacular. The sacred writings of Persia just referred to are among the oldest and most important in the whole range of Indo-European literature. They contain the doctrines of Zoroaster, or Zarathushtra, the Bactrian sage who reformed the religious system of his country. (_See Jackson’s Avesta Series, Part I._) =Zoroaster= is believed to have flourished about 1400 B.C. Nothing is known of his life or history. Yet, through more than thirty centuries his influence has been felt; and to-day, though they have dwindled to perhaps 150,000 souls, his followers constitute a thrifty and intelligent population in India and Persia. These Parsees, or Fire-worshippers (called by the Mohammedans _Guebres_, or infidels), still burn the eternal fire, kindled as they believe from heaven, not for idolatrous worship, but as an emblem of Ormazd, the Almighty source of light. They are descendants of those Zoroastrians whom Darius and Xerxes launched against Europe in the mightiest armies ever raised by man, threatening to plant their purer faith amid the ruined shrines of Greece. (_Read Haug’s “Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and Religion of the Parsis.”_) At a later date, when the Caliph Omar converted Persia to Mohammedanism with the sword (641 A.D.), their forefathers clung to the ancient faith, and found an asylum across the Indus or in the deserts of their native land.