Ormazd was the rewarder of the good, the punisher of the bad. Those who obeyed him, and were “pure in thoughts, pure in words, pure in actions,” were admitted at death into _Paradise_, “the House of the Angels’ Hymns,” where all was brightness: the wicked were consigned to a region of everlasting darkness, “the House of the Fiend Deceit.” Of all the religions of human origin, Zoroaster’s, though not free from superstition and cumbrous rites, approaches nearest to the truth. It was gladly accepted by the people, and did much to elevate them and improve their condition. We have thrown into verse the following HYMN TO ORMAZD. Praise to Ormazd, great Creator, He it was the cattle made; Lord of purity and goodness, Trees and water, sun and shade. Unto him belongs the kingdom, Unto him the might belongs; Unto him, as first of beings, Light-creator, float our songs. Him we praise, Ahurian Mazda, With our life and bodies praise; Purer than the purest, fairest, Bright through never-ending days. What is good and what is brilliant, That we reverence in thee— Thy good spirit, thy good kingdom, Wisdom, law, and equity. =Persian Inscriptions.=—In a flower-clad plain of southwestern Persia, shut in from the outer world by lofty hills, and now dotted with pleasant villages, once stood the great palace of Persep’olis, the wonder of the world for its magnificence—which Alexander, in a fit of drunken fury, reduced to a heap of ruins with his wanton torch (331 B.C.). Yet, though silent and deserted, “the piles of fallen Persepolis” speak to us, not only with their strange sculptures, but also through the inscriptions carved upon them in cuneiform letters, originally adorned with gold. [Illustration: THE ROCK OF BEHISTUN. MOUNTAIN RECORD OF DARIUS.] Not far from these ruins is the famous rock of Behistun, 1,700 feet high, and inscribed with the same arrow-headed, wedge-shaped characters. Some of these, protected from the weather by a varnish of flint, have been wonderfully preserved to the present time. This mountain-record was set up by Darius I. (516-515 B.C.), who, in the shadow of the palace-walls of Persepolis, was wont to sit upon a throne of gold, canopied by a vine of the same precious metal bearing clusters of priceless gems. It is his triumphal tablet, graven with figures of himself and several conquered princes. It records his victories, asserts his hereditary right to the throne, and enumerates the provinces of his vast empire, in nearly a thousand lines of cuneiform characters—in three different languages, the Persian, Scythian, and Babylonian—that it might be understood by all his subjects. Here the Persian monarch announces his dignity, while he attributes the glory of it all to the God Supreme:— “I am Darius, the Great King, the King of Kings, the King of Persia, the King of the dependent provinces, the son of Hystaspes.