Thus did the Greeks, the Romans, and the Slavs allow their god to be vanquished by a foreign god; the Germans, the Lithuanians, and the Hindoos themselves forsook him for an inferior creation. Only in one single nation he finds worshippers faithful to the last. They are not numerous, but they have not allowed their belief to be encroached upon either by time or by man. We mean the few thousands of Ghebers or Parsis, who, during the great political and religious shipwreck of Persia, fleeing before the victorious sword of the Prophet, kept from Islam the treasure of their old belief, and who to this day, in the year 1879 of the Christian era, in the fire temples in Bombay, offer up sacrifices to the very same god who was sung by the unknown ancestors of the Aryan race at a time which eludes the grasp of history. JAMES DARMESTETER. FOOTNOTES: [38] Cf. Max Müller: "Lectures on the Science of Language," and "Lectures on the Science of Religion;" Michel Bréal, "Mélanges de Mythologie et de Linguistique." [39] Maury, "Histoire des Religions de la Grèce;" Preller, "Griechische Mythologie." [40] See Muir, "Sanscrit Texts," v. 58; Max Müller, "Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion," p. 284. [41] "This Lord." [42] The cloud often compared to a tree branching out in the sky. [43] The fire (Ignis) which is born in the waters of heaven in the form of lightning. [44] A sacred plant whose sap is offered to the gods. It is pressed between two stones to extract the sacred liquor. [45] The sea of the earth and the sea of the clouds. [46] See J. Darmesteter, "Ormazd et Ahriman," §§ 18-59. [47] Ormazd is the modern name, contracted from the ancient Ahura Mazda. [48] Which is the same word as the Sanskrit Asura. [49] The sun is also the bird of Zeus (Æschylus, the Suppliants). [50] That is to say "to their Supreme God." [51] G. Klek, "Einleitung in die Slavische Literatur-Geschichte." [52] "Ormazd et Ahriman," §§ 62, sq. [53] Praeterea, coeli rationes ordine certo Et varia annorum cernebant tempora vorti; Nec poterant quibus id fieret cognoscere causis. Ergo perfugium sibi habebant omnia Diveis Tradere, et ollorum nutu facere omnia flecti. In cœloque Deum sedes et templa locarunt, Per cœlum volvi quia nox et luna videtur, Luna, dies, et nox et noctis signa severa, Noctivagaeque faces cœli, flammaeque volantes, Nubila, sol, imbres, nix, ventei, fulmina, grando, Et rapidei fremitus, et murmura magna minarum.--v. 1187. [54] In other systems, having regard to the eternity of the God and no longer to his immensity, boundless Time became the first principle (Zarvan Akarana). [55] His mother. LAZARUS APPEALS TO DIVES.