Zoroaster (the Greek reading of Zarathustra, which in modern Persian becomes Zardusht), was born, as far as can be guessed, in Bactria, which became the stronghold of Avestic religion and the last refuge of the national monarchy on the Arab invasion. There was a time when his existence was denied, but no one doubts it now. Eight hundred years before Christ is the date which most modern scholars assign to him, though some place him much farther back, while others think they discern reasons for his having appeared after Buddha. The legend of his life (not to be found in the Avesta) begins in the invariable way: he was descended from kings; as a young man he retired to a grotto in the desert, where he lived an austere life of reflection for seven years. Zoroaster never taught asceticism, but tradition attributes to him the season of solitude and self-collection without which perhaps, in fact as well as in fable, the supreme power over other men’s minds was never wielded by man. Various marvellous particulars are related: he was suckled by two ewes; wild animals obeyed his voice; when thrown under the feet of oxen and horses, they avoided hurting him. In his seven years’ retirement he meditated on idol-worship, on false gods and false prophets. The people of Iran, substantially monotheist but prone to sliding into degrading superstition, offered a field for his mission. He took to him a few disciples and began to preach to as many as would hear, but he met with great difficulties. At last, he found favour with a king by curing his favourite horse, and he might have ended his days in peace but the spirit urged him to continue his apostolate. Not to princes but to peasants did he chiefly address himself; he did not call them away from their work but exhorted them to pursue it diligently. “He who cultivates the earth will never lack, but he who does not, will stand idly at the doors of others to beg food.” Labour is not an evil, man who earns his bread by the sweat of his brow is not under a curse: he is the fellow-worker with God! This was the grandest thing that Zoroaster taught. It is singular to note the affinity between his teaching and the Virgilian conception of the husbandman as half a priest. In the Middle Ages the same thought arose where one would not look for it: among those religious orders which had the luminous inspiration that in work not in indolence lay the means of salvation: “_Laborare est orare._”