will meet and overcome in the next
world, and the garden of paradise in which he awaits the day of
judgment, the trial on that day, and it then shows the punishment which
would have awaited him if he had been found guilty" (Ibid, p. 64). We
have already seen that the immortality of the soul was taught by Plato
(ante, p. 364). The Hindus taught that happiness or misery hereafter
depended upon the life here. "If duty is performed, a good name will be
obtained, as well as happiness, here and after death" ("Mahabharata,"
xii., 6,538, in "Religious and Moral Sentiments from Indian Writers," by
J. Muir, p. 22). The "Mahabharata" was written, or rather collected, in
the second century before Christ. "Poor King Rantideva bestowed water
with a pure mind, and thence ascended to heaven.... King Nriga gave
thousands of largesses of cows to Brahmans; but because he gave away one
belonging to another person, he went to hell" (Ibid, xiv. 2,787 and
2,789. Muir, pp, 31, 32). "Let us now examine into the theology of
India, as reported by Megasthenes, about B.C. 300 (Cory's 'Ancient
Fragments,' p. 226, _et seq_.). 'They, the Brahmins, regard the present
life merely as the conception of persons presently to be born, and death
as the birth into a life of reality and happiness, to those who rightly
philosophise: upon this account they are studiously careful in preparing
for death'" (Inman's "Ancient Faiths," vol. ii., p. 820). Zoroaster
(B.C. 1,200, or possibly 2,000) taught: "The soul, being a bright fire,
by the power of the Father remains immortal, and is the mistress of
life" (Ibid, p. 821). "The Indians were believers in the immortality of
the soul, and conscious future existence. They taught that immediately
after death the souls of men, both good and bad, proceed together along
an appointed path to the bridge of the gatherer, a narrow path to
heaven, over which the souls of the pious alone could pass, whilst the
wicked fall from it into the gulf below; that the prayers of his living
friends are of much value to the dead, and greatly help him on his
journey. As his soul enters the abode of bliss, it is greeted with the
word, 'How happy art thou, who hast come here to us, mortality to
immortality!' Then the pious soul goes joyfully onward to Ahura-Mazdao,
to the immortal saints, the golden throne, and Paradise" (Ibid, p. 834).
From these notions the writer of the story of Jesus drew his idea of the
"narrow way" that led to heaven, and of