f, and instantly fell into a
long and profound sleep. As soon as he waked, he related to the king
and to the believing multitude, his journey to heaven, and his
intimate conferences with the Deity. Every doubt was silenced by this
supernatural evidence; and the articles of the faith of Zoroaster were
fixed with equal authority and precision. A short delineation of
that celebrated system will be found useful, not only to display the
character of the Persian nation, but to illustrate many of their most
important transactions, both in peace and war, with the Roman empire.

The great and fundamental article of the system, was the celebrated
doctrine of the two principles; a bold and injudicious attempt of
Eastern philosophy to reconcile the existence of moral and physical evil
with the attributes of a beneficent Creator and Governor of the world.
The first and original Being, in whom, or by whom, the universe exists,
is denominated in the writings of Zoroaster, Time without bounds; but
it must be confessed, that this infinite substance seems rather a
metaphysical, abstraction of the mind, than a real object endowed with
self-consciousness, or possessed of moral perfections. From either the
blind or the intelligent operation of this infinite Time, which bears
but too near an affinity with the chaos of the Greeks, the two secondary
but active principles of the universe, were from all eternity produced,
Ormusd and Ahriman, each of them possessed of the powers of creation,
but each disposed, by his invariable nature, to exercise them with
different designs. * The principle of good is eternally absorbed in
light; the principle of evil eternally buried in darkness. The wise
benevolence of Ormusd formed man capable of virtue, and abundantly
provided his fair habitation with the materials of happiness. By
his vigilant providence, the motion of the planets, the order of the
seasons, and the temperate mixture of the elements, are preserved. But
the malice of Ahriman has long since pierced Ormusd's egg; or, in other
words, has violated the harmony of his works. Since that fatal eruption,
the most minute articles of good and evil are intimately intermingled
and agitated together; the rankest poisons spring up amidst the most
salutary plants; deluges, earthquakes, and conflagrations attest the
conflict of Nature, and the little world of man is perpetually shaken by
vice and misfortune. Whilst the rest of human kind are led away captives