vesta_
contains. But the possibility is a detail. It is the idea that counts.
Behind it is the unique character of this doctrine which, in
eliminating evil, converted even Satan.

Satan seldom gets his due. He was the first artist and has remained
the greatest. In creating evil he fashioned what is a luxury and a
necessity combined. Evil is the counterpart of excellence. Both have
their roots in nature. One could not be destroyed without the other.
For every form of evil there is a corresponding form of good. Virtue
would be meaningless were it not for vice. Honour would have no
nobility were it not for shame. If ever evil be banished from the
scheme of things, life could have no savour and joy no delight.
Happiness and unhappiness would be synonymous terms.

It is for this reason that scoffers have mocked at heaven. Heaven may
be very different from what has been fancied. But the theory of it,
however unphilosophic, which Zoroasterism supplied, carried with it a
creed not of tears but of smiles, a religion of lofty tolerance, one
in which the demonology barely alarmed, for redemption was assured,
and so fully that on earth melancholy was accounted a folly.

Though tolerant, it could be austere. Meanness, thanklessness,
loquaciousness, jealousy, an unbecoming attire, evil thoughts,
whatever is sensual, whatever is coarse, any promenade in mud actual
or metaphorical, severely it condemned. Particularly was avarice
censured. "There are many who do not like to give," Ormuzd, in the
_Vendidad_, confided to Zarathrustra. The high god added: "Ahriman
awaits them."

Ahriman awaited also the harlot who, elsewhere, at that period, was
holy. Yet in lapses, confession and repentance sufficed for remission,
provided that in praying for forgiveness the sinner forgave those that
had sinned against him. If he lacked the time, were he dying, a priest
might yet save him with words whispered in the ear. That was the
extreme unction, hardly administrable, however, in case of wilful
omission of the _darun_, which was communion.

This sacrament, the most mystic of the Church, was observed by the
Incas, who also confessed, also atoned, who, like the Buddhists, were
baptized, but who, like the Persians, worshipped the sun and, with
perhaps a finer instinct of what the beautiful truly is, worshipped
too the rainbow.[14]

[Footnote 14: Garcilasso: Commentarios reales.]

Huraken, the winged and feathered serpent-god of the Toltecs, was