Gospel of
Jesus, in living letters which no years could efface and no changes
conceal.

Chapter V.

Zoroaster and the Zend Avesta.

Sec. 1. Ruins of the Palace of Xerxes at Persepolis.
Sec. 2. Greek Accounts of Zoroaster. Plutarch's Description of his Religion.
Sec. 3. Anquetil du Perron and his Discovery of the Zend Avesta.
Sec. 4. Epoch of Zoroaster. What do we know of him?
Sec. 5. Spirit of Zoroaster and of his Religion.
Sec. 6. Character of the Zend Avesta.
Sec. 7. Later Development of the System in the Bundehesch.
Sec. 8. Relation of the Religion of the Zend Avesta to that of the Vedas.
Sec. 9. Is Monotheism or pure Dualism the Doctrine taught in the Zend
Avesta?
Sec. 10. Relation of this System to Christianity. The Kingdom of Heaven.

Sec. 1. Ruins of the Palace of Xerxes at Persepolis.

In the southwestern part of Persia is the lovely valley of Schiraz, in the
province of Farsistan, which is the ancient Persis. Through the long
spring and summer the plains are covered with flowers, the air is laden
with perfume, and the melody of birds, winds, and waters fills the ear.
The fields are covered with grain, which ripens in May; the grapes,
apricots, and peaches are finer than those of Europe. The nightingale (or
bulbul) sings more sweetly than elsewhere, and the rose-bush, the national
emblem of Persia, grows to the size of a tree, and is weighed down by its
luxuriant blossoms. The beauty of this region, and the loveliness of the
women of Schiraz awakened the genius of Hafiz and of Saadi, the two great
lyric poets of the East, both of whom resided here.

At one extremity of this valley, in the hollow of a crescent formed by
rocky hills, thirty miles northwest of Schiraz, stands an immense
platform, fifty feet high above the plain, hewn partly out of the mountain
itself, and partly built up with gray marble blocks from twenty to sixty
feet long, so nicely fitted together that the joints can scarcely be
detected. This platform is about fourteen hundred feet long by nine
hundred broad, and its faces front the four quarters of the heavens. You
rise from the plain by flights of marble steps, so broad and easy that a
procession on horseback could ascend them. By these you reach a landing,
where stand as sentinels two colossal figures sculptured from great blocks
of marble. The one horn in the forehead seems to Heeren to indicate the
Unicorn; the mighty limbs, whose musc