ified by their peculiar prayers, ejaculations, or genuflections;
the omission of which, under any circumstances, was a grievous sin,
not inferior in guilt to the violation of the moral duties. The moral
duties, however, of justice, mercy, liberality, &c., were in their
turn required of the disciple of Zoroaster, who wished to escape the
persecution of Ahriman, and to live with Ormusd in a blissful eternity,
where the degree of felicity will be exactly proportioned to the degree
of virtue and piety.

But there are some remarkable instances in which Zoroaster lays aside
the prophet, assumes the legislator, and discovers a liberal concern for
private and public happiness, seldom to be found among the grovelling
or visionary schemes of superstition. Fasting and celibacy, the common
means of purchasing the divine favor, he condemns with abhorrence, as
a criminal rejection of the best gifts of Providence. The saint, in the
Magian religion, is obliged to beget children, to plant useful trees, to
destroy noxious animals, to convey water to the dry lands of Persia, and
to work out his salvation by pursuing all the labors of agriculture.
* We may quote from the Zendavesta a wise and benevolent maxim, which
compensates for many an absurdity. "He who sows the ground with care and
diligence acquires a greater stock of religious merit than he could gain
by the repetition of ten thousand prayers." In the spring of every year
a festival was celebrated, destined to represent the primitive equality,
and the present connection, of mankind. The stately kings of Persia,
exchanging their vain pomp for more genuine greatness, freely mingled
with the humblest but most useful of their subjects. On that day the
husbandmen were admitted, without distinction, to the table of the king
and his satraps. The monarch accepted their petitions, inquired into
their grievances, and conversed with them on the most equal terms. "From
your labors," was he accustomed to say, (and to say with truth, if
not with sincerity,) "from your labors we receive our subsistence; you
derive your tranquillity from our vigilance: since, therefore, we are
mutually necessary to each other, let us live together like brothers in
concord and love." Such a festival must indeed have degenerated, in a
wealthy and despotic empire, into a theatrical representation; but it
was at least a comedy well worthy of a royal audience, and which might
sometimes imprint a salutary lesson on the m