e of victims. He prays for guidance in
this part of religious duty; he desires to have everything connected
with sacrifice done in the best way and with the most effective
hymns. Thus the spiritual life is not left to stand alone. There is a
personal walk with God, our piety is said to be God's daughter in us,
his righteousness is working in us and moulding us for his purposes;
both will and deed of the good man are attributed to him, and the
processes are described with true insight by which the soul is
sanctified and wedded to her task and her true destiny; but at the
same time there is an intent looking to that sacred Fire which is an
outward representative of deity; there is the offering of victims,
even of horses, when the prophet's mind is bent on war (the
Homa-offering does not occur, and we may suppose the prophet rejected
this service of the deity by intoxication); there is the smiting of
the demons with prayer, and imprecations, similar to those in the
Psalms, against adversaries of the cause.

It is no proof of unspirituality that the welfare of the Kine, with
whose wail the call of the prophet began, is steadily kept in view
during his mission. The agriculturists are on the side of the
righteous being, good and ever-better tillage is a means of pleasing
him; it is his will that the kine should be freed from alarms and
should prosper; and he may be appealed to to give lessons with a view
to that end. The doctrine passes far beyond its first occasion; yet
the occasion which called for it is never lost sight of.

The Gathas, taken alone, tell us hardly anything of the religion in
which Zarathustra's fellow-countrymen believed. They believed
undoubtedly in many gods; in those parts of the Avesta which come
next to the hymns in time, polytheism is in full force. That
Zarathustra only speaks of one god, Ahura (though he also speaks of
"the Immortals" generally), may be due to the limited extent and
special purpose of the hymns, but it may also be taken as an
indication that the prophet did not needlessly interfere with the
beliefs of his people: content to preach the doctrine with which he
was charged, and which was to him the sum and substance of all
religion, he, like several other religious founders, stirred up no
strife he could avoid. The doctrine he preached was not unprepared
for in the mind of his country, and continued to be the leading
feature of Persian religion in subsequent periods.

It is a momen