d Zoroaster in
Haran, Arran, or Airyana vae_g_a. Semitic and Aryan nations, he tells
us, still live together in those parts of the world, and so it was
from the beginning. As the form of the Jewish traditions comes nearer
to the Persian than to the Indian traditions, we are asked to believe
that these two races lived in the closest contact before, from this
ancient hearth of civilisation, they started towards the West and the
East--that is to say, before Abraham migrated to Canaan, and before
India was peopled by the Brahmans.

We have given a fair account of Dr. Spiegel's arguments, and we need
not say that we should have hailed with equal pleasure any solid facts
by which to establish either the dependence of Genesis on the
Zend-Avesta, or the dependence of the Zend-Avesta on Genesis. It would
be absurd to resist facts where facts exist; nor can we imagine any
reason why, if Abraham came into personal contact with Zoroaster, the
Jewish patriarch should have learnt nothing from the Iranian prophet,
or vice versa. If such an intercourse could be established, it would
but serve to strengthen the historical character of the books of the
Old Testament, and would be worth more than all the elaborate theories
that have been started on the purely miraculous origin of these books.
But though we by no means deny that some more tangible points of
resemblance may yet be discovered between the Old Testament and the
Zend-Avesta, we must protest against having so interesting and so
important a matter handled in such an unbusinesslike manner.

_April, 1864._

VIII.

THE MODERN PARSIS.[50]

I.

It is not fair to speak of any religious sect by a name to which its
members object. Yet the fashion of speaking of the followers of
Zoroaster as Fire-worshippers is so firmly established that it will
probably continue long after the last believers in Ormuzd have
disappeared from the face of the earth. At the present moment, the
number of the Zoroastrians has dwindled down so much that they hardly
find a place in the religious statistics of the world. Berghaus in his
'Physical Atlas' gives the following division of the human race
according to religion:

Buddhists 31.2 per cent.
Christians 30.7 "
Mohammedans 15.7 "
Brahmanists 13.4 "
Heathens 8.7 "
Jews 0.3 "

[Footnote 50: 'The Manners and Customs of the Parsees.' By Dadabhai
Naoroji, Esq. Liverpool,