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on and judgment, we may truly say: "The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth have been set on edge."
CHAPTER XII.
AN ATTEMPT TO PURIFY THE SENSUALIZED FAITHS.
It has been said of the Persians that in their zeal to purify the sensualized faiths which everywhere prevailed they manifested a decided "repugnance to the worship of images, beasts, or symbols, while they sought to establish the worship of the only true creative force, or God--Holy Fire."
From the facts to be gleaned concerning this people during the seventh and eighth centuries B.C., it is quite probable that they still had a faint knowledge of a former age of intellectual and moral greatness, and that it was their object, at that time, to return to the purer principles which characterized it. That their efforts were subsequently copied by surrounding nations is shown in the facts connected with their history.
Soon leading Syrians and Jews began to learn from their Eastern neighbor that the worship of images could scarcely be acceptable to a god which they were beginning to invest with a certain degree of spirituality. There is little doubt, at the present time, that the attempt to spiritualize the religion of the Jews was due to the influence of the Persians. However, the length of time required to effect any appreciable improvement in an established form of worship is shown by the fact that, two hundred years later, little change for the better was observed in the temples, in which licentiousness had become a recognized religious rite. Even at the present time, it is reported that in many places of worship in the East there still reside "holy women --god's women," who, like those in Babylon, described by various writers, are devoted to the "god of fire."
In a comparison made between the religion of Persia and the doctrines said to have
