now actuates humanity, will then cease; that Ahura Mazda, the spirit of truth, light, love, will be dominant everywhere, and Ormuzd (good) being victorious over Ahriman (evil) will be the only true God, the recognition of which is necessary for salvation. The great and noble teaching of Zoroaster (said to have lived 2000 or 5000 years B. C.) did much to purify this religion. It is he who conceived the idea of one supreme God "the creator of the earthly and spiritual life, the lord of the whole universe, at whose hands are all the creatures." One of the principal dogmas of Zoroaster was that of immortality, which, according to many, became in time a Jewish and then a Christian dogma. The resurrection of the body is also an original doctrine of Zoroaster's. It is clearly indicated in the Zend-Avesta. Even the Messiah, the restorer of life, is mentioned; in fact, enough striking points of contact with Jewish and Christian notions may be found there to substantiate the claim that these two religions are the daughters of the Zoroastrian teaching. Points of contact with the religious teaching of the Hindus and especially with Buddhism, may also be found, such as the demand of kindness to animals which are supposed to have a soul, in course of development; the universal kinship of all living beings; the belief in the "Feruer," our invisible form which through our deed and thoughts waxes stronger and finally leads the soul to heaven; the belief that the soul of man has to pass through many existences until it is purified; all its good deeds and acts being gathered up in the spiritual form which is thereby more and more perfected, until at last it becomes conscious of all its former lives. The beauty of this religion lies in the unshaken belief in immortality, and in the kindness towards all living things, even plants and animals. To beautify the earth, to make it a happy and joyous dwelling place for all, is the sacred duty of man.

Of the Egyptians we know much more than of the Chaldeans. Thousands of years ago the great men of other nations went to Egypt in search of knowledge. Even today the influence of that strangely mysterious country may be felt by us who are only beginning to recognize how far the

Egyptians were advanced in science, in art and in philosophy. There have been few races who were so deeply interested in the mystery of life and death, in the hidden powers of the human soul and in the question of immortality, as were the Egyptians. What was, on these matters, taught in their celebrated Mysteries, would probably bring about a revolution in our religious views, if we ever could get hold of those teachings. Naturally, the religious views of the Egyptians must have undergone many changes during their several thousand years of existence, but about the fundamental idea of the survival of the soul, there was never a doubt. The human soul, called Ab, is a ray of the Divinity, and can never perish; it is enveloped in an immaterial body which has the same shape as the physical body. The immaterial body (shan) is the same as our astral double; it can be evoked. Ab, the soul, is responsible for our thoughts and acts; it is judged and rewarded or punished after death. Of shan, the double, great care was taken especially in regard to the nourishment, because the Egyptians believed that all impure food contaminates it and through it the soul. Cleanliness was scrupulously observed; even contact with foreigners was avoided as far as possible. The reason for the great care which the Egyptians bestowed on the remains of their dead is to be found in the belief that the double ought not to leave the tomb, but wait there for the resurrection of the body, while the soul, after separation from body, and double, proceeds to the Hall of Judgment. There the soul must clear itself from all sins before it is allowed to see the highest of the Gods, Isis, face to face; but if found guilty, the soul is dispatched into the kingdom of darkness, where trials await her, which are so vividly described in Dante's Inferno. There is little doubt that the Egyptians believed in reincarnation, before this belief deteriorated with them into that of metempsychosis, for Pythagoras, who was an initiate of the Egyptian Mysteries, always taught reincarnation. Even when metempsychosis became the ruling dogma, the reembodiment of human souls in animal bodies was reserved for criminals and wicked men. In this case the animals them

selves became unclean, while as a rule they also were considered worthy to receive a ray of the divine spirit.

We shall now consider the belief of that country which, as far as we know, is not only the oldest in civilization, but also the richest in metaphysical knowledge and in deep philosophical thinkers-India. The words of Bacon: "A little knowledge inclineth a man to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth his mind back to religion," may be fitly applied to this country. For if there ever was room for unbelief in immortality, it must have been in those times when the people were steeped in ignorance, but history does not tell us anything of those times in India. Although its traditions go back some ten thousand years, yet we find always a sublime spiritual philosophy and a firm belief in the immortality of the soul. That belief seems to be innate in the Hindu mind, as it is in that of all primitive men. At the beginning of their history the Hindus clung to ancestor worship, and in Brahmanism it is preserved to a great extent; the Pitris, forefathers and protectors, being deserving objects of veneration. The book of Manu even conditions the admittance to heaven on the faithful observance of sacrifice and prayer at the grave of parents. One of these prayers reads, "May the sons and descendants of our sons never fail to offer us rice, boiled in milk, honey and clarified butter, on the thirteenth day of the moon, at the hour when the shadow of the elephant sinks in the east." We do not know when the twelve books of Manu were written, nor by whom, but they must be very old, probably the oldest books we have so far discovered. They treat of cosmogony, metaphysics, the art of government, the rights and duties of woman, the state of the soul in life and after death. In it and in the Vedas, hoary with age, we find the survival of the soul emphatically affirmed, as in the following verse: "When the man is smitten of death, his breath goeth back to Vay, his life to the Sun. But there remains of him that which is forever undying."

This belief in immortality, coupled with that of reincarnation, are at the foundations of the two great religions of

India, Brahmanism and Buddhism. They are the causes of the greater morality of the orthodox Hindus, as compared with other nations, and of that beautiful reverence for all living things, which we find in a similar degree, only among the Parsees. The teaching of reincarnation, which of course includes that of immortality, is seen in all the Hindu literature, especially in the Upanishads, less frequently, in the Vedas, and most of the widely differing philosophic systems admit it. But while the majority of ancient people who held the same belief, joyfully accepted it as a means for improvement of the soul through continuous new experiences in new bodies, the Hindus came to entirely contrary results. They dreaded new incarnations as punishments for evil deeds. which carried the danger of tying the soul again and again to this world of misery and suffering (karma). In consequence of this depressing thought the greatest desire of most of the Hindu sects, certainly of the Buddhists, is to put an end to the cycle of re-embodiments, according to the teachings of Buddha. This idea is undoubtedly the cause of that fateful inactivity and indifference to physical improvement and progress, which appears in India and which makes that noble country so dependent on stronger and more energetic powers, whose ultimate aim is the greater development of the material side of nature. It seems that the greater part of humanity is not yet fit for a life of contemplation and renunciation. Much more sorrow, suffering and misery is needed to make us understand that the pleasures of physical life are all transitory and none of them can ever lead to that true happiness for which every human soul is passionately and perseveringly longing. And why has it that ardent desire for supreme, eternal happiness? Because it is an innate idea, an unconscious recollection, acquired ages ago, when the human soul was a god and worthy to live among celestial beings. Man was a god and will rebecome a god," says the Secret Doctrine, but we shall have to fight for it, and our swords and shields in this glorious fight is our unconquerable belief in Immortality and in Reincarnation.

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WANTED: A CRITERION OF DUTIES

By Helen Stone Tuzo

NE beautiful moonlight night, about twenty-five years ago, a group of earnest young people sat and seriously considered their "Careers." "There are

two courses open to me," said one, “and I sincerely wish to take the one I really ought to, but I cannot see which is right. It is so hard to choose between conflicting duties!" "My dear," replied her friend, with the cock-sure austerity of extreme youth, "there are no such things as conflicting duties. Either a thing is your duty or it is not."

The girl received this pronouncement without contradiction, shortly afterward decided upon her course, and has since pursued it with an apparently contented mind, and with tolerable success. Recalling the little incident lately, I asked her how she had come to her decision. Her answer was: "Oh, I chose the one I didn't want to!"

Now, a great many people are like that girl, and feel that if there is a choice of duties, the repugnant one should carry the day; but are they right? To paraphrase the old catchword, "It's pretty, but is it art?" such a feeling is pious, but is it true? Is a mere dislike for a course of action always a sufficient reason for embarking upon it? The Puritan mind sees it so, and has always a lurking distrust of pleasantness, a fear lest what is agreeable must therefore be wrong; and almost all of us plume ourselves somewhat when we are conscious of a slight state of martyrdom. But is this little stroking of our more recondite vanity a sufficient reason to discriminate between two apparently equal duties in favor of the more distasteful?