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CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES. 279 the symbol and assurance of Divinity, that is of Omnisa cience, Omnipotence, All-blissfulness, Perfection and Immortality. The souls that reach nirvana, of course, neither marry nor are given in marriage; They wear no clothes, nor partake of food; nor is a shadow cast by them.
Our survey of Parsi-ism is now complete, and it entitles us to say that there is nought in its real teachings to disentitle it to a seat in the great Pandal of Wisdom where Rationalism presides over the congress of Faiths. It rather seems to me that the sublime allegories of Zoroastrianism have supplied the basic frame-work to several of the neighbouring creeds for their own mythologies. The doctrines of creation and deluge are the most striking parallels among others. Their explanation, too, is to be sought on the lines already laid down, not in an historical sense. Perhaps the day is not far off when all these mythologies will be made to yield their secrets. In the meanwhile the present state of our knowledge fully warrants the conclusion that they lend not the least support to the notion of creation which they are popularly supposed to teach. The fact is that the secrets embedded in these mythologies were so. subtile and profound as to be almost wholly beyond the man in the street, and the Jews at least had actually forbidden their study, except with proper safe guards against error. "The work of creation," the Mishna taught, "should not be studied by a company of two, and the Chariot [metaphysics] not even in solitude, unless the student be sagacious and
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