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MODERN PARSEEISM. tower, which is afterwards closed to everybody. Sometimes the towers are erected by public subscription, but private persons frequently bear the sole expense, it being considered a specially meritorious act to build one.
Thus, in the midst of antagonistic creeds, persists the religion associated with the name of Zoroaster, a standing revelation to us of the ideas and worship of long-distant ages. Reverence and worship for the great Ormuzd, the supreme Being, principally typified by the wondrous fire, dread of the evil spirit and anxiety to avoid the evils he can bring, and practical charity chiefly characterise this most interesting survival from the past. Learned modern Parsees maintain and teach that invocations to spirits other than the supreme God do not belong to the religion as originally established by Zoroaster, and that they may all be dispensed with, retaining the belief in one God and in purity of thought, word, and deed. They hold also that all their ritual and ceremonies may be altered according to the spiritual state and needs of the community.
[For the best account of the modern Parsees and their present religious state, see "History of the Parsees,” by Dosabhai Framji Karaka, C.S.I., late member of the Bombay Legislative Council. Macmillan, 1884.]
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