It assists us to understand many allusions in the New Testament, and by revealing to us the ceremonies and maxims of Paganism, it inspires us with new respect for the majesty of the Christian religion. […] The first was for the priesthood, and represented the ideal and spiritual part of the religion; the second impersonated human faculties and powers; and the third — the most popular of all among the people — was made up of forms and forces of Nature. […] Zoroaster* was the founder of their religion, or rather the reformer of the religion which preceded him. His system became the dominant religion of Western Asia from the time of Cyrus* (550 b. […] Those who refused to abandon the religion of their ancestors fled to the deserts of Kerman and to Hindustan, where they still exist under the name of Parsees*, a name derived from Pars, the ancient name of Persia.