So do the Parsees of our own day
regard him; and their only hope for the ultimate triumph of Ormuzd is
in constant sacrifices and prayers and propitiatory offerings to the
sun as the fire that is to burn out and utterly consume all evil
from our earth. Fire is to the Parsees now, as it has ever been, the
holiest of all holy things, carried about by princes and great men for
safety; by warriors, as that which is to give them the victory over
their foes; and by all, as their sole and ever-present deity. Sir
Jamsetjee assured me that the _intelligent_ Parsees regard the sun
and fire as only the symbols that are to remind them of the God
they worship. But there can be no doubt that the mass of the Parsees
literally worship the sun and the "sacred fire;" and hence arise the
utter repugnance many of them have to celebrating their religious
rites within closed walls, and the decided preference ever shown for
out-door worship. I have often heard them say that the Fire-god
shows his aversion to confinement by drooping when he is shut up, and
growing vigorous just in proportion as free scope is given him.
The sun appears everywhere on the shields and armor of the ancient
Persians, as on some of the old-time monuments that have come down
to us; while occasionally Mithra is depicted as a youthful hero, with
high Persian cap, his knee on a prostrate bull, into whose heart he
seems plunging a dagger--symbolically, "the power of evil" in
complete subjection to the victorious sun, and about to be for ever
annihilated.
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