Media, Babylon and Persia

Media, Babylon and Persia

Zénaïde A. Ragozin

T. Fisher Unwin

A notable religious survival: The Parsis.- anquetil duperron

I. Among the so-called heathen religions which still claim for their own more than one half of man kind, there is none of greater interest and importance than that of the PARSIS, more generally known under the graphic but misleading name of " Fire-Worshippers." It is certainly not from their numbers this sect derive that interest and importance, for in that respect they form an almost imperceptible unit in the general sum. The entire number of Parsis now living scarcely, if at all, exceeds 100,000, which represents about one in fourteen thousand of the earth's population. But, small as that fragment of humanity is, it is a chip from one of the world's noblest and mightiest nations, the PERSIANS of old, a nation which, though not extinct, and still counted as one of the greater political powers of the East, has degenerated beyond recognition under the…