Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1894 — FIRE WORSHIPPERS. [ARTICLE]

FIRE WORSHIPPERS.

Among the Farsees in Bombay. Heathrn Burial Customs and Matrimonial Fest vlties—Dr. Tu rnage's Sermon ' for the Press. The Rev. Dr. Talmage, continuing his series_gf rousd the world aer\ mons through the press, chose, last Sunday, for his subject, ‘The Fire Worshippers,’’the textseiected being Matthew ii, I, “There came wise men from the East to Jerusalem.” These wise men were the Farsees, or the so-called fire worshippers,and I found their descendants in India last October. Th-ir heathenism is more tolerable than any of the other false religions and l/asmore alle-viations,-and while in this round the world series I have,already showmyou the worst»forms of heathenism,today I show you the least offensive. The prophet of the Farsees was Zoroaster of Persia. He was poet and philosopher and reformer as well as religionist. His disciples thrived at first in Persia, but- under Mohammedan persecution they retreated to India. • The Bible o.f the Parsees, or fire worshipers, as they are inaccurately called, is the Zend Avesta, a collec- . tion of the strangest books that ever came into my hands. There were originally twenty-one .volumes,. but Alexander the Great, in a drunken fit. set tire to a palace which con - tained some of them, and they went into ashes and forgetfulness. But there are more of their sacred volumes left than most people would have patience to read. There are many things in the religion of th o Parsecs that suggest Christianity, and some of its doctrines are in accord with our own religion. Zoroaster. wfio lived about- 1,400 years before Christ, was a good man, suffered persecution for his faith and was assasinated while worshipping at an altar. He announced the theory; “He is best who is pure of, heart!” and that there are two great 1 spirits in the world-—Qrmuzd, the good spirit, and Ahriman, the bad spirit- and that all tyhodo right are under the influence of Ormuzd. and all who do wrong are under Ahriman, that the Parsec must be born on the ground floor of the house and must be buried from the ground floor; that the dying man must have prayers said over him and a sacred juice given him to drink; that the good at their decease go into eternal light, and the bad into eternal darkness; that having passed out-of this life the soul lingers near-the corpse three days in a paradisaic state, en- ■ joying more than all the nations of earth put together could enjoy, or in a pandemoniac state, suffering more than, all the nations put together could possibly suffer, but, at the end of three days departing for its final destiny, and that there will be a resurrection of the. body. They are more careful than any other people about their ablutions, and they wash and wash and wash. They pay great attention to physical health, and it is a rare thing to see a sick Parsee. They do not smoke tobacco, for they consider that a misuse of fire. At the close of mortal life the soul appears at the Bridge Chin vat, where an angel presides, and questions the , soul about the thoughts and words' and deeds of its earthly state. Nothing, however, is more intense in the Parsee faith than the theory that the dead body is impure; A devil is supposed to take possession of the dead body. All who touch it are unclean, ! and hence the strange style of. obsequies. And now, the better to show you ; these Parsees, I tell you of two things I saw within a short time in Bombay. It was an afternoon of ; contrast. We started for Malabar hill, on which the wealthy classes have their embowered homesand the Parsees their strange temple of the dead. > As we rode along the water’s edge the sun was descending the sky, and a disciple of Zoroaster, a Parsee, was in lowly posture, and with reverential gaze looking into the sky. He would have been said to have I been worshipin'* the sun, as all Par- j sees are said V. worship the fire. But the intelligent Parsee does not wor- j shipijhe fire. He looks upon the sun I as the emblem of the warmth and flight of the Creator. Looking at a blaze of light, whetheron earth, on mountain height or in the sky, he can more easily bring to mind * the glory of God—at least, so the Parsees tell me- Indeed, they are the pleasantest heathen I have met. They treat their wives as equals, . while the Hindoos and Buddhists ; treat them as cattle, although the 1 cattle and sheep and swine are better off than most of the women of India. This Parsee on the roadside on our way to Malabar hill was the only one of that, religion I had ever seen engaged in worship. Who knows but that beyond the light of the sun on which he gazes he may catch a glimpse of the God who isHight and “in whom there is no darkness at all?” • “ -1 ,i I We passed on up through gates into the garden that surrounds the place where the Parsees dispose of ; their dead. There is on all sides great opulence of fern and cypress. The garden is one hundred feet above the level of the sea. Not far ,from th? entrance is a building where the mourners of the funeral I procession go in to pray. A Irght is 1 here kept burning year in and year .out. We.ascend the garden by some 1 eight stone steps. The body of a deceased aged woman ife being carried in toward the chief “tow<r of silence.’’ There are five- of these towers. Four persons whose business it is to do this carry the corpse. They are followed by two men with

long beards. The tower of silenci’ to which they come cost $150,001 and is, 25 feet high and 276 fee around, without a roof. Thetarrien j'of the dead and’the two bearded met ' come to th® door of the tower, entej and leave th e dead, There are threj rows of places for the dead —thi outer row for, the men, the na iddli i row for the women, the inside row for the children. The lifeless bodiq are left exposed as far down as th? waist. As soon as the employes re tire from the tower of silence thi vultures, now one, now two, non many, swoop upon the lifeless form These vultures fill the air with theif discordant voices. We saw them ij long rows on the top of the white, washed wails of the tower of silence Irr a~ few minutes they have take? the last particle of flesh from th? bones. There had evidently beer other.opportunities for them that day, and some flew away as though surfeited. They sometimes carry away with them parts of a body, and it is no unusual thing for the gentle, men in their country seats tq have dropped into their doorways a bonj from the tower of'silence. In the center of this tower is 3 well, into which the bones are thrown after they are bleached. Thehot sun and the rainy season and charcoal de their work of disintegration and disinfection, and then there are sluices that carry into the sea what remains of the dead. The weal thy people ol Malabar hill hive made strenuous efforts to have these strange towers removed as a nuisance, but they remain, and will no doubt for ages remain. . _. Starting homeward, we soon were in the heart of the city and saw a building ali a flash with lights and resounding with merry voices. It was a Parsee wedding, in a building -erected especially for the marriage ceremony. We came to the doorand proposed to go in, but at first were They saw we' were not Parsees and that we were not even natives. Gradually we worked our way inside the door. The building and the surroundings were illumined by aundreds of candles _in_glasses_amd lanterns, in unique and grotesque holdings. Conversation ran high, and laughter bubbled over, and all was gay. Then there was a sound of an advancing band of music, but the instruments for the most part were strange to our ears and eyes. Louder and louder were the outside voices, and the wind and stringed instru - ments, until the procession halted at the door of the temple and the bridegood mounted the Steps. Then the music ceased and all voices were still. The ceremony went on interminably. We wanted to hear the conclusion, but were told that the ceremony would go on for a long while—indeed that it would not conclude until 2 o’clock in the morning, and this was only between 7 and 8 o’clock in the evening. There would be a recess after awhile in the ceremony, but it would be taken up again in earnest at 12:30. We enjoyed what we had seen, but felt Tor six more hours of wedding ceremony. Silently wishing the couple a happy life in each other’s companionship, we pressed bur way through the throng of congratulatory Parsees. A fellow traveler-in India told me he had been writing to his home in England trying to get a law passed that no white woman could be legally married in India until she had been there six months. Admirable law would that be! If a white woman saw what married life with a Hindoo is, she would never undertake it. Off with the thick and ugly veil from, woman’s face! Off with the crushing burdens from her shoulders! Nothing'but the gospel of Jesus Christ will ever make life in India what it ought to be. Thus I have set before you the best of all religions of the heathen world, and I have done so in order that you might come to higher appreciation of the glorious religion which has put its benediction over Christendom. Compare the absurdities and mummeries of heathen marriage with the plain “I will!” of Christian marriage, the hands joined in pledge “till death do you part.” Compare the doctrine that the dead may not be touched with as sacred and tender and loving a kiss as is ever given-, the last kiss of lips that never will again -speak to us. Compare the narrow bridge Chinvat, over which the departing Parsee soul must tremblingly cross, to the wide open gate of heaven, through which the departing Christian soul may triumphantly enter. Compare the twenty-one books of the Zend Avesta of the Parsee. which even the scholars of the earth despair of understanding, with our Bible, so much of it as is necessary for our salvation "in language so plain that “a wayfaring man,though a fool,need not err therein.’’Compare the “tower of silence,” with its vultures, at Bombay, with the Greenwood of Brooklyn, with its sculptured angels of resurrection, and bow yourselves in thanksgiving and prayer as you realize that if at the battles of Marathon and Salamis Persia had triumphed over Greece instead of Greece triumphing overPersia, Parseeism, which was the national religion of Persia, might have covered the ea?th, and you and I, instead of sitting in the noonday light of our glorious Christianity might have been groping in the depressing shadows of Parseersim,a. religion as inferior to that which is our inspiration in life and our hope in death as Zoroaster of Persia was inferior to our radiant and superhuman Christ, to whom be honor and glory and dominion and victory and su-a world without end. Amen!