The two deities of the Zend Avesta, Ormuzd and Ahriman, the good and the evil in perpetual conflict, could not have been conceived of in Southern Asia where the human will is kept under, and where self-consciousness is so moderately developed.  This battle is in the Avestan faith and morals largely in the human breast, and is the same that Paul is conscious of in the combat he describes between himself and sin that was in him.  The Avestan Morals are brought out by Mr. Johnson in their original and exceeding purity.

But the larger sweep of Mr. Johnson’s purpose carries him into an exhaustive and most interesting consideration of Persian influence upon the Hebrew faith and thought—­through the conquests of Cyrus and Alexander—­and through Maurchaeism and Gnosticism—­down to Christendom.

Mahometanism is, in our author’s mind, the culmination of the religion of personal will, and he devotes many glowing and instructive pages to bringing out the meaning and heart of the religion of Islam, especially in its later and in its more spiritual developments.  The final object of the volume is to show the relation of the religion of personal will to universal religion.

Of course our author has not been foolish and unfair enough to portray the perversions and lapses of this particular type of Oriental faith and ethics; but his aim has been to set forth its essential principles and to show how they spring from the universal root.

The study of comparative religions, and hence of the universal religion, is one of the characteristics and glories of our time.  Once every people despised, as a religious duty, every nation and every religion but its own, and sword and fagot were employed, as under divine command, to exterminate all strange manifestations of religious sentiment.  Now the advance guard of civilization is giving itself to devout and thankful study of all the religions under the sure impression that they will prove to be one in origin and essence:  and so a sweeter human sympathy and a more complete unity are beginning to be realized among men.

No man has in most respects been better fitted for this study than was the lamented author of these books.  Mr. Johnson was almost or quite “a religious genius,” with an enthusiasm of faith in the invisible and the idea, which few men have ever shown; and his devoutness was equalled by his catholicity.  His religious lyrics enrich our Christian psalmody, while his published discourses, mingling philosophical light with fervor of a transcendent faith in God and man, rank among the grandest utterances from the American pulpit and platform.  No American can afford to miss the power and influence of such a mind; and no student of religion should fail to have in his possession Johnson’s Persia.

S.C.  BEANE.

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