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popular creed as propounded by the traditionalist exponents and orthodox formalists failed to carry conviction to their intellect. They wanted to verify their doubts and refused to believe that which, as they said, was not in accord with reason. The glowing accounts of the reward and retribution of the materialized heaven and hell ceased to act upon the imagination of the educated classes. The imaginings of Viraf failed to exert any restraining influence over the tendency to sin. The inspired visions of this seer, about the scenes of the hereafter, depicting the pleasures of the souls of the blessed in paradise and the agonies of the wicked in hell, which satisfied the spiritual cravings of their elders for ages, failed longer so to do in the case of the new generation. The waters of Ardvisur had inundated the regions of hell and quenched the blazing fire, the horrors of hell had vanished into thin air, and the apocalyptic account of Viraf no longer presented to the minds of the enlightened youth what they had to the strictly orthodox. A treatment of the unfortunate souls, such as was portrayed traditionally, seemed to them monstrous, and subverting man's idea of the goodness of Ormazd. They thought them to be crude and archaic. The germs of new thought were sprouting among the young, and they viewed these theological problems with a changed attitude. They gradually became estranged from all beliefs that had been instilled into them from childhood. They aimed at reconciling religion and contemporary knowledge, and bringing religious beliefs and practices into closer relation with the intellectual ways and thought. Parsi orthodoxy resented it.

An illiterate priesthood failed to satisfy the intellectual wants of the enlightened youth. The Parsi priesthood had long before degenerated into ignorance. The situation was not keenly felt so long as the laity was equally illiterate. But now when the latter sought enlightenment, the clergy had kept less and less abreast of the times. During the long period of twelve centuries, very few priests rose above mediocrity. The priest hitherto had acted as an intercessor between the layman and Ormazd, and through elaborate ritual had undertaken to gain for him divine help, being duly paid to recite penitential prayers for the expiation of the sins of the living, and to sacrifice for the purchase of paradise for the dead. The youth of the new school argued that there was no more need of the Mobad's mediation between him