The opening of the Library of Newnham College at the end of the summer term of 1883, was made the occasion of a festival which will never be forgotten by those who came to it from all parts of the kingdom. At a gathering in the garden of the Old Hall, the portrait of Miss Clough by Richmond-now, more than ever, one of the most treasured possessions of Newnham-was presented to the Council on behalf of the students of the College. Fine as the colouring of the portrait is, with the effect of white and blue, in the opinion of many it hardly does justice to the strong individuality of Miss Clough.

The secret of Miss Clough's personal influence with her students, was, I think, her large-mindedness, her perfect fairness of judgment, combined with a rare perception of character and the constant, unobtrusive recognition of the fact that, to use her own words, Religion and the enthusiasm of humanity have always been the torches which have lighted up unknown paths for women, and given them courage to explore them.'

In all departments of activity affecting women she took the keenest interest; the cheapening of their labour in consequence of too many of them adhering to the well-beaten paths of teaching and secretarial work was an anxiety to her, and she was always ready to encourage with helpful suggestions any who sought new openings for the work of educated women.

Miss Clough's sympathies were far from being restricted, however, to any one class of society. The action of the Women's University Settlement at Southwark was welcomed by her, alike as affording a bond of unselfish union and a healthy field of activity to women university students at work in the world, and as extending to a class destitute of the liberal and refining influences of arts and letters some of the social culture which finds its expression in the University. It was a matter of gratification to her that the women Elementary Teachers, who availed themselves of the benefits of the summer Extension Courses at Cambridge, were for the time resident at Newnham, and all possible resources of the College were placed at their disposal.

During the years 1887-1888 the Hall at Newnham which perpetuates Miss Clough's name was being built, and she had much at heart the plan then mooted of the unification of the college buildings. She watched, too, with much interest the foundation and progress of the Cambridge Training College for Women under one of her own students.

In her own College, from the first to the end, each student was regarded by Miss Clough not only as a unit in the corporate whole, but as a separate personality with whose tastes and aspirations as far as possible she showed sympathy. While she valued the studies of the students because they taught them 'energy and self-control,' and their examinations because they taught them 'the power of collecting their thoughts rapidly, of putting them into words and of exercising their memories,' she encouraged the College Societies and physical amusements -gymnastics, tennis, fives, and hockey-as tending to bring members of the College together and to give brightness and joy to their lives.'

It was a matter of special gratification to her that Newnham has 'gathered together women from very varied homes, from different classes of society, with their special tastes and opinions, and from different countries; and that these women have lived together and studied together as friends and comrades, have learned to plan and work together, and to carry out schemes among themselves.'

The moderation of the movement, of which Newnham is the outcome, and its freedom from the antagonism of sex, were largely due to the wise influence of Miss Clough. From a tiny almost obscure beginning, she lived to see her College great and world-known. The work of its students, in philanthropy, in teaching, in science and in literature, should be her most fitting monument.

THE RELIGION OF PERSIA.

BY THE REV. PETER LILLY.

I.

ZOROASTER-in the Iranian language Zarathustra, and in the new Persian Zardusht—is one of the greatest and most remarkable characters in Gentile antiquity. His special work,' says Professor Cheyne, 'was the reformation of the Iranian religion; but he grasped the ideas of his reform so firmly that we may with almost equal justice call him the founder of a new religion." The Roman Catholic scholar M. de Harlez compares him with Moses, as psalmist, prophet, and lawgiver in one. The hymns known as the Gâthas, which form the most ancient portion of the Zend-Avesta, or sacred books of the Persians, are allowed to be the writing of Zoroaster himself, and are, as far as they go, an authentic record of his great work. So lofty and so pure is their spirit, and so entirely removed from any idolatrous or mythological tendency, that at first one can hardly believe they belong to the remote period to which, nevertheless, they are undoubtedly to be assigned. They are among the chief illustrations of that great truth expressed by St. Paul, that God 'left not Himself without witness,' even amidst those whom we are accustomed to think of as destitute of the light of revelation.

The later Greek writers place Zoroaster, almost unanimously, in the east of Iran, more particularly in Bactria. Herodotus does not mention the name in his account of the Persian religion; but it occurs in a fragment of the earlier writer Xanthus. Plato calls Zoroaster' the founder of the doctrine of the Magi.' Plutarch speaks of his intercourse with the Deity, and compares him to Lycurgus and Numa. Dio Chrysostom, a contemporary of Plutarch, declares that neither Homer nor Hesiod sang of the chariot and horses of Zeus so worthily as Zoroaster. As regards the period in which he lived, the most various statements are

found. Some ancient writers give him the impossible era of five thousand years before the Trojan war, and many think it not unlikely that he may have lived in the time of Moses. Others, again, assign to him much too recent a date, namely that of Darius Hystaspis, owing probably to the fact that the king of Bactria, spoken of in the Gâthas as a faithful ally of Zoroaster and a promoter of his reforms, bore a name corresponding to Hystaspes. Although the matter must remain an uncertainty, the most probable date is that of 1000 B.C., which would make the Iranian prophet a contemporary of David.

In the later books of the Zend-Avesta he is presented in a supernatural light, and invested with superhuman powers; but it is not so in the Gâthas, which alone claim to be the authentic utterance of Zoroaster. Here he is no mythical hero, but a man standing on solid ground of reality, carrying out his great and difficult enterprise by strong faith in God, and having to face not only all forms of outward opposition, and the unbelief and lukewarmness of his generation, but also the inward misgivings of his own heart as to the truth and final victory of his cause. At one time hope, at another despondency, now assured confidence, now doubt and despair, here a firm faith in the coming of the kingdom of heaven, there the thought of taking refuge by flight -such is the range of the emotions which find their immediate expression in these hymns. And the whole breathes such a genuine originality, all is psychologically so accurate and just, the earliest beginnings of the new religious movement, the childhood of a new community of faith, are reflected so naturally in them, that it is impossible for a moment to think of their composition in the later period of a priesthood whom we know to have been devoid of any historical sense, and incapable of reconstructing for themselves the spiritual conditions under which Zoroaster lived.

In the Gâthas, King Vishtaspa (later Gustasp), the Greek Hystaspes, stands clearly as a historical personage. It is to his power and good example that the prophet is indebted for much of his success. Among the grandees of the court, mention is made of two brothers, Frashaoshtra and Jamâspa, with whom Zoroaster was doubly connected, his wife Hrôvi being apparently their sister, and her daughter marrying a son of Jamâspa.

In one of the later books of the Persians, Zoroaster is said to have been murdered at the altar by the savage Turanians at the storming of Balkh, the capital of Bactria.

The religion of Persia has been called by the various names of Dualism, Mazdeism, Magism, Zoroastrianism, or Fire-worship, according as its main tenet, or the name of its supreme god, or its priests, or its supposed founder, or its symbolic object of worship, has been most kept in view. The one chief peculiarity which distinguished it from other religions is the sharp antithesis between evil and good, even in each individual object of thought; in the invisible and the visible; in the abstract powers and tendencies, as well as in the various created things. It is a matter of dispute how far Zoroaster himself conceived of two hostile powers, existing independently of each other and in eternal conflict. Only in later writings is the evil principle thus clearly personified. The system of Zoroaster is rather to be described as a philosophical dualism, akin to that of Hegel. With a firm belief in one supreme God he combined a metaphysical doctrine of the inevitable existence of evil as the complement of good. There are two primeval causes, described as the good mind and the bad mind. To the former belong all good, true, and perfect things; to the latter all that is delusive, wicked, and bad. They are inseparable as day and night, and though opposite in spirit, are indispensable for the preservation of creation. The one is symbolised by the bright flame of fire, the other by the wood converted into charcoal. Day and life are emblems of the one, night and death of the other. Later on, these original causes or tendencies became personified as rival powers, each trying to overcome and destroy the other. The point and meaning of the whole doctrine is that a good God cannot be responsible for permanent evil; that imperfection and suffering are original and inherent in the nature of things, and permanently so. A final victory of good is indeed dimly anticipated, and a swallowing up of sin and sorrow in ultimate happiness; but any definite teaching of this belongs rather to a later period than that of Zoroaster.

The religion of Persia has some leading elements in common with that of the Indian Rishis, that is, with the religion of the Aryan forefathers of both peoples. There were two general ideas at the root of this: first, that there is a law in nature, and secondly, that there is a war in nature.

There is a law in nature because everything goes on in a constant and mighty order. Days after days, seasons after seasons come and come again; there is a marvellous friendship between the sun and the moon; the dawn has never missed its