Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/160

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As for the young or, as he is called, the reformed Parsi, I doubt if he is a true Zoroastrian at all; he scorns everything that requires self-denial. It is often good to be independent, and I would not so much mind if the Parsi youth tried to live independently of any human religion, and at the same time to be an honest, useful man, desirous of leaving the world the better for his having lived in it. But it is not so with the average young Parsi. How could it be so, poor fellow, whilst he is in the transition period of his national existence, wavering and undecided at every stage of thought and of action? The Parsi youth's infidelity is directly and indirectly due to the Dustoors—the priestly class. The Dustoor is an hereditary functionary, and he thinks it his interest to keep the people grovelling in ignorance and superstition. In so doing the Dustoor, unconsciously perhaps to himself, remains ignorant and superstitious. I confess I bear the Dustoor no love. In revenge for the harm he has done to a great people, let me describe the worst of his class, now happily becoming extinct.