19　A Surprise Party

When I was a boy I was always told,and you have probably been told the same thing：“You can have no dessert until you have eaten your dinner.”

No matter whether I was hungry or not，“No dinner,no dessert.”This was a rule that my father said was“like the laws of the Medes and Persians”.

I didn't know then who the Medes and Persians were,but I know now that they were two Indo-European peoples living next to Babylon—you remember Nebuchadnezzar had married a Median woman—and that they were governed by laws,which were fixed so hard and fast and were so unchangeable,that we still speak of any such thing that does not change as like“the laws of the Medes and Persians”.

The Medes and the Persians had a religion,which was neither like that of the Jews nor like that of the Babylonians. It had been started by a Persian named Zoroaster,who was a wise man like Solomon.Zoroaster went about among the people,teaching them wise sayings and hymns.These wise sayings have been gathered into a book.Zoroaster taught that there were two great spirits in the world,the Good Spirit and the Bad Spirit.

The Good Spirit,he said was Light,and the Bad Spirit Darkness.The Good or Light he