Egyptian regarded them benignantly, then went on, saying,
"Religion is merely the law which binds man to his Creator:
in purity it has but these elements--God, the Soul, and their
Mutual Recognition; out of which, when put in practise,
spring Worship, Love, and Reward. This law, like all others of
divine origin--like that, for instance, which binds the earth
to the sun--was perfected in the beginning by its Author. Such,
my brothers, was the religion of the first family; such was the
religion of our father Mizraim, who could not have been blind to
the formula of creation, nowhere so discernible as in the first
faith and the earliest worship. Perfection is God; simplicity is
perfection. The curse of curses is that men will not let truths
like these alone."

He stopped, as if considering in what manner to continue.

"Many nations have loved the sweet waters of the Nile," he said
next; "the Ethiopian, the Pali-Putra, the Hebrew, the Assyrian,
the Persian, the Macedonian, the Roman--of whom all, except the
Hebrew, have at one time or another been its masters. So much
coming and going of peoples corrupted the old Mizraimic faith.
The Valley of Palms became a Valley of Gods. The Supreme One was
divided into eight, each personating a creative principle in nature,
with Ammon-Re at the head. Then Isis and Osiris, and their circle,
representing water, fire, air, and other forces, were invented.
Still the multiplication went on until we had another order,
suggested by human qualities, such as strength, knowledge, love,
and the like."

"In all which there was the old folly!" cried the Greek,
impulsively. "Only the things out of reach remain as they
came to us."

The Egyptian bowed, and proceeded:

"Yet a little further, O my brethren, a little further, before I
come to myself. What we go to will seem all the holier of comparison
with what is and has been. The records show that Mizraim found the
Nile in possession of the Ethiopians, who were spread thence through
the African desert; a people of rich, fantastic genius, wholly given
to the worship of nature. The Poetic Persian sacrificed to the sun,
as the completest image of Ormuzd, his God; the devout children of
the far East carved their deities out of wood and ivory; but the
Ethiopian, without writing, without books, without mechanical
faculty of any kind, quieted his soul by the worship of animals,
birds, and insects, holding the cat sacred to Re, the bull to
Isis, the b