ng one
had an immediate effect on the other. The gods dispensed happiness,
health, and vigour;* to those who made them large offerings and
instituted pious foundations, they lent their own weapons, and inspired
them with needful strength to overcome their enemies. They even came
down to assist in battle, and every great encounter of armies involved
an invisible struggle among the immortals. The gods of the side which
was victorious shared with it in the triumph, and received a tithe of
the spoil as the price of their help; the gods of the vanquished were
so much the poorer, their priests and their statues were reduced
to slavery, and the destruction of their people entailed their own
downfall.

* I may here remind my readers of the numberless bas-reliefs
and stelae on which the king is represented as making an
offering to a god, who replies in some such formula as the
following: "I give thee health and strength;" or, "I give
thee joy and life for millions of years."

It was, therefore, to the special interest of every one in Egypt, from
the Pharaoh to the humblest of his vassals, to maintain the good will
and power of the gods, so that their protection might be effectively
ensured in the hour of danger. Pains were taken to embellish their
temples with obelisks, colossi, altars, and bas-reliefs; new buildings
were added to the old; the parts threatened with ruin were restored or
entirely rebuilt; daily gifts were brought of every kind--animals which
were sacrificed on the spot, bread, flowers, fruit, drinks, as well
as perfumes, stuffs, vases, jewels, bricks or bars of gold, silver,
lapis-lazuli, which were all heaped up in the treasury within the
recesses of the crypts.* If a dignitary of high rank wished to
perpetuate the remembrance of his honours or his services, and at the
same time to procure for his double the benefit of endless prayers and
sacrifices, he placed "by special permission"** a statue of himself on a
votive stele in the part of the temple reserved for this purpose,--in
a courtyard, chamber, encircling passage, as at Karnak,*** or on
the staircase of Osiris as in that leading up to the terrace in the
sanctuary of Abydos; he then sealed a formal agreement with the priests,
by which the latter engaged to perform a service in his name, in front
of this commemorative monument, a stated number of times in the year, on
the days fixed by universal observance or by local custom.