d to Mr. Sayce, in their
contributions to Bagster's "Records of the Past," the earliest
monumental history of Babylonia reveals two races, the Akkadian or
Urdu, a Turanian race, with an agglutinate language of the Finnish or
Tartar type, and the Sumir or Keen-gi, believed to be Shemitic. The
race of Akkad seems to have invented the cuneiform writing at a very
early period, and it no doubt represents the primitive Cushites of the
Bible, to whom is attributed the empire of Nimrod, whose first cities
were Babel and Erech and Akkad and Calneh. Very ancient inscriptions
of this early Chaldean or Cushite race exist, probably earlier than
the time of Abraham. That of king Urukh, who is called "a very ancient
king," on an inscription of Nabonadius, 555 B.C., represents himself
as building temples to several gods and goddesses, so that in his time
there was already a developed polytheism, unless, indeed, he was
himself the inventor or introducer of much of it. Yet one can gather
from the probably contemporary Creation and Deluge tablets translated
by Mr. Smith, that a Supreme God was still recognized, and that the
subordinate deities, though their worship was probably gaining in
importance, were still only local and created beings. Yet it was
undoubtedly from this embryo idolatry that Abraham dissented, and was
thus led to leave his native land.

In like manner, in the early Egyptian Hymn to Amen Ra, translated by
Mr. Goodwin, though we have the gods mentioned, they are inferior
beings, and not higher in position than the angels of the Old
Testament, while Ra himself is "Lord of Eternity, Maker Everlasting,"
and is praised as

"Chief creator of the whole earth,
Supporter of affairs above every god,
In whose goodness the gods rejoice."

Thus, although there can be little doubt that Ra was a sun-god, there
can be as little that he is the Il or El of the Shemitic peoples, and
that his worship represents that of the one God, the Creator. It seems
probable also that there was an esoteric doctrine of this kind among
the priests and the educated, however gross the polytheism of the
vulgar. In short, the state of things in Assyria and Egypt was not
dissimilar from that prevailing at this day in India, where learned
men may fall back upon the ancient Vedas, and maintain that their
religion is monotheistic, while the common people worship innumerable
gods. All this points to a primitive monotheism, just as the peculiar
fo