the Science of Language, delivered nearly
twenty years ago by Prof. Max Mueller, have, I trust, made us
fully understand how, among the _Indo-European_ races, the
names of the _Sun_, of _Sunrise_ and _Sunset_, and of other
such phenomena, come to be talked of and considered as
_personages_, of whom wondrous legends have been told.
_Egyptian_ mythology not merely admits, but imperatively
_demands, the same explanation_. And this becomes the more
evident when we consider the question how these mythical
personages came to be invested with the attributes of divinity
by men who, like the Egyptians, had so lively a sense of the
divine."

Kenrick, in his "History of Egypt," says:

"We have abundant evidence that the Egyptian theology had its
origin in the personification of the powers of nature, under
male and female attributes, and that this conception took a
sensible form, such as the mental state of the people
required, by the identification of these powers with the
elements and the heavenly bodies, fire, earth, water, the sun
and moon, and the Nile. Such appears _everywhere_ to be the
origin of the objective form of polytheism; and it is equally
evident among the nations most closely allied to the Egyptians
by position and general character--the Phenicians, the
Babylonians, and in remote connection, the Indians on the one
side and the Greeks on the other."

The gods and goddesses of the ancient PERSIANS were also
personifications of the Sun, Moon, Stars, the elements, &c.

_Ormuzd_, "The King of Light," was god of the _Firmament_, and the
"Principle of Goodness" and of Truth. He was called "The Eternal Source
of Sunshine and Light," "The Centre of all that exists," "The First-born
of the Eternal One," "The Creator," "The Sovereign Intelligence," "The
All-seeing," "The Just Judge." He was described as "sitting on the
throne of the good and the perfect, in regions of pure light," crowned
with rays, and with a ring on his finger--a circle being an emblem of
infinity; sometimes as a venerable, majestic man, seated on a Bull,
their emblem of creation.

"_Mithras the Mediator_" was the god-Sun. Their most splendid
ceremonials were in honor of Mithras. They kept his birth-day, with many
rejoicings, on the twenty-fifth of December, when the Sun perceptibly
begins to return northward, after his long winter jour