at they can see
and understand, to strive to please those whose statues and temples
they behold, to fear to draw upon themselves the vengeance of those
represented to them as destructive powers, than to worship an
inconceivable God, without form or shape, so mighty the imagination
cannot picture him, so beneficent, so all-providing, so equable and
serene that the human mind cannot grasp even a notion of him. Man is
material, and must worship the material in a form in which he thinks
he can comprehend it, and so he creates gods for himself with figures,
likenesses, passions, and feelings like those of the many animals he
sees around him.

"The Israelite maid whom we brought hither, and with whom I have
frequently conversed, tells me that her people before coming to this
land worshiped but one God like unto him of whom I have told you, save
that they belittled him by deeming that he was their own special God,
caring for them above all peoples of the earth; but in all other
respects he corresponded with the Almighty One whom we who have gained
glimpses of the truth which existed ere the Pantheon of Egypt came
into existence, worship in our hearts, and it seems to me as if this
little handful of men who came to Egypt hundreds of years ago were the
only people in the world who kept the worship of the one God clear and
undefiled."

Chebron and Amuba listened in awestruck silence to the words of the
high priest. Amuba's face lit up with pleasure and enthusiasm as he
listened to words which seemed to clear away all the doubts and
difficulties that had been in his mind. To Chebron the revelation,
though a joyful one, came as a great shock. His mind, too, had long
been unsatisfied. He had wondered and questioned, but the destruction
at one blow of all the teachings of his youth, of all he had held
sacred, came at first as a terrible shock. Neither spoke when the
priest concluded, and after a pause he resumed.

"You will understand, Chebron, that what I have told you is not in its
entirety held even by the most enlightened, and that the sketch I have
given you of the formation of all religions is, in fact, the idea
which I myself have formed as the result of all I have learned, both
as one initiated in all the learning of the ancient Egyptians and from
my own studies both of our oldest records and the traditions of all
the peoples with whom Egypt has come in contact. But that all our gods
merely represent attributes of the one