d, as Mr. Cooper has well observed, the mixed multitude in
Alexandria under the Caesars, as it had done the primitive Egyptians
under the oldest Pharaohs. It extended over a space of more than three
thousand years. During all that long period the obelisk was "the
emblem at once of the vivifying power of the sun and of the divine
nature of the king, a witness for the divine claim of the sun to be
worshipped, and of the right divine of the king to rule." Where is
there in all the world, in its most ancient cities, in its loneliest
deserts, any class of objects which has been held continuously sacred
for so long a time? The description of the sun itself by Ossian
applies almost equally well to his worship as thus represented.

Obelisks as symbols of the sun and of the creative power of nature,
were not confined to Egypt. They belonged to the mythology of all
ancient nations. There are modifications of them in India, in
prehistoric America, and among the archaeological remains of our own
country. They were common objects in connection with the Assyrian,
Persian and Phoenician religions. And it has been conjectured with
much plausibility that the image of gold, whose height was threescore
cubits, and the breadth six, the usual proportions of an obelisk,
which Nebuchadnezzar set up in the plain of Dura, in the province of
Babylon, and commanded Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego to adore, was
in reality an obelisk after the Egyptian pattern. Such an obelisk was
often gilded, and was associated with the worship of the king as its
material purpose, and with the creation and origin of life as its
symbolic meaning. And if this was the case, there was an unusual
aggravation in this idolatry; for the Egyptian obelisks themselves
were never worshipped, but were always regarded as the signs of the
higher powers whose glory they expressed.

The question is naturally asked, Where were the obelisks originally
placed? At the present day we find those of them that remain in Egypt,
solitary objects without anything near them, and those that have been
carried to other lands have been set up in great open squares, or on
river embankments in the heart of the largest cities. Fortunately,
there is no doubt at all on this point. They stood in pairs at the
doors of the great temples, one on each side, where they served the
same purpose which the campanile of the Italian church or the spire of
a cathedral serves at the present day. Indeed, architec