ized conceptions of sun-worship had already been formed.

We have seen that Netpe, the Goddess of Light, or Heavenly Wisdom,
conferred spiritual life on all who would accept it. The Great Mother of
the Gods in India was not only the source whence all blessings flow, but
she was the Beginning and the End of all things.

Of "Aditi, the boundless, the yonder, the beyond all and everything,"
Max Muller says that in later times she "may have become identified with
the sky, also with the earth, but originally she was far beyond the sky
and the earth."(24) The same writer quotes the following, also from a
hymn of the Rig-Veda:

24) Origin and Growth of Religion, p. 221.

"O Mitra and Varuna, you mount your chariot which, at the dawning of
the dawn is golden-colored and has iron poles at the setting of the sun;
from thence you see Aditi and Diti--that is, what is yonder and what is
here, what is infinite and what is finite, what is mortal and what is
immortal."(25)

25) Ibid.

Aditi is the Great She that Is, the Everlasting. Muller refers to the
fact that another Hindoo poet "speaks of the dawn as the face of Aditi;
thus indicating that Aditi is here not the dawn itself, but something
beyond the dawn." This Goddess, who is designated as the "Oldest," is
implored "not only to drive away darkness and enemies that lurk in
the dark, but likewise to deliver man from any sin which he may have
committed." "May Aditi by day protect our cattle, may she, who never
deceives, protect us from evil."

In the Egyptian as in the Indian and Hebrew religions, the two
generating principles throughout Nature represent the Infinite, the
Holy of Holies, the Elohim or Aleim--the Ieue. Within the records of
the earliest religions of Ethiopia or Arabia, Chaldea, Assyria, and
Babylonia, is revealed the same monad principle in the Deity. This monad
conception, or dual unity, this God of Light and Life, or of Wisdom and
generative force, is the same source whence all mythologies have sprung,
and, as has been stated, among all peoples the fact is observed that
the religious idea has followed substantially the same course of
development, or growth. Within the sacred writings of the Hindoos there
is but one Almighty Power, usually denominated as Brahm or Brahme--Om or
Aum. This word in India was regarded with the same degree of veneration
as was the sacred Ieue of the Jews. In later ages, the fact is being
proved that this God, into