ram's head, is one of the highest of the gods, known
among the Greeks as Jupiter Ammon. The worship of Apis, the sacred bull of
Memphis, the representative of Osiris, was very important among the
Egyptian ceremonies. Plutarch says that he was a fair and beautiful image
of the soul of Osiris. He was a bull with black hair, a white spot on his
forehead, and some other special marks. He was kept at Memphis in a
splendid temple. His festival lasted seven days, when a great concourse of
people assembled. When he died his body was embalmed and buried with great
pomp, and the priests went in search of another Apis, who, when discovered
by the marks, was carried to Memphis, carefully fed and exercised, and
consulted as an oracle. The burial-place of the Apis bulls was, a few
years ago, discovered near Memphis. It consists of an arched gallery hewn
in the rock, two thousand feet long and twenty feet in height and breadth.
On each side is a series of recesses, each containing a large sarcophagus
of granite, fifteen by eight feet, in which the body of a sacred bull was
deposited. In 1852 thirty of these had been already found. Before this
tomb is a paved road with lions ranged on each side, and before this a
temple with a vestibule.

In different parts of Egypt different animals were held sacred. The animal
sacred in one place was not so regarded in another district. These sacred
animals were embalmed by the priests and buried, and the mummies of dogs,
wolves, birds, and crocodiles are found by thousands in the tombs. The
origin and motive of this worship is differently explained. It is certain
that animals were not worshipped in the same way as the great gods, but
were held sacred and treated with reverence as containing a divine
element. So, in the East, an insane person is accounted sacred, but is not
worshipped. So the Roman Catholics distinguish between Dulia and Latria,
between the worship of gods and reverence of saints. So, too, Protestants
consider the Bible a holy book and the Sabbath a holy day, but without
worshipping them. It is only just to make a similar distinction on behalf
of the Egyptians. The motives usually assigned for this worship--motives
of utility--seem no adequate explanation. "The Egyptians," says Wilkinson,
"may have deified some animals to insure their preservation, some to
prevent their unwholesome meat being used as food." But no religion was
ever established in this way. Man does not worship from uti