air of surprise and discomfiture.

It does not, however, help us much towards the true knowledge of a
people to scan their frames or study their facial angle, or even to
contemplate the outer aspect of their daily life. We want to know their
thoughts, their innermost feelings, their hopes, their fears--in a word,
their belief. Nothing tells the character of a people so much as their
religion; and we are only dealing superficially with the outward shows
of things until we get down to the root of their being, the conviction,
or convictions, held in the recesses of a people's heart. What, then,
was the Egyptian religion? What did they worship? What did they
reverence? What future did they look forward to?

Enter the huge courts of an Egyptian temple, or temple-palace, and you
will see portrayed upon its lofty walls row upon row of deities. Here
the king makes his offering to Ammon, Maut, Khons, Neith, Mentu, Shu,
Seb, Nut, Osiris, Set, Horus; there he pours a libation to Phthah,
Sekhet, Tum, Pasht, Anuka, Thoth, Anubis; elsewhere, it may be, he pays
his court to Sati, Khem, Isis, Nephthys, Athor, Harmachis, Nausaas, and
Nebhept. One monarch erects an altar to Satemi, Tum, Khepra, Shu,
Tefnut, Seb, Netpe, Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys, Horus, and Thoth,
mentioning on the same monument Phthah, Num, Sabak, Athor, Pasht, Mentu,
Neith, Anubis, Nishem, and Kartak. Another represents himself on a
similar object as offering adoration to Ammon, Khem, Phthah-Sokari, Seb,
Nut, Thoth, Khons, Osiris, Isis, Horus, Athor, Uat (Buto), Neith,
Sekhet, Anata, Nuneb, Nebhept, and Hapi. All these deities are
represented by distinct forms, and have distinct attributes. Nor do they
at all exhaust the Pantheon. One modern writer enumerates seventy-three
divinities, and gives their several names and forms. Another has a list
of sixty-three "_principal_ deities," and notes that there were "others