"Yet a little further, O my brethren, a little further, before I
come to myself. What we go to will seem all the holier of comparison
with what is and has been. The records show that Mizraim found the
Nile in possession of the Ethiopians, who were spread thence through
the African desert; a people of rich, fantastic genius, wholly given
to the worship of nature. The Poetic Persian sacrificed to the sun,
as the completest image of Ormuzd, his God; the devout children of
the far East carved their deities out of wood and ivory; but the
Ethiopian, without writing, without books, without mechanical
faculty of any kind, quieted his soul by the worship of animals,
birds, and insects, holding the cat sacred to Re, the bull to
Isis, the beetle to Pthah. A long struggle against their rude
faith ended in its adoption as the religion of the new empire.
Then rose the mighty monuments that cumber the river-bank and the
desert--obelisk, labyrinth, pyramid, and tomb of king, blent with
tomb of crocodile. Into such deep debasement, O brethren, the sons
of the Aryan fell!"

Here, for the first time, the calmness of the Egyptian forsook
him: though his countenance remained impassive, his voice gave
way.

"Do not too much despise my countrymen," he began again. "They did
not all forget God. I said awhile ago, you may remember, that to
papyri we intrusted all the secrets of our religion except one;
of that I will now tell you. We had as king once a certain
Pharaoh, who lent himself to all manner of changes and additions.
To establish the new system, he strove to drive the old entirely
out of mind. The Hebrews then dwelt with us as slaves. They clung