various countries of the globe are identical, or have the same
foundation, it is probable that a clue has already been obtained
whereby an outline of the religious history of the human family
from a period even as remote as the "first dispersion," or from a
time when one race comprehended the entire population of the
globe, maybe traced. Humboldt in his Researches observes: "In
every part of the globe, on the ridge of the Cordilleras as well
as in the Isle of Samothrace, in the Aegean Sea, fragments of
primitive languages are preserved in religious rites."

Regarding the identity of the fundamental ideas contained in the
various systems of religion, both past and present, Hargrave
Jennings, in referring to a parallel drawn by Sir William Jones,
between the deities of Meru and Olympus, observes:

"All our speculations tend to the same conclusions. One day it
is a discovery of cinerary vases, the next, it is etymological
research; yet again it is ethnological investigation, and the day
after, it is the publication of unsuspected tales from the Norse;
but all go to heap up proof of our consanguinity with the peoples
of history--and of an original general belief, we might add."

That the religious systems of India and Egypt were originally the
same, there can be at the present time no reasonable doubt. The
fact noted by various writers, of the British Sepoys, who, on
their overland route from India, upon beholding the ruins of
Dendera, prostrated themselves before the remains of the ancient
temples and offered adoration to them, proves the identity of
Indian and Egyptian deities. These foreign devotees, being asked
to explain the reason of their strange conduct declared that they