exalt thee, rejoicing before the feet of their begetter; they cry out, Welcome to thee, father of the fathers of all the gods, who raises the heavens, who fixes the earth. Maker of beings, creator of existences, sovereign of life, health and strength, chief of the gods, we worship thy spirit who alone hast made us; we whom thou hast made (thank thee) that thou hast given us birth; we give to thee praises on account of thy abiding in

us.

"Hail to thee, maker of all beings, Lord of law, father of the gods; maker of men, creator of beasts; Lord of grains, making food for the beast of the field..... The One alone without a second. . . . . King alone, single among the gods; of many names, unknown is their number."

Another hymn begins: "I come to thee, O Lord of the gods, who hast existed from the beginning, eternal God, who hast made all things that are. Thy name be my protection; prolong my term of life to a good age; may my son be in my place (after me); may my dignity remain with him (and his) for ever, as is done to the righteous, who is glorious in the house of his Lord."

And it is with reference to Amon that we most frequently find evidence of the devotion of the people. Thus the prayer of Rameses II. when in danger:

"Who then art thou, O my father Amon? Doth a father forget his son? Surely a wretched lot awaiteth him who opposes thy will; but blessed is he who

knoweth thee, for thy deeds proceed from a heart full of love. I call upon thee, O my father Amon! behold me in the midst of many peoples, unknown to me; all nations are united against me, and I am alone; no other is with me. My many soldiers have abandoned me, none of my horsemen hath looked towards me; and when I called them, none hath listened to my voice. But I believe that Amon is worth more to me than a million of soldiers, than a hundred thousand horsemen and ten thousands of brothers and sons, even were they all gathered together. The work of many men is nought; Amon will prevail over them."

The same confidence is expressed by humbler men in poems contained in papyri of the British Museum.

"Oh! Amon, lend thine ear to him who is alone before the tribunal; he is poor (and not) rich. The court oppresses him; silver and gold for the clerks of the books, garments for the servants. There is no other Amon, acting as a judge to deliver one from his misery when the poor man is before the tribunal."

"I cry, the beginning of wisdom is the cry of Amon, the rudder of (truth). Thou art he that giveth bread to him who has none, that sustaineth the servant of his house. Let no prince be my defender in all my troubles. Let not my memorial be placed under the power of any man who is in the house. . . . . My Lord is my defender. I know his power, to wit (he is) a strong defender. There is none mighty except him

alone.

Strong is Amon, knowing how to answer,

fulfilling the desire of him who cries to him."

Another hymn says: "Come to me, O thou Sun; Horus of the horizon, give me (help); thou art he that giveth (help); there is no help without thee, except thou givest it. . . . . Let my desires be fulfilled, let my heart be joyful, my inmost heart in gladness. Hear my vows, my humble supplications every day, my adorations by night..... O Horus of the horizon, there is no other besides like him, protector of millions, deliverer of hundreds of thousands, the defender of him that calls to him. . . . . Reproach me not with my many sins."

It is remarkable that a religious reformation at the end of the 18th dynasty in behalf of one god, spent its special wrath upon the name of Amon. The king whose title would under ordinary circumstances have been Amenhotep IV., set up the worship of a single god whose symbol was the sun-disk; he caused the names other gods, particularly that of Amon, to be hammered out of inscriptions even when it only occurred in proper names, as in his own, which he changed into Chut en Aten, "Glory of the Sun-disk." And as Thebes was the great seat of the worship of Amon, he abandoned it and tried to set up another capital. His reformation lasted but a short time, his own immediate family having abandoned it after his death. All his monuments were destroyed by his successors, yet

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several hymns belonging to this short-lived phase of religion have escaped destruction. One of them says:

"The whole land of Egypt and all people repeat all thy names at thy rising, to magnify thy rising in like manner as thy setting. Thou, O God, who in truth art the living one, standest before the Two Eyes. Thou art he which createst what never was, which formest everything, which art in all things: we also have come into being through the word of thy mouth."

Another says: "Thou living God! there is none other beside thee! Thou givest health to the eyes by thy beams. Creator of all beings. Thou goest up on the eastern horizon of heaven to dispense life to all that thou hast created: to man, to four-footed beasts, birds, and all manner of creeping things on the earth where they live. . . . . Grant to thy son who loves thee, life in truth. . . . that he may live united with thee in eternity."

The language of these hymns and prayers is exactly similar to that of ordinary Egyptian orthodoxy, and there is nothing heterodox in the symbol itself; the heresy consisted in refusing worship to all the other gods.

Pantheism.

But the magnificent predicates of the one and only God, however recognized by Egyptian orthodoxy, never in fact led to actual Monotheism. They stopped short

in Pantheism—namely, in the doctrine that "all individual things are nothing but modifications, affections, of the One and All, the eternal and infinite Godworld; that there is but one universal force in nature in different forms, in itself eternal and unchangeable."

This doctrine is perhaps most clearly expressed in a hymn upon the walls of the temple in the oasis of ElKhargeh:

.

"The gods salute his royal majesty as their Lord, who revealeth himself in all that is, and hath names in everything, from mountain to stream. That which persisteth in all things is Amon. This lordly god was from the very beginning. He is Ptah, the greatest of the gods. Thy secret is in the depths of the secret waters and unknown. Thou hast come on the road, thou hast given light in the path, thou hast overcome all difficulties in thy mysterious form. Each god has assumed thy aspect; without shape is their type compared to thy form. To thee, all things that are give praise when thou returnest to the nether world at even. Thou raisest up Osiris by the radiance of thy beams. To thee, those give praise who lie in their tombs, . . . . and the damned rise up in their abodes. . . . . Thou art the King, thine is the kingdom of heaven, and the earth is at thy will. in thine hand, and men are at thy feet. What god is like to thee? Thou hast made the double world, as Ptah. Thou hast placed thy throne in the life of the

The gods are