The Lesson Of The Obelisk.

writers , looking no further back in history than to the barbarians of our own day , have talked about serpent Avorship and fetish worship as early , the earliest form of human religions . This is pure fancy , without basis in history . The oldest religion of which we have any record outside the Bible is Egyptian , and that religion was the religion of Enoch and Noah and Abraham , the worship of one God . There is no dispute among Egyptologists . Monotheism was the

religion of young Egypt . Nor did the one Supreme God ever leave the Egyptian Pantheon , over ivhich he was always Lord . He ivas indeed known only to the most learned in the later ages , and the unity of all the deities as the mere developments of Him and His attributes Avas the mystery of the initiated . Nevertheless , he is as visibly recognised in Egyptian art as any deity whose statue has come clown

to us . The obelisk itself is a kind of Hieroglyph . Its scluptures , read by all the people , taught them to believe in Horns and the sun as givers of life and power . Thus on the obelisk erected b y Thothmes III ., and receiving additional sculptures from Rameses II ., we have several long legends , ascribing the power of thess monarchs to certain gods . The middle liues of the three perpendicular inscriptions on each siclc relate to Thothmes , the outer lines to Rameses .

On one side the middle line is translated freel y thus : " The Horus , powerfull bull , crowned in Western Thebes , lord of diadems , whose kingdom is set as the sun in heaven , the Setting Sun Lord of Heliopolis , caused him , Thothmes , to be born . The gods gave him a home beautiful as their oivn , foreseeing that he would found a dominion , like the sun , for ages . He ( is ) King of Upper ancl Lower Egypt , Meokheperra ( Thothmes ); beloved of the Setting Sun , the great God and his surrounding Gods , giver of all life , stability and power , like the sun for ever . " The line at tho left vends thus :

"The Horns , powerful bull , son of Kheper , King of Upper and Lower Egypt , sun-favored Usermara , the golden hawk , rich in years , greatest of the great , Rameses , beloved of Anion . He proceeded from the sun body , to take the crowns , to be sole lord , lord of the two countries sun-favored Usermara ( Rameses ) glory of Turn ( the setting sun ) like the sun . " The other inscriptions are of similar character . But while all , in mystic

terms , relate to gods known to the people , in mystic terms , the four converging lines of the obelisk itself were pointing heavenward , toAvard the residence of the one God of tbe E gyptian fathers ; and these lines were abruptly broken off , to signify that it ivas vain for human power to attempt to reach the spot where those converging lines Avould meet . This Avas the grand lesson of the obelisk . The same lesson is taught , less clearly , by modern church spires . It

is the most important feature , the whole of the monolith . Wherever an obelisk stood , at Heliopolis , at Karnak , at Luxor , in the Fayoom , it taught the same truth . And it is not the least value Avhich attaches to it in this youngest of countries that it is a monument of the oldest religion of our race , the worship of the one God Avhom Mariette-Bey , writing of the Egyptian religion , describes as " one only God , immortal , uncreated , invisible , and concealed in the inaccessible depths of His own being . He is the Creator of heaven and earth ; He has made everything which exists , and nothing was made without Him . " J S S

To this God the obelisk pointed to all who approached the gate of the temple . To Him the grand court and assembly place of the people was open , roofless , for He could not be inclosed in walls . No image of Him was made . Only the obelisk directed the gaze of the worshipper upward to His far-off abode . Thither human thought could go ; human art could not prevail to reach . The material could never be made to reach the immaterial . On the bank of the river of Asia the ancestors of the Egyptian had once essayed with brick to brid ge the chasm from earth to heaven . The wiser descendants reared the granite monolith to teach for ever the lesson learned at Babel .