Who can estimate the power of a single life?  Of Zoroaster we do not know the true name, nor when he lived, nor where he lived, nor exactly what he taught.  But the current from that fountain has flowed on for thousands of years, fertilizing the souls of men out of its hidden sources, and helping on, by the decree of Divine Providence, the ultimate triumph of good over evil, right over wrong.

Chapter VI.

The Gods of Egypt.

Sec. 1.  Antiquity and Extent of Egyptian Civilization. 
Sec. 2.  Religious Character of the Egyptians.  Their Ritual. 
Sec. 3.  Theology of Egypt.  Sources of our Knowledge concerning it. 
Sec. 4.  Central Idea of Egyptian Theology and Religion.  Animal Worship. 
Sec. 5.  Sources of Egyptian Theology.  Age of the Empire and Affinities of
the Race. 
Sec. 6.  The Three Orders of Gods. 
Sec. 7.  Influence of Egypt upon Judaism and Christianity.

Sec. 1.  Antiquity and Extent of Egyptian Civilization.

The ancient Egyptians have been the object of interest to the civilized world in all ages; for Egypt was the favorite home of civilization, science, and religion.  It was a little country, the gift of the river Nile; a little strip of land not more than seven miles wide, but containing innumerable cities and towns, and in ancient times supporting seven millions of inhabitants.  Renowned for its discoveries in art and science, it was the world’s university; where Moses and Pythagoras, Herodotus and Plato, all philosophers and lawgivers, went to school.  The Egyptians knew the length of the year and the form of the earth; they could calculate eclipses of the sun and moon; were partially acquainted with geometry, music, chemistry, the arts of design, medicine, anatomy, architecture, agriculture, and mining.  In architecture, in the qualities of grandeur and massive proportions, they are yet to be surpassed.  The largest buildings elsewhere erected by man are smaller than their pyramids; which are also the oldest human works still remaining, the beauty of whose masonry, says Wilkinson, has not been surpassed in any subsequent age.  An obelisk of a single stone now standing in Egypt weighs three hundred tons, and a colossus of Ramses II. nearly nine hundred.  But Herodotus describes a monolithic temple, which must have weighed five thousand tons, and which was carried the whole length of the Nile, to the Delta.  And there is a roof of a doorway at Karnak, covered with sandstone blocks forty feet long.  Sculpture and bas-reliefs three thousand five hundred years old, where the granite is cut with exquisite delicacy, are still to be seen throughout Egypt.  Many inventions, hitherto supposed to be modern, such as glass, mosaics, false gems, glazed tiles, enamelling, were well known to the Egyptians.  But, for us, the most fortunate circumstance in their taste was their fondness for writing.  No nation