The religion which this boy, who now called himself Akhnaton, “The Glory of Aton,” taught was by no means the simple worship of the sun.  It was, without question, the most enlightened religion which the world at that time had ever known.  The young priest-king called upon mankind to worship the unknown power which is behind the sun, that power of which the brilliant sun was the visible symbol, and which might be discerned in the fertilising warmth of the sun’s rays.  Aton was originally the actual sun’s disk; but Akhnaton called his god “Heat which is in Aton,” and thus drew the eyes of his followers towards a Force far more intangible and distant than the dazzling orb to which they bowed down.  Akhnaton’s god was the force which created the sun, the something which penetrated to this earth in the sun’s heat and caused the vegetation to grow.

Amon-Ra and the gods of Egypt were for the most part but deified mortals, endued with monstrous, though limited, power, and still having around them traditions of exaggerated human deeds.  Others had their origin in natural phenomena—­the wind, the Nile, the sky, and so on.  All were terrific, revengeful, and able to be moved by human emotions.  But Akhnaton’s god was the intangible and yet ever-present Father of mankind, made manifest in sunshine.  The youthful High Priest called upon his followers to search for their god not in the confusion of battle or behind the smoke of human sacrifices, but amidst the flowers and trees, amidst the wild duck and the fishes.  He preached an enlightened nature-study; he was perhaps the first apostle of the Simple Life.  He strove to break down conventional religion, and ceaselessly urged his people to worship in Truth, simply, without an excess of ceremonial.  While the elder gods had been manifest in natural convulsions and in the more awful incidents of life, Akhnaton’s kindly god could be seen in the chick which broke out of its egg, in the wind which filled the sails of the ships, in the fish which leapt from the water.  Aton was the joy which caused the young sheep “to dance upon their feet,” and the birds to “flutter in their marshes.”  He was the god of the simple pleasures of life, and Truth was the watchword of his followers.

It may be understood how the boy longed for truth in all things when one remembers the thousand exaggerated conventions of Egyptian life at this time.  Court etiquette had developed to a degree which rendered life to the Pharaoh an endless round of unnatural poses of mind and body.  In the preaching of his doctrine of truth and simplicity, Akhnaton did not fail to call upon his subjects to regard their Pharaoh not as a god but as a man.  It was usual for the Pharaoh to keep aloof from his people:  Akhnaton was to be found in their midst.  The Court demanded that their lord should drive in solitary state through the city:  Akhnaton sat in his chariot with his wife and children, and allowed the artist to represent him joking with his little daughter, who has mischievously poked the horses with a stick.  In representing the Pharaoh, the artist was expected to draw him in some conventional attitude of dignity:  Akhnaton insisted upon being shown in all manner of natural attitudes—­now leaning languidly upon a staff, now nursing his children, now caressing his wife.