damsels lamented, in their amorous ditties, the fate of Adonis,
it was only as a recollection, not as a reality. Again and again
had Persia changed her national faith. For the revelation of
Zoroaster she had substituted Dualism; then under new political
influences she had adopted Magianism. She had worshiped fire, and
kept her altars burning on mountain-tops. She had adored the sun.
When Alexander came, she was fast falling into pantheism.

On a country to which in its political extremity the indigenous
gods have been found unable to give any protection, a change of
faith is impending. The venerable divinities of Egypt, to whose
glory obelisks had been raised and temples dedicated, had again
and again submitted to the sword of a foreign conqueror. In the
land of the Pyramids, the Colossi, the Sphinx, the images of the
gods had ceased to represent living realities. They had ceased to
be objects of faith. Others of more recent birth were needful,
and Serapis confronted Osiris. In the shops and streets of
Alexandria there were thousands of Jews who had forgotten the God
that had made his habitation behind the veil of the temple.

Tradition, revelation, time, all had lost their influence. The
traditions of European mythology, the revelations of Asia, the
time-consecrated dogmas of Egypt, all had passed or were fast
passing away. And the Ptolemies recognized how ephemeral are
forms of faith.

But the Ptolemies also recognized that there is something more
durable than forms of faith, which, like the organic forms of
geological ages, once gone, are clean gone forever, and have no
restoration, no return. They recognized that within this world of