The Cat of Bubastes: A Tale of Ancient Egypt. Henty George Alfred

by his colleagues. They asserted that to allow others besides the higher priesthood to become aware of the deep mysteries of their religion would be attended with terrible consequences.

      In the first place, it would shake entirely the respect and reverence in which the priesthood were held, and would annihilate their influence. The temples would be deserted, and, losing the faith which they now so steadfastly held in the gods, people would soon cease to have any religion at all. “There are no people,” they urged, “on the face of the earth so moral, so contented, so happy, and so easily ruled as the Egyptians; but what would they be did you destroy all their beliefs, and launch them upon a sea of doubt and speculation! No longer would they look up to those who have so long been their guides and teachers, and whom they regard as possessing a knowledge and wisdom infinitely beyond theirs. They would accuse us of having deceived them, and in their blind fury destroy alike the gods and their ministers. The idea of such a thing is horrible.”

      Ameres was silenced, though not convinced. He felt, indeed, that there was much truth in the view they entertained of the matter, and that terrible consequences would almost certainly follow the discovery by the people that for thousands of years they had been led by the priests to worship as gods those who were no gods at all, and he saw that the evil which would arise from a general enlightenment of the people would outweigh any benefit that they could derive from the discovery. The system had, as his colleagues said, worked well; and the fact that the people worshiped as actual deities imaginary beings who were really but the representatives of the attributes of the infinite God, could not be said to have done them any actual harm. At any rate, he alone and unaided could do nothing. Only with the general consent of the higher priesthood could the circle of initiated be widened, and any movement on his part alone would simply bring upon himself disgrace and death. Therefore, after unburdening himself in a council composed only of the higher initiates, he held his peace and went on the quiet tenor of his way.

      Enlightened as he was, he felt that he did no wrong to preside at the sacrifices and take part in the services of the gods. He was worshiping not the animal-headed idols, but the attributes which they personified. He felt pity for the ignorant multitude who laid their offerings upon the shrine; and yet he felt that it would shatter their happiness instead of adding to it were they to know that the deity they worshiped was a myth. He allowed his wife and daughter to join with the priestesses in the service at the temple, and in his heart acknowledged that there was much in the contention of those who argued that the spread of the knowledge of the inner mysteries would not conduce to the happiness of all who received it. Indeed he himself would have shrunk from disturbing the minds of his wife and daughter by informing them that all their pious ministrations in the temple were offered to non-existent gods; that the sacred animals they tended were in no way more sacred than others, save that in them were recognized some shadow of the attributes of the unknown God.

      His eldest son was, he saw, not of a disposition to be troubled with the problems which gave him so much subject for thought and care. He would conduct the services consciously and well. He would bear a respectable part when, on his accession to the high-priesthood, he became one of the councilors of the monarch. He had common sense, but no imagination. The knowledge of the inmost mysteries would not disturb his mind in the slightest degree, and it was improbable that even a thought would ever cross his mind that the terrible deception practiced by the enlightened upon the whole people was anything but right and proper.

      Ameres saw, however, that Chebron was altogether differently constituted. He was very intelligent, and was possessed of an ardent thirst for knowledge of all kinds; but he had also his father’s habit of looking at matters from all points of view and of thinking for himself. The manner in which Ameres had himself superintended his studies and taught him to work with his understanding, and to convince himself that each rule and precept was true before proceeding to the next, had developed his thinking powers. Altogether, Ameres saw that the doubts which filled his own mind as to the honesty, or even expediency, of keeping the whole people in darkness and error would probably be felt with even greater force by Chebron.

      He had determined, therefore, that the lad should not work up through all the grades of the priesthood to the upper rank, but should, after rising high enough to fit himself for official employment, turn his attention to one or other of the great departments of state.

      CHAPTER V.

      IN LOWER EGYPT

      “I am going on a journey,” Ameres said to his son a few days after the return from the farm. “I shall take you with me, Chebron, for I am going to view the progress of a fresh canal that is being made on our estate in Goshen. The officer who is superintending it has doubts whether, when the sluices are opened, it will altogether fulfill its purpose, and I fear that some mistake must have been made in the levels. I have already taught you the theory of the work; it is well that you should gain some practical experience in it; for there is no more useful or honorable profession than that of carrying out works by which the floods of the Nile are conveyed to the thirsty soil.”

      “Thank you, father. I should like it greatly,” Chebron replied in a tone of delight, for he had never before been far south of Thebes. “And may Amuba go with us?”

      “Yes; I was thinking of taking him,” the high priest said. “Jethro can also go, for I take a retinue with me. Did I consult my own pleasure I would far rather travel without this state and ceremony; but as a functionary of state I must conform to the customs. And, indeed, even in Goshen it is as well always to travel in some sort of state. The people there are of a different race to ourselves. Although they have dwelt a long time in the land and conform to its customs, still they are notoriously a stubborn and obstinate people, and there is more trouble in getting the public works executed there than in any other part of the country.”

      “I have heard of them, father. They belong to the same race as the shepherd kings who were such bitter tyrants to Egypt. How is it that they stayed behind when the shepherds were driven out?”

      “They are of the same race, but they came not with them, and formed no part of their conquering armies. The shepherds, who, as you know, came from the land lying to the east of the Great Sea, had reigned here for a long time when this people came. They were relations of the Joseph who, as you have read in your history, was chief minister of Egypt.

      “He came here as a slave, and was certainly brought from the country whence our oppressors came. But they say that he was not of their race, but that his forefathers had come into the land from a country lying far to the east; but that I know not. Suffice it he gained the confidence of the king, became his minister, and ruled wisely as far as the king was concerned, though the people have little reason to bless his memory. In his days was a terrible famine, and they say he foretold its coming, and that his gods gave him warning of it. So vast granaries were constructed and filled to overflowing, and when the famine came and the people were starving the grain was served out, but in return the people had to give up their land. Thus the whole tenure of the land in the country was changed, and all became the property of the state, the people remaining as its tenants upon the land they formerly owned. Then it was that the state granted large tracts to the temples, and others to the military order, so that at present all tillers of land pay rent either to the king, the temples, or the military order.

      “Thus it is that the army can always be kept up in serviceable order, dwelling by its tens of thousands in the cities assigned to it. Thus it is that the royal treasury is always kept full, and the services of the temples maintained. The step has added to the power and dignity of the nation, and has benefited the cultivators themselves by enabling vast works of irrigation to be carried out – works that could never have been accomplished had the land been the property of innumerable small holders, each with his own petty interests.”

      “But you said, father, that it has not been for the good of the people.”

      “Nor has it in one respect, Chebron, for it has drawn a wide chasm between the aristocratic classes and the bulk of the people, who can never own land, and have no stimulus to exertion.”

      “But they are wholly ignorant, father. They are peasants, and nothing more.”

      “I think they might be something more, Chebron, under other circumstances. However, that is not the question we