Download Legends of ancient Egypt (1929) PDF book by Frank Henry Brooksbank





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Associated with the early faiths of all peoples are various legends that help us to understand how they grew and developed, how they came out of darkness into light. The story of the origin of our own race is rich in such traditions, and the myths of Greece and Rome are common knowledge. But in the Egyptian story, there is little to tell of the childhood stage of a people's development. Far as we can go back in their records, we always find Egypt in an advanced stage of civilization, with religion removed almost entirely beyond the stage of myth. The one great legend connected with their faith is the story of the sufferings of Isis and her search for Osiris, her spouse, and even this is probably allegory rather than myth.The faith professed by the Egyptians was as noble and sublime as any that the world has known. That it fell later into a confused belief in countless petty gods was due to priestcraft rather than to any fault in the faith itself. In all about them the Egyptians saw the hand of God in the rising 2f the Nile and the fertilizing soil; in bird and beast, in sun and moon, in sky and earth and sea. But no mere nature- worshippers were they. The different aspects of nature which attracted their curiosity or commanded their awe were but symbols of a Supreme God, who manifested himself in all his works, and who must need be honored by the gift of the best of their handiwork.