To me, Edfu must always
represent the world-worship of "the Hidden One"; not Amun, god of the
dead, fused with Ra, with Amsu, or with Khnum: but that other "Hidden
One," who is God of the happy hunting-ground of savages, with whom the
Buddhist strives to merge his strange serenity of soul; who is adored in
the "Holy Places" by the Moslem, and lifted mystically above the heads
of kneeling Catholics in cathedrals dim with incense, and merrily
praised with the banjo and the trumpet in the streets of black English
cities; who is asked for children by longing women, and for new dolls
by lisping babes; whom the atheist denies in the day, and fears in the
darkness of night; who is on the lips alike of priest and blasphemer,
and in the soul of all human life.
Edfu stands alone, not near any other temple. It is not pagan; it is not
Christian: it is a place in which to worship according to the dictates
of your heart.
Edfu stands alone on the bank of the Nile between Luxor and Assuan. It
is not very far from El-Kab, once the capital of Upper Egypt, and it is
about two thousand years old. The building of it took over one hundred
and eighty years, and it is the most perfectly preserved temple to-day
of all the antique world. It is huge and it is splendid. It has towers
one hundred and twelve feet high, a propylon two hundred and fifty-two
feet broad, and walls four hundred and fifty feet long. Begun in the
reign of Ptolemy III.
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