and engraving of precious stones, with carpentry, byssus-weaving, and pottery (1 Chr. iv. 14, 21, 23), with fishing, gardening (Num. xi. 5), and artificial irrigation (Deut. xi. 10)[52]. On the other hand, they could not fail to become acquainted with forms of religious worship hitherto utterly unknown to them. Now, for the first time, could they witness the gorgeous and mysterious ceremonies that attended the worship of Ra, the “Sun-God,” or of Isis and Osiris. Now, for the first time, they might behold the incense burnt three times every day[53], and the solemn sacrifice offered once a month to the sacred black calf Mnevis at On (_Heliopolis_), or to his rival the bull Apis at Memphis. Now they saw, as they could scarcely have seen elsewhere, the adoration of _the creature rather than the Creator_ carried to its furthest point, and divine honours paid not only to the mighty Pharaoh, the Child, the representative of the Sun-God, but to almost everything _in the heaven above, and the earth beneath, and the waters under the earth_, to the crocodile and the hawk, the cat and the dog, the hippopotamus and the serpent. That the simple patriarchal faith of the descendants of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob would suffer from contact with such diverse forms of idolatry might naturally be expected. The worship of the sacred calf exercised over them a peculiar fascination. _Your fathers worshipped other gods in Egypt_, says Joshua afterwards (Josh. xxiv. 14), _they forsook not the idols of Egypt_, is the accusation of Ezekiel (Ezek. xx. 7, 8; xxiii. 3).