Edfu, in its solemn beauty, in its perfection of form, seems to me to pass into a region altogether beyond identification with the worship of any special deity, with particular attributes, perhaps with particular limitations; one who can be graven upon walls, and upon architraves and pillars painted in brilliant colors; one who can personally pursue a criminal, like some policeman in the street; even one who can rise upon the world in the visible glory of the sun. 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 is the temple of “the Hidden One.” It is not pagan; it is not Christian: it is a place in which to worship according to the dictates of your heart. [Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF EDFU] Edfu stands alone, not near any other temple, 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, it was completed only fifty-seven years before the birth of Christ. You know these facts about it, and you forget them, or at least you do not think of them. What does all that matter when you are alone in Edfu? Let the antiquarian go with his anxious nose almost touching the stone; let the Egyptologist peer through his glasses at hieroglyphs and puzzle out the meaning of cartouches: but let us wander at ease, and worship, and regard the exquisite form, and drink in the mystical spirit, of this very wonderful temple.