Le Page Renouf expresses his entire agreement with the "matured judgment" of Emmanuel Rouge: "The first characteristic of the Egyptian religion is the Unity of God most energetically expressed: God, One, Sole and Only--no others with Him.... the Only Being .... The belief in the Unity of the Supreme God and in His attributes as Creator and Lawgiver of man, whom He has endowed with an immortal soul, .... _these are the primitive notions,_ enchased in the midst of mythological superfetations accumulated in the centuries." Franz Lenormant reached the same conclusion. Elsewhere, Renouf says: "It is incontestably true, that the sublimer portions of the Egyptian religions are not the comparatively late result of a process of development. The sublimer portions are demonstrably ancient; and the last stage of the Egyptian religion .... was by far the grossest and most corrupt." (_"Religion of Ancient Egypt,"_ p. 95.) This opinion is supported by the testimony of the Egyptian inscriptions. In the very oldest inscriptions reference is had to a Supreme God and Lord of all, to whom no shrines were raised, whose abode was unknown, who was not graven in stone, while the Egptian [tr. note: sic] of a later day adored the crocodile, the ichneumon, serpents, bulls, cats, and ibises. The history of Hindu belief presents testimony of a still more startling nature. In the Vedas we find statements and prayers which are clear proof of an early Monotheism. Thus the IX book of the Rig Veda contains the following prayer. "Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? The one-born Lord of all that is; he established the heaven and sky; he is the one king of the breathing and awakening world; he through whom the heaven was established; he who measured out the light in the air--he who alone is God above all gods." Here the belief in one Supreme Being is clearly set forth. And yet this faith in one God in the course of time degenerated into a worship of 33,000 divinities--until Gautama the Buddha evolved a system that denied the very existence of God.