Having turned from the worship of Jehovah to the worship of man, then bird, and beast, and reptile, we find associated with worship the grossest forms of licentiousness. This is stated by Paul in the first chapter of Romans. The thought which must be borne in mind is that man turns from God and worships himself. He can conceive of no power higher than his own mind, no form more lofty than his own. His first idol is the human form, male or female. He endows this with human passions, for he knows no heart but his own. By beholding he becomes changed into the same passionate creature; a beast becomes the personification of his deity, and the sacred bull his god. Everything about the worship is gross, and birds, crocodiles, and all sorts of reptiles become objects of worship. This is Egypt. This, in fact, pictures the final worship in any country which turns from Christ and places faith in man. There are a variety of forms in worship, as there are a variety of complexions in the men of different countries; but it is one and the same plan throughout, resting upon one system of education, producing the same results, whether traced in the proud Babylonish court, the loathsome filth of Egypt, Greece with its intellectual pride and culture, in Roman law, or in the more modern European countries. Paganism is the green-eyed monster, crouching on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, whose body follows the course of the Nile, whose paws reach both east and west, and whose breath has poisoned the atmosphere of all Europe. Into those eyes men have gazed expecting to find wisdom. It was but the glare of the demon, as the tiger’s gaze at night. [Sidenote: Egyptian religion and education] For Egypt itself, it blotted out all individual rights, placing the masses as a common herd writhing in superstition under the hands of a tyrannical king and a scheming priesthood. It was indeed “an iron furnace,” as God had called it, and as Israel had found by sad experience. It was tyranny in government; it was still more bitter tyranny in education and religion. As well might one strive to move the pyramids, or get words from the silent sphinx, as to hope to change the life in Egypt by means of anything presented in Egypt. [Sidenote: Cultivation of the senses]