The idol of Serapis was of such vast size that it reached from one side of the temple to the other. It was adorned with jewels, and was covered with plates of gold and silver; and its worshippers believed that, if it were hurt in any way, heaven and earth would go to wreck. So when a soldier mounted a ladder, and raised his axe against it, the heathens who stood by were in great terror, and even some of the Christians could not help feeling a little uneasiness as to what might follow. But the stout soldier first made a blow which struck off one of the idol's cheeks, and then dashed his axe into one of his knees. Serapis, however, bore all this quietly, and the bystanders began to draw their breath more freely. The soldier worked away manfully, and, after a while, the huge head of the idol came crashing down, when a swarm of rats, which had long made their home in it, rushed forth, and scampered off in all directions. Even the heathens who were in the crowd, on seeing this, began to laugh at their god. The idol was demolished, and the pieces of it were carried into the circus, where a bonfire was made of them; and, in examining the temple, a number of tricks by which the priests had deceived the people were found out, so that many heathens were converted in consequence of having thus seen the vanity of their old religion, and the falsehood of the means by which it was kept up. Egypt, as you perhaps know, does not depend on rain for its crops, but on the rising of the river Nile, which floods the country at a certain season; and the heathens had long said that the Christians were afraid to destroy the idols of Egypt, lest the gods should punish them by not allowing the water to rise. After the destruction of Serapis, the usual time for the rising of the river came, but there were no signs of it; and the heathens began to be in great delight, and to boast that their gods were going to take vengeance. Some weak Christians, too, began to think that there might be some truth in this, and sent to ask the emperor what should be done. "Better," he said, "that the Nile should not rise at all, than that we should buy the fruitfulness of Egypt by idolatry!" After a while the Nile began to swell; it soon mounted above the usual height of its flood, and the Pagans were now in hopes that Serapis was about to avenge himself by such a deluge as would punish the Christians for the destruction of the idol; but they were again disappointed by seeing the waters sink down to their proper level. The emperor's orders were executed by the destruction of the Egyptian temples and their idols. But we are told that the bishop of Alexandria saved one image as a curiosity, and lest people should afterwards deny that their forefathers had ever been so foolish as to worship such things. Some say that this image was a figure of Jupiter, the chief of the heathen gods; others say that it was the figure of a monkey; for even monkeys were worshipped by the Egyptians!