“This study of her secret hours became still more dear to her, from the peril with which, at that period, it was attended, and the necessity she was under of concealing from those around her the precious light that had been kindled in her heart. Too timid to encounter the fierce persecution, which awaited all who were suspected of a leaning to Christianity, she continued to officiate in the pomps and ceremonies of the Temple;—though, often, with such remorse of soul, that she would pause, in the midst of the rites, and pray inwardly to God, that he would forgive this profanation of his Spirit. “In the mean time her daughter, the young Alethe, grew up still lovelier than herself, and added, every hour, to her happiness and her fears. When arrived at a sufficient age, she was taught, like the other children of the priestesses, to take a share in the service and ceremonies of the shrines. The duty of some of these young servitors was to look after the flowers for the altar;—of others, to take care that the sacred vases were filled every day with fresh water from the Nile. The task of some was to preserve, in perfect polish, those silver images of the moon which the priests carried in processions; while others were, as we have seen, employed in feeding the consecrated animals, and in keeping their plumes and scales bright, for the admiring eyes of their worshippers. “The office allotted to Alethe—the most honourable of these minor ministries—was to wait upon the sacred birds of the Moon, to feed them with those eggs from the Nile which they loved, and provide for their use that purest water, which alone these delicate birds will touch. This employment was the delight of her childish hours; and that ibis, which Alciphron (the Epicurean) saw her dance round in the Temple, was her favourite, of all the sacred flock, and had been daily fondled and fed by her from infancy. “Music, as being one of the chief spells of this enchanted region, was an accomplishment required of all its ministrants; and the harp, the lyre, and the sacred flute, sounded nowhere so sweetly as that through these subterranean gardens. The chief object, indeed, in the education of the youth of the Temple, was to fit them, by every grace of art and nature, to give effect to the illusion of those shows and phantasms, in which the whole charm and secret of Initiation lay. “Among the means employed to support the old system of superstition, against the infidelity and, still more, the new Faith that menaced it, was an increased display of splendour and marvels in those Mysteries for which Egypt has so long been celebrated. Of these ceremonies so many imitations had, under various names, been multiplied through Europe, that the parent superstition ran a risk of being eclipsed by its progeny; and, in order still to retain their rank of the first Priesthood in the world, those of Egypt found it necessary to continue still the best impostors.