"You have heard, my friend," he replied, "my views of these mysteries of faith: that I look, through all material and vicarious representatives, onward and upward to the Infinite and Supreme Essence of Life--the Generator, Upholder, and Guide of the worlds and all that dwell upon them. From a child I have never entered, as my dear mother does, into the heart and spirit of our worship. There is something within me which tells me that we consist of a twofold being--a soul within a body. The soul must have had a Soul as its creator; therefore, O Sesostris, do I believe in a Supreme Soul of the universe--the Fountain of all souls; a Being of thought, invisibility, intelligence, and reason, each supreme and eternal; for I can conceive no creator of a SOUL, nor end of its existence. Before all things that actually exist, and before all beings, there is One Being whom I would designate, for want of another term, God of gods, prior to the first god or king of earth, remaining unmoved and unapproachable in the singleness of His own unity. He is greater than, as He was prior to, all material things, of which He is the sole fountain; and He is also the foundation of things conceived by the intellect, and from His intellect spring the spirits of the gods and the souls of men." "Then," said I to the prince, to whom I had listened with surprise and pleasure--for, mother, similar to these are the deep mysteries taught by our most sacred priests of Io, into which I was initiated when I became twenty-five years of age--"then you believe that God is Intellect conceiving itself, and that the creation of man was but the beginning of an infinite series of resistless conceptions of Himself?" "Not resistless, but voluntary. Finding Himself existing, He multiplied Himself, for His own glory and delight primarily; and secondly, for the happiness of the offspring of His Intellect." "We are then His offspring, that is, our souls?" "Without doubt, if my theories be founded in truth," he answered contemplatively. We were then in mid-river, and the forty-four rowers of our gilded barge were slowly dipping their brazen-mounted oars into the glassy water, while with gentle motion we were borne towards the isle of palaces and terraces. Our heads were shaded from the sun by a silken pavilion stretched above the stern of the galley, under which we reclined upon sumptuous cushions as we conversed. Remeses, however, is by no means a voluntary seeker of luxurious ease; but in Egypt, where splendor and voluptuous furniture everywhere invite to indulgence, one must either deprive himself of all comforts, for the sake of enduring hardship, or yield unchallenging to the countless seductive forms of couches, lounges, chairs, and sofas, which everywhere, on the galleys and in houses, offer themselves to his use.