_O! quis res hominumque deumque_ _Æternis regis imperiis, & fulmine terres,_ _O pater, o hominum divumque æterna potestas, &c._ And Horace expresses himself still more strongly: _Unde nil majus generatur ipso,_ _Nec viget quidquam simile, aut secundum._ In those mysteries into which almost all the Roman youths were initiated, nothing else was sung but the unity of God. See the noble hymn of Orpheus, and the letter of Maximus of Modarum to St. Augustine, in which he says that “None but fools can possibly deny a Supreme Being.” Longinus, who was a heathen, writes also to St. Augustine that “God is one, incomprehensible, ineffable.” Even Lactantius, who certainly cannot be charged with being too indulgent, acknowledges in his fifth book that “The Romans subjected all the other deities to the one supreme God;” _illos subjecit & mancipat Deo_. Tertullian also in his Apology confesses that “The whole empire acknowledged one God, ruler of the world, and infinite in power and majesty:” _Principem mundi perfectæ potentiæ & majestatis_. Again, if we look into Plato, who taught Cicero his philosophy, we shall there find him thus express himself: “There is but one God, whom we all ought to love and adore, and labor to resemble Him in integrity and holiness.” Epictetus in a dungeon, and Mark Antoninus on a throne, tell us the same in a hundred different passages of their writings. [23] Chap. 39. [24] Chap. 35. [25] Chap. iii. [26] This assertion requires to be proved. It cannot be denied that from the time that history succeeded to fiction, the Egyptians have constantly appeared to be a people as dastardly as they were superstitious. Cambyses made the conquest of their country in a single battle; Alexander gave them laws without striking a stroke, or without one of their cities daring to wait a siege. The Ptolemies subdued them with as little trouble, nor did Octavius and Augustus Cæsar find more difficulty in bringing them under their obedience. Omar overran all Egypt in one single campaign; the Mamelukes, who inhabited Colchis and the regions of Mount Caucasus, became their masters afterwards; and it was these people, and not the Egyptians, who defeated the army of St. Louis, and took that king prisoner. At length the Mamelukes having, in process of time, become Egyptians, that is to say, effeminate, cowardly, lazy, and dissipated, like the original natives of the climate, they were in three months’ time brought under the yoke of Selim I., who caused their Soldan to be hanged, and made their kingdom a province of the Turkish Empire, and such it will remain till other barbarians may hereafter make themselves masters of it.