Can it not be conceived that the God who was thus bountiful in bestowing such wealth might be symbolized by the property itself and the means of its protection? Hence Jupiter Ammon or Rameses I., as a ram or sheep; Sesostris, or Rameses II., as a bull or ox—Apis; Osiris or Rameses III. as dog or jackal.
There was also another beautiful symbolic personification in this—three persons in one. For it is a striking and remarkable fact, as must be noticed by all antiquarians, that these three persons inseparably appear, both by inscription and in statuary—Rameses, Sesostris, Osiris—sheep, ox, dog. Here are innocence, patience, faith, and charity or love, as none so loving as a dog. And how typical of the true African character!
It was shown that the authors of this beautiful and pure religious doctrine were black. This will not be disputed, when it is remembered that Moses took one of the daughters of Jethro, prince and priest of Midian, to wife, and the Scriptures inform us that she was an “Ethiopian woman;” Aaron and Miriam, the brother and sister of Moses, entering into strife with him about it. Not, as it is concluded by modern civilization, because she was black, but because she was identical with their oppressors and recent masters the objection was made.
It is very evident that the highest conception of the Jewish religion is that which was borrowed from Africa during the Israelitish bondage in Egypt, transmitted through them to the present, and developed in the metaphysical theology of the age.
And it will not do to call this “mummery,” since later, in June, 1867, the President of the United States took part in the consecration of a hall, erected in part to the perpetuation of this African symbolic philosophy and religion.
The capital city of this great people in Africa was Thebais, commonly called Thebes, supposed to contain two millions of inhabitants, surrounded by a wall with one hundred gates, twenty-five at each point of the compass. On the occasion of his Asiatic conquest, Sesostris, or Rameses II., went out of the city with ten thousand infantry and two hundred chariots, with charioteers armed for war, from each gate at one time, having an aggregate of one million two hundred thousand warriors. The conquest of this proud and mighty prince was carried to the banks of the River Indus, conquering every nation as he passed; where he set his memorable pillars, with the peculiar inscription, “Sesostris, the king of kings, has conquered the world to the banks of the Indus;” when he evacuated the country, and returned to his own, having vindicated the prestige and dignity of his name.
Who were the builders of the everlasting pyramids, catacombs, and sculptors of the sphinxes? Were they Europeans or Caucasians, Asiatics or Mongolians? Will it be at once conceded that the authors of the symbolic mythology and hieroglyphic science are identical? Upon this point there is but one opinion. The inventors or authors of the one were the builders or architects of the other.
Among what race of men, and what country of the globe, do we find traces of these singular productions, but the African and Africa? None whatever. It is in Africa the pyramids, sphinxes, and catacombs are found; here the hieroglyphics still remain. Among the living Africans traces of their beautiful philosophy and symbolic mythology still exist. In the interior their architecture and hieroglyphics are still the subjects of their art. Through all time the arts of a people have been among the clearest evidences of identity.
Asia has her several peculiar orders of architecture, the Chinese and Japan being identical; that among the Hindoos the type of the others. Europe has her Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite, with Gothic, and other modifications of modern orders.
If the originators and builders of the pyramids and sphinxes had been Asiatics, is it not certain that the same architecture would have been found in Asia? of Europeans, in Europe? There is nothing more certain than it would; and the entire absence of all traces of the purely African architecture, arts, and symbolic religion and mythology among other races and in other countries than the Africans and Africa, makes it simply preposterous for the white race to claim these as productions of their own.