Adams, Walter M.: The house of the hidden places: a clue to the creed of early Egypt from Egyptian sources (London, 1895)

io6 The Hidden God. [Ch.

does not seem to have had any real existence,
may be ascribed the mystery enshrouding their
religion. For mystery is to God only what
privacy is to man, our sense of which deepens
with deepening intimacy. And though three
hundred years of continuous wrangling over
the secret truths which most profoundly affect
the heart and mind have gone far to coarsen
and deaden our spiritual sense, the soul still
resents, as the most unpardonable offence, the
profanation of a vulgar touch. For whether
we acknowledge it or not, the springs of our
entire existence are hidden. From the dark-
ness of the womb to the darkness of the tomb,
the source of our every action is veiled from
us. Mystery is the beginning ; mystery is
the ending; mystery is the whole body of our
life. We cannot breathe, nor sleep, nor eat,
nor move, far less think or speak, without
exercising powers which to us are inconceiv-
able, by means of processes which to us are
inscrutable. Who is so ignorant as not to