Acts 7:42

“And God turned away and gave them up to worshipping the host of heaven,” i. e., the sun, moon, and stars. I do not wonder that they worshipped the unparalleled splendor of an Egyptian sky, where clouds are never seen, rain never falls, and the sun in his glory accumulates a splendor and grandeur inconceivable in these occidental lands of cloudy skies. Four thousand years ago Heliopolis, a compound word which means City of the Sun, stood on the banks of the Nile, literally constituted of palaces so gorgeous and monuments so splendid as to reflect the sunbeams in all directions from every conceivable point of the compass, so as to exhibit a splendor and glory as if a thousand meridian suns had evacuated Apollo's chariot and come down to show the world their unearthly glory. The most of those gorgeous monuments and splendid statuary have been carried away. I saw a number of them in Rome. However, one majestic red granite monolith [I. e., all one piece], too ponderous for manipulation and unsusceptible of disintegration, still stands in its majesty, a vivid reminder of their wonderful Heliopolis, and “monarch of all he surveys.” In Coptic language the sun is Osiris, and the moon is His, under which names they were extravagantly worshipped by the Egyptians in the days of Israel.