terms will cease to be employed as the vehicle of superstition and mysteries. The question then arises: Can such an understanding of language be made to harmonize with any existing religion? Will not such light as this prove fatal to Christianity? In order to answer this question, it will be necessary to glance at the most prominent facts of general religious history with a view to ascertaining the immediate origin of our religious beliefs.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE RELIGIONS OF EGYPT AND INDIA.

In Egypt the Belief in Immortality Reached its Highest Development-Mysticism and Idealism.

THE Egyptians were the most pious people of antiquity. They seem to have expended more time and energy in religious observances, and to have had a more realistic conception of a future life, than any other race. Their writings, says M. Maury, "are full of sacred symbols and allusions to divine myths, perfectly useless apart from the Egyptian religion. Literature and the sciences were only branches of the theology, while its books formed a sacred code, supposed to be the work of the god Thoth, likened by the Greeks to their Hermes. The arts were only practised to add to the worship and glorification of the gods or deified kings.

"The religious observances were so numerous and so imperative that it was impossible to practise a profession, to prepare food, or to attend to the simplest daily needs without constantly calling to mind the rules established by the priests. Each province had its special gods, its particular rights, its sacred animals. Neither the dominion of the Persians, nor that of the Ptolemies, nor that of the Romans, was able to change this antique religion of the Pharaohs; of all polytheisms, it opposed the most obstinate resistance to Christianity, and continued to live on up to the sixth century of our era. It is because the Egyptian religion had penetrated so deeply into the mind of the people and the customs of the country, that it became, so to speak, a part of the intellectual and physical organization of the race.'

'Alfred Maury: Revue des Deux Mondes, Sept., 1867.

The animal-worship of the Egyptians, which is the term generally applied to their religion, was, of course, a form of idolatry, but a far less materialistic form than is generally supposed. The priests of the early dynasties taught (before the practice of image-worship had grown up) that their conception of the God of the universe could not be expressed by any image made by hands, and that they therefore preferred to take a living creature to symbolize the power and wisdom of the Creator,-a singularly pure and beautiful idea. The conception of God as a person having human form and feelings, exercising a divine will in his government of all nature, and loving, punishing, forgiving, and caring for his children, is surely as near an approach to making an image of God as was the practice of setting up living creatures as symbols of certain divine attributes. Where, after all, shall we find a religion without idolatry? Our very words and thoughts are symbols. Even to say that God is the universal principle, is to symbolize the most general fact, to create a sign that will call up this conception in the minds of others.

Speaking of the innumerable gods of the Egyptians and of the vast machinery of worship which they carried on, Mr. Clarke says: "Every day has its festival, every town its god and temple. Sacrifices, prayers, incense, processions, begin and close the year. The deities, we discover, are innumerable. Great triads of gods, superior to the rest, are worshipped under different names in the different provinces. Every year the festivals of Osiris and Isis renew the mourning for the Divine Sufferer, and joy at his resurrection. The tombs are resplendent with mosaics and brilliantly colored paintings. The dead are more cared for than the living; their resting-places are carved out of solid rock and filled with rich furniture and ornaments. One supreme being, above all other deities, is worshipped as the maker and preserver of all things."1

So vast a subject as the morality of a nation whose existence can be traced back for seven thousand years would be

"Ten Great Religions," vol. II., p. 7.

hazardous to deal with in any but the most general manner. After the fifth dynasty a great calamity seems to have fallen upon the people which destroyed for a time their civilization. This calamity was probably a nomadic invasion, and must have revolutionized the whole national life. It is difficult, therefore, to select moral characteristics which survive throughout such sweeping changes in a nation's existence.

All authors agree that the notions of divine existence, the ideas of the lives of the gods, and the general tenor of prayer or the manner of addressing the gods, indicate a singular purity of life in ancient Egypt.

Bonwick says: "An entire confidence in the goodness and integrity of their deities is the most pleasing attribute of the Egyptian mind. No Greek could trust his lying, treacherous, unstable, and immoral gods.

"On a tomb of the eleventh dynasty, B.C. 3000, the deceased is made to say: 'I have ever kept from sin, I have been truth itself on the earth. Make me luminous in the skies! Make me justified! May my soul prosper!' Upon a papyrus we read this touching appeal: My god! My god! O that thou wouldst show me the true god!'

"A prophet of Osiris says: 'I have venerated my father. I have respected my mother. I have loved my brothers. I have done nothing evil against them during my life on earth. I have protected the poor against the powerful. I have given hospitality to every one. I have been benevolent, and loving the (?) gods. I have cherished my friends, and my hand has been open to him who had nothing. I have loved truth, and hated a lie.' ***

"A prayer from their Scriptures-the Ritual for the Dead -gives a part of the confession the soul must make after death. The 125th chapter of the Ritual contains this: 'Homage to thee, great god, lord of truth and justice! I am come to thee, O my master. I present myself to thee, and contemplate thy perfecting. I know you, lord of truth and justice. I have brought you the truth. I have committed no fraud against men. I have not tormented the widow. I

have not lied in the tribunal. I know not lies. I have not done any prohibited thing. I have not commanded my workman to do more than he could do. I have not been idle. I have not made others weep. I have not made fraudulent gains. I have not altered the grain-measure. I have not falsified the equilibrium of the balance. I have not taken away the milk from the foster-child. I have not driven sacred beasts from the pastures. I am pure. I am pure.'

Again Mr. Clarke thus testifies to the morality of the Egyptians: "Many of the virtues which we are apt to suppose a monopoly of Christian culture appear as the ideal of these old Egyptians. Brugsch says a thousand voices from the tombs of Egypt declare this. One inscription in Upper Egypt says: 'He loved his father, he honored his mother, he loved his brethren, and never went from his home in bad temper. He never preferred the great man to the low one.' Another says: 'I was a wise man, my soul loved God. I was a brother to the great men and a father to the humble ones, and never was a mischief-maker.' An inscription at Sais, on the tomb of a priest who lived in the sad days of Cambyses, says: 'I honored my father, I esteemed my mother, I loved my brothers. I found graves for the unburied dead. I instructed little children. I took care of orphans as though they were my own children. For great misfortunes were on Egypt in my time, and on this city of Sais.'✶✶ The following inscription is from the tombs of Ben-Hassen, over a Nomad Prince: What I have done I will say. My goodness and my kindness were ample. I never oppressed the fatherless nor the widow. I did not treat cruelly the fishermen, the shepherds, or the poor laborers. There was nowhere in my time hunger or want; for I cultivated all my fields, far and near, in order that their inhabitants might have food. I never preferred the great and powerful to the humble and poor, but did equal justice to all.' A king's tomb at Thebes.

1" Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought."