the form of a baboon, whose name is Hap, (sentence, judgment,) sits on the stand that supports the balance, and the instrument is attended by Horus the hawk-headed, the beloved son of Osiris and Isis, who steadies the scale in which the heart is placed, and at the same time closely observes the index of the balance. The opposite scale is trimmed by Anubis with the dog's head, the son of Osiris and Nephthys, who declares the result of the scrutiny to the ibis-headed Thoth, the divine wisdom. He stands with his writing tablet and pen immediately in front of Osiris, the supreme judge of this fearful assize; and, as clerk of the court, writes down the sentence in his presence. This sentence was full of joy to the good, and of woe to the wicked. They who by the faithful discharge of all their moral obligations as children, as parents, as masters or servants, as kings or subjects, and by the conscientious avoidance of vice under all its grosser forms, had been enabled to pass the ordeal, were permitted to pass through the hall of the Thmeis. Whence, embarking on the infernal Nile, they are privileged to behold once more the disc of the sun, a blessing for which the gods are very frequently supplicated on behalf of the deceased. With that luminary it would seem that they arose to heaven, and in his bark they navigated the celestial Nile, or primordial ether. At the fifth hour they were landed in the habitations of blessedness, where they rested from their labours. Here they reap the corn, and gather the fruits of paradise, under the eye and smile of the lord of joy in the heart, that is, the sun, who exhorts them thus:-"Take your sickles, reap your grain, carry it into your dwellings, that ye may be glad therewith, and present it as a pure offering unto God." There also they bathe in the pure river

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of the water of life that flows past their habitation. Over them is inscribed, "They have found favour in the eyes of the great God; they inhabit the mansions of glory, where they enjoy the life of heaven; the bodies which they have abandoned shall repose for ever in their tombs, while they rejoice in the presence of the supreme God."

But a terrible fate impended over those who, being weighed in the balance of Amenti, were found wanting. In the first instance, their souls were driven back to earth again by ministers of vengeance in the form of baboons, to transmigrate into that animal to which their besetting sin had assimilated them. The glutton, driven from the tribunal with heavy blows, became a hog; the cruel man a wolf, etc.

But if, after three transmigrations, the soul still remained polluted, its hope perished for ever; and it was transported to the regions of darkness and eternal death, symbolized by the twelve hours of the night, and the lower hemisphere. God, under the symbol of the sun, is present here also; but as the avenger and tormentor he makes the darkness his pavilion; his disc is black; no ray of light issues from him to illume their cheerless abodes. His object in visiting them is to superintend and preside over the punishments endured by the wicked in the seventy-five zones into which the lower hemisphere was divided. Each zone has an attendant spirit attached to it, who is also the executioner. In one of the zones, the lost souls are bound to stakes, covered with wounds, which their executioners are still inflicting, brandishing their bloody swords, and at the same time reproaching them with the crimes they have committed while on earth. In another, they are suspended with the

head downwards: elsewhere they walk in long and melancholy procession, with their hands bound across their breasts, and their heads nearly severed from their bodies; or with their hands tied tightly behind their backs, and their hearts torn from their bosoms, and dragging after them on the ground. In other zones, souls in the form they bore when on earth, or in that of a hawk or crane, are plunged into boiling cauldrons, along with the symbol of divine felicity, the fan, which they have forfeited for ever. In the great representation of these fearful scenes, which is repeated in many of the tombs of the kings, the offences for which they endure these torments are specified over each zone; and it is declared concerning all the inhabitants of these abodes of misery," These souls are at enmity with our god, and do not see the rays which issue from his disc; they are no longer permitted to live in the terrestrial world, neither do they hear the voice of God when he traverses their zone."

While giving this description of the mythology of the Egyptians, which is mixed up with the grossest follies, we yet notice truths that are the groundwork of these inventions, which are far too precious to be destroyed even by the coarse and tasteless fictions with which they are combined. The religion, then, of the Egyptians, the most ancient nation in the world, has been investigated on the very walls of the temples and monuments that were erected for the celebration of its worship. Its divinity recognises the doctrine of a Trinity, and the hope of a future incarnation of God. Its ethics rest upon the tenet of the immortality of the soul of man; upon his responsibility to his Maker for his deeds on earth; and upon his appearance after death at his judgment

seat and also upon the infinitely important truth, that God himself is the exceeding great reward of the righteous, and will surely punish the wicked; that his favour is everlasting life, that his wrath is death eternal.

These results throw light upon an obscure and remote portion of the history of the ways of God to man, which may sometimes minister consolation to the weak and feeble believer in the hour of darkness and perplexity, and wherein the confirmed faith of the more advanced Christian need not disdain to rejoice. To be able to show to the gainsayer that the truth was partly holden in the fables of ancient heathenism, as well as revealed to the saints of old, is surely well calculated to dissipate the doubts that are sometimes suggested respecting the periods at which God was pleased to impart the revelation of his will to mankind, and his mode of dealing with those who lived before his written word was inspired. We know, upon the most unquestionable of all possible evidence, contemporary inscriptions, that long before a written revelation was possessed, man was conscious that he had within him a soul that cannot die; that after the death of the body that soul must appear before the bar of God, and be judged concerning the deeds of this life; and that infinite rewards and infinite punishments depended upon the issue of that trial. These, we conceive, are facts of importance, whether we be contending with unbelief in others, or in ourselves.

CHAPTER VIII.

TRACES OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF EGYPT.

THE early history of Egypt requires for its investigation the help of the same unerring guide, whose counsels have directed us hitherto, the word of God.

"And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did

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