reverence for animal life. This people saw something divine and found Deity in nature. The Egyptians had more religious festivals than any other ancient people, every month and day being governed by a god. There were two feasts of the New Year; twelve of the first days of the months; one of the rising of the dog-star; and others to the great gods, to seed time and harvest, to the rise and fall of the Nile, as the nine days' feast in honor of Osiris, the Benefactor of men. The feast of the lamps at Sais was in honor of Neith, and was observed throughout Egypt. Other noted festivals were the feast of the death of Osiris, and the feast of his resurrection, when the people exclaimed: "We have found him! Good luck!" One of the feasts of Isis lasted four days. The great feast at Bubastis was the most noted of all the Egyptian festivals. On one of these occasions seven hundred thousand persons sailed on the Nile with music. At another bloody conflicts occurred between the armed priests and the armed men who conveyed the image of the god to the temple. The daily life of the people was an embodiment of the history of the deities. The the bird Wennu took place; on the fourteenth of Toby no voluptuous songs must be listened to, for Isis and Nepthys bewail Osiris on that day. On the third of Mechir no one can go on a journey, because Set then began a war." None must go out on another specified day. The day on which the other gods conquered Set was regarded G EGYPTIAN PRIESTS. as lucky, and the child born on that day was believed to be sure to live to a good old age. The priests, of which every temple had its own separate body, did not form an t architects. The sons of soldiers were often priests, while soldiers frequently married daughters of priests. Joseph, who was a foreigner naturalized in Egypt, married the daughter of the High Priest of On, or Heliopolis. The Egyptian priests were of different grades the chief priests, or pontiffs, the prophets, the judges, the scribes, those who examined victims, the keepers of the robes, the keepers of the sacred animals, and others. Women also performed official duties in the temples. The priests were exempt from taxation and were supported out of the public stores. Their duties were to superintend sacrifices, processions, funerals, etc. They were initiated into all the religious mysteries, and were taught surveying. They were particular as to their food, refraining from eating peas, beans, onions and garlic, while fish and swine-flesh were strictly forbidden. They bathed twice a day and twice during the night, and shaved the head and body every third day. Their fasts, which lasted from one to six weeks, took place after their purification. They offered prayers for the dead. The priestly dress was simple, made chiefly of linen, and consisted of an undergarment and a loose upper robe, with full sleeves, and the leopard-skin above; while sometimes there were one or two feathers in the head. Chaplets and flowers were placed upon the altars, such as the lotus and papyrus; likewise baskets of figs and grapes, and alabaster vases of ointment. Necklaces, bracelets and jewelry were also offered as invocations and thanksgivings. Oxen and other animals were offered as sacrifices, and the blood was permitted to flow over the altar. Incense was offered to all the gods and goddesses in censers. Religious processions were another characteristic feature of the Egyptian system. In one of these shrines were carried on the shoulders by means of long staves passed through rings. In others the statues of the gods were carried, and arks overshadowed by the wings of the Goddess of Truth were spread over the sacred beetle. The most highly esteemed of the priestly order were the prophets, who studied the ten hieratical books. The stolists dressed and undressed the images, attended to the vestments of the priests, and marked the beasts chosen for sacrifice. The scribes served for the Apis, or sacred bull, and their chief requirement was great learning. The priests, whose life was full of duties and restrictions, had only one wife, and were circumcised like other Egyptians. They devoted all their time to study or religious service. The gloomy character of the Egyptian religion was in strong contrast with the cheerful worship of the Greeks. One Greek writer says: "The gods of Egypt rejoice in lamentations, those of Greece in dances." Another says: "The Egyptians offer their gods tears." The Egyptian temples surpassed in grandeur all other architectural monuments in the world. The temple of Amun, in the fertile oasis of Siwah, in the Libyan desert, was one of the most celebrated oracles of antiquity. Near this temple, in a grove of palmtrees, rose a hot spring, the Fountain of the Sun, whose bubbling and smoking were believed to betoken the Divine presence. The oasis was a stopping-place for caravans passing between Egypt and Central Africa, and many rich offerings were left in the temple by traveling merchants, who thus showed their gratitude for escaping the perils of the desert, or thus sought the favor of Amun for their journey when just begun. The immortality of the soul and the belief in a future state, based on rewards and punishments for good or evil in this life, formed a cardinal point of Egyptian religious faith from the earliest period; and the belief in the transmigration of the soul was closely connected with the reverence for animals. Bunsen says the Egyptians viewed the human soul and the animal soul as the same, and for this reason the animal was considered sacred to man. The Egyptian doctrine of transmigration differed from that of the Hindoos in one essential point; there being no idea of retribution in the Egyptian doctrine, as in the Hindoo. The Egyptian doctrine, according to Herodotus, was that every human soul must pass through all animals, fishes, insects and birds, thus completing the whole circuit of animated existence, after which it would again enter the human body from which it came. The Hindoo doctrine regards transmigration as a punishment for sin and wickedness, and that only those who lead an unholy life are subjected to this punishment, from which the only release is the leading of a pure and holy life. Herodotus further says that the complete circuit of transmigration is performed by the soul in three thousand years, and that it does not begin until the body de cays. This explains the extraordinary care taken in ornamenting the tombs, as the permanent resting-places for the dead during a long period. Diodorus says that the Egyptians ornamented their tombs as the enduring residences of mankind. The doctrine of transmigration also accounts for the custom of embalming the dead, in order to preserve the body from decay, and to render it fit to receive the soul on its return. Mr. Birch says that the doctrine of the soul's immortality is as old as the inscriptions of the Twelfth Dynasty, of which many contain extracts from the Ritual for the Dead. Mr. Birch has translated one hundred and forty-six chapters of this Ritual from the text of the Turin Papyrus, which is the most complete in Europe. Chapters of it are seen on mummy-cases, on mummy-wraps, on the walls of tombs, and on papyri within the sarcophagi. This Ritual is the only remnant of the Hermetic Books constituting the library of the priests. This liturgy represents Osiris and his triad as struggling with Set and his devils for the soul of the departed, in the presence of the Sun-god, the source of life. The Egyptians believed that happiness in the future state depended upon well-doing in this life. As we have seen, the belief that the soul, after making the circuit of transmigration through the animal creation, would return to the body from which it had departed, caused the universal national cus tom of embalming the dead to preserve their bodies from decay. The period of mourning for the dead lasted seventy-two days, during which the body of the deceased was in the charge of the embalmers. After the process of embalming had been finished, the mummy thus formed was returned to the house of its earthly abode, where its friends kept it for a month or a year, and where feasts were given in its honor, it being always present in the company of guests. The mummy, in its stone chest, or sarcophagus, was then carried in an imposing funeral procession to the borders of the sacred lake, where occured the trial of the deceased by a priestly tribunal of forty-two judges, symbolizing the soul's trial before the judgment-seat of the gods presided over by Osiris. Masked priests represented the gods of the underworld. Typhon is represented as accusing the deceased and demanding his punishment. The intercessors plead for him. Any one was at liberty to bring accusations against the deceased. A large pair of scales was brought forward, on one side of which was placed the conduct of the deceased in a bottle, and on the other side was set the image of truth. If it was clearly shown that the deceased had led an evil life, the priestly judges pronounced an unfavorable verdict upon it as to its future fate, in which case the body was denied the privilege of burial with the just opposite the sacred lake and was returned to its friends, who usually buried it on the side of the sacred lake opposite the resting-place of the just. If, however, the verdict of the judges was fav orable, the lamentations of the funeral train gave way to songs of triumph, and the deceased was congratulated upon being admitted into the happy companionship of the friends of Osiris; and the body in its sarcophagus was ferried across the sacred lake and interred with those of its ancestors in a tomb richly ornamented. These ceremonies are represented on the funeral papyri. The forty-two judges who tried the dead represented the forty-two nomes, or provinces of Egypt; and every nome had its sacred lake, across which all funeral processions must pass on their way to the city of the dead. On the sides of these sacred lakes nearest the abodes of the living have been found the remains of great numbers who were rejected by the judges at their trial, and whose bodies were in consequence returned in disgrace to their friends, to be disposed of in the most speedy manner possible. At death all became equal, and every one, from the king and highest pontiff to the lowest swineherd, was subject to the same solemn judgment passed at death, and the fear which it inspired exercised a wholesome influence over all classes. The soul's trial before the judgment-seat of the gods, as represented in the papyrus Book of the Dead, and before which the soul had to pass an acquittal before it could enter the abode of the blessed, is described as follows: Forty-two gods occupy the judgment-scat, over which Osiris presides, and before whom are the scales, in one of which is placed the statue of perfect Justice, while in the other is the heart of the deceased. The soul of the departed stands watching the balance, while Horus examines the plummet showing on which side the beam inclines; and Thoth, the Justifier, records the sentence. If the decision of this divine tribunal is favorable, the soul is sealed as "justified." counterfeited, nor killed the sacred beasts, nor blasphemed, nor refused to hear the truth, nor despised God in my heart." In other texts the soul is represented as saying: "I have loved God. I have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, garments to the naked, and an asylum to the abandoned." Many of the virtues taught by Christianity appear to have been the ideal of the ancient Egyptians. Brugsch tells us that a thousand voices from the tombs 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 a priest who lived in the 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 is an inscription on a tomb of a nomad prince at Beni-Hassan: "What I The Hall of the Two Truths, described in have done I will say. My goodness and my the Book of the Dead, recounts the scene kindness were ample. I never oppressed when the soul appears before the gods, the fatherless nor the widow. I did not treat forty-two of whom are ready to feed on the cruelly the fishermen, the shepherds or the blood of the wicked. The soul, addressing poor laborers. There was nowhere in my the Lord of Truth, denies having done evil, time hunger or want. For I cultivated all saying: "I have not afflicted any. I have my fields, far and near, in order that their not told falsehoods. I have not made the inhabitants might have food. I never prelaboring man do more than his task. I ferred the great and powerful to the humble have not been idle. I have not murdered. and poor, but did equal justice to all." A I have not committed fraud. I have not king's tomb at Thebes describes the religinjured the images of the gods. I have not ious creed of a Pharaoh thus: "I lived in taken scraps of the bandages of the dead. truth, and fed my soul with justice. What I have not committed adultery. I have not I did to men was done in peace, and how I cheated by false weights. I have not kept loved God, God and my heart well know. milk from sucklings. I have not caught I have given bread to the hungry, water to the sacred birds." He then says to each the thirsty, clothes to the naked, and a god: "I have not been idle. I have not shelter to the stranger. I honored the gods boasted. I have not stolen. I have not with sacrifices, and the dead with offerings." 3471471 A rock at Lycopolis pleads for an ancient ruler in these words: "I never took the child from its mother's bosom, nor the poor man from the side of his wife." Hundreds of stones in Egypt declare the best gifts which the gods bestow on their favorites to be "the respect of men, and the love of women." On a monumental stele discovered at Karnak by M. Mariette, and translated by De Rouge, is an inscription recording the triumphs of Thothmes III. in strains sounding like the song of Miriam or the Hymn of Deborah, the king recognizing his power and triumph as the work of the great god Amun. A like strain of religious poetry is found in the Papyrus of Sallier, now in the British Museum. This is an epic poem by the Egyptian poet Pentaour, celebrating the campaigns of Rameses the Great, and was carved in full on the walls of Karnak. It especially describes an incident in a war with the Kheta, or Hittites, of Syria, who had revolted against Rameses. Rameses being separated from his main force by a strategem, was in extreme peril; and Pentaour describes him as calling upon Amun, God of Thebes, for aid, recounting the sacrifices he had offered to the god, and imploring the god not to leave him to the mercy of the cruel Syrian tribes. Rameses is represented as pleading thus: "Have I not erected to thee great temples? Have I not sacrificed to thee thirty thousand oxen? I have brought from Elephantine obelisks to set up to thy I invoke thee, O my father, Amun. I am in the midst of a throng of unknown tribes, and alone. But Amun is better to me than thousands of archers and millions of horsemen. Amun will prevail over the enemy." After defeating his enemies, Rameses, in his song of triumph, says: "AmunRa has been at my right and my left in the battles; his mind has inspired my own, and has prepared the downfall of my enemies. Amun-Ra, my father, has brought the whole world to my feet." name. SECTION VI-THE ANCIENT ETHIOPIANS. OUTH of Egypt-in the region | laws, were acquainted with the use of hiero- were as highly civilized as the ancient Egyptians, but we know very little of their history, and their origin is involved in the impenetrable obscurity of a remote antiquity. The ruins of splendid monuments, obelisks, sphinxes, colossal statues, rock-cut temples, etc., along that portion of the Nile valley, fully attest the progress of this ancient Hamitic people in the art of architecture. Besides the civilized Ethiopians, this region was occupied in ancient times, as now, by various Arab tribes in different stages of advancement from the complete savage to the hunting and fishing tribes, and from these to the nomadic herdsmen and shepherds. The civilized Ethiopians dwelt in cities, possessed a civil government and glyphics, and the fame of their progress in knowledge and the social arts had in the earliest ages spread over a considerable portion of the earth. The soil of the portion of the Nile valley occupied by the ancient Ethiopians was in their day as fertile as the richest part of Egypt, and where protected it yet continues to be so, but the hills on both sides are bordered by sandy deserts, against which they afford but a scanty protection. The navigation of the Nile is impeded by the windings of the river, and by the obstruction of cataracts and rapids, so that intercourse is more generally maintained by caravans than by boats. In the southern part of the valley the river incloses a number of fertile islands. The productions of the Nile valley in Nubia are essentially the same as those of Egypt. All along this portion of the valley is a succession of stupendous monu |