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divine father and mother in one, latterly became subdivided into an infinite number of divinities, almost each attribute becoming a separate god or goddess. Thus we have as separate names for Isis-Maut, the Universal Mother; Neith, the Maternal Virgin; Athyr, the Mother of God; Hathor, the Model of Mothers the Mysterious Mother of the World,—and other names, signifying respectively, the Soul of the Universe, or “World's Soul," the Queen of Justice, the Mirror of Virtue, the Queen of Heaven, and so forth. All these names had really reference as much to one goddess, who was at the same time God, as similar names refer only in one phase of Christianity to the Virgin Mary; but they became in process of time many goddesses, -and so 'with the attributes of Amon the Creator, who as Amon-ra became the "Light of the World," and as Osiris incarnated himself upon it. We can well understand why Moses, who had seen the abuses which grew out of this system of appealing to the imagination of the masses, should insist, as the fundamental principle of the purer religion which he felt himself divinely commissioned to im

part to his people, upon the belief in one God alone; why he should denounce the worship of graven images, or hieroglyphics; and why he should take every precaution to prevent his people from sliding back into the polytheistic abuses to which it is evident they clung for many years after deliverance from Egypt, at the same time giving them a legal and ceremonial code more or less analogous to that with which they had been familiar. What does strike one as remarkable is, that all reference to that future life which played so great a part in the Egyptian theology, should have been entirely omitted from that of Moses. We hear nothing of any ritual of burial, or of any importance being attached to the condition either of the body or the soul after death. There can be no doubt that during the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt they practised the Egyptian mode of sepulture: Jacob and Joseph, we know, were both embalmed; and we read at a later time "that the manner of the Jews" was to bury the body wound in linen cloths with spices. The whole theory of embalming was based upon the immortality of the soul. We cannot but

suppose that the Israelites while in Egypt believed in a future state of rewards and punishments, all reference to which is omitted in the new theology instituted by Moses. We have representations on the sides of Egyptian tombs of souls being literally weighed in the balance and found wanting; but this idea, so familiar to the Jews while in Egypt, seems to have dropped out of their religious belief until it was revived by our Saviour 1500 years after they had left it. While, however, the Hebrew lawgiver dilates so amply upon the duties and observances which should regulate the conduct and worship of his people on earth, to the exclusion of all reference to a hereafter, we find that in his cosmogony a certain analogy exists between his account of the creation of the world and the fall of man, with the belief which was entertained by the Egyptians. In one of the Hermetic bookswhich, according to Champollion and other Egyptologists, have preserved for us more accurately than can be found elsewhere the psychological and cosmological doctrines of the most ancient people a conversation is supposed to take place between Pimander, the

Divine Intelligence, and Thoth, the Human Intelligence, the former revealing to the latter, for the salvation of the human race, the origin of the soul, its destiny, its duties, and the penalties and rewards in store for it,which I think so interesting that I venture to quote it. Thoth desires to know the nature of things which exist, and to know God. Pimander accedes to his request, and proceeds to show him the primeval condition of nature. Presenting himself as "a fearful shade in oblique folds, he assumed a moist character, and moved with a horrible sound; smoke escaped from it, accompanied by noise. Out of this noise came a voice, which seemed to me to be the voice of Light. And the Word issued from this voice of Light. This Word was sustained by a principle of moisture, and there arose from it fire, which, clear and light, was lost in the atmosphere. The light here, like the Spirit, occupies the space between the water and the fire. And the earth and the waters were so intermingled that the surface of the earth, enveloped by the waters, was nowhere apparent. They were both moved by the Word of the Spirit, be

cause it was suspended above them; and at this moment Pimander said, 'Hast thou understood the signification of this apparition?' I answered, 'I shall know it.' He added, 'I am this Light. I am Intelligence,-I am thy God; and I am more ancient than the principle of moisture which escapes from the shades. I am the germ of Thought, the resplendent Word-the Son of God. I say to thee, believe that that which sees and understands in thee is the Word of the Master, and is the Thought which is God the Father. They are in no wise separate, and their union is life. The operating Intelligence and the Word, enclosing circles, compose a mechanism which revolves with immense velocity from the beginning to the end, without having beginning or end. It is from the totality of these circles that the inferior elements were drawn. The earth engendered the animals which were in her-the quadrupeds, &c.; only the Intelligence, Father of all, who is life and light, procreated man like to Himself, and received him as His son; for he was beautiful, and was the image of his

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But man having seen in his

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