New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1852-02-18
Professor cs1iadon's Eighth Lecture.


The Professor, last evening, was again greeted
by full audience. The subject of the lecture
was ssThe Egyptian Papyri, or Book of the
Dead" This book he said, was the oldest OF
the sacred writings of the nations OF the Nile,
and was the record of the under ground genera
tons who flourshed FIVE thousand years ago.
His knowledg of this book was confined to the
reading of the names of the kings, of dates,
etc. therein set forth The religion of the
Egyptians was older than the monuments; and
this religion was embodied in the book of the
dead. and therein was set forth the funeral
ritual The payprus, a translation of which
he displayed, was taken from the coffin of a
mummy there pointed ont, and the funeral
ritual which it contained was typifed by the
classic regions of the Nile The quality, he
said, of the disentombed mummy and his sta
ton in life might be determined by the extent
of the writings deposited with his remains, the
rich having a larger patch and the poor
smaller, after the manner of the present genera
ton when n mans obituary is heightened out
according to the depth of his purse.
y" Nv
embalmed and he who was not, was considered
unfit to enter the regions of bliss, in the same
manner that baptism is considered essential to
salvation in the present day. Ineach coffin was
deposited q copy of the book Of the dead written
by the priests in advance, containing a confess
sion to Osiris, and special directions as to how
the deceased was to conduct himself in the next
+l,o,, In 10 +J,o Nv,
sian Fields. 1t was necessary for the deceased
to know the contents of this papyrus, or he
would be stopped by the Egyptian St. Peter,
who presides at the Celestial gate. Arrived
there, he was to declare himself free of all sin,
and especially to asseverate that &c of what was
unclean he had not eaten, of what was foul he
had not drunk This, in the face of the posi-
ton of the same mummy who is represented
lying PROSTATE on his bier.
The Egyptians believed in the resurrection,
and that when the departed spirit, after being
resurrected and again clothed in the shackles
of mummyism, arrived on the confines of the
realms of bliss, he was saluted by a boat, which
became gifted with speech in different parts,
and spoke to the mummy-the PROV speaking
FIRST" Tell me thy name.'' This same inter-
rogatory is propounded, in turn, by all the diff
ferent parts of the boat, including the hole !;
and finally the winds speak-whence the phrase
of whispering breezes! Arrived within the
precincts of Righteousness, the defunct is rep
resented by a picture, laid at length, with a
four-footed beast, having horses head ram
pant above him in a decidedly hos tile attitude
The soul of the deceased is here represented by
figure with wings, Tapping his way to the
ethereal world; and in this state of transition
is supposed to be a pure soul, free from all
earthly faint, although in appearance and rig
decidedly fosrl! .ea.
Being risen to glory the Gods Urim and Thum-
min confront him and he proceeds to purge
himself Of the faint of iniquity by declaring &c
have not sinned have not cheated, nor taken
the milk out of the mouth Of the babes, nor
done any act of iniquity, but am pure p This
concluded, he is weighed in the balance, and If
not found wanting, admitted into the sholy Of
holes" If, on the contrary he was found to
have sinned by too much eating or drinking, he
was incontinently transmogrified into a hog, and
in that shape condemned to grqnt out a miser-
lopment of the fate of the luxurious was enun.
ciated with a solemnity much to the discontinue
of the fat and double chinned gentlemen there
present. .....
The Professor continued through more thar
an hour with u singular felicity.