The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1875-12-07
Old Egypt's Pure Religion.

dynastles formed O most important era.
The impulse to national unity which sue.
ceeded the expulsion Of the Hyksos seems
to have acted on the noblest minds Of the
country to produce most refined and
spiritual monothcism. One by ono the
differen, cycles Of gods whose worship
was established at the great senters Of
antiquity were brought into union beneath
the One Supreme Each of these separ-
ate theologies had arisen like so many
Others out of solar myths, and they were
therefore the more readily blended under
the worship of Ammon Ia. Egyptian
nature supplied but few objects to be
either the scene Of the divine presence, or
the instruments Of the divine power.
They had no limpid springs or shady
grottocs where the nympbs could sport,
no woods to be The haunt of satyrs, no
glodes of oak peopled with laughing dry.
ads NJ level turf on which the elves
might dance without wounding . flower.
10 mountains whose cavernous recesses
we're the hiding place Of gnome-. They
had nothing but the sun, thu river and
the desert The sun aud the river we're
their allies and friends, the desert was
their natural enemy. The sun, therefore,
beneath which their crops ripened three
or even four times in the year, was the
symbol of tho source of life, the sublime
image Of the all-pcrvading presence.
"AmmoD," said the statel verses of their
hymns, "is one in himself Sole who pro.
duces all, ;" he is ''the Ancient Of heaven,
the Oldest Of the earth," "the Lord Of
time and Author O.! eternity" He is "the
Causcr Of pleasure and light "Maker Of
grass for the cattle and fruitful trees for
man, causing the fish to live in the river
and the birds to fill the air,
lying awake while all men sleep, TO seek
cut the good OF his creatures" In Ian.
guage which still further recalls the style
Of the Hebrew Psalms, he is described as
Listening to the poor who is in distress
gentle of heart when one cries unto him
deliverer Of the tmid man from the vio'
lent judging the poor, the poor and the
oppressed :" and he is addressed as the
g Lord Of wisdom, whose precepts are
t wise, Lord Of mercy most loving, at whose
coming men live" To him, therefore
the sovereign Of righteousness, the needy
had recourse. confident in his impartialityi
oa prayer in papyrus Of Boulogne
dated in the reign of Menephtah l., son
of Rameses the Great, touchingly proves
80 Ammon Ra, who art the first who
hast reigned, God of the first time, pro-
ieotor Of the wretched, thou who dost not
speak to him who makes justice incline
thou who doat not consider promises tC
decide Ammon Ra says what is in the
, bottom Of the heart; he marks out the
guilty, and be is destined for the abode oi
fire, the just, aud he is set on the right
hand" The Egyptian religion, then, was
no common polytheism; the crown ot
gods who filed the halls Of the temples
wara tho nro..;e.. -r Al c..r-~---- p~;-o
the instruments to work his will. 1t was
moreover, animated by the loftiest and
most ardent moral feeling, which demand
ed another life to be the development snd
t completion of the present. Three grea
5 realms composed the Egyptian cosmos
heaven, the earth, and the underworld
E Above the sky in which the sun, the
moon, tho planets and the fixed stars
, paced their daily round, was the abode O
the invisible king. BY the words Of biz
t mouth were the gods made out OF hi
. eyes, the source Of light and truth, came
/ the spirits of men. These we're in theil
0 turn united, by means of an organic sou
j. or vital principle, with the material elo
D ments Of the earth, out Of which th'
1 human body was composed. This unior
@ was analogous to the relation between th'
@ novS, the psuche and the soma Of th'
Platonic philosophy. 1t was the condi
C i;on Of mans existence in this world, anC
\. his existence hereafter depended on it
restoration in higher form after thu
n worthy, his soul lin which his individual
). ty resided) would be destroyed no nev
habitation would be formed for him an(
his impersonal intelligence would remal'
!, blended with the Supreme Being, to whom
;. il has returned on his death. From hi
o station on the earth man behold the su
3 rise in the east and set in the west wit
Y unvaryiug regularity, These two hori
q IONS" we're the marks Of his course b
e day. But where did he go in the intel
a val? Clearly as he passed beneath til
,e earth he shed by night the same illumiu'
:. ton on the underworld which by day b
ID bestowed upon this. There, then, wa
te the abode of the dead, who, howeve
in we're not dead, but Lived unto God
Is Nothing dies" says Hermes Irismegl
, ; tus, and in this respect il connot
Id doubted that his mystic work faithful
ne reflected the spirit of the older philos
phies, "but that which is composite is
m vided. This division is not death, it
c. the dissolution Of combination, but Il
IN end Of this analysis is not destruction,
ior is renewal" The life Of man was assim
eff lated in this respect TO the suns cour'
ed and the Egyptian was as certain that
no would exist in another world after dea
,el as he was that the sun which had set
he the west would rearpoar, next nornir
nst in the east. To this feeling the openi
DO. verses Of hymn of the 18th dynas
I'VE gives elevated expression. 1t is address
AVS to Alum, the setting sun -
ion oIIail to thee, o Sun, Creator Of all men,
the Alum Horus, God Of the two horizons,
al Thou, God, the single and only true life,
eu; Who dost bring forth everything that exists,
ted call every creature into being
as Both beast and man.
In his eyes THAT il, the solar dskl doth be rev
AIN himself visibly,
The Lord of heaven, the Lord Of earthly wor
Ths Creator of all things in the hight and in
bod depth.
O' The Lord of the universe, the bringer forth OF
anu gods,
lied The God sef-creatng,
,osa The Almighty. creating from everlasting
'"S' Thee, o Alum, thee do all gods gloriiy,
As him who created the souls of pure men,
As the Lord Of the palm, being full of love,
ILL Who streams forth life over the children Of u
""t praise thee in the evening Of my life,
n OF Whilst thou desosndest, and descend With 4
aise To the new lfe"
This new life is commenced in
.II laIov ,,ndar tho covcraigntv of