The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1909-01-21
En- Eoyptian pantheon.

>SSS~
their ranks was high learning. high
culture; the greatest purity, and at
intervals the greatest vices. Their
food and habits were simple; their
lives OH the whole exemplary. 1t was
their custom to bathe twice during
each day and twice during each night.
On every third day their head and
bodies were shaved. To each was al
lowed single wife-no more.
Singularly pure as they seemed to be,
they were yet guilty of one great crime
"a crime that was to fasten its insidi-
GUS grasp upon their countrymen to
eventually throttle tie splendid hopes
OF sp endid Ia ion. 1t was the crime
of wholesale deception. BY the priest
hood the common peOp were de-
spised lot They we're deemed entirely
incapable of any beautiful conceptions,
of any material comprehensit Fur
thermore, it was the policy of the
prlestly aud kingly power to hold their
subjects in miserable subservience. So
the lure of delusion was continual
propagated that ignorance might
thrive, that no ray of revelation might
ever flash across the ulter darkness.
What great, kind, transcendent gods
Osiris and Isis must have been to those
poor, bewildered children of that old
nation on the Nile. And if devotion
were the credential for eternal favor,
then assuredly each of them has an
abiding place in the sweet immortality
they sought.
The formal worship Of some god en-.
tered into the routine of every day and
week and year. There were two relig-
ious festivals Of the new year; twelve
of the first days of the month, one of
the rising Dog star and others to the
great gods, to seed time and harvest to
the rise and fall of the Nile, etc.
But far and away tie most noted of
all Egyptian festivals was the great
feast at Bubastis On one of these oc-
casiOns 1t is said that 100000 people
sailed on the Nile with music. At
another time bloody conflicts occurred
between participants" An old papyrus
says, "On tt twelfth of Chorak no one
is to go out of doors, for on that Cay
the transformation of Osiris into the
bird Wennu took place. On the third
of Mechir no one can go on journey
because Set then bey gan a war;" And
so it Was on this DAY and that day no
one could or all should do some 81 ecial
thing.
In honor of those gods he loved so
we'll the Egyptian built magnificent
temples which in architectural gran
denr Lave never been surpass !. He
believed in future state "of reward
or punishment, bas ei on the good or
evil in this life." He also believed that
the soul made circuit of transmigra-
tiOn thru the entire animal creation,
returning finally to reoccupy its old
body. The time required for this cir
OolS " 90 uAON oC oOOuU years.
This belief accounts for tt national
custom of embalming, also for the un-
canny reverence for a great variety of
administrative and dead.
At death a person was mourDed for
seventy-two days during which time
the emba 'mers had charge of the body.
The mummy was then returned to the
abode of friends or relatives where it
was kept anywhere from month to a
year. Feasts ere given in its honor
it being always present among the
guests.
In each locality was sacred lake
aud to its shores the body of the de-
cea ,ed was at last c. niucted with i'm
posing ceremony. There before a
preliminary tribunal of forty-two
judges the d, els of the dead were re-
viewel. Any one could bring accusa-
tion. Special intert ssors pleaded the
cause of the departed soul. If the is-
sue was adverse the body was returned
to its friends to be speedily disposed
of. If favorable verdict was pro-
nOunced, songs of triumph aud con-
graduation ascended and the mummy
was ferried across the sacred lake to
find a home among the just on the op-
posite shore.
The soul was then presumed to ap-