bodies after death, and thus arose the custom of embalming them. It is
difficult to compute the number of mummies that have been found in
Egypt. If a man was wealthy, it cost his family as much as one thousand
dollars to embalm his body suitably to his rank. The embalmed bodies of
kings were preserved in marble sarcophagi, and hidden in gigantic
monuments.

The most repulsive thing in the Egyptian religion was animal-worship. To
each deity some animal was sacred. Thus Apis, the sacred bull of
Memphis, was the representative of Osiris; the cow was sacred to Isis,
and to Athor her mother. Sheep were sacred to Kneph, as well as the
asp. Hawks were sacred to Ra; lions were emblems of Horus, wolves of
Anubis, hippopotami of Set. Each town was jealous of the honor of its
special favorites among the gods.

"The worst form of this animal worship," says Rawlinson, "was the belief
that a deity absolutely became incarnate in an individual animal, and so
remained until the animal's death. Such were the Apis bulls, of which a
succession was maintained at Memphis in the temple of Phtha, or,
according to others, of Osiris. These beasts, maintained at the cost of
the priestly communities in the great temples of their respective
cities, were perpetually adored and prayed to by thousands during their
lives, and at their deaths were entombed with the utmost care in huge
sarcophagi, while all Egypt went into mourning on their decease."

Such was the religion of Egypt as known to the Jews,--a complicated
polytheism, embracing the worship of animals as well as the powers of
Nature; the belief in the transmigration of souls, and a sacerdotalism
which carried ritualistic ceremonies to the greatest extent known to
antiquity, combined with the exaltation of the priesthood to such a