into any modern European language. But it is absurd to talk of almost
the whole text of the Book of the Dead as being utterly corrupt, for
royal personages, and priests, and scribes, to say nothing of the
ordinary educated folk, would not have caused costly copies of a very
lengthy work to be multiplied, and illustrated by artists possessing the
highest skill, unless it had some meaning to them, and was necessary for
the attainment by them of the life which is beyond the grave. The
"finds" of recent years in Egypt have resulted in the recovery of
valuable texts whereby numerous difficulties have been cleared away; and
we must hope that the faults made in translating to-day may be corrected
by the discoveries of to-morrow. In spite of all difficulties, both
textual and grammatical, sufficient is now known of the Egyptian
religion to prove, with certainty, that the Egyptians possessed, some
six thousand years ago, a religion and a system of morality which, when
stripped of all corrupt accretions, stand second to none among those
which have been developed by the greatest nations of the world.

E. A. WALLIS BUDGE.
LONDON,
_August 21st_, 1899.




CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

I. THE BELIEF IN GOD ALMIGHTY