widow ill-treated by me. I have never repelled a workman nor
hindered a shepherd. I gave alike to the widow and to the
married woman, and have not preferred the great to the small in
my gifts." And we have the high authority of the late Dr. Samuel
Birch for the statement that the inscriptions of the twelfth
dynasty abound in injunctions of a high ethical character.
"To feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the
naked, bury the dead, loyally serve the king, formed the first
duty of a pious man and faithful subject."<29> The people for
whom these inscriptions embodied their ideal of praiseworthiness
assuredly had no imperfect conception of either justice or
mercy. But there is a document which gives still better evidence
of the moral standard of the Egyptians. It is the "Book of the
Dead," a sort of "Guide to Spiritland," the whole, or a part, of
which was buried with the mummy of every well-to-do Egyptian,
while extracts from it are found in innumerable inscriptions.
Portions of this work are of extreme antiquity, evidence of
their existence occurring as far back as the fifth and sixth
dynasties; while the 120th chapter, which constitutes a sort of
book by itself, and is known as the "Book of Redemption in the
Hall of the two Truths," is frequently inscribed upon coffins
and other monuments of the nineteenth dynasty (that under which,
there is some reason to believe, the Israelites were oppressed
and the Exodus took place), and it occurs, more than once, in
the famous tombs of the kings of this and the preceding dynasty
at Thebes.<30> This "Book of Redemption" is chiefly occupied by
the so-called "negative confession" made to the forty-two Divine
Judges, in which the soul of the dead denies that he has
committed faults of various kinds. It is, therefore, obvious
that the Egyptians conceived that their gods commanded them not