it to terrestrial objects, and to the immoderate pursuit of sensual pleasures, by which its nature is totally polluted. The Sovereign Mind employs various means to deliver his offspring from this deplorable servitude, especially the ministry of divine messengers, whom he sends to enlighten, to admonish, and to reform the human race. In the meantime, the imperious demiurge, exerting his power in opposition to the merciful purpose of the Supreme Being, resists the influence of those solemn invitations by which he exhorts mankind to return to him, and labors to efface the knowledge of God in the minds of intelligent beings. In this conflict, such souls, as-throwing off the yoke of the creator and rulers of this world: the demiurge and his ministers, rise to their Supreme Parent, and subdue the turbulent and sinful motions, which corrupt matter excites within them, shall, at the dissolution of their mortal bodies, ascend directly to the Pleroma. Those, on the contrary, who remain in the bondage of servile superstition, and corrupt matter, shall, at the end of.this life, pass into new bodies, until they awake from their sinful lethargy."*

The Bodies of the Patriarchs, Jacob and Joseph, were embalmed, and this Fact is Evidence of the Belief in a Future Life.

Embalming or the art of filling eviscerated dead bodies with spices for the purpose of preservation, was not a usual practice among the Jews, and the patriarchs Jacob and Joseph are the only persons of the Chosen People, whose bodies-as appears from the history of the Old

Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, Volume I., page 79-81.

Testament, were admitted to a participation of that interesting and honorable sepulchral rite, Genesis, 1. 2; 1. 26. "Embalming," pertinently writes a contributor to Chambers's Encyclopædia, "is the art of preserving the body after death, invented by the Egyptians, whose prepared bodies are known by the name of mummies, and are called in the hieroglyphs sahu, and by St. Augustine gabbaroe. This art seems to have derived its origin from the idea, that the preservation of the body was necessary for the return of the soul to the human form after it had completed its cycle of existence of three or ten thousand years. Physical and sanitary reasons may also have induced the ancient Egyptians to introduce its use; and the legend of Osiris, whose body, destroyed by Typhon, was found by Isis, and embalmed by his son Anubis, gave religious sanction to the rite, all deceased persons being supposed to be embalmed after the model of Osiris in the abuton of Philæ. The art appears as old as 2000 B.C., at least the bodies of Cheops, Mycerinus, and others of the age of the fourth dynasty having been embalmed. One of the earliest embalmments on record is that of the patriarch Jacob; and the body of Joseph was thus prepared, and transported out of Egypt," etc.

This extraordinary care in the preservation of the corpse, shows incontestably that those who employed it, entertained the belief, or at least the hope, of man's existence in a future life. The embalming of the dead was—as we have seen, an Egyptian institution, whose origin dates back long anterior to the birth of Christ, and is supposed to owe its observance mainly to the humane endeavor of the intelligent but vanquished natives to render compre

hensible the sublime doctrine of the immortality of the soul, to the savage Nomads, who had invaded the fertile valley of the Nile, and taken possession of the fair and opulent country of Osiris and of the Pharaohs. They could not-it is affirmed, conceive it possible that the soul should exist and flourish independently of the body, and, hence, the priests who still survived as a learned caste, and nobly continued to vindicate the ascendency of the mind over brute force or material success, wisely accommodating themselves to the rude and puerile ideas of their ignorant and sensuous conquerors, promulgated the famous doctrine of metempsychosis or of the transmigration of the soul after death through a succession of animal bodies.*

*Transmigration or, the passing from one place, state, or condition into another, means, in the theological acceptation of the term, the supposed transition of the soul after death into another substance or body. The belief in such a transition is one of the most important phases in the religions of mankind. It was common to the less civilized and the most enlightened nations of the earth; it was the object of fantastical superstition, as well as that of philosophical speculation, and it is the property of both ancient and modern times. Its basis being the assumption that the human soul does not perish together with the body, it could appertain to those nations only which had already conceived an idea of the immortality of the soul; but in proportion as such an idea is crude or developed, as it is founded merely on a vague fear of death, and a craving for material life, or on ethical grounds, and a supposed causal connection between this and a future life, the belief in transmigration assumes various forms, and influences more or less the actions of men. In its ethical bearing or import, transmigration is based on the theory that the human souls, being of divine essence, are originally pure, but that during their earthly career, they lose of their purity; being destined, however, to regain their original quality, they are reborn again and again, until they have become

The full period, during which this transmigratory process of penance and amelioration was accomplished, embraced the vast cycle of three thousand years; but this ample term of probation might be shortened by rendering the dead body, in some degree, indestructible, by the use of antiseptics appropriate to the art of embalming. For as long as the body retained its original form unimpaired, the soul-partial to its accustomed domicile, persistently continued to occupy it, and was exempt from the metempsychosial wanderings, rendered imperative in other cases; but as soon as the old, familiar tenement crumbled into dust, it fled and entered Amenthes, the abode of shades or the spirit-land of the Egyptians. Here it was subjected to a rigid course of discipline, and its term of transmigration depended—with the rare exception of the final judgment of Osiris, which was occasionally awarded in its case, upon the use it had made of the means which were graciously vouchsafed to it for its purgation and moral development. It deserves, however, to be stated, that the sacred rite of embalming-in the later ages of the Egyptian monarchy, was a mark of honor which was conferred only upon the remains of those persons, who were, by common consent, pronounced worthy of it, by the survivors of their caste. Those, on the other hand, who were declared unworthy of so flattering and useful a distinction, had-of course, to abide by the award, un

free from fault, and thus worthy of re-entering the place of their origin, etc.*

*Chambers's Encyclopædia.

less Osiris, the supreme judge of souls, at whose august and impartial tribunal all the ghosts had to appear before they could be admitted into A menthes-the Hades of the Greeks and the Sheol of the Hebrews, reversed the decision.* In default of so fortunate an issue in their case, a cycle of metempsychosial wanderings of thirty centuries inevitably awaited them.†

PARAGRAPH XXII.

Man has Naturally a Dread of Death, and sometimes utters even Loud Cries of Apprehension and Alarm, when he descends into the Gloomy and Mysterious Abode of Sheol.

The above dismal and disheartening summary, comprising the heading of this paragraph, finds its sad verification in the startling and direful narrative, recorded in the Book of Numbers, xvi. 31–34. It concisely and pithily treats of the tragic and terrible fate which befel the discontented and aspiring faction of Korah and his fellowconspirators, Dathan and Abiram, and briefly thus invites our attention: "And it came to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them. And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.

* Amenthes-as the abode of the dead, had this marked superiority over Hades and Sheol, that it was a place of ameliorative discipline and of preparation for a higher state of existence.

† See my Work-"The Heathen Religion in its Popular and Symbolical Development," page 125-128.

The idea of some distinguished writers, that these men were the leaders of a noble band of Jewish patriots, is not improbable, and therefore deserves at least our respectful regard.