Joseph "bought" the Egyptians, after they had said to him "buy us."

i. 13, 14, it is said that the Egyptians "made the children of Israel to serve with rigor," "and all their service wherein they made them serve, was with rigor."

These works, however, dealt mainly with the philological branch of Egyptology and Assyriology, and it was impossible in the space allowed to explain much that needed explanation in the other branches of those subjectsthat is to say, matters relating to the archaeology, history, religion, etc., of the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians.

The following pages are intended to place before the reader in a handy form an account of the principal ideas and beliefs held by the ancient Egyptians concerning the resurrection and the future life, which is derived wholly from native religious works.

Up to the present no systematic account of the doctrine of the resurrection and of the future life has been discovered, and there is no reason for hoping that such a thing will ever be found, for the Egyptians do not appear to have thought that it was necessary to write a work of the kind.

In spite of these difficulties, however, it is possible to collect a great deal of important information on the subject from the funereal and religious works which have come down to us, especially concerning the great central idea of immortality, which existed unchanged for thousands of years, and formed the pivot upon which the religious and social life of the ancient Egyptians actually turned.

The chief source of our information concerning the doctrine of the resurrection and of the future life as held by the Egyptians is, of course, the great collection of religious texts generally known by the name of "Book of the Dead."

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.

THE "GODS" OF THE EGYPTIANS IV.

This is precisely the case with the Egyptians when we first know them.

" Now, although the above passages prove the exalted idea which the Egyptians held of the supreme Being, they do not supply us with any of the titles and epithets which they applied to him; for these we must have recourse to the fine hymns and religious meditations which form so important a part of the "Book of the Dead."

The early nations that came in contact with the Egyptians usually misunderstood the nature of these beings, and several modern Western writers have done the same.

Nevertheless, the worship of the neteru by the Egyptians has been made the base of the charge of "gross idolatry" which has been brought against them, and they have been represented by some as being on the low intellectual level of savage tribes.

According to Tiele, the religion of Egypt was at the beginning polytheistic, but developed in two opposite directions: in the one direction gods were multiplied by the addition of local gods, and in the other the Egyptians drew nearer and nearer to monotheism.

The epithets which the Egyptians applied to their gods also bear valuable testimony concerning the ideas which they held about God.

a number of the epithets which are applied to the gods, from texts of all periods; and from these we may see that the ideas and beliefs of the Egyptians concerning God were almost identical with those of the Hebrews and Muhammadans at later periods.

"God is a spirit, a hidden spirit, the spirit of spirits, the great spirit of the Egyptians, the divine spirit.

According to the writings of the Egyptians, there was a time when neither heaven nor earth existed, and when nothing had being except the boundless primeval [Footnote: See Brugsch, Religion, p.

Amen, see the chapter, "The Gods of the Egyptians."] who dost rest upon Maat; [Footnote: i.e., "thy existence, and thy risings and settings are ordered and defined by fixed, unchanging, and unalterable law.

the Assyrians, Medes, Chaldeans, Sarmatians, Scythians, Parthians, Philistines, Phoenicians, Jews, and Syrians; the Tartars on the Caucasus, Georgians, Circassians, Mingrelians, Armenians, Turks, Persians, Arabs, Hindoos of high caste, Northern Africans, Egyptians, Abyssinians, and Guanches.

The pasha called for troops from Constantinople, though no violence had been even threatened, and several battalions of Turkish regulars with eight thousand Egyptians arrived and disembarked.

They insisted on the withdrawal of the Egyptians from Vrysis, and Schahin came again to demand the good offices of Dendrinos and myself, promising that if his men were left unmolested he would take no part in the action of the Turkish troops.

We sent messengers to the Cretan camp, urging this course, but they were not allowed to pass the Turkish lines; and the committee, not receiving the message, repeated the summons to the Egyptians to leave Vrysis immediately or take the consequences.

The Christians in the interior, encouraged by the victories over the Egyptians and Turks, took such arms as they had, and raided down to the plain about Canea, carrying off as prisoners a number of Mussulmans who were gathering the grapes in their vineyards.

He was collecting this sum forcibly from the Egyptians and was irritated at the difficulty he encountered as well as at their bidding him demand back Cyprus from the Romans or else renounce his friendship for the foreigners,neither of which demands suited his wishes.