practical effect as the will of the Being whom he worships? Or, if he be possessed of the genius of a Moses or a Mahommed, he will discover a new god, or so successfully modify an old one as to become the founder of a new religion. The opponents of the parvenu theology may condemn the Prophet as an impostor, but to the candid and impartial student of religious phenomena he is a man of genius who, in brooding over some great purpose in solitude and asceticism, at length yields to the hallucinations of cerebral exhaustion. Moses, however, through his Egyptian training in divination, which, in Judaism, assumed the form of Urim and Thummim, could at all times feel assured of his personal intercourse with the Deity.

The enterprise of Moses resulted in the Exodus, the records of which confirm the servile degradation of the Israelites. Six hundred thousand men marched out of Egypt, and yet, when pursued by Pharaoh and his army, they denounced Moses for bestowing on them a freedom which involved personal danger. This cowardice is fostered by Jehovah, who deprives them of all motive for heroic resistance by undertaking the supernatural destruction of their enemies. Pharaoh, virtually irresponsible for his actions through inspired obduracy, and his subjects obeying the commands of their lawful sovereign, are all overwhelmed in the waters of the Red Sea, to establish the comparative superiority of Jehovah over other gods, as indicated in the song of Moses:1 Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, in doing wonders?' As the prophetess Miriam takes a

1 Exod. xv. 11.

timbrel in her hand, and invites the daughters of Israel to celebrate the occasion with music and dancing, we can imagine some Hebrew mother interrupting this jubilant festivity with the inquiry, 'If even the waves of the sea obey the voice of Jehovah, why did the waters of the Nile close over the babes of Israel?'

Moses having thus entered upon his career as the leader of the Hebrews, let us glance at the conditions under which he assumed his important duties. Those who rely on Hebrew records for their knowledge of ancient Egypt necessarily form very erroneous impressions of the religious, social, and political organisation of a people whose history may be traced to about 4000 B.C., and whose science, philosophy, and religion have been extensively borrowed by nations attaining civilisation within the historic period.

Professor Lepsius, of Berlin, who has exhaustively studied the evidence of pyramids, tombs, and papyri, fixes the date at which Menes, the founder of Memphis, ascended the throne as 3893 B.C., at which remote period the Ancient Egyptians possessed a highly organised civilisation and most elaborate theology, which could only have been evolved through the progressive development of ages unknown to orthodox chronology.

The Ancient Egyptians anticipated Christianity in a divine Trinity, and an incarnate Deity, redeeming mankind by his death, and an eternity of happiness or misery beyond the grave. Osiris, the Saviour of Humanity, was the supreme Judge of the Dead, by whose decree they were to enter abodes of bliss or eternal fire. Those who, in their lifetime, had given food to the hungry,

water to the thirsty, clothing to the naked, lived in truth, and loved God, were to enjoy eternal life in his presence, and pluck the sweetest fruit in heaven; but the wicked were to be excluded from the presence of the Lord of Heaven, and tortured by varying forms of human suffering. If, therefore, an Egyptian mummy, now reclining within the precincts of the British Museum, were suddenly restored to life, and miraculously gifted with modern tongues, might he not reasonably infer, on entering a Christian temple and hearing an evangelical discourse, that Egyptian theology had survived the vicissitudes of six thousand years?

In

The high tone of morality prevailing among the Ancient Egyptians is disclosed by the monuments. the valley of Thebes is an inscription said to refer to Rameses II. I have lived in truth and fed on justice. What I have done for Humanity was salvation. And how I have loved God, God only and my heart know. I have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clad the naked, and sheltered the homeless.' The same witnesses tell us of the high social position of women in a community where the wife was the lady of the house'; and the sanctity of marriage was universally respected, before it had ever been heard of as a Christian sacrament.

The Egyptian religion, however, as all other ancient systems of theology, had eventually become corrupted by the growth of superstition, and the multiplication of gods. Moses, who, according to the historian Manetho, had been a priest of Osiris, was obviously familiar with the cultus of many gods, but, as the founder of a nation, recognised the importance of undivided allegiance to

one deity as the national divinity, piously accepted as supreme in power over all other gods. But how shall we explain his exclusion from Hebrew faith of the doctrine of immortality, the judgment-seat of Osiris, and eternal retribution beyond the grave? As the priest Osarseph of Heliopolis, Moses would have been familiar, not only with the public teaching, but with the esoteric theosophy of the priesthood avowed in the privacy of sacerdotal circles, discussing divine philosophy in the sacred groves of Heliopolis. Opinions doubtless varied, as among theologians of every age and every clime: some confident, some agnostic, some sceptical of immortality. Moses was doubtless one of the unbelievers, and therefore limited the hopes of his followers to temporal rewards and punishments, to the exclusion of a life hereafter, blessed by paradise or cursed by perdition.

Notwithstanding this marked divergence between Egyptian and Hebrew creeds, Moses borrowed freely from Egyptian sources.

Circumcision, whether first adopted by Abraham or Moses, was practised by the Egyptians before the existence of either.

The Taberacle, with its Holy of Holies, was simply an Egyptian temple. The Ark was the sacred Coffin of Osiris, and the Cherubim were modified Sphinxes.

The priestly caste of the Levites, with their special laws and customs, are of undoubted Egyptian origin.

In Egypt, seven lamps were placed before the Holy of Holies. In the Hebrew tabernacle, a candlestick with seven branches occupied the same position.

The chief priests of both nations were robed in the same manner, and the Hebrew pontiff wore the breast

plate of an Egyptian judge ornamented with twelve precious stones.

The laws of purification, and the distinction between clean and unclean animals, are adopted from the Egyptians.

The Decalogue is an adaptation of the Egyptian moral code.

Moses not only borrowed rites and ceremonies, but even his ideal of Divinity, from the Egyptians. According to Plutarch (de Iside), the front of the temple of Isis at Sais was inscribed with the words, 'I am all that hath been, and that is, and that shall be,' and Moses proclaimed the Hebrew Deity as the great I AM. The same writer also informs us that the Thebans worshipped a god whose form comes not under the senses, and cannot be represented,' and Moses prohibited the adoption of any graven image of the national god.

The most important gift of Egyptian theosophy to Moses was, however, the art of divination, through which he attained communion with Jehovah. So familiar were the Hebrews, through their Egyptian experience, with Urim and Thummim, that the investiture of Aaron with these oracular Talismans was tacitly accepted as a matter of course.

Various fanciful hypotheses have been advanced in solution of the Mosaic form of divination. That the jewels on the breastplate of the Pontiff, engraved with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, supplied a marvellous alphabet, through which the divine response could be read from letters miraculously raised and illuminated; that the name of Jehovah was engraved upon a jewel or plate of gold in the centre of the ephod,