to the God or Gods of the community on behalf of the dead, and that they contained petitions for the welfare of the departed in the world beyond the grave. Certain portions of texts which have been incorporated into religious works of a later period shew that the life which the Egyptian hoped to live after death was one similar to that which he led on earth, and it is clear that he thought the preservation of his natural and material body to be in some way absolutely necessary for the attainment of this life."

Two points in this authoritative statement hint at danger being attached to the disturbers of those remains. We do not know what the words were that the priestly adepts uttered, but we do know that they were solemn words of power addressed to the Deity, and we also know that not only were the formulas of curses and blessings fixed, but the exact tone in which they were to be pronounced was specially taught. Also we know that the power of the spell remains until such time as it is broken by an antidote or exorcism. It is therefore no passing thing. In "The Priests' Prayer Book," in the possession of our Protestant clergy, there are prayers to be used by an

exorcist.

Again, Budge lays emphasis on the fact that the Egyptian believed that the preservation of his physical body was vitally necessary to him in his future life.

Many of us, myself included, think nothing of the material body, but we may be wrong and the Egyptians may be right. We know so little. One fact instantly occurs to the student of occul

tism. There are countless authenticated ghost stories where apparitions continue to appear until their human remains, hidden away in some part of the house, are found and given decent burial. The hauntings then cease.

It is one of the greatest puzzles to the psychic researcher why the departed should concern themselves so greatly over their abandoned forms of clay.

We do not now commit our dead to the earth to the accompaniment of elaborate ceremonial and ritual, but the mere fact that the Egyptian did invests his burial with a power it is rash to defy or tamper with.

Sir Francis Younghusband says of the body, "It is a marvellously complex system of groups of those ultimate particles of matter which are called electrons. These electrons are not inert specks incapable of activity by themselves. On the contrary, they act of themselves. . They act to all intents and purposes as if they hadeach of them—a mind of its own. The body is spiritual to the core. It is a flame of spirit jetting out of that great spiritual whole, the Universe, and fired with the spirit of the Universe."

We have every reason to believe that the Egyptians held similar views, and their extreme care of the physical body after death is believed by some experts to arise out of their faith in its resurrection, in the gathering up again, as it were, of those electrons which being etheric cannot die.

Those electrons would in some way be available for the next physical body destined to clothe the reincarnating ego.

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There is a growing feeling amongst occultists that we have been too hasty in refusing to accept the words "I believe in the resurrection of the body." Perhaps we do not understand their underlying meaning. Is there some power invested by the spirit in the physical body which cremation would destroy or scatter? Matter is indestructible. Are we seeking to destroy something required by nature for her future use. Something she desires to conserve?

Apply a piece of iron to a magnet. It becomes imbued with its subtle principle, and is capable of imparting it to other iron in turn.

It neither looks different nor is its weight altered, but one of the most subtle potencies of nature has entered into its substance.

A talisman may be a piece of stone, a worthless bit of metal, a rag or a papyrus, but nevertheless it has been imbued by the influence of the greatest of all magnets-the human will-with a potency for good or ill just as recognisable and as real in its effects as the subtle property acquired by iron in contact with the magnet.

In the East the ancient power is still preserved by which an otherwise inert object may be saturated with protective or destructive powers according to the purpose directing. When one considers what our scientists tell us of the composition of matter, stones, etc., that they are really vivified by atoms showing intelligence, it is not so hard to suppose that the adepts knew the secret of adapting this form of intelligence to their own purposes.

The opening of Tutankhamen's tomb has spread

before us a chapter in history written in gold. It is a revelation of the glory and might of Egyptian art flourishing in the reigns of the kings of the eighteenth dynasty.

Tutankhamen was by no means great in himself. His is borrowed splendour.

He was grandson by marriage of Amonhotep the magnificent, and the objects found in his tomb are merely an art collection, samples of artistic wealth bequeathed to him by his great ancestors.

In 1907 the tomb of Tutankhamen's fatherin-law, the son of the magnificent Amonhotep, was discovered, nearly 3;500 years after his death. This tomb contained the remains of Akhnaton who was one of the greatest spiritual figures the world has ever known. He founded a new religion.

From the worship of many gods, Akhnaton led the Egyptian people to the worship of the One.

At the age of nineteen he took his Queen, the beautiful Nefertiti, to live in the glittering "City of the Horizon" which he had raised upon the desert, and there he instituted sun worship. He conceived of the Sun God as the source of all life and energy, a God spiritually omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.

There, in "The City of the Horizon," Akhnaton preached love, peace, truth.

"How manifold are all Thy works," he cries. "They are hidden from before us, O Thou sole God whose power no other possesses."

He goes on,

"Thou didst create the earth according to Thy desire, whilst Thou wast alone.” Akhnaton may be described as the first great

international. His God was no tribal God, but "Father and Mother of all that He had made."

Like all Saviours he died a martyr's death at the age of twenty-eight. So passed away this great spiritual genius of the old world, and Tutankhamen, his son-in-law, reigned in his stead.

The stately, glittering "City of the Horizon " was abandoned to the beasts of the desert, and the bands of marauding robbers, and the worship of the One God passed away and for long was forgotten.

Le Page Renouf, one of the greatest foreign authorities on Egypt, states that according to the most moderate calculations the Egyptian Monarchy existed for more than two thousand years before the book of Exodus was written. In "The book of the Dead" we find phrases that belong to the New Testament. They are used in connection with the Day of Judgment, and experts state that they were graven two thousand years before the birth of Jesus, The Christ.

There is sufficient evidence available now to warrant the belief that the life of Ancient Egypt, which we have partially uncovered, was but the gradual dying out of the degenerate representatives of a very much greater era of civilization. It suggests a previous civilization, the duration of which might be numbered by millions of years. We get glimpses of those ages before the dawn of history, legendary ages of which we know nothing, but ever and anon comes a flash from that great mysterious river which flows beneath all faiths. Which bears them all upon its breast, from primary source to embosomed harbour.