which the fields got under former governments, when invasions and civil wars were things of common occurrence, and kept at least twothirds of the land waste.' The fact is that, under an orderly government like ours, the causes alluded to above as impeding the growth of capital become very much aggravated. Population largely increases, waste lands are brought under the plough, grazing grounds for stock disappear, and the fallows, formerly so beneficial in restoring fertility to the soil, can no longer be kept free from cultivation. All these considerations form portions of the very difficult problems in government which day by day present themselves to the Indian administrator. But does Mr. Hyndman think they are to be solved by recurrence to the native system of government; by the substitution of a local ruler, sometimes paternal, more frequently the reverse, for the courts of justice which now administer the law which can be read and understood by all; by civil contracts being enforced by the armed servant of the creditor, instead of by the officers of a court acting under strict surveillance; by the land assessment being collected year by year through the farmers of the revenue according to their arbitrary will, instead of being payable in a small moderate 15 sum unalterable for a long term of years? If he thinks this-and his allusion to the system of the non-regulation provinces favours the conclusion-he will not find, I think, an educated native in the whole of India who will agree with him. There are great harshnesses in our rule, there is a rigidity and exactitude of procedure which is often distasteful to native opinion, there are patent defects arising out of our attempts to administer justice, there is great irritation at our constant and often ill-conceived experiments in legislation, there is real danger in the fresh burdens we lay upon the people in our desire to carry out apparently laudable reforms. But with all these blemishes, which have only to be distinctly perceived to be removed from our administrative system, the educated native feels that he is gradually acquiring the position of a freeman, and he would not exchange it for that which Mr. Hyndman appears to desiderate. E. PERRY. 15 So long ago as the period when Colonel Sleeman wrote, the principle was fully established as to the moderation to be observed in the Government assessment. He says: 'We may rate the Government share at one-fifth as the maximum and onetenth as the minimum of the gross produce.' (Rambles of an Indian Official, vol. i. p. 251.) In the Blue Book laid before Parliament last Session on the Deccan riots, it will be seen that the Government share in the gross produce of those districts where a high assessment was supposed to have created the disturbances was only one-thirteenth. THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 'Он Egypt! Egypt! Of thy religion fables only will remain, which thy disciples will understand as little as they do thy religion. Words cut into stone will alone remain telling of thy pious deeds. The Scythian, or the dweller by the Indus, or some other barbarian will inhabit thy fair land.' Such was the prophecy of Hermes Trismegistus, too literally fulfilled concerning the religion of the nation which Herodotus considered to be by far the best instructed people with whom he was acquainted, since they, of all men, store up most for recollection'the people who of all men were most attentive to the worship of the gods,' and 'most scrupulous in matters of religion'-the people from whose Pantheon he gladly acknowledges that almost all the gods came into Greece.' The crowning glory of the wisdom of King Solomon was that it 'excelled the wisdom of Egypt.' Of their love of learning and reverence for religion we have abundant proof in their writings on the papyrus of the Nile and the 'fine linen of Egypt;' and in the words cut into stone' on the walls of temples, on the tombs of kings and queens, of priests and priestesses, of noble men and fair women. Every temple had its library attached. On the walls of the library at Dendera is sculptured a catalogue raisonné of manuscripts belonging to the temple. The exhortations to follow learning are unceasing: Love letters. as thy mother. I make its beauty to appear in thy face. It is a greater possession than all honours.' 1 6 And so we, descendants of the barbarians,' the thought of whose appearance on the banks of the Nile sent such a shiver to the heart of the cultured priest, are able to spell out the religion of the Egyptians; and, unsealing the lips of the dead, bid them speak for us their 6 sermons in stones.' The interest which attaches to the religion of ancient Egypt is due partly to the proof it gives that our Father-who is, as a Vedic 1 G. Maspero, Le Genre Epistolaire chez les Anciens Egyptiens, p. 48. Paris, 1872. hymn calls Him, the most fatherly of fathers'-fed the souls and spirits of His children when they hungered and thirsted after righteousness' in the remotest ages of the world; and partly to the light it sheds upon the Mosaic conception and idea of the Divine Being and man's relation to Him. On this account it may be well to bear in mind the extreme antiquity of the Egyptians and the state of their civilisation during the serfdom of the Israelites. A pyramid at Sakkárah, near Thebes, has a royal title on the inner door to the fourth king of the first dynasty. If this inscription be correct, then the pyramid was built from five to seven hundred years before the great pyramid of Cheops, and was 2,000 years old in the time of Abraham. Of this pyramid we may say, as King Amenemha said of a palace he was building, 'Made for eternity, time shrinks before it.' During the period of the slavery of the Israelites, Egypt was already in its decadence, and its religion had lost much of its original purity. We possess books of travels, moral treatises, letters, sacred hymns, and novels, some written before and some during this period. Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,' and the influence of this learning is felt in the Pentateuch. 6 The dry climate and the sand of Egypt have preserved the monuments, the papyri, and the frescoes, which appear fresh as the day on which they were painted. M. Mariette describes his penetrating into one of the sealed sepulchral chambers at Memphis and finding, on the thin layer of sand which covered the floor, the footprints of the workmen who, 3,700 years before, had laid the Apis mummy in its sarcophagus and closed, as they believed, the door of perfect fitting stone for ever. We shall consider (1) the idea of God, (2) the effect of this idea upon the life of the people, (3) the conception of the future life. I. The manifold forms of the Egyptian Pantheon were nothing, says the late E. Deutsch, but religious masks of the sublime doctrine of the unity of the Deity communicated to the initiated in the Mysteries. The gods of the Pantheon were,' says M. Pierrot, 'only manifestations of the One Being in his various capacities." M. Maspero and other scholars have arrived at the same conclusion. 4 The following hymn occurs on two papyri in the British Museum. It represents the thought prevalent in Egypt at the time of the Exodus, and is the work of Enna, the well-known author of the Romance of the Two Brothers and other works. The hymn was translated some years ago by Maspero. A translation has also been offered by Canon Cook in Records of the Past. I select portions which express the unity of the Godhead : 2 Lit. Rem. p. 178. 5 Dict. d'Arch. Egypt. art. 'Religion.' Paris, 1875. ↑ Hist. Anc. des Peuples de l'Orient, cap. i. Paris, 1876. Hymne au Nil. Paris, 1868. Lauth offers a fine transl. in Voses der Ebräer. • Vol. iv. P. 105. Hail to thee, O Nile! He causeth growth to fulfil all desires, He never wearies of it. He maketh his might a buckler.7 He is not graven in marble 8 As an image bearing the double crown. He is not beheld: " He hath neither ministrants nor offerings: He is not adored in sanctuaries: His abode is not known. No shrine is found with painted figures (of him). Unknown is his name in heaven, He does not manifest his forms! Vain are all representations of him. On this hymn Canon Cook makes the note, sufficiently remarkable as coming from the editor of the Speaker's Commentary: The whole of this passage is of extreme importance, showing that, apart from all objects of idolatrous worship, the old Egyptian recognised the existence of a supreme God, unknown and inconceivable; the true source of all power and goodness.' This one God is moreover the Creator: 'He has made the world with His hand, its waters, its atmosphere, its vegetation, all its flocks, and birds, and fish, and reptiles, and beasts of the field.' 13 He made all the world contains, and hath given it light when there was as yet no sun.' 14 Glory to Thee who hast begotten all that exists, who hast made man, and made the gods also, and all the beasts of the field. Thou makest men to live. Thou hast no being second to thee. Thou givest the breath of life. Thou art the Light of this world.' 15 But although God be the Creator, yet He is self-created:' 'His commencement is from the beginning. He is the God who has existed from old time. There is no God without Hirn. No mother bore Him, no father hath begotten Him. God-goddess created from Himself. All gods came into existence when He began.' 16 Many of the hymns speak the mystery of His name: 'Unknown is His name in heaven:'Whose name is hidden from His creatures in His name which is Amen' (hidden, secret).17 Therefore 17 The incommunicableness of the name of the Divine Being was the truth at which Jacob arrived after the night's hard wrestling: Why askest thou after my name?' the Egyptians never spoke the Unknown Name, but used a phrase which expressed the self-existence of the Eternal: I am One Being, I am One.' The expression is found in the Ritual of the Dead,' where Lepsius translates it: Ich bin Tum, ein Wesen das ich eines bin;' and he refers to the similarly constructed sentence: 'I and my Father are One.' 18 E. Deutsch renders it 'I am He who I am.' The original is Nuk-pu-Nuk. Plutarch 19 tells us of the veil which overhung the temple of Neith at Sais: 'I am that was, and is, and is to be; and my veil no mortal hath yet drawn aside.' The name Neith means I came from myself.' In one of the magical texts there is a chapter entitled: To open the Place of the Shrine of the Seat of Neith.' 'I am the seat of Neith, hidden in the hidden, concealed in the concealed, shut up in the shut up, unknown I am knowledge.' 21 20 At the town of Pilhom, God was worshipped under the name of "The Living God,' which Brugsch considers to correspond with the meaning of the name Jehovah; and the serpent of brass, called kerch (the polished), was there regarded as the living symbol of God.22 These passages are sufficient to establish the fact stated in the letter of Jamblichus to Porphyry that the Egyptians'affirm that all things which exist were created, and that He who gave them being is their first Father and Creator.' 23 The Egyptians felt that which we all feel, that no name can express all that God is. Nevertheless, they tried to realise God by taking some natural object which should in itself convey to their minds some feature in God's nature, so that from the well-known they might grope after if happily they might find the unknown. This became a necessity for the priests in the religious teaching of the people. Therefore in the Sun they saw God manifested as the Light of the world, in the river Nile they saw the likeness of Him whom no temple can contain, whose form cannot be graven in marble, whose abode is unknown. The more fully they felt the infinite nature of God, the more would they seek in nature for symbols, and in flights of inspiration for names, to express the yearnings of their souls after God. Hence they called God Pthah when He speaks, and when by His word He becomes Creator; they called Him Thoth when He writes the Sacred Books, and manifests truth and goodness; they called Him Osiris when He manifests all that is best and noblest in man's nature, and taking upon Him the nature of man becomes the god-man. All the deities were regarded as manifestations of the one great Creator, the Uncreated, the Father of 18 ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ Πατὴρ ΕΝ ἐσμεν. 19 De Isid. et Os. c. 9. 20 Athene is supposed to have had her origin in the Egyptian Neith. An inscription is said to exist in a temple of Athene: 'I am all and was, and is, and shall be. Monier Williams, Indian Wisdom, p. 145 n. 21 Records of Past, vi. 123. 22 Cong. of Orient. London. 23 De Myst. i. 4. |