One of the most distinctive features of the Egyptian religion was the idea of the transmigration of souls,—­that when men die; their souls reappear on earth in various animals, in expiation of their sins.  Osiris was the god before whose tribunal all departed spirits appeared to be judged.  If evil preponderated in their lives, their souls passed into a long series of animals until their sins were expiated, when the purified souls, after thousands of years perhaps, passed into their old bodies.  Hence it was the great object of the Egyptians to preserve their mortal bodies after death, and thus arose the custom of embalming them.  It is difficult to compute the number of mummies that have been found in Egypt.  If a man was wealthy, it cost his family as much as one thousand dollars to embalm his body suitably to his rank.  The embalmed bodies of kings were preserved in marble sarcophagi, and hidden in gigantic monuments.

The most repulsive thing in the Egyptian religion was animal-worship.  To each deity some animal was sacred.  Thus Apis, the sacred bull of Memphis, was the representative of Osiris; the cow was sacred to Isis, and to Athor her mother.  Sheep were sacred to Kneph, as well as the asp.  Hawks were sacred to Ra; lions were emblems of Horus, wolves of Anubis, hippopotami of Set.  Each town was jealous of the honor of its special favorites among the gods.

“The worst form of this animal worship,” says Rawlinson, “was the belief that a deity absolutely became incarnate in an individual animal, and so remained until the animal’s death.  Such were the Apis bulls, of which a succession was maintained at Memphis in the temple of Phtha, or, according to others, of Osiris.  These beasts, maintained at the cost of the priestly communities in the great temples of their respective cities, were perpetually adored and prayed to by thousands during their lives, and at their deaths were entombed with the utmost care in huge sarcophagi, while all Egypt went into mourning on their decease.”

Such was the religion of Egypt as known to the Jews,—­a complicated polytheism, embracing the worship of animals as well as the powers of Nature; the belief in the transmigration of souls, and a sacerdotalism which carried ritualistic ceremonies to the greatest extent known to antiquity, combined with the exaltation of the priesthood to such a degree as to make priests the real rulers of the land, reminding us of the spiritual despotism of the Middle Ages.  The priests of Egypt ruled by appealing to the fears of men, thus favoring a degrading superstition.  How far they taught that the various objects of worship were symbols merely of a supreme power, which they themselves perhaps accepted in their esoteric schools, we do not know.  But the priests believed in a future state of rewards and punishments, and thus recognized the soul to be of more importance than the material body, and made its welfare paramount over all other interests.  This recognition doubtless contributed to elevate the morals of the people, and to make them religious, despite their false and degraded views of God, and their disgusting superstitions.