1 6 CHURCH. 



compiled a Pharmacopeia, and invented the signs 

 which are used in our prescriptions at the present day. 

 It was they who judged the living and the dead, who 

 enacted laws which extended beyond the grave, who 

 issued passports to paradise, or condemned to eternal 

 infamy the memories of men that were no more. 



Their power was immense ; but it was exercised 

 with justice and discretion : they issued admirable 

 laws, and taught the people to obey them by the 

 example of their own humble, self-denying lives. 



Under the tutelage of these pious and enlightened men, 

 the Egyptians became a prosperous, and also a highly 

 moral people. The monumental paintings reveal their 

 whole life, but we read in them no brutal or licentious 

 scenes. Their great rivals, the Assyrians, even at a 

 later period, were accustomed to impale and flay 

 alive their prisoners of war. The Egyptians granted 

 honours to those who fought gallantly against them. 

 The penalty for the murder of a slave was death ; this 

 law exists without parallel in the dark slavery annals 

 both of ancient and of modern times. The pardoning 

 power in cases of capital offence was a cherished pre- 

 rogative of royalty with them, as with us ; and with 

 them also as with us, when a pregnant woman was con- 

 demned to death the execution was postponed until 

 after the birth of the guiltless child. It is a sure cri- 

 terion of the civilization of ancient Egypt that the 

 soldiers did not carry arms except on duty, and that 

 the private citizens did not carry them at all. Women 

 were treated with much regard. They were allowed to 

 join their husbands in the sacrifices to the gods ; the 

 bodies of man and wife were united in the tomb. 

 "When a party was given, the guests were received by 

 the host and hostess seated side by side in a large arm- 



