1843.] and the Abyssinian Church. 697 



serves a strict watch over the maintenance of church discipline, and 

 delights to perceive the stranger imitating the hypocrisy of his own 

 example. 



All the absurd ideas of. the Jewish Rabbins, regarding the dead, have 

 been received and embraced by the fathers of Abyssinia. They main- 

 tain that the soul of the departed does not immediately enter into the 

 kingdom of joy, but is conducted to an earthly paradise situated in 

 an invisible spot between the heaven and the earth, where it remains 

 until the resurrection in a state of happiness or torment, according to 

 the alms and prayers bestowed by surviving relatives and friends. Niches 

 in the same spot are also occupied by the saints, and the inconsistency 

 of their faith fully appears in the belief, that the intercession of the 

 Almighty is absolutely necessary of these very saints, who themselves 

 require mortal mediation to be absolved from their spiritual imperfec- 

 tions, and to be suffered to rest in peace until the coming of Christ. 



But the self-interest of the avaricious priest is wrapped up in the 

 preservation of this doctrine. The clergy riot in the price of death-bed 

 confession, and a corner of the church yard is sternly denied to all who 

 die without the due performance of the rite, or whose relations refuse 

 the fee and the funeral feast. The payment of half a crown, however, 

 wafts the soul of a poor man to a place of rest; and the tescar or 

 banquet for the dead, places him in a degree of happiness, according to 

 the costliness of the entertainment. The price of eternal bliss is neces- 

 sarily higher to the rich, but German crowns procure the attendance of 

 venal priests, who absolve and pray continually day and night, and the 

 reeking burial feast is frequently devoured in commemoration of the 

 event. Royalty is taxed at a still more costly rate, and the anniver- 

 saries of the deaths of the six kings of Shoa are held with great ceremony 

 in the capital. Once during every twelve months, before the com- 

 mencement of a splendid feast, their souls are fully absolved from all sin, 

 and the munificence of their illustrious descendant is [still further dis- 

 played in the long line of beeves, which afterwards winds its way to the 

 threshold of every church in Ankober. 



The Talmud asserts, that those who die piously, remain in a state 

 of active knowledge of all the occurrences of this world. Philo, the 

 learned Jew of Alexandria, informs us, that the souls of the Patriarchs 

 pray incessantly for the Jewish nation, and the erudite Rabbins believed 



4 Y 



