In literature and in art, alike, this gloomy fashion of regarding Death has been characteristic of Christianity. Death has been painted as a skeleton grasping a scythe, a grinning skull, a threatening figure with terrible face and uplifted dart, a bony scarecrow shaking an hour-glass--all that could alarm and repel has been gathered round this rightly-named King of Terrors. Milton, who has done so much with his stately rhythm to mould the popular conceptions of modern Christianity, has used all the sinewy strength of his magnificent diction to surround with horror the figure of Death. The other shape, If shape it might be called, that shape had none Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb, Or substance might be called that shadow seemed, For each seemed either; black it stood as night, Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, And shook a dreadful dart; what seemed his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on. Satan was now at hand, and from his seat The monster moving onward came as fast, With horrid strides; hell trembled as he strode.... ... So spoke the grisly terror: and in shape So speaking, and so threatening, grew tenfold More dreadful and deform.... ... but he, my inbred enemy, Forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart, Made to destroy: I fled, and cried out _Death!_ Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed From all her caves, and back resounded _Death_.[1] That such a view of Death should be taken by the professed followers of a Teacher said to have "brought life and immortality to light" is passing strange. The claim, that as late in the history of the world as a mere eighteen centuries ago the immortality of the Spirit in man was brought to light, is of course transparently absurd, in the face of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary available on all hands. The stately Egyptian Ritual with its _Book of the Dead_, in which are traced the post-mortem journeys of the Soul, should be enough, if it stood alone, to put out of court for ever so preposterous a claim. Hear the cry of the Soul of the righteous: O ye, who make the escort of the God, stretch out to me your arms, for I become one of you. (xvii. 22.) Hail to thee, Osiris, Lord of Light, dwelling in the mighty abode, in the bosom of the absolute darkness. I come to thee, a purified Soul; my two hands are around thee. (xxi. 1.) I open heaven; I do what was commanded in Memphis. I have knowledge of my heart; I am in possession of my heart, I am in possession of my arms, I am in possession of my legs, at the will of myself. My Soul is not imprisoned in my body at the gates of Amenti. (xxvi. 5, 6.) Not to multiply to weariness quotations from a book that is wholly composed of the doings and sayings of the disembodied man, let it suffice to give the final judgment on the victorious Soul: