But we must give some account of what the Egyptian doctrine of the future life actually was. Fortunately, in the Book of the Dead, we have for its historical reconstruction the identical materials the old Egyptians had for its construction in their own moral being. This Book of the Dead was one of their Sacred Scriptures. Its contents are very various and comprehensive, and are quite sufficient to give us a distinct idea of what we are in want of here. It is divided into 165 sections. Its object is to supply the man, now in the mummy stage of existence, with all the instructions he will require in his passage to, and into, the future world. It contains the primæval hymns that were to be sung, and the prayers that were to be offered, as the mummy was lowered into the pit of the catacomb or grave; and the invocations that were to be used over the mummy, the various amulets appended to it, and the bandages in which it was swathed. These bandages had great mystical importance. Some of them have been unrolled to the length of 1,000 yards; and we are told that there is no form of bandage known to modern surgery of which instances may not be found on the mummies. What has now been mentioned forms, as it were, the introductory part of the book. The rest is devoted to what is to be done by the mummy himself on his passage to, and entrance into, the unseen world. It taught him what he was to say and do during the days of trying words, and on the occasion of the great and terrible final judgment. An image of the rendering of this awful account had already been presented to the eyes of the surviving friends and neighbours at the funeral. It was a scene in which the mummy had often taken part himself in the days of his own earthly trial. The corpse, on its way to the grave, had to pass the sacred lake of the nome, or department. When it had reached the shore there was a pause in the progress of the procession, and forty-two judges, or jurymen, stood forward to hear any accusations that any one was at liberty to advance against the deceased. If any accusation could be substantiated to the satisfaction of the judges, whether the deceased were the Pharaoh who had sat on the throne, or a poor peasant or artizan, the terrible sentence, to an Egyptian beyond measure terrible, was passed upon him, that his mummy was to be excluded from burial. The awful consequence of this was 3,000 years of wandering in darkness, and in animal forms.