The form of the cake-wafer adopted in paganized Christianity, its _roundness_, was borrowed from the Egyptians, to whom the form represented _the disk of the sun_. The mystic letters on the wafer form another link which connects it with Egyptian paganism. Christians explain these letters as meaning _Jesus Hominum Salvator_; but when the worshippers of Isis, who were everywhere in the Roman empire in the early centuries, read them on the unbloody sacrifice, they understood by them _Isis_, _Horus_, _Seb_, _i. e._, The Mother, the Child, and the Father of the Gods. The pagan character of this unbloody sacrifice was so patent at the first, that it was sharply condemned; but familiarity changed opposition to acceptance, and what was wholly pagan became the centre of worship in paganized Christianity. Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead. All the leading systems of pagan religions have some form of purgatory, with its associate prayers for the dead, for which large sums are paid by the surviving friends. The purgatory which was developed in the Christian cult is like its pagan prototype in almost every particular. An extract from Wilkinson describing the practical workings of the doctrine in pagan Egypt would need little changing to fit the facts connected with the purgatory of Christians. We quote from Hislop[247]: “‘The Priest,’ says Wilkinson, ‘induced the people to expend large sums on the celebration of funeral rites; and _many who had barely sufficient to obtain the necessaries of life_ were anxious to save something for the expenses of their death. For besides the embalming process, which sometimes cost a talent of silver, or about £250, English money, the tomb itself was purchased at an immense expense; and numerous demands were made upon the estate of the deceased, for the celebration of prayer and other services for the soul.’ ‘The ceremonies,’ we find him elsewhere saying, ‘consisted of a sacrifice similar to those offered in the temples, vowed for the deceased to one or more gods (as Osiris, Anubis, and others connected with Amenti); incense and libation were also presented; and a prayer was sometimes read, the relations and friends being present as mourners. They even joined their prayers to those of the priest. The priest who officiated at the burial service was selected from the grade of Pontiffs, who wore the leopard skin; but various other rites were performed by one of the minor priests, to the mummies, previous to their being lowered into the pit of the tomb after that ceremony. Indeed, they continued to be administered at intervals, _as long as the family paid for their performance_.’ Such was the operation of the doctrine of purgatory and prayers for the dead among avowed and acknowledged pagans; and in what essential respect does it differ from the operation of the same doctrine in Papal Rome?” Saint Peter’s Keys.