The Catholic doctrine is thus briefly laid down in the Catechism: "Purgatory is a place of punishment in the other life where some souls suffer for a time before they can go to heaven;" or, in the words of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, there is "the fire of Purgatory, in which the souls of just men are cleansed by a temporary punishment in order to be admitted into their eternal country, 'into which nothing defiled entereth.'" How far the pagan notions of a middle state harmonize with the Christian doctrine the reader will be able to determine as we proceed. I must premise by stating that almost all, if not all, the forms of paganism were two-fold, containing a popular form of religion, believed and practiced by the mass of the people, and a more recondite form that was known only to the initiated, whether this was the priestly caste, as was generally the case, or whether they were designated by some other name. It should also be observed that the forms of religion were constantly undergoing changes of greater or less importance. Nor must we lose sight of the fact that different nations embodied the same idea under different terms. The conception of the phlegmatic Norseman would be different from that of the imaginative Oriental, and the language of the refined Greek would be far other than that of the rude American savage. But yet the same truth may be found to underlie all, the outward garb alone differing. Turning first to Egypt, which is, rightly or wrongly, commonly considered the cradle of civilization, we may sum up its teaching with regard to the lot of the dead, and the middle state, in these interesting remarks of a learned author: "The continuance of the soul after its death, its judgment in another world, and its sentence according to its deserts, either to happiness or suffering, were undoubted parts both of the popular and of the more recondite religion. It was the universal belief that immediately after death the soul descended into a lower world, and was conducted to the Hall of Truth (or, 'of the Two Truths'), where it was judged in the presence of Osiris and the forty-two demons, the 'Lords of Truth' and judges of the dead. Anubis, 'the director of the weight,' brought forth a pair of scales, and, placing on one scale a figure or emblem of Truth, set on the other a vase containing the good actions of the deceased; Thoth standing by the while, with a tablet in his hand, whereon to record the result. According to the side on which the balance inclined, Osiris delivered the sentence. If the good deeds preponderated, the blessed soul was allowed to enter the 'boat of the sun,' and was conducted by good spirits to Aahlu (Elysium), to the 'pools of peace,' and the dwelling place of Osiris.... The good soul, having first been freed from its infirmities by passing through the basin of purgatorial fire, guarded by the four ape-faced genii, and then made the companion of