To go back again to the earlier written history of the world; it is evident that the ancient Egyptians recognized blood as in a peculiar sense life itself; and that they counted the heart,--as the blood-source and the blood-centre,--the symbol and the substance of life. In the Book of the Dead, the deceased speaks of his heart,--or his blood-fountain,--as his life; and as giving him the right to appear in the presence of the gods: “My heart was my mother; my heart was my mother; my heart was my being on earth; placed within me; returned to me by the chief gods, placing me before the gods”[190] [in the presence of the gods]. In the process of embalming, the heart was always preserved with jealous care;[191] and sometimes it was embalmed by itself in a sepulchral vase.[192] It was the heart--as the life, which is the blood--that seems to have been put into the scales of the divine Judge for the settling of the soul’s destiny;[193] according to all the Egyptian pictures of the judgment. Throughout the Book of the Dead, and in all the sacred teachings and practices of the ancient Egyptians, with reference to human life and human destiny, the heart is obviously recognized as the analogon of blood, and blood as the analogon of life. Moreover, the life, which is represented by the blood and by the heart, appears to be counted peculiarly the gift and the guarded treasure of Deity, and as being in itself a resemblance to, if not actually a part of, the divine nature.[194] Even of the lower animals, the heart and the heart’s blood were counted sacred to the gods, and were not to be eaten by the Egyptians; as if life belonged only to the Giver of life, and, when passing out from a lower organism, must return, or be returned, only to its original Source. When the soul stands before the forty-two judges, in the Hall of the Two Truths, to give answer concerning its sins, one of its protesting avowals, as recorded in the Book of the Dead, is: “Oh Glowing Feet, coming out of the darkness! I have not eaten the heart;”[195] In my earthly life-course, I have not committed the sacrilege of heart-eating. Yet, of the sacrificial offering of “a red cow,” as prescribed in the Book of the Dead, “of the blood squeezed from the heart, one hundred drops,”[196] make a portion for the gods. In one of the tombs of Memphis, there is represented a scene of slaughtering animals. As the heart of an animal is taken out, the butcher who holds it says,--as shown by the accompanying hieroglyphics,--“Take care of this heart;”[197] as if that were a portion to be guarded sacredly. “Keep thy heart with all diligence [or, as the margin has it, “above all thou guardest”]; for out of it are the issues of life.”[198] It may, indeed, have been from the lore of Egypt that Solomon obtained this proverb of the ages, to pass it onward to posterity with his stamp of inspiration.