the body as a mummy, so that the soul, on its return, might find its
original habitation still in existence: any who believe in the
resurrection of the body should clearly follow the example of the
ancient Egyptians. In later times, the more instructed Egyptians
believed in a spiritual resurrection only, but the mass of the people
clung to the idea of a bodily resurrection (Ibid, p. 54). "It is to the
later times of Egyptian history, perhaps to the five centuries
immediately before the Christian era, that the religious opinions
contained in the funeral papyri chiefly belong. The roll of papyrus
buried with the mummy often describes the funeral, and then goes on to
the return of the soul to the body, the resurrection, the various trials
and difficulties which the deceased will meet and overcome in the next
world, and the garden of paradise in which he awaits the day of
judgment, the trial on that day, and it then shows the punishment which
would have awaited him if he had been found guilty" (Ibid, p. 64). We
have already seen that the immortality of the soul was taught by Plato
(ante, p. 364). The Hindus taught that happiness or misery hereafter
depended upon the life here. "If duty is performed, a good name will be
obtained, as well as happiness, here and after death" ("Mahabharata,"
xii., 6,538, in "Religious and Moral Sentiments from Indian Writers," by
J. Muir, p. 22). The "Mahabharata" was written, or rather collected, in
the second century before Christ. "Poor King Rantideva bestowed water
with a pure mind, and thence ascended to heaven.... King Nriga gave
thousands of largesses of cows to Brahmans; but because he gave away one
belonging to another person, he went to hell" (Ibid, xiv. 2,787 and
2,789. Muir, pp, 31, 32). "Let us now examine into the theology of
India, as reported by Megasthenes, about B.C. 300 (Cory's 'Ancient
Fragments,' p. 226, _et seq_.). 'They, the Brahmins, regard the present
life merely as the conception of persons presently to be born, and death
as the birth into a life of reality and happiness, to those who rightly