The Pillar of Fire; or, Israel in Bondage

by J. H. Ingraham

LETTER XIV.

Majestic temple of the sacred bull, Apis—Tyrian mariner torn to pieces by the Egyptians for ignorantly killing a sacred cat—Imposing worship of the deified bull—Description of the sacred animal—Costly offerings at his shrine—An omen!—Tasteful palace of the hierarch of the temple—Transmigration of souls—Brute incarnation of deity—Tradition concerning Osiris—Foreshadowing of the coming of the Invisible upon earth in human form—Lamentations upon the death of a deified bull—His obsequies—Pomp and rejoicings over a new god, Apis—Mausoleum of the Serapis—Sarcophagi—The Sarapeum—The Lady Nelisa—Beautiful daughter of the priest of Mars—The Lake of the Dead—Embalmers and their art—Customs attending death and embalmment—Funeral procession of Rathmes, "lord of the royal gardens"—The venerable head-gardener, Amram—The baris, or sacred boat—pp. [226]-244.

LETTER XV.

Conclusion of funeral ceremonies of the lord of the royal gardens—The Sacred Way—Processions of mourners—Avenue to the tombs—The "dead-life" of the Egyptians—Awful ceremony of the judgment of the dead—Burial of the unworthy dead prohibited—False accusers stoned away—Myth as to the state of the soul after death—Metempsychosis—The mystery of the tribunal of Osiris—Reception of the justified soul into the celestial kingdom—Doom of the reprobate soul—Monkeys, emblems of the god Thoth—The gate of the pyramids—Colossal Andro-sphinx, or Watcher before the pyramids—Beautiful temple of Osiris—The twin pyramids, Cheops and Chephres—pp. [245]-261.

LETTER XVI.

Continuation of description of the Pyramids—Colossal monolith of Horus—Perilous ascent of Cheops—Prospect from a resting-place upon the pyramid, four hundred feet in air—A prince of Midian falls from Chephres—Magnificent view from the top of Cheops, six hundred feet in air—Tombs of kings—The Giants before the Flood founders of the great pyramids—Ancient appearance of pyramids—Greater duration of human life—The third pyramid built by Amun, son of Noah—Egyptian tradition of Noah and his sons—Entombment of Noah in Cheops, and the mourning of the Nations—Verdant plain of the Nile—The desolation of the Desert—Jizeh—Raamses and Pythom, the treasure-cities—The smiling land of Goshen—Prophecy of an Unknown World, in the West—The sacred papyri—Descent of the pyramid—Luxora, the beautiful daughter of the high-priest—Her legend of the Emerald Table of Hermes—Osiria—pp. [262]-276.

LETTER XVII.

The lovely Osiria's legend of King Saurid—Stately Hebrew woman—Tradition of the construction of the larger pyramid—Its foundations—Its gates—Its covering of silk—Its treasure-chambers and magical guardians of stone and agate—Miriam, the papyrus-copier—Her striking resemblance to Prince Remeses—The pyramid penetrated by a Phœnician conqueror—Discovery of treasures—Mighty sarcophagus of the dead monarch of two worlds, Noah—Chamber of the precession of the equinoxes—Hall of the Universe—Pyramids built before the Deluge—Configuration of the seven planets as at the Creation—Astrology—Enigma of the Phœnix—The riddle solved—Nelisa—Interview with the stately Miriam in the Hall of Books—pp. [277]-293.

LETTER XVIII.

Tidings from Prince Remeses and the army—Antediluvian origin of the pyramids—The barbaric King of Ethiopia, Occhoris—His body-guard of Bellardines—His sacrilege in the temple of the sacred bull at Thebes—Pious vengeance of the people—Visit of Remeses to the tomb of his father—Remarkable conversation with Miriam, the papyrus-copier—Description of Miriam—Ben Isaac and the lad Israel—Contempt of the Egyptians for Israel—Religious and political degradation of the Hebrews—Miriam declares the mystery of the God of her fathers—Her denunciation of idol-worship—Miriam's occupation—The winged asps—Interview with the Prince of Uz, Ra-Iub (Job)—Job speaks of the Almighty!—Seems inspired of God—Tradition of a Day's-man, or mediator—Job convinces Sesostris that there is but one God—pp. [294]-313.