Thence arise the changeful and corresponding conceptions connected with rising and setting, arriving and departing, being born and dying.

The careful preservation of the body after death from destruction, not only through the process of inward decay, but also through violence or accident, was in the religion of ancient Egypt a principal condition (perhaps introduced by the priests on sanitary grounds) on which depended the speedy deliverance of the soul, and with this her early, appointed union with the source of Light and Good, which two properties were, in idea, one and indivisible.

In the Egyptian conceptions the soul was supposed to remain, in a certain sense, connected with the body during a long cycle of solar years.

She could, however, quit the body from time to time at will, and could appear to mortals in various forms and places; these appearances differed according to the hour, and were prescribed in exact words and delineations.] "But enough of these matters; thou wilt find it difficult to enter into such thoughts.

Tell me rather what thou thinkest of our temples and pyramids." Croesus, after reflecting a moment, answered with a smile: "Those huge pyramidal masses of stone seem to me creations of the boundless desert, the gaily painted temple colonnades to be the children of the Spring; but though the sphinxes lead up to your temple gates, and seem to point the way into the very shrines themselves, the sloping fortress-like walls of the Pylons, those huge isolated portals, appear as if placed there to repel entrance.