Page:Ancient Egypt Her Testimony to the Truth.pdf/35

18 Heliopolis appears near the boat, denoting that the scene is laid there. After this descent, the soul met with many adventures in the regions of the dead. It had to contend with many enemies, and to appease many divinities, before it arrived at the great hall of truth or judgment, where all its actions while incarnate in the body were weighed in the balance, and its future destinies depended on the result of the ordeal. The presiding judge at this assize is sometimes Osiris and sometimes Athom, in the many repetitions of the judgment scene that occur on monuments of every description.

It will be found on attentively examining this part of the book of the dead, that the soul was supposed to accompany the sun in the whole of his progress through the lower hemisphere, from his setting to his rising.

Very curious notions of the diurnal revolution of the sun were entertained in these ancient times. It was imagined or feigned, that his path through the heavens was a huge river or abyss which he navigated in twenty-four barks, conducted by the twelve hours of the day and the twelve hours of the night. The Nile of Egypt was a branch or offset from this abyss, leaving it at Abydos, the furthest point to the south to which, at the time of this invention, its course had been explored, and joining it again at Heliopolis or its vicinity. The celestial Nile, or course of the