Page:The Burden of Isis.djvu/19

 of Hathor, the Bull Apis—all were praised as the living counterpart chosen by the god to represent himself. And just as in Roman Catholic churches, at certain times, a bell was formerly rung to frighten away the Devil, so in the Egyptian time the sistrum-bearer was prominent at sacred festivals; for it was his duty, by shaking the sistrum, not to frighten the evil one, but to call the attention of the deity specially to his worshippers. This accounts for the frequent appeal in the liturgies—"Behold the excellent sistrum-bearer!"

What will most impress one in these liturgies, however, is the deep, sincere religious feeling that permeates them—the grief for the lost one, the hope of again beholding him, the cry from the heart for help, the reliance upon the divine all-ruling destiny that shall bring the trial to a happy ending, and the triumph of a desire realized and a hope fulfilled: these sentiments, as much a part of human nature now as then, bring the far-off dwellers of the land of Kem near at heart and feeling to the twentieth-century reader of our own era. For above all nations of old, the future life entered especially into the Egyptian daily life and thought; their religion was one where the present was considered only the threshold; and it was their, belief in the absolute endlessness of matter and the immortality of the spirit that causes the frequent