ighly esteemed as it was difficult to obtain.
The aspirant was required to go through the most severe ordeal, and show
the greatest moral resignation." Those who aspired to know the
profoundest secrets, imposed upon themselves duties more severe than
those required by any other class. It was seldom that the priests were
objects of scandal; they were reserved and discreet, practising the
strictest purification of body and mind. Their life was so full of
minute details that they rarely appeared in public. They thus obtained
the sincere respect of the people, and ruled by the power of learning
and sanctity as well as by privilege. They are most censured for
concealing and withholding knowledge from the people.

How deep and profound was the knowledge of the Egyptian priests it is
difficult to settle, since it was so carefully guarded. Pythagoras made
great efforts and sacrifices to be initiated in their higher mysteries;
but these, it is thought, were withheld, since he was a foreigner. What
he did learn, however, formed a foundation of what is most valuable in
Grecian philosophy. Herodotus declares that he knew the mysteries, but
should not divulge them. Moses was skilled in all the knowledge of the
sacred schools of Egypt, and perhaps incorporated in his jurisprudence
some of its most valued truths. Possibly Plato obtained from the
Egyptian priests his idea of the immortality of the soul, since this was
one of their doctrines. It is even thought by Wilkinson that they
believed in the unity, the eternal existence, and invisible power of
God, but there is no definite knowledge on that point. Ammon, the
concealed god, seems to have corresponded with the Zeus of the Greeks,
as Sovereign Lord of Heaven. The priests certainly taught a state of
future rewards and punishments, for the great doctrine of metempsychosis
is based upon it,--the transmission of the soul after death into the
bodies of various animals as an expiation for sin. But however lofty
were the esoteric doctrines which the more learned of the initiated
believed, they were carefully concealed from the people, who were deemed
too ignorant to understand them; and hence the immense difference
between the priests and people, and the universal prevalence of
degrading superstitions and the vile polytheism which everywhere
existed,--even the worship of the powers of Nature in those animals
which were held sacred. Among all the ancient nations, however
complicated were t