diately offered piacular sacrifices suggests the recognition in all
human history of still another fundamental doctrine of Christianity, the
universal sense of sin. This conviction was especially strong when the
survivors of a Divine judgment beheld the spectacle of a race swept away
for their transgressions; but there are abundant traces of it in all
ages of the world. The exceptions are found in those instances where
false systems of philosophy have sophisticated the natural sense of
guilt by destroying the consciousness of personality. All races of men
have shown a feeling of moral delinquency and a corresponding fear. The
late C. Loring Brace, in his work entitled "The Unknown God," quotes
some striking penitential psalms or prayers offered by the Akkadians of
Northern Assyria four thousand years ago.

The deep-seated conviction of guilt which is indicated by the old
religion of the Egyptians is well set forth by Dr. John Wortabet, of
Beyrut, in a pamphlet entitled "The Temples and Tombs of Thebes." He
says: "The immortality of the soul, its rewards and punishments in the
next world, and its final salvation and return into the essence of the
divinity were among the most cherished articles of the Egyptian creed.
Here (in the tombs), as on the papyri which contain the 'Ritual of the
Dead,' are represented the passage of the soul through the nether world
and its introduction into the Judgment Hall, where Osiris, the god of
benevolence, sits on a throne, and with the assistance of forty-two
assessors proceeds to examine the deceased. His actions are weighed in a
balance against truth in the presence of Thoth, the ibis-headed god of
wisdom, and if found wanting he is hounded out in the shape of an
unclean animal by Anubis, the jackal-headed god of the infernal regions.
The soul then proceeds in a series of transmigrations into the bodies of
animals and human beings and thus passes through a purgatorial process
which entitles it to appear again before the judgment-seat of Osiris. If
found pure it is conveyed to Aalu, the Elysian fields, or the 'Pools of
Peace.' After three thousand years of sowing and reaping by cool waters
it returns to its old body (the preserved mummy), suffers another period
of probation, and is ultimately absorbed into the godhead. One of the
most impressive scenes in the whole series is that where the soul, in
the form of a mummified body, stands before Osiris and the forty-two
judges to be examined