nd the deceased defends himself
before forty two divine judges who preside over the forty two sins
from which he must be cleared. The gods Horus and Anubis attend to
the balance, and Thoth writes down the verdict and the sentence.
The soul then passes on through adventures of penance or bliss,
the details of which are obviously copied, with fanciful changes
and additions, from the connected scenery and experience known on
the earth.

Taking it for all in all, there perhaps never was any other scene
in human society so impressive as the periodical sitting in
judgment of the great Oriental kings. It was the custom of those
half deified rulers the King of Egypt, the Sultan of Persia, the
Emperor of India, the Great Father of China to set up, each in the
gate of his palace, a tribunal for the public and irreversible
administration of justice. Seated on his throne, blazing in
purple, gold, and gems, the members of the royal family nearest to
his person; his chief officers and chosen favorites coming next in
order; his body guards and various classes of servants, in
distinctive costumes, ranged in their several posts; vast masses
of troops, marshalled far and near. The whole assemblage must have
composed a sight of august splendor and dread. Then appeared the
accusers and the accused, criminals from their dungeons, captives
taken in war, representatives of tributary nations, all who had
complaints to offer, charges to repel, or offences to expiate. The
monarch listened, weighed, decided, sentenced; and his executioners
carried out his commands. Some were pardoned, some rewarded, some
sent to the quarries, some to prison, some to death. When the
tribunal was struck, and the king retired, and the scene ended,
there was relief with one, joy with another, blood here, darkness
there, weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in many a place.

Dramatic scenes of judgment, public judicial procedures, in some
degree corresponding with the foregoing picture, are necessary in
human governments. The prison, the culprit, the witnesses, the
judge, the verdict, the penalty, are inevitable facts of the
social order. Offences needing to be punished by overt penalties,
wrongs demanding to be rectified by outward decrees, criminals
gathered in cells, appeals from lower courts to higher ones, may
go on accumulating until a grand audit or universal clearing up of
arrears becomes indispensable. Is it not obvious how natural it
would be for a