es in the temple[86] became perpetual rapture
when he was in the divine presence instead of in the presence of the image,
and drawn close to divinity his thirsting soul enjoyed the delights of that
ineffable beauty.[87]

When the Alexandrian mysteries spread over Italy under the republic, no
religion had ever brought to mankind so formal a promise of blest
immortality as these, and this, more than anything else, lent them an {101}
irresistible power of attraction. Instead of the vague and contradictory
opinions of the philosophers in regard to the destiny of the soul, Serapis
offered certainty founded on divine revelation corroborated by the faith of
the countless generations that had adhered to it. What the votaries of
Orpheus had confusedly discovered through the veil of the legends, and
taught to Magna Grecia,[88] namely, that this earthly life was a trial, a
preparation for a higher and purer life, that the happiness of an
after-life could be secured by means of rites and observances revealed by
the gods themselves, all this was now preached with a firmness and
precision hitherto unknown. These eschatological doctrines in particular,
helped Egypt to conquer the Latin world and especially the miserable
masses, on whom the weight of all the iniquities of Roman society rested
heavily.

* * * * *

The power and popularity of that belief in future life has left traces even
in the French language, and in concluding this study, from which I have
been compelled to exclude every picturesque detail, I would like to point
out how a French word of to-day dimly perpetuates the memory of the old
Egyptian ideas.

During the cold nights of their long winters the Scandinavians dreamed of a
Walhalla where the deceased warriors sat in well-closed brilliantly
illuminated halls, warming themselves and drinking the strong liquor served
by the Valkyries; but under the burning sky of Egypt, near the arid sand
where thirst kills the traveler, people wished that their dead might find a
limpid spring in their future wanderings to assuage the heat that devoured
them, and that they might be {102} refreshed by the breezes of the north
wind.[89] Even at Rome the adherents of the Alexandrian gods frequently
inscribed the following wish on their tombs: "May Osiris give you fresh
water."[90] Soon this water became, in a figurative sense, the fountain of
life pouring out immortality to thirsting souls. The metaphor o