They had a lot of different beliefs about the life after death, some of
them rather confusing, and difficult to understand; but I shall tell you
only the main things and the simplest things which they believed. They
said, then, that very long ago, when the world was young, there was a
great and good King called Osiris, who reigned over Egypt, and was very
good to his subjects, teaching them all kinds of useful knowledge. But
Osiris had a wicked brother named Set, who hated him, and was jealous of
him. One day Set invited Osiris to a supper, at which he had gathered a
number of his friends who were in the plot with him. When they were all
feasting gaily, he produced a beautiful chest, and offered to give it to
the man who fitted it. One after another they lay down in the chest, but
it fitted none of them. Then at last Osiris lay down in it, and as soon
as he was inside, his wicked brother and the other plotters fastened the
lid down upon him, and threw the chest into the Nile. It was carried
away by the river, and at last was washed ashore, with the dead body of
the good King still in it.

But Isis, wife of Osiris, sought for her husband everywhere, and at last
she found the chest with his body. While she was weeping over it the
wicked Set came upon her, tore his brother's body to pieces, and
scattered the fragments far and wide; but the faithful Isis traced them
all, and buried them wherever she found them.

Now, Isis had a son named Horus, and when he grew to manhood he
challenged Set, fought with him, and defeated him. Then the gods all
assembled, and gave judgment that Osiris was in the right, and Set in
the wrong. They raised Osiris up from the dead, made him a god, and
appointed him to be judge of all men after death. And then, not all at
once, but gradually, the Egyptians came to believe that because Osiris
died, and rose again from the dead, and lived for ever after death,
therefore all those men who believed in Osiris would live again after
death, and dwell for ever with Osiris. You see that in some respects the
story is strangely like that of the death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ.

Well, then, they supposed that, when a man died on earth, after his body
was mummified and laid in its tomb, his soul went on to the gates of the
palace of Osiris in the other world, where was the Hall of Truth, in
which souls were judged. The soul had to know the magic names of the
gates before it could even enter the Hall