But what there is mentioned about the Balance belongs to a far earlier source,
namely, to a book called "The Book of the Dead." Many copies of this
primeval work have been found in the sepulchres of the ancient idolatrous Egyptians,
placed there because supposed to have been written by one of their gods called Thoth,
and with the notion that they would be read by the dead buried there. In it is
a strange picture illustrating the Judgment hall of Osiris, of which our Author
has given an interesting copy. There are in it two deities on opposite sides
of a Balance. One of these is weighing the heart of a good man placed in a vessel
on the scale, and in the corresponding scale opposite is an idol called Mâ
or truth. The great god is recording in ancient Egyptian the fate of the departed:
"Osiris the justified is alive; his Balance is equal in the midst of God's