acter of that personage) stood in waiting. Before the coffin was lowered into the boat, it was permitted to any one to bring an accusation against the dead. If his life could be proved to have been criminal, the rites were prohibited, but if the charges were not substantiated, the accuser was subject to severe punishment. If no criminal allegations were brought against the deceased, or if they were repelled, the relatives ceased their grief and pronounced suitable encomiums upon the dead, asserting that he was about to pass into a happy eternity and exist with the pious in Hades. The body was then deposited in the catacomb prepared for it, with becoming solemnity.

The ancient tombs of Egypt are described as being generally of an oblong form, with walls slightly inclined from the perpendicular inward. These walls were constructed of large irregular masses of rock, though neatly fitted to each other. In one of these mausoleums, examined by Mr. Caviglia, the inside walls were found to be covered with stucco, and embellished by rude paintings, one of which, though much defaced, evidently depicted the sacred boat, and another a procession of figures, each carrying a lotus. At the southern end of the sepulchre several mouldering mummies were laid one over another in a recumbent posture. A second tomb contained no paintings, but several fragments of statues. In one of the chambers of this edifice two pieces of marble were found which, placed together, composed an entire figure almost as

large as life. It was carved with a strict attention to nature, flesh tinted, with glass eyes, and was supposed to have been a faithful copy of some deceased Egyptian, and to have been placed in a position where it could be seen by surviving friends from an adjoining corridor. In the third of these stone structures were discovered a sculptured boat of large size with square sails, differing from any now employed on the Nile; also (in two chambers) paintings of men, deer, and birds, beautiful figures, and hieroglyphics. In some one apartment of all these edifices was a deep shaft or well, from the bottom of which a narrow passage conducted to a subterraneous chamber. Mr. Caviglia explored a shaft, and found in a room, a little to the south of its lower extremity, a sarcophagus without a lid, plain but highly finished, of the same dimensions as that discovered in the Cheops, but more exquisitely polished.

The Egyptians lavished enormous sums of money upon their tombs. The Pyramids-those mighty temples cemented by the sweat and blood of millions of serfs-the disgrace of the past—the wonder of the present and all-coming time-these were nothing but the regal burial places of the Ptolemies! And what a pompous boast-a challenge to the whole world and to all ages-comes down to us from the gorgeous mausoleum of Osymandias, in the sepulchral palace of Thebes-"I am Osymandias, king of kings; if any one desire to know what a prince I am and where I lie, let him excel my

exploits." This tomb was remarkable for the astronomical emblems depicted therein. It was encompassed by a golden circle three hundred and sixtyfive cubits in circumference-referring to the number of days in a year. The rising and setting of stars were portrayed with considerable accuracy. In the midst of the whole was represented a statue of the monarch in a sitting posture. It was deemed by the ancients the largest in the country-the foot alone being seven cubits long.

The christian religion introduced an essentially new phase in the ceremony of burials. The grave had been sanctified by the presence of Christ. It derived a consecration from his interment and glorious ascension. The feeling that prevailed among the early christians, was that so beautifully portrayed by Jeremy Taylor, when he says, "Among christians the honor which is valued in behalf of the dead is that they be buried in holy ground—that is appointed cemeteries or places of religion, there where the field of God is sown with the seeds of the resurrection, that their bodies also may be among christians, with whom their hope and their portion is and shall be forever." In other words, living, loving, suffering, praying and singing together while upon earth, and believing that the "corruptible shall become incorruptible," and the "mortal" put on "immortality," it is not strange-it is, on the contrary a natural and beautiful result of their mutual faith and their mutual persecution-that the primitive christians should have preferred to sleep together in death un

contaminated by the presence of the heathen dead, so that they might rise together in one harmonious angelic band at the sound of the last trump. Consecrated ground means therefore nothing more than a place of burial set apart by religious rites for the reception of christians and none else. It was merely designed-is not the thought a sublimely poetical one?—to continue the close-knit companionship of the earth, through the grave, up to the throne of God.

Hence it was deemed ignominious not to be buried in consecrated ground—and excommunication deprived the offender of the right to be buried therein. The early christian martyrs were buried in caverns which were gradually enlarged to spacious underground vaults and called "Chambers of repose." Others deemed themselves happy-dwelling upon this favorite idea of the companionship of the grave-if their remains reposed near their honored ashes. The sepulchres of martyrs were distinguished by a white altar-and as early as the 4th century, after Christ, the christians built churches over them, and believing that the places were sanctified by the ashes of those who had died for the common faith, sought out (upon the erection of new churches in cities, or upon the transformation of heathen temples into places of christian worship) the relics of the sainted martyrs, and buried them under the altar of the new church, for the purpose of giving it a character of greater sanctity. The Emperor Constantine (who died A. D. 337,) was the person known who ordered his sepul

chre to be erected in a church-the church of the Apostles at Constantinople, of which he was the founder. This was imitated by the Bishops, and all those who had enriched the church received this honor. The Emperors Theodosius and Justinian forbade the practice, but Leo, the Philosopher, afterwards permitted it to everybody. But the burial in churches soon came to be regarded as dangerous to the living, particularly if dead bodies remain standing in simple coffins as is frequently the case in church vaults. The custom is now almost everywhere suppressed, or only allowed under certain restrictions. It was forbidden in Rome and Naples, in the year 1809, and the foundation of burial places outside the city was provided for.

We have seen how, even in the funeral ceremonies of ancient heathen nations, there is much to redeem the grotesque superstition of those rites. And we can find many beautiful and affecting traits of humanity and natural piety in the obsequies of unchristanised races.

The Chinese are punctiliously reverent to the tombs of their ancestors. They conceive that any neglect of duty to the ashes of their progenitors is sure to be followed by worldly misfortune.

When a parent or elder relative dies, the event is announced to all the branches of the family. Strips of white (the mourning color in China) are placed upon each side of the doors. One of the earliest rites after death (in one portion of the Empire) is, to make a hole in the roof of the house to facilitate the exit