This deity, as we have observed, held a very exalted position; for he was superior to all the other eight secondary gods. He was said to be "full of goodness and truth." He appeared on earth to benefit mankind; and, after fulfilling his mission, he fell a sacrifice to the malice of Typho, the evil principle. But Typho was at length overcome by him; for after leaving this world he "rose again to a new life," and became the judge of mankind in a future state, and was invested with divine power.

Such was the religion of ancient Egypt-such was, at least, its great outline; and we cannot contemplate it without a feeling of wonder at the many points of resemblance between that outline and the grand fundamental doctrines of our own most blessed faith. Whence those strange coincidences arose it is now impossible to say; but they are very striking, and they go far to prove that a pure-minded and enlightened Egyptian might have been very far from the degraded idolater that we are apt to consider every believer in their ancient theology to have been. There were rays of light penetrating the thick darkness of heathenism, there were flashes of truth breaking through the dense clouds of error that enshrouded this singular people; and many of them may have been seeking God, "if haply they might feel after him and find him."

Medora was one of these. She had worshipped God, as the god of goodness and truth, under the form of Osiris; and she had adored him as the god of her native land, and the bestower of all national blessings, in the person of Isis. We do not say that she always looked through the sign to the thing signified,— we do not say that she paid no worship to Osiris and Isis, and the other deities of her nation, in their own persons and as their

own right; but her mind was elevated far above all gross superstition, and her conceptions of God in his essence and in his Divine character were far more pure and elevated than that of the greater part of her fellow-worshippers.

Her spirit was therefore better prepared for the reception of Divine truth, and her heart was more open to a conviction of the beauty of Christianity, than if she had been devoted to idolatry in its lower aspect. In much that she had heard of the religion of the Scriptures her reason and her feelings had sympathized; and she had also imagined that much of her mother's new creed might be derived from the same source as her own, and might be received without a rejection of all her longcherished objects of faith and reverence.

Since Medora's return to Phile she had reflected much on these subjects, and had endeavoured to extract the germ of spiritual truth from the mass of error by which she found it was surrounded. Her mind was greatly exercised and perplexed; and neither from her pious and devoted aunt, nor from her more intellectual, but equalled bigoted brother, could she derive any true comfort or any satisfactory explanation.

The moment she made any, even the slightest, allusion to the doctrines of Christianity, which were then so frequently discussed by all ranks in Egypt, she met with the most decided discouragement, and heard the new sect reviled as low-minded fanatics. This did not, however, check her own thoughts and her own comparisons between the rival religions. The more she reflected, the more she found her heart inclining towards the doctrines which had led so many Christians to endure

agony and death, rather than deny Him who had redeemed them, and in whom they trusted.

She could not profess herself a believer in Christ as her God and Saviour, for to that point of faith she had not attained; neither was she yet prepared to renounce all her long-cherished objects of reverence, and to lay aside all the superstitious feelings and practices to which she had been accustomed from her earliest childhood. So she continued to pay reverence to her favourite deities; and she tried to realize a spiritual frame of mind while she joined in the worship of idols.

CHAPTER XXII.

ILENT and unobserved stood Claudia and Alypius while the sacred ceremonies were proceeding; for the crowd of worshippers among whom they were placed were too much occupied to notice the strangers, or to perceive that they did not join in the prayers and invocations to the great divinities of the place.

A chant was sung by the officiating maidens in the chapel in honour of Isis, and her statue was decorated with the garlands which they took from their own shoulders to twine around her image. Then they knelt before her, and supplicated her blessing; after which incense was burned on the altar, the officiating priests and maidens came forth from the perfumed cloud-and the service was over.

Arsinoë had been standing at no great distance from Claudia and Alypius; but she had not perceived her niece, nor would she have recognised her even if their eyes had met. But she was herself very little altered. The years which had been to Claudia years of trial and grief, had passed calmly over the head of the abbess, and had left her brow as serene and unclouded as when last her elder niece had seen her.

She advanced to meet Medora as she left her young companions, and approached the group of spectators. The crowd had begun to disperse, and Claudia and Alypius felt that they

might be observed. They drew back, and would have retired from the temple, for they did not wish to meet Medora in such a spot; but her eyes fell on the face of Alypius, and in an instant her features were suffused with a crimson glow.

Quickly she turned her eyes aside, and then they met those of Claudia, which were riveted on her with a yearning gaze that instantly recalled feelings and memories of the past to Medora's heart, and for a moment seemed to chain her to the spot on which she stood.

Her aunt looked at her in blank surprise, for she could perceive no cause for her agitation. But in a moment Medora sprang forward. Unconscious of the sacred place in which she was, and of the observation of the bystanders and the severelooking priestesses, she threw herself into Claudia's arms, exclaiming,—

"O my sister-my beloved Claudia! Do I indeed behold you again? And may I welcome you back, not only to the hearts of all your sorrowing family, but also to the temple and the worship of the gods? And our friend Alypius also, has he become a convert to our ancient religion? Welcome! welcome to you both!"

Medora's conscience smote her as she uttered these words hastily, and in an agitated tone; for she knew, at least she suspected, that it would be no matter of sincere congratulation if Claudia had indeed forsaken the religion of her husband, and returned to that of her fathers; or if Alypius had, as she supposed, exchanged one form of heathenism for another. But she still clung to her own old associations, and her old objects of worship; and she could not repress a feeling of joy, almost of