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ART MAGIC.
the Priests of Egypt ruled their land and held other nations tributaries to their mental achievements, continued in full force. For thousands of years this noble Caste retained their integrity, maintained their justly acquired reputation for wisdom, and held their position as the guides of kings, the counsellors of warriors, the dictators of laws, the healers of the sick, Prophets of the future, wonder-workers and interpreters of the will of Deity and the ministrations of spirits. Always ascetic, silent, true and faithful; their manners were They never smiled nor partook of the reserved and taciturn. amenities of social life and friendly intercourse. Cleanly, active, pure and industrious; often tilling their own lands and taking the severest of exercise in sunshine and storm, they seemed to have completely ascended beyond the pains, penalties or interests of the world in their own persons, and only to be concerned more for the weal, woe, or elevation of their fellow creatures. exalted race of men never won the secrets of eternity from the Gods, or more completely took the kingdom of heaven by storm through their own sublime powers. Fascinating as are the researches connected with Egyptian magic, it would be useless to pursue them farther as regards their performance in ancient days. Those who pin their faith on Biblical accounts of the trial of magical power between Moses and the Egyptian magicians, perceiving in the recorded triumphs of the one, only the interference of their favorite God, and in the recorded failures of the other, the displeasure of the same partial Deity, will arrive at a very poor and imperfect conception of the truths which underlie the science of Egyptian magic. To the Priest, or in fact to any well-informed inhabitant of Egypt at this very day, the sudden visitation of lice, frogs, red rain colored by fine sand to the appearance of blood, boils, blains, murrain on cattle, or even the rapid approach and disappearance of thick darkness, will be no new phenomena nor require the miraculous intervention of a God to induce them. They may occur any day and at all hours, and they only require an accurate knowledge of atmospheric changes, and the natural conditions of the land, to predict their appearance within any given space of time. Those who have ever witnessed, as they may do any day in the streets of Cairo, the marvels wrought by Egyptian serpent charmers, those who have seen these itinerant performers wandering through the cities, twining hissing snakes round their bare necks and arms, arranging them in dancing order and forming them into quadrille parties, will not question that Moses and Aaron learnt quite enough of serpent proclivities during a very
A