history speaks of several institutions of the kind, as the Eleusinian mysteries, the mysteries of Mithra, etc., yet all had a common origin, and a like purpose, and never exhibited a greater variety of forms than the Christian church. The principal of these mysteries are: 1. The Indian Mysteries; 2. The Egyptian; 3. The Orphic; 4. The Cabirian; 5. The Phrygian or Samothracian; 6. The Eleusinia; 7. The Sidonian or Dionysian; 8. Pythagorean.* The civilization, and the social institutions of India, Egypt, Greece, and Syria, and the degree of enlightenment in religion, morality, and science, to which they attain can be traced directly to the salutary influence of the Mysteries. From the foregoing it will be seen that to a certain degree following the opinion of many of the early Christian fathers-they realized the idea of a church. As none but the just and virtuous were eligible to membership, the initiated were at least were reported to be the wisest and best of all countries, and constituted the ancient Pagan Ecclesia-if one may so speak-the church, or assembly of the wise and good; a body competent to teach and enforce the everlasting truths of religion. Their chief object was to teach the doctrine of one God, the resurrection of man to eternal life, the dignity of the human soul, and to lead the people to see the shadow of the deity, in the beauty, magnificence, and splendor of the universe. By the most solemn and impressive ceremonies they led the minds of the neophytes to meditate seriously the great problems of human duty and destiny; imbued them with a living sense of the vanity and brevity of life, and of the certainty of a future state of retribution; set forth in marked contrast the beauty of virtue and truth, and the deep bitterness and tormenting darkness of vice and error; and enjoined on them, by the most binding obligations, charity, brotherly love, and inflexible honor, as the greatest of all duties, the most beneficent to the world, and the most pleasing to the gods. They also, by these rites-rites magnificent and impressive, and startling, by sudden transitions and striking contrasts-rites commencing in gloom and sorrow, and ending in light and joy, dimly shadowed forth the passage of man from barbarism to civilization, from ignorance to science, and his constant progress onward and upward through the ages, to still sublimer elevations. The trembling and helpless neophyte, environed with terror and gloom, and pursuing his uncertain and difficult way through the mystic journey of initiation, which terminated in light and confidence, was a type or representative of humanity marching upward from the gloom and darkness of the primitive state

* See articles on the above under their proper heads.

of barbarism, to a high degree of enlightenment, of social refinement and perfection. The mystic ceremony was, therefore, emblematical of the progressive development of man, and was intended as an aid to that development. The initiatory rituals of Orpheus, of the Cabiri, and of Isis, typifying thus the development of man and the progress of society, were in a sense prophetic announcements of a golden age to come a more perfect state, where virtue, triumphant over vice, and truth, victorious over error, would be installed on the throne of the world, and direct all human actions and relations. The idea which these rites presented of future retribution is not in harmony with modern opinions, at least so far as most of our Protestant communions are concerned. All the ancient systems of religion and philosophy held that all punishment was purgatorial*-a means of purification-and consequently finite and limited in its character and duration, and was graduated according to the degree of moral turpi- . tude attached to each offense. Hence, in the initiation, the neophyte represented the progress of the soul through the various stages of discipline, upward from the receptacles of sorrow to Elysian beatitude and purity. In all these rites, indeed, the idea seemed to prevail that man, society, humanity, could be perfected only by the ministry of gloom and suffering. The soul's exaltation, and highest good and truest repose, were to be approached only by the way of tears, and sacrifice, and toil. Those mystic dramas symbolized the profoundest mysteries of the soul-the deepest experiences of the human heart. They taught that through darkness and difficulty, in the midst of obstacles and opposition, man should ever struggle upward and onward-onward from the shadowy vale of doubt, and fear, and perplexity, to the golden Orient, whence comes the light of eternal truth! Some writers have contended that the mysteries, and, indeed, all the myths of antiquity, have no reference whatever to religious ideas, or to a spiritual sphere, but are merely allegorical representations of the phenomena of the physical world. Dupuist explains all the mysteries in this way, and carries his theory so far as finally to assert that Christ is only an astronomical sign, and that the mystical woman of the Revelations, whom St. John describes as "clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars," is but the constellation Virgo! That portions of the Isianic and Cabirian mysteries had reference to astronomical ideas is undoubtedly true; but this fact by * Vide Enfield's History of Philosophy. Also Guigniant: Religions de Antiquité considereés principalement dans leur Tronnes Symboliques et Mythologique. † Origin des tous les cultes. Rev. xii. 1.

no means justifies the conclusions of Dupuis and others, that they have no spiritual reference at all. On the contrary, it was the deep, earnest, and positive faith of the ancients, in the unseen and spiritual, which led them to blend in this manner-unfortunately so foreign to our modern habits of thinking the ideas of science with those of religion. And here we fall far below the ancients. We have divorced science and philosophy from religion, and seem to regard them as quite different and distinct things, the deplorable results of which are seen in our modern systems of education, which are entirely material, and end in skepticism, if not in absolute irreligion. On the other hand, the ancients contemplated the universe from the religious point of view. All the phenomena of life-all the motions of the heavenly bodies the whole stupendous spectacle of the worldrevealed to them the presence of an unseen Intelligence. Hence, their religion embraced all the facts of physical science; art and philosophy were necessary parts of religion, and reposed on a spiritual basis. Hence, instruction with them was religious and moral. And were they not right? The mysteries were established for human instruction; and there all the sciences were studied with reference to a higher sphere of thought. Nature, with all its laws, its motions, and its mysteries, which science attempts to explore, was, in their views, only a shadow or reflex, or projection, of the more substantial verities of the unseen-the eternal world; philosophy itself was religion. Such was education among the ancients, so far as it went. It was eminently religious. Hence the dramas, represented in the mysteries, and in the rites of initiation, took note at the same time of the facts of science and the verities of religion. And because these dramas and rites shadowed forth some of the phenomena of nature, and the motions of the heavenly bodies, we are not to infer that those who celebrated them had no faith in God, accountability, or a future life; but rather, on the contrary, that those old Grecians and Egyptians saw in all the phenomena of nature-in all the motions of the starry spheres, and in all the miracles of the world-the awful shadow of that mysterious One, who, although infinite and indivisible, yet in some manner incomprehensible to human intelligence, individualizes himself to every human thought, and localizes himself in every place. The mysteries were established then to assist the education and development of man. And with this intention the mystagogues employed every resource to stimulate the moral energies and awaken the noble instincts of those they sought to elevate. The ancients all claimed for these mysteries a divine origin.

Bacchus, in Euripides,* responds to the questions of Pentheus, who demanded from whom he received his new worship and his mysteries, that he received them from the son of Jupiter. All the ancient educators of the race affirmed the same of their teachings. Rhadamanthus says that he received from heaven the laws that he gave to the Cretans. Minos shut himself up in a sacred cave, to compose his code of laws, which ho affirmed were revealed to him by the divinity. Zoroaster, the Persian Seer, claims also to have been divinely inspired. He separated himself from society, and gave himself up to sacred meditations. He invoked the supernal powers, and at length the light of a heavenly inspiration descended upon his soul, and a divine messenger visited him and instructed him in celestial things. Thus, according to Chandemér, he received from heaven the Zend Avesta, that great depository of sublime maxims so revered by the ancient Persians. Ardheshir, desiring to reform the religious code of his kingdom, appointed one of the sages to accomplish the work. The new reformer, not wishing to make innovations which might not be authorized by heaven, invoked the aid of the spiritual powers. He sunk away into a mysterious sleep, and experienced an ecstacy, during which his soul seemed to go forth out of his body. At the end of seven days he awoke, and declared that he had been in communication with the unseen world of spirits, and employed a scribe to write the new revelations which he had received from the gods. Pythagoras§ also professed to receive the divine direction in the foundation of his famous society. He affirms of himself what Titus Livius|| asserts of Numa, viz: that the secrets of nature, which others knew by opinion and conjecture, were communicated to him by the direct interposition of the gods, and that Apollo, Minerva, and the Muses, had often appeared to him. Whatever we may think of these professions and claims to a divine enlightenment, on the part of the ancient reformers, we cannot but respect that faith and piety which always led them to refer all wisdom and virtue to a divine influence. Their maxim seemed to be that whatever is useful to men is divine. And as the mysteries and the rules of virtue, which they cultivated and enforced, were useful to humanity, they were, of a consequence, providential institutions created by the will of the Eternal. After what we have now said, it cannot be difficult to see clearly the true end and purpose of the mysteries, the first and greatest fruits of which were, according to the

Euripid: Bacch., p. 460.
Hyde de vet, Pers. p. 317.

† Strabo 1, x. p. 476.
§ Phil: I. i. c. 1 Vit. Apoll
Plut Vita Numa.

ancients, to civilize savage people, soften their ferocious manners, render them social, and prepare them for a kind of life more worthy of the dignity of man. Cicero places, in the number of supreme benefits which the Athenians enjoyed, the establishment of the mysteries of Eleusis, the effect of which was, he tells us, to civilize men, and to make them comprehend the true principles of morality, which initiate man into an order of life which is alone worthy of a being destined to immortality. The same philosopher, in another place, where he apostrophizes Ceres and Proserpine, says that we owe to these goddesses the first elements of our moral life, as well as the first aliment of our physical life, viz: the knowledge of the laws, the refinement of manners, and the examples of civilization, which have elevated and polished the habits of men and of cities. Their moral end was well perceived by Arrien, who tells us that all these mysteries were established by the ancients, to perfect our education and reform our manners. Pausanias,* speaking of the Eleusinia, says that the Greeks, from the highest antiquity, had established them as an institution the most effectual to inspire men with the sentiments of reverence and love for the gods. And among the responses that Bacchust makes to Pentheus, whose curiosity is excited by his mysteries, he tells him that this new institution merits to be widely known, and that one of the greatest advantages resulting from it is the proscription of all impiety and crime. From the above it appears that the mysteries must have been of the highest utility in advancing the civilization of our race, in promoting the arts, and stimulating a taste for science and letters. We have seen that the cultivation of music commenced with the establishment of the mysteries, and formed a great portion of the ceremonies. Sculpture and painting were encouraged, and received their first impulse in these institutions. Literature and philosophy were pursued with ardor by the disciples of Orpheus and Eumolpus, and through them religion shed a benign and gentle radiance over all of life. Through the mysteries society received wise and wholesome laws, and that moral and mental impulsion which raised Greece to the summit of human greatness. The drama also owes its birth to these institutions. The first plays, symbolical of man and his progress, his struggles, his trials, his labor, his combats and triumphs, were performed within the secret enclosures, secure from the intrusion of profane eyes. The ceremonies were themselves dramas, shadowing forth, more or less perfectly, the great truths of God, of nature, and the soul, pointing man forward to his great destiny, acquainting him Euripid; Bacch vi. p. 460.

*Paus. Phoc. p. 384.