The Ancient Mysteries.

blessed , initiation was necessary , and that those who neglected it would certainly be precipitated to the bottom of the abyss . As the ancients were impressed with such a high veneration for the mysteries , we may easily conceive that they were concealed from the profane with peculiar anxiety . Two Acarnanian youths , who had strayed accidentall y into the precincts of Eleusiswere massacred without ity on the spot . To

, p divulge the mysteries was a crime punished by the laws with death . It was not for having said there was no gods , nor for having made a jest of Hercules and his labours , that Diagoras was proscribed , but because he had published the secret ceremonies of the Cabiri , or those of the mother of the gods . Having fled , a price was set on his head , and a reward was promised to anyone who should take him . The Athenians held him forth to the other nations as a

public enemy . Their indignation was carried so far that they persecuted the inhabitants of Melos , the native place of that Atheist . Those who , like Diagoras , escaped the vengeance of the laws , were avoided in society with that horror which the sight of a man inspires who has been guilty of an atrocious crime . His fellow-citizens renounced all intercourse with him ; they would not live in the same housenor eat at the same table with him . It was also

, forbidden , under severe penalties , to heaz-ken to the secret of the mysteries when revealed ; in a word , to ask any questions that had the least relation to them was a crime . But to what motive are these excessive precautions to be attributed ?

Why did so holy a religion conceal itself behind a veil ? Was it , as Strabo ' says , because having for its object the knowledge of nature , who hides herself from observation , it might the better imitate her ? Ought we not rather to seek for the cause of this concealment in the very origin of that religion , and in the spirit by which it was animated ? We have seen that it was entirely founded on allegory . The ceremonies it had adopted were of the highest antiquity . It was of importance to preserve thembecause they all had but

, one object ; and sufficient attention could not be bestowed in maintaining them unaltered by the diversity of languages , but especiall y by the genius of different people . But the more they might appear strange , the more anxious were the ancients to render them respectable . Perhaps the only means of rescuing them from ridicule , and bestowing upon them the proper degree of sanctity , was to invest them with the veil of seoresy ; and . this secret in all

probability , consisted in nothing but in the ceremonies themselves . We must not be surprised that it was so scrupulousl y kept . Besides the punishment annexed to a discovery , who is he that will wantonly violate his oath , especiall y when it has been imposed with such pomp , ancl taken with such solemnit y ? But , besides , religion had in view to' encourage the sciences , to inform the understanding , and to perfect reason . The person who was initiated justl y loried in admitted to

g being a participation of the great truths which she taught . He must have believed himself of a more elevated nature ; ancl that illusion , while it flattered him by exalting his self-love , prevented him from disclosing the secret to those whom he did not think worthy of such a favour . ( To he continued . )