The Ancient Mysteries.

THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES .

( Continued from page 204 . ) TX ^ E must remark , moreover , that the state of perfection which seems so op" * posite to the weakness of our nature , is that towards which we constantl y endeavour to rise . The ideal good , if Ave may so speak , is not less real than the ideal beauty , of which the great artists have left us models ; it is equally imprinted on our mindsand is calculated to produce the same enthusiasm .

, In the midst of passions , by the violence of which we are hurried to evil , Ave lament our deviation from rectitude , and eagerly inquire after whatever can contribute to lead us back into the right path . Hence our sense of morality , ancl our taste for the works that inculcate it ; hence the astonishing facility which some austere minds have always found in producing great revolutions when they have held themselves forth as reformers . The history of modern

times furnishes us with more than one example . Heuce , in a word , in the heart of the most corrupted societies , those numerous associations which have rendered themselves independent of all laAvs , because they subject themselves to the law of nature only , who endeavour to establish eA ^ erywhere that equality which has been everywhere lost ; ancl who , forming in every nation so many separate bodies , compose but one family , spread over the whole surface of the

earth , every member of which has the same end in view , the love and the practice of virtue . Sometimes the Mysteries excited the jealousy of the government . The restless eye of despotism endeavoured to penetrate the interior of these assemblies ; and when they happened to fall under its displeasure , though they never showed anything but the lov e of humanity and an ardent zeal for the

public good , yet calumny served as a pretext for persecution . Then were revived those gross fables which the credulous multitude have greedily catched at , always ready to attack every institution the true motive of which it does not understand . But were not the most shameful disorders imputed even to the Christians of the Primitive Church P Forced to conceal themselves from their enemiesthat isfrom the State itselfthey could onl

, , , y meet in the night , or in obscure retreats . This furnished a pretence for accusing them of crimes to which Ave refuse to give credit , although the writers of ecclesiastical history themselves have acknowledged that some abuses had really crept in among them , *

We may well suppose , that these did not spare their persecutors that had thus calumniated them ; and they principally attacked the Mysteries . " Formerly , " says Clemens Alexandrinus , "the silence of night concealed the pleasures of the wise and modest with au impenetrable veil ; but UOAV Night herself divulges the debaucheries which the initiated devote to her . The light of torches declares the crimes it discovers . Extinguish these fires , 0 criminal Hierophanta ! ancl thou who earnest the mysterious torch , dread to kindle

these lamps ; their flame will discover thy Jacchus . Allow the shades to conceal thy mysteries , aud let darkness at least excuse thy orgies . The light which cannot dissemble is ready to accuse thee , and to demand veno-eance . " To all these imputations of corruption and debauchery Avhich were mutually made in theological disputes , the partisans of the opposite sects will oppose the sensible reflection of a writer , who alone , of all these authors , has joined a philosophic mind to great erudition . " I believe , " says the judicious Freret , f " that there were conjunctions in which the secret aud nocturnal