Light.

LIGHT .

( Continued from pucje 24 . ) St . Paul , in the Epistle to the E phesians , says , "Whatsoever makes anything whatsoever clearer " to you is light . " We speak of a nation or class of people who are refined in their manners , or who are remarkable for their pursuit and study of the arts

and sciences , as enli ghtened as the ancient Greeks and E-omans of old , and the French and our own nation in the jwesent day , while ignorant , rude , and barbarous nations are said to be beni ghted and unenlightened . Light has always formed one of the primary objects of heathen adoration , and its

attainment Avas the end of all the ancient mysteries . " The most early defection to idolatry , " says Bryant , " consisted in the adoration of the sun , and the Avorshi p of demons styled Baalim . " Among the Egyptians Osiris was light , or the sun ; this word Osiris , according to Plutarch , signified "Dux et princeps moderator

luminum , reliquorum , mens mundi emperatis , " the leader , the king or guide , the moderator of the stars and other luminaries , the mind or soul of the Avorld , the governor of nature . This name , and the functions of the sun , were expressed symbolically by a man bearing a sceptre , a coachman . Avith a coach whip , an

eye , and a circle . Typhon , the enemy of Osiris , and who ultimately destroyed him , was the representative of darkness . Light was venerated as an emanation from , though often considered identical with , the sun , and in the materialism of the profane reli gions of antiquity , light aud darkness Avere personified as positive existences , one being the mortal enemy of the other . ' ' What picture more effectual to render man

sorrowful than that of the earth when , by the absence of the sun , she finds herself deprived of her attire , of her verdure , of her foliage , and AA'hen she offers to our regard only the Avreck of plants dried up or turned to putrefaction , of naked trunks , of arid lands without culture , or covered Avith SUOAV ; of rivers overflowed in the fieldsor chained in their beds by

, the ice , or of violent Avinds that overturn everything ? What has become of the happy temperature Avhich the earth enjoyed in the spring and during the summer , that harmony of the elements which Avas in accord with that of the heaA r ens ? that richness , that beauty of the fields loaded with grain and fruitsor

, enamelled with floAvers whose odour perfumed the air , and Avhose variegated colours presented a spectacle so raA'ishing ? All has disappeared , and the happiness of man has departed with the God AA'ho , by his presence , embellished our climes ? His retreat has plunged the earth into mourning , from which nothing

but his return can free her . " Such , doubtless , were the thoughts that occupied the minds of the ancient worshippers of the sun , aud caused their souls to be filled with additional love and veneration to his beneficent deity ; their minds might also be agitated by the fear that it might one day happen that the sun would

abandon them altogether ; hence arose their feasts and sacrifices which were offered not only in token of joy and thanksgiving , but also as propitiations to allay his wrath and to keep him constantly with them . In all the ancient systems this reverence for light was predominant . In all the ancient mysteries , the candidate was made to pass through scenes of utter . darkness , and at length his trials terminated by his

admission to the sacellum , AA-here he Avas nearl y blinded by the glare of li ght which burst on his astonished and enraptured gaze . The period the candidate was kept in darkness , varied in different mysteries . The Druids kept the aspirant nine days and nights ; at Elusis , it Avas twenty-seven days and nights ; and in the Persian rites of Mithrasfifty days and nights of

, fasting , solitude , and darkness were required to enable him to gain admittance to the lesser mysteries , after a further probation of at least four years , when , in the Avords of Virgil , ( En . vi ., 636 , they came at length to the regions of eternal joy , delightful green retreats , and blessed abodes in groves Avhere happiness abounds .

Here the air they breathe is more free and enlarged , and clothes the fields with radiant light ; here the happy inhabitants knoAV their own sun and their own stars . " Hie denium exact is , perfeoto rnuaere Divas , Devenere locos lcetos , efc amoena vireta Foi'fcunafcornm isemorum , sedesque beatas . Largiov hie conipos asfcher efc Bumine A'estit Puopureo ; Solemque suum , sua sideraiiorunt . "

Up to this period the initiated had been called mysfcai ( Nvtrrys from M ^ to initiate , from / " «> to close , to be shut ) , they were UOAV named Epoptai ( ETTO ^ - ' -TIS from # opaa to oversee , observe , survey , of the Sun ) , and this new A'ision Autopsia ( AI / TWO- IC from ai . rds and . o ' cfjo . ucu , a seeing Avith ones own eyes , an eye witness ) . " The Autopsiaor the seeing Avith their OAVU eyes" says

, , Psellus , is when he who is initiated beholds the divine lights . " Thus Darkness appears to have been symbolical of initiation ; Light , ofthe Autopsia , or arriving at the summit of the knowledge confided in the mysteries . Dupuis , speaking of the mysteries says , " They dis-C 0 A ered the origin of the soul , its fall to the earth

through the spheres and the elements , audits return to the place of its origin ; here Avas the most metaphysical part , and which could not be understood by the generality of the initiated , but of Avhich they gave them the sight by figures and allegorical spectres . " This , then , is the meaning of Light as applied by the ancient Heathen philosophers . "Light , says Mr . Duncan , ( Reli g ions of Profane Antiquity , 186 ) , is a source of positive happiness ; AA'ithout it man coulcl

barely exist ; and since all religious opinion is based on the ideas of pain and p leasure , and the corresponding sensations of hope and fear , it is not to be wondered if the Heathen reverenced light . Darkness , on the contrary , by replunging nature , as it Avere , into a state of nothingness , and depriving man of the pleasureable emotions conveyed through the organ of

sight , was ever held in abhorrence , as a source of misery and fear . The two opposite conditions in wbich man thus found himself placed , occasioned by the enjoyment or the banishment of light , induced him to imagine the existence of two antagonistic principles in natureto AA'hose dominion he was

, alternately subject . Li g ht multiplied his enjoyments , and darkness dimished them . The former , accordingly became his friend , the latter his enemy . The words light and good , ancl darkness and evil , conveyed similar ideas , and became , in sacred language , synonymous terms . But as good and evil were not supposed

to floAV from one and the same source , no more than light and darkness were supposed to haA'e a common origin , two distinct and independent princi ples were established , totally different in their nature , of opposite