MYSTERIES. Since the establishment of the Christian church among all civilized nations the moral and religions instruction of the people has been confided to its care. The church, although one, yet among different nations exists in a great variety of forms—forms adapted to the peculiar wants and genius of the people whose improvement it seeks to ad vance. Previous to the advent of the church this great worli was accomplished among the civilized nations of antiquity by organizations which are designated under the general name of MYSTERIES. It appears that all the perfection of civilization, and all the advancement made in philosophy, science, and art among the ancients are due to those insti tutions which, under the vail of mystery, sought to illustrate the sublimest truths of religion, morality and virtue, and nnpross them on the hearts of their disciples. Although 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: I. The Indian Mysteries; 2. The Egyptian; 3. The Orphic; 4. The Cabirian; 5. The Phi-milli 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 fatthers—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 resur rection 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 confi dence, was a type or representative of humanity marching upward from the gloom and darkness of the primitive state 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 Cabiii, and of Isis, typi fying 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 rela tions. The idea which these rites presented of future retribu tion 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 gl 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 conies 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 ! That portions of the Minnie and Cabirian mysteries had reference to astronomical ideas is undoubtedly true; but this fact by 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 con templated 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 world— revealed 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 instruc tion; 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 pheno mena 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 shadow of that mysterious One, who, although infinite and indivisible, yet iu 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.