a loss to account for this closing of their ancient Oracles. One of them, Porphyry, says, "Since Jesus began to be worshipped, no man has received any public help or benefit from the gods."

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS.

A set of extraordinary books, under the name of The Oracles of the Cuman Sibyl, were offered for sale, at an early period of Rome, to King Tarquinius Superbus at an immense price. It is said that there were originally nine books offered by the Sibyl that on each refusal on the part of the king to purchase them, one of them was burnt, until six of them were thus destroyed; and then Tarquinius purchased the remaining three for the price originally demanded for the nine. These books were held in such high veneration that they were kept in a stone chest under ground in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and were committed to the care of two chosen officers, who consulted the books only at the special command of the senate: and this not to learn future events, but what worship was required by the gods when they manifested their wrath by national calamities or prodigies. The officers in charge of the books were enjoined to keep their contents from the public under heavy penalties. Eighty-two years before the birth of Christ, the temple in which they were contained was burned, and they were consumed. The Roman senate thought it of so much importance to repair the loss, that they sent persons into various countries to collect the fragments of the books, which were supposed to be in existence, and the most learned men of Rome were employed to select from the returns what they judged to be most authentic.

The Sibylline prophecies were originally of Teukrian or early Trojan descent. They were in full circulation in the reign of Croesus; and the promises of future empire which they made to Æneas escaping from the flames of Troy into Italy, were remarkably realized by Rome.

Bishop Horseley, in his treatise "On the Prophecies of the Messiah Dispersed Among the Heathen," speaks of the celebrated Sibylline books, as containing some of those ancient traditions and prophecies of a great Deliverer who was to come, and which were floating through the world during the patriarchal age, not merely in the family of Abraham, but in other lines. There was certainly a great resemblance between some things contained in these books as to the great Deliverer, and those in the Scriptures as to the Messiah. We have already noticed Virgil's quotation from them on this subject. Julius Cæsar, through his friends, wished to have it believed that he was the person alluded to in the Sibylline books, as a means of obtaining the kingly government of Rome; but Cicero, who had access to these documents, and who was opposed to Cæsar's elevation, denied that they were prophecies, alleging that they were not frenzied enough in their style to be the work of prophets; but he bears testimony to their excellence by saying, “Let us then adhere to the prudent practice of our ancestors; let us keep the Sibyl in religious privacy. These writings," he said, "are indeed rather calculated to extinguish than to propagate superstition." Bishop Horseley says, that "these prophecies, wherever they might be found, could be of no other than a divine original."

CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES-FREEMASONS.

HERE is something connected with what is considered

mysterious or supernatural which immediately attracts attention. This is especially the case, if in the imagination the mystery is connected with the spiritual world. When we consider our relations to the unseen, to God, to angels, and to demons, it is not strange that this feeling everywhere prevails, and that it has done so ever since the Fall. The moment we leave revelation everything becomes a mystery.

4

All the revelations made to us in the word of God; of Himself of His incarnation-of the plan of salvation3of the resurrection, etc., are spoken of in the Scriptures as revealed "mysteries." Man never could have discovered them; never could have imagined them. And even when he hears of them, the natural man, unless born again of the Holy Ghost,' cannot understand them. Ministers are called "stewards of the mysteries of God." Our Lord told his disciples, "It is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them not given.""

It is not surprising, therefore, that Satan has in all ages taken advantage of man's natural ignorance of the unseen world, and of his thirst for the mysterious: and among the many means of leading his followers astray, has used pretended religious mysteries and oracles, table-movings, spiritrappings, etc.

Among the ancients in different parts of the world there were secret celebrations, known as the Greater and the Lesser mysteries. All might be admitted into the latter; comparatively few into the former. The greater mysteries were those of the Cabiri, the Eleusinian, the Bacchic, the Samothracian, and the Mithraic. They were performed, with many religious ceremonies, in dark caves and grottos, or in the lower apartments of great temples, always with the light excluded so as to require lamps. The first thing done in the initiation of new members was to administer an oath; then whatever could be effected by alternate darkness and light, sweet sounds and discordant ones, lovely and dismal scenes, hymns and songs, gods and goddesses passing in review before the eyes-things, as one said, "most horrible and most ravishingly pleasant"-was adopted to frighten and delight. The existence of God and the gods, of a future state, and some facts in creation and in the early history of man, are said to have been some of the subjects represented in these mysteries. Plato says, "It was the end and drift of initiation to restore the soul to that state from which it fell." In time there was a general desire to be initiated; and a premium was charged for becoming so. Even children were initiated. In their first and purest state, the ancient mysteries are said to have been designed to inculcate a holy and virtuous life, in order to a happy immortality. As is apt to be the case with secret societies, all of the mysteries, by reason of their secresy, became abominably corrupt: so much so, that, after being ridiculed on the public stage, they were at length required to be suppressed by public authority.

St. Augustine, speaking of the mysteries, says, "There were many truths which it was inconvenient to the State to be generally known; and many things, though false, it was expedient the people should generally believe; therefore the Greeks shut up their mysteries in the silence of their sacred enclosures." Herodotus, in his history, speaks very freely

at times of the follies of the Grecian stories and worship. Of some religious rites, however, he dares not give the explanation. Speaking of the god Pan, he says, "Why they represent him in such a way I had rather not mention." Speaking of the blows the priests in Egypt inflicted on themselves at the great festival of Bubastis, he says, “But for whom they thus beat themselves, it were impious for me to divulge." The old Orphic poet wrote,

"To these alone I speak, whom nameless rites

Have rendered meet to listen.

Close the doors

And carefully exclude each wretch profane,
Lest impious curiosity pollute

Our sacred orgies."

In the Egyptian mysteries of Osiris, an ark, carried about by the priests, was a leading symbol in the ceremonies. The Phoenicians, in celebrating the mysteries of Cabiri, also used a consecrated ark. A sacred ark was likewise used in the mysteries of Bacchus; and the same symbol appeared in the mysteries of other nations. Learned writers on this subject consider the mysteries of the Cabiri as instituted in honor of Noah and his three sons; the latter being sometimes called Dioscori or Cabiri: and that all the mysteries embraced some memorials of the Deluge, and of the events immediately succeeding it. It may be that the Ark of the Covenant, carried by the Israelites into Canaan, may also have led to the adoption of that symbol among the religious rites of some of the heathen.

Another prominent symbol, used in the celebration of the mysteries, and carried about in the baris or ark, was the "mystic egg." In the heathen writings, and in their hieroglyphics, the mystic egg appears in connection with the ark and the deluge. It is said to have floated on the ocean during the deluge, and that out of it was born a new world. It is sometimes the world itself, and sometimes the great prolific father or mother of all things.