d against him.

CONFIRMATION was also a rite employed by the ancient Persians.
"Afterwards, in the fifteenth year of his age, when he begins to put on
the tunic, the sudra and the girdle, that he may enter upon religion,
and is engaged upon the articles of belief, the priest bestows upon him
confirmation, that he may from that time be admitted into the number of
the faithful, and may be looked upon as a believer himself" (Dr. Hyde on
"Religion of the Ancient Persians," tr. by Dr. Giles in "Christian
Records," pp. 129, 130).

LORD'S SUPPER.--Bread and wine appear to have been a regular offering to
the Sun-god, whose beams ripen the corn and the grape, and who may
indeed, by a figure, be said to be transubstantiated thus for the food
of man. The Persians offered bread and wine to Mithra; the people of
Thibet and Tartary did the same. Cakes were made for the Queen of
heaven, kneaded of dough, and were offered up to her with incense and
drink-libations (Jer. vii. 18, and xliv. 19). Ishtar was worshipped with
cakes, or buns, made out of the finest flour, mingled with honey, and
the ancient Greeks offered the same: this bread seems to have been
sometimes only offered to the deity, sometimes also eaten by the
worshippers; in the same way the bread and the wine are offered to God
in the Eucharist, and he is prayed to accept "our alms _and oblations_."
The Easter Cakes presented by the clergyman to his parishioners--an old
English custom, now rarely met with--are the cakes of Ishtar, oval in
form, symbolising the yoni. We have already dealt fully with the
apparent similarity between the Christian Agapae, and the Bacchanalian
mysteries (ante, pp. 222-227). The supper of Adoneus, Adonai, literally,
the "supper of the Lord," formed part of these feasts, identical in name
with the supper of the Christian mysteries. The Eleusinian mysteries,
celebrated at Eleusis, in honour of Ceres, goddess of corn, and Bacchus,
god of wine, compel us to think of bread and wine, the very substance of
the gods, as it were, there adored. And Mosheim gives us the origin of
many of the Christian eucharistic ceremonies. He writes: "The profound
respect that was paid to the Greek and Roman mysteries, and the
extraordinary sanctity that was attributed to them, was a further
circumstance that induced the Christians to give their religion a mystic
air, in order to put it upon an equal foot, in point of dignity, with
that of the Pagans. For this purpose they