the
hillsides of Arcadia, sank, lost to sight, in a chasm in the earth,
only to reappear in the fountain of Arethusa. This at least is true:
the Greater Ancient Mysteries were prophetic of Masonry whose drama is
an epitome of universal initiation, and whose simple symbols are the
depositaries of the noblest wisdom of mankind. As such, it brings men
together at the altar of prayer, keeps alive the truths that make us
men, seeking, by every resource of art, to make tangible the power of
love, the worth of beauty, and the reality of the ideal.

FOOTNOTES:

[35] Of course, faith in immortality was in nowise peculiar to Egypt,
but was universal; as vivid in _The Upanishads_ of India as in the
Pyramid records. It rests upon the consensus of the insight,
experience, and aspiration of the race. But the records of Egypt, like
its monuments, are richer than those of other nations, if not older.
Moreover, the drama of faith with which we have to do here had its
origin in Egypt, whence it spread to Tyre, Athens, and Rome--and, as we
shall see, even to England. For brief expositions of Egyptian faith see
_Egyptian Conceptions of Immortality_, by G.A. Reisner, and _Religion
and Thought in Egypt_, by J.H. Breasted.

[36] Pyramid Texts, 775, 1262, 1453, 1477.

[37] For a full account of the evolution of the Osirian theology from
the time it emerged from the mists of myth until its conquest, see
_Religion and Thought in Egypt_, by Breasted, the latest, if not the
most brilliant, book written in the light of the completest translation
of the Pyramid Texts (especially lecture v).

[38] Much has been written about the Egyptian Mysteries from the days
of Plutarch's _De Iside et Osiride_ and the _Metamorphoses_ of Apuleius
to the huge volumes of Baron Sainte Croix. For popular reading the
_Kings and Gods of Egypt_, by Moret (chaps. iii-iv), and the
delightfully vivid _Hermes and Plato_, by Schure, could hardly be
surpassed. But Plutarch and Apuleius, both initiates, are our best
authorities, even if their oath of silence prevents them from telling
us what we most want to know.

[39] Among the Hindoos, whose Chrisna is the same as the Osiris of
Egypt, the gods of summer were beneficent, making the days fruitful.
But "the three wretches" who presided over winter, were cut off from
the zodiac; and as they were "found missing," they were accused of the
death of Chrisna.

[40] A literary parallel in the story of AEneas, by Vergil, is mo