the two (_Mysticism_, by E. Underhill, part i, chap. vii).

[50] Much time would have been saved, and not a little confusion
avoided, had this obvious fact been kept in mind. Even so charming a
book as _Jesus, the Last Great Initiate_, by Schure--not to speak of
_The Great Work_ and _Mystic Masonry_--is clearly, though not
intentionally, misleading. Of a piece with this is the effort,
apparently deliberate and concerted, to rob the Hebrew race of all
spiritual originality, as witness so able a work as _Our Own Religion
in Persia_, by Mills, to name no other. Our own religion? Assuredly, if
by that is meant the one great, universal religion of humanity. But the
sundering difference between the Bible and any other book that speaks
to mankind about God and Life and Death, sets the Hebrew race apart as
supreme in its religious genius, as the Greeks were in philosophical
acumen and artistic power, and the Romans in executive skill. Leaving
all theories of inspiration out of account, facts are facts, and the
Bible has no peer in the literature of mankind.

[51] Some there are who think that much of the best work of Mr. Waite
is in his poetry, of which there are two volumes, _A Book of Mystery
and Vision_, and _Strange Houses of Sleep_. There one meets a fine
spirit, alive to the glory of the world and all that charms the soul
and sense of man, yet seeing past these; rich and significant thought
so closely wedded to emotion that each seems either. Other books not to
be omitted are his slender volume of aphorisms, _Steps to the Crown_,
his _Life of Saint-Martin_, and his _Studies in Mysticism_; for what he
touches he adorns.

[52] Even the _Jewish Encyclopedia_, and such scholars as Zunz, Graetz,
Luzzatto, Jost, and Munk avoid this jungle, as well they might,
remembering the legend of the four sages in "the enclosed garden:" one
of whom looked around and died; another lost his reason; a third tried
to destroy the garden; and only one came out with his wits. See _The
Cabala_, by Pick, and _The Kabbalah Unveiled_, by MacGregor.

[53] Acts 17:26-28.

THE COLLEGIA

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_This society was called the Dionysian Artificers, as Bacchus was
supposed to be the inventor of building theaters; and they
performed the Dionysian festivities. From this period, the Science
of Astronomy which had given rise to the Dionysian rites, became
connected with types taken from the art of building. The Ionian
societies ... e