they
known it, they certainly would not have unveiled the mystery of the
ceremonies.

The impression felt in our days by the non-initiated is of the same
nature as that felt in former times by those who were not initiated in
the mysteries enacted at Eleusis in honour of Ceres. But the mysteries of
Eleusis interested the whole of Greece, and whoever had attained some
eminence in the society of those days had an ardent wish to take a part
in those mysterious ceremonies, while Freemasonry, in the midst of many
men of the highest merit, reckons a crowd of scoundrels whom no society
ought to acknowledge, because they are the refuse of mankind as far as
morality is concerned.

In the mysteries of Ceres, an inscrutable silence was long kept, owing to
the veneration in which they were held. Besides, what was there in them
that could be revealed? The three words which the hierophant said to the
initiated? But what would that revelation have come to? Only to dishonour
the indiscreet initiate, for they were barbarous words unknown to the
vulgar. I have read somewhere that the three sacred words of the
mysteries of Eleusis meant: Watch, and do no evil. The sacred words and
the secrets of the various masonic degrees are about as criminal.

The initiation in the mysteries of Eleusis lasted nine days. The
ceremonies were very imposing, and the company of the highest. Plutarch
informs us that Alcibiades was sentenced to death and his property
confiscated, because he had dared to turn the mysteries into ridicule in
his house. He was even sentenced to be cursed by the priests and
priestesses, but the curse was not pronounced because one of the
priestesses opposed it, saying:

"I am a priestess to bless and not to curse!"

Sublime words! Lessons of wisdom and of morality which the Pope despises,
but which the Gospel teaches and which the Saviour prescribes.

In our days nothing is important, and nothing is sacred, for our
cosmopolitan philosophers.

Botarelli publishes in a pamphlet all the ceremonies of the Freemasons,
and the only sentence passed on him is:

"He is a scoundrel. We knew that before!"

A prince in Naples, and M. Hamilton in his own house, perform the miracle
of St. Januarius; they are, most likely, very merry over their
performance, and many more with them. Yet the king wears on his royal
breast a star with the following device around the image of St.
Januarius: 'In sanguine foedus'. In our days everything is i