ration
to life,[16] to impress the great truths of the resurrection of the dead
and the immortality of the soul.

I need scarcely here advert to the great similarity in design and
conformation which existed between these ancient rites and the third or
Master's degree of Masonry. Like it they were all funereal in their
character: they began in sorrow and lamentation, they ended in joy; there
was an aphanism, or burial; a pastos, or grave; an euresis, or discovery
of what had been lost; and a legend, or mythical relation,--all of which
were entirely and profoundly symbolical in their character.

And hence, looking to this strange identity of design and form, between
the initiations of the ancients and those of the modern Masons, writers
have been disposed to designate these mysteries as the SPURIOUS
FREEMASONRY OF ANTIQUITY.

V.

The Ancient Mysteries.

I now propose, for the purpose of illustrating these views, and of
familiarizing the reader with the coincidences between Freemasonry and the
ancient Mysteries, so that he may be better enabled to appreciate the
mutual influences of each on the other as they are hereafter to be
developed, to present a more detailed relation of one or more of these
ancient systems of initiation.

As the first illustration, let us select the Mysteries of Osiris, as they
were practised in Egypt, the birthplace of all that is wonderful in the
arts or sciences, or mysterious in the religion, of the ancient world.

It was on the Lake of Sais that the solemn ceremonies of the Osirian
initiation were performed. "On this lake," says Herodotus, "it is that the
Egyptians represent by night his sufferings whose name I refrain from
mentioning; and this representation they call their Mysteries." [17]

Osiris, the husband of Isis, was an ancient king of the Egyptians. Having
been slain by Typhon, his body was cut into pieces[18] by his murderer,
and the mangled remains cast upon the waters of the Nile, to be dispersed
to the four winds of heaven. His wife, Isis, mourning for the death and
the mutilation of her husband, for many days searched diligently with her
companions for the portions of the body, and having at length found them,
united them together, and bestowed upon them decent interment,--while
Osiris, thus restored, became the chief deity of his subjects, and his
worship was united with that of Isis, as the fecundating and fertilizing
powers of nature. The candidate in these