ans," says Sainte Croix, "pendant les jours consacres au
souvenir de sa mort, tout etoit plonge dans la tristesse: on ne cessoit de
pousser des gemissemens; on alloit meme jusqu'a se flageller et se donner
des coups. Le dernier jour de ce deuil, on faisoit des sacrifices funebres
en l'honneur de ce dieu. Le jour suivant, on recevoit la nouvelle
qu'Adonis venoit d'etre rappele a la vie, qui mettoit fin a leur
deuil."--_Recherches sur les Myst. du Paganisme_, tom. ii. p. 105.

[24] Clement of Alexandria calls them [Greek: myste/ria ta\ pro\
mysteri/on], "the mysteries before the mysteries."

[25] Les petits mysteres ne consistoient qu'en ceremonies
preparatoires.--_Sainte Croix_, i. 297.--As to the oath of secrecy, Bryant
says, "The first thing at these awful meetings was to offer an oath of
secrecy to all who were to be initiated, after which they proceeded to the
ceremonies."--_Anal. of Anc. Myth._, vol. iii. p. 174.--The Orphic
Argonautics allude to the oath: [Greek: meta\ d' o(rkia My/si~ais,
k. t. l.], "after the oath was administered to the mystes," &c.--_Orph.
Argon._, v. 11.

[26] The satirical pen of Aristophanes has not spared the Dionysiac
festivals. But the raillery and sarcasm of a comic writer must always be
received with many grains of allowance. He has, at least, been candid
enough to confess that no one could be initiated who had been guilty of
any crime against his country or the public security.--_Ranae_, v.
360-365.--Euripides makes the chorus in his Bacchae proclaim that the
Mysteries were practised only for virtuous purposes. In Rome, however,
there can be little doubt that the initiations partook at length of a
licentious character. "On ne peut douter," says Ste. Croix, "que
l'introduction des fetes de Bacchus en Italie n'ait accelere les progres
du libertinage et de la debauche dans cette contree."--_Myst. du Pag._,
tom. ii. p. 91.--St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, lib. vii. c. xxi.) inveighs
against the impurity of the ceremonies in Italy of the sacred rites of
Bacchus. But even he does not deny that the motive with which they were
performed was of a religious, or at least superstitious nature--"Sic
videlicet Liber deus placandus fuerat." The propitiation of a deity was
certainly a religious act.

[27] Hist. Greece, vol. ii. p. 140.

[28] This language is quoted from Robison (_Proofs of a Conspiracy_, p.
20, Lond. edit. 1797), whom none will suspect or accuse of an undue
veneration for the antiqu