l death of Dionysus was figured out in the ceremonies,
and the shrieks and lamentations of the initiates, with the confinement or
burial of the candidate on the pastos, couch, or coffin, constituted the
first part of the ceremony of initiation. Then began the search of Rhea
for the remains of Dionysus, which was continued amid scenes of the
greatest confusion and tumult, until, at last, the search having been
successful, the mourning was turned into joy, light succeeded to darkness,
and the candidate was invested with the knowledge of the secret doctrine
of the Mysteries--the belief in the existence of one God, and a future
state of rewards and punishments.[31]

Such were the mysteries that were practised by the architect,--the
Freemasons, so to speak--of Asia Minor. At Tyre, the richest and most
important city of that region, a city memorable for the splendor and
magnificence of the buildings with which it was decorated, there were
colonies or lodges of these mystic architects; and this fact I request
that you will bear in mind, as it forms an important link in the chain
that connects the Dionysiacs with the Freemasons.

But to make every link in this chain of connection complete, it is
necessary that the mystic artists of Tyre should be proved to be at least
contemporaneous with the building of King Solomon's temple; and the
evidence of that fact I shall now attempt to produce.

Lawrie, whose elaborate researches into this subject leave us nothing
further to discover, places the arrival of the Dionysiacs in Asia Minor at
the time of the Ionic migration, when "the inhabitants of Attica,
complaining of the narrowness of their territory and the unfruitfulness of
its soil, went in quest of more extensive and fertile settlements. Being
joined by a number of the inhabitants of surrounding provinces, they
sailed to Asia Minor, drove out the original inhabitants, and seized upon
the most eligible situations, and united them under the name of Ionia,
because the greatest number of the refugees were natives of that Grecian
province." [32] With their knowledge of the arts of sculpture and
architecture, in which the Greeks had already made some progress, the
emigrants brought over to their new settlements their religious customs
also, and introduced into Asia the mysteries of Athene and Dionysus long
before they had been corrupted by the licentiousness of the mother
country.

Now, Playfair places the Ionic migration in the year