"_The Lord be with you._"[310:7]

4. The Christian priests dismiss their congregation with these
words:

"_The Lord be with you._"

These Eleusinian Mysteries were accompanied with various rites,
expressive of the purity and self-denial of the worshiper, and were
therefore considered to be an expiation of past sins, and to place the
initiated under the special protection of the awful and potent goddess
who presided over them.[310:8]

These _mysteries_ were, as we have said, also celebrated in honor of
_Bacchus_ as well as _Ceres_. A consecrated cup of wine was handed
around after supper, called the "Cup of the Agathodaemon"--the Good
Divinity.[311:1] Throughout the whole ceremony, the name of the _Lord_
was many times repeated, and his brightness or glory not only exhibited
to the eye by the rays which surrounded his name (or his monogram, I. H.
S.), but was made the peculiar theme or subject of their triumphant
exultation.[311:2]

The mystical wine and bread were used during the Mysteries of _Adonis_,
the Lord and Saviour.[311:3] In fact, the communion of bread and wine
was used in the worship of nearly every important deity.[311:4]

The rites of _Bacchus_ were celebrated in the British Islands in heathen
times,[311:5] and so were those of _Mithra_, which were spread over Gaul
and Great Britain.[311:6] We therefore find that the ancient _Druids_
offered the sacrament of bread and wine, during which ceremony they were
dressed in white robes,[311:7] just as the Egyptian priests of Isis were
in the habit of dressing, and as the priests of many Christian sects
dress at the present day.

Among some negro tribes in Africa there is a belief that "on eating and
drinking consecrated food they eat and drink the god himself."[311:8]

The ancient _Mexicans_ celebrated the mysterious sacrament of the
Eucharist, called the "most holy supper," during which they ate the
flesh of their god. The bread used at their Eucharist was made of _corn_
meal, which they mixed with _blood_, instead of wine. This was
_consecrated_ by the priest, and given to the people, who ate it with
humility and penitence, _as the flesh of their god_.[311:9]

Lord Kingsborough, in his "_Mexican Antiquities_," speaks of the ancient
Mexicans as performing this sacrament; when they made a cake, which they
called _Tzoalia_. The high priest blessed it in his manner, after which
he broke it into pieces, and put it into certain very