oth being the same, but the meaning of it
being taken differently. In course of time, as knowledge makes its way
among the people, and religious enlightenment with it, much of what had
been received literally will relapse into its original figurative or
symbolical meaning. Reason will resume her supremacy, and stereotyped
dogmas will fall like pagan idols before advancing truth."(102)

102) Barlow, Essays on Symbolism, p. 121.

Although, during the later ages of the human career, the higher truths
taught by an earlier race were lost, still a slight hint of the beauty
and purity of the more ancient worship may be traced through most of the
ages of the history of religion. Even among the profligate Greeks, the
mysteries of Eleusis, celebrated in the temple of Ceres, were always
respected. Care should be taken, however, not to confound these
remnants of pure Nature-worship with that of the courtesan Venus, whose
adoration, during the degenerate days of Greece, represented only the
lowest and most corrupt conception of the female energy.

Down to a late date in the annals of Athens there was celebrated a
religious festival called Thesmophoria. The name of this festival is
derived from one of the cognomens of Ceres--the goddess "who first
gave laws and made life orderly." Ceres was the divinity adored by
the Amazons, and is essentially the same as the Egyptian Isis. She
represents universal female Nature. The Thesmophorian rites, which are
believed by most writers to have been introduced into Greece directly
from Thrace, were performed by "virgins distinguished for probity in
life, who carried about in procession sacred books upon their heads."

Inman, in his Ancient Faiths, quotes an oracle of Apollo, from Spencer,
to the effect that "Rhea the Mother of the Blessed, and the Queen of
the Gods, loved assemblages of women." As this festival is in honor
of Female Nature, the various female attributes are adored as deities,
Demeter being the first named by the worshippers. After a long season
of fasting, and "after solemn reflection on the mysteries of life, women
splendidly attired in white garments assemble and scatter flowers in
honor of the Great Mother."

The food partaken of by the devotees at these festivals was cakes, very
similar in shape to those which were offered to the Queen of Heaven by
the women of Judah in the days of Jeremiah, an offering which it will be
remembered so displeased that prophet that a