came down from heaven, even the Son of Man, who is now in
heaven." Indeed, so forcible and close is the correspondence
between the course of the aspirant in his initiation dramatically
dying, descending into Hades, rising again to life, and ascending
into heaven with the apostolic presentation of the redemptive
career of Christ, our great Forerunner, that some writers Nork,
for instance have suggested that the latter was but the exoteric
publication to all the world of what in the former was
esoterically taught to the initiates alone.

There was a striking naturalness, a profound propriety, in the
obscurities of secrecy and awe with which the ancient Mysteries
shrouded from a rash curiosity their instructions concerning the
future life and only unfolded them by careful degrees to the
prepared candidate. It is so with the reality itself in the nature
of things. It is the great mystery of mysteries, darkly hinted in
types, faintly gleaming in analogies, softly whispered in hopes,
passionately asked in desires, patiently confirmed in arguments,
suddenly blazed and thundered in revelation. Man from the very
beginning of his race on earth has been thickly encompassed by
mysteries, hung around by the muffling curtains of ignorance and
superstition. Through one after another of these he has forced his
way and gazed on their successive secrets laid bare. Once the
Ocean was an alluring and terrible mystery, weltering before him
with its endless wash of waves, into which the weary sun, in the
west, plunged at evening, and out of which, in the east, it
bounded refreshed in the morning. But the daring prows of his
ships, guided by pioneering thought and skill, passed its islands
and touched its ultimate shores. Once the Polar Circle was a
frightful and frozen mystery, enthroned on mountains of eternal
ice and wearing upon its snowy brow the flaming crown of the
aurora borealis. But his hardy navigators, inspired by enterprise
and philanthropy, armed with science, and supplied by art, have
driven the awful phantom back, league by league, until but a small
expanse of its wonders remains untracked by his steps. Once the
crowded Sky was a boundless mystery, a maze of motions, a field
where ghastly comets played their antics and shook down terrors on
the nations. But the theories of his reason, based on the gigantic
grasp of his calculus and aided by the instruments of his
invention, have solved perplexity after perplexity, blended