there were more processions, and the initiation proper, said
to have been something like that of Free-masonry; so that we may suppose
the victims rode the goat and were broiled on the gridiron. On the ninth
day, the ceremony, they say, consisted in overturning two vessels of
wine. I fear by this means that they all got drunk; and the more so,
because the coins of Eleusis have a hog on one side, as much as to say,
We make hogs of ourselves.

There was a set of mysteries at Athens, called Thesmophoria, and one at
Rome, called the mysteries of the Bona Dea, which were celebrated by
married women only. Various notions prevailed as to what they did. But
can there be any reasonable doubt about it? They were, I fear,
systematic conspirators' meetings, in which the more experienced matrons
instructed the junior ones how to manage their husbands. If this was not
their object, then it was to maintain the influence of the heathen
clergy over the heathen ladies. Women have always been the constituents
of priests where false religions prevailed, as they have, for better
purposes, of the ministers of the Gospel among Christians.

The mysteries of the goddess Isis, which originated in Egypt, were, in
general, like those of Ceres at Eleusis. The Persian mysteries of
Mithra, which were very popular during part of the latter days of the
Roman empire, were of the same sort. So were those of Bacchus, Juno,
Jupiter, and various other heathen gods. All of them were celebrated
with great solemnity and secrecy; all included much that was terrifying;
and all of their secrets have been so faithfully kept that we have only
guesses and general statements about the details of the performances.
Their principal object seems to have been to secure the initiated
against misfortunes, and to gain prosperity in the future. Some have
imagined that very wonderful and glorious truths were revealed in the
midst of these heathen humbugs. But I guess that the more we find out
about them, the bigger humbugs they will appear, as happened to the
travelers who held a _post mortem_ on the great heathen god in the
story. This was a certain very terrible and powerful divinity among some
savage tribes, of whom dreadful stories were told--very authentic, of
course! Some unbelieving scamps of travelers, by unlawful ways, managed
to get into the innermost sacred place of the temple one night. They
found the god to be done up in a very large and suspicious looking
bundle.