that he has displayed, in that work, a profundity of learning and a splendour of genius, that scarcely ever before concentrated their rays to illumine one publication. Proud to follow so exalted a guide, upon ground not altogether treacherous, I shall now proceed to state some farther particulars, which he has enumerated in relation to the present subject, and examine how far they may be compatible with the religious rites and sciences of India, In the first place, in confirmation of what has been just now advanced, may be urged a passage, quoted by the bishop from Clemens, that, with the principles of theology taught in the mysteries, were actually blended those that relate to natural history and philosophy; since that author expressly says, that the doctrines, delivered in the greater mysteries, treated concerning the universe; adding, "Here ends all instruction; things are seen as they are; and nature, and the things of nature, are given to be comprehended." The various mathematical symbols, and other philosophical apparatus, that ornamented the Mithratic caves of the Brahmins, added to what we have already stated concerning their extensive astronomical investigations, and the doctrines relative to the mundane system, which Ammianus Marcellinus affirms they imparted to the Persian legislatora

legislator, will be considered, I presume, as one strong proof of this assertion. But a still more decisive proof seems to arise from another passage, cited from Themistius, which describes the entrance of the initiated “into a region all over illuminated, and shining with a divine splendour," where the AUTOTTO Ayahua, or self-conspicuous image, the mystic emblem of the great vivifying principle of nature, diffused around an inconceivable splendour. In the second place, and what is more remarkably to our present purpose, may be adduced the attestation inserted from Proclus'; that, in the celebration of the mysteries, the initiated met many things, of multiform shapes and species, that prefigured the first GENERATION of the gods. The principal symbol alluded to in this place will be obvious to the reader, since by the gods are unquestionably meant the first race of deified mortals. The Sun, however, and elementary Fire, are emblems of the Deity, so frequently mentioned in ancient Sanscreet writings, and withal emblems so much more noble than that in question, that I cannot avoid retaining my first opinion on the subject; that they were the most early symbols of Deity exhibited in these recesses, and that the one intimated is only a base substitution, derived from the degenerate devotion

*་

devotion established in Egypt by Ham. Indeed, the passage cited before seems incontestably to prove this point. To this may be added another, quoted from the scholiast, in the Oracles of Zoroaster, in which it is declared, that he, who is fully initiated, beholds ra ba Qara, or the DIVINE LIGHTS. And surely THE REFULGENT ORB OF DAY, surely that FIRE, which the Hermetic philosophers, in their enthusiastic strain, denominate the radiant child of the sun, are far more expressive, as they doubtless are more decent, emblems of the great generative and invigorating faculty of nature than that wretched device of a depraved mind. We have, however, seen the application of this symbol in the rites of Isis; and, if Tertullian may be credited, the very same indecent emblem was adored at Eleusis, and excited both the pointed ridicule and vehement reproaches of the fathers of the church. In fact, there can be but little doubt, and therefore it ought candidly to be allowed, that, originally, the pagan world, under the masculine symbol, worshipped, or pretended to worship, as the Hindoos at this day avow, the first creative energy, and, under the feminine symbol, (for both symbols were adored in that prostituted system of religion,) was typified Ceres, the earth, the

Dea

Dea Multimamma, the prolific parent of all things. Those, however, who thus emblematically represented the all-bounteous mother, the goddess of fertility, the bestower of ́fruits and grain, ought to have learned better, from a particular circumstance in the fabulous history of Ceres; for, when, in gratitude to the father of Triptolemus, she undertook the education of that youth, to hasten his maturity, she fed him in the day-time with divine milk and by night she covered him all over with GENIAL FIRE. But a little reflection will soon convince us, that, as persons of either sex were promiscuously allowed to be initiated, when the original physical cause by degrees came to be forgotten, what a general dissipation, what a boundless immorality, would be promoted by so scandalous an exhibition! The season of nocturnal gloom, in which those mysteries were performed, and the inviolable secrecy which accompanied the celebration of them, added to the inviting solitude of the scene, conspired at once to break down all the barriers of modesty, to overturn all the fortitude of manly virtue, and to rend the veil of modesty from the blushing face of virgin innocence. At length, licentious passion trampled upon the most sacred obstacles which law and religion united to raise against

it.

it. The Bacchanal, frantic with midnight intemperance, polluted the secret sanctuary, and Prostitution sat THRONED upon the very altars of the gods. It is not my intention to stain these pages with a repetition of the enormous and aggravated impieties committed during the celebration of the mysteries of Bacchus at Rome, and so circumstantially recorded by the historian Livy,* nor the multiform impurities supposed to have been perpetrated in those of the BONA DEA; but the obscene abominations connived at in India, and even promoted by the more corrupt Brahmins, (I mean with respect to that ill-fated and prostituted race, denominated the WOMEN OF THE IDOL,) are too closely connected with the present unpleasing subject to be passed over in total silence. What I shall offer, on this curious subject, will be taken from two authentic books, written at very different periods, and therefore fully decisive as to the general prevalence of the institution from age to age; the Anciennes Rélations, and Les Voyages de M. Tavernier, the former written in the 9th, the latter in the 17th, century.

Incited unquestionably by the hieroglyphic emblem of vice, so conspicuously elevated and