superintending officers. They employed, in their ceremonial observances,
many of the implements of operative Masonry, and used, like the Masons, a
universal language; and conventional modes of recognition, by which _one
brother might know another in the dark as well as the light_, and which
served to unite the whole body, wheresoever they might be dispersed, in
one common brotherhood.[30]

I have said that in the mysteries of Dionysus the legend recounted the
death of that hero-god, and the subsequent discovery of his body. Some
further details of the nature of the Dionysiac ritual are, therefore,
necessary for a thorough appreciation of the points to which I propose
directly to invite attention.

In these mystic rites, the aspirant was made to represent, symbolically
and in a dramatic form, the events connected with the slaying of the god
from whom the Mysteries derived their name. After a variety of preparatory
ceremonies, intended to call forth all his courage and fortitude, the
aphanism or mystical death of Dionysus was figured out in the ceremonies,
and the shrieks and lamentations of the initiates, with the confinement or
burial of the candidate on the pastos, couch, or coffin, constituted the
first part of the ceremony of initiation. Then began the search of Rhea
for the remains of Dionysus, which was continued amid scenes of the
greatest confusion and tumult, until, at last, the search having been
successful, the mourning was turned into joy, light succeeded to darkness,
and the candidate was invested with the knowledge of the secret doctrine
of the Mysteries--the belief in the existence of one God, and a future
state of rewards and punishments.[31]

Such were the mysteries that were practised by the architect,--the
Freemasons, so to speak--of Asia Minor. At Tyre, the richest and most