difference was probably on the whole more one of degree
than of essential disparity. But however that may be,
we cannot but be struck by the extraordinary analogy
between the tombstone inscriptions of that period "born
again into eternity by the blood of the Bull or the Ram,"
and the corresponding texts in our graveyards to-day.
F. Cumont in his elaborate work, Textes et Monuments relatifs
aux Mysteres de Mithra (2 vols., Brussels, 1899) gives
a great number of texts and epitaphs of the same character
as that above-quoted, and they are well worth studying
by those interested in the subject. Cumont, it may be
noted (vol. i, p. 305), thinks that the story of Mithra and
the slaying of the Bull must have originated among some
pastoral people to whom the bull was the source of all life.
The Bull in heaven--the symbol of the triumphant Sungod--
and the earthly bull, sacrificed for the good of humanity
were one and the same; the god, in fact, SACRIFICED HIMSELF
OR HIS REPRESENTATIVE. And Mithra was the hero who first
won this conception of divinity for mankind--though of
course it is in essence quite similar to the conception put
forward by the Christian Church.

As illustrating the belief that the Baptism by Blood was
accompanied by a real regeneration of the devotee, Frazer
quotes an ancient writer[1] who says that for some time after
the ceremony the fiction of a new birth was kept up
by dieting the devotee on MILK, like a new-born babe.
And it is interesting in that connection to find that even in
the present day a diet of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BUT MILK for
six or eight weeks is by many doctors recommended as