Let us enter the mystic temple and be initiated,--though it must be
supposed that a year ago we were initiated into the Lesser Mysteries at
Agræ. ("_Certamen enim,--et præludium certaminis; et mysteria sunt quæ
præcedunt mysteria_.") We must have been _mystæ_ (veiled) before we can
become _epoptæ_ (seers); in plain English, we must have shut our eyes to
all else before we can behold the mysteries. Crowned with myrtle, we
enter with the other _mystæ_ into the vestibule of the temple,--blind as
yet, but the Hierophant within will soon open our eyes.

But first,--for here we must do nothing rashly,--first we must wash in
this holy water; for it is with pure hands and a pure heart that we are
bidden to enter the most sacred inclosure. Then, led into the presence
of the Hierophant, he reads to us, from a book of stone, things which we
must not divulge on pain of death. Let it suffice that they fit the
place and the occasion; and though you might laugh at them, if they were
spoken outside, still you seem very far from that mood now, as you hear
the words of the old man (for old he always was) and look upon the
revealed symbols. And very far indeed are you from ridicule, when
Demeter seals, by her own peculiar utterances and signals, by vivid
coruscations of light, and cloud piled upon cloud, all that we have seen
and heard from her sacred priest; and when, finally, the light of a
serene wonder fills the temple, and we see the pure fields of Elysium
and hear the choirs of the Blessed;--then, not merely by external
seeming or philosophic interpretation, but in real fact, does the
Hierophant become the Creator and Revealer of all things; the Sun is but
his torch-bearer, the Moon his attendant at the altar, and Hermes his
mystic herald. But the final word has been uttered: "_Conx Ompax_." The
rite is consummated, and we are _epoptæ_ forever!

One day more, and the Eleusinia themselves are completed. As in the