ever-recurring riddle is always the same. In the Human Spirit is
infolded whatsoever has been, is, or shall be; and mortality cannot
reveal it!

Not to Demeter, then, nor even to Isis, do the Eleusinia primarily
point, but to the human heart. We no longer look at them; henceforth
they are within us. Long has this mystic mother, the wonder of the
world, waited for the revelation of her face. Let us draw aside the
veil, (not by mortal hand,--it moves at your will,) and listen:--

"I am the First and the Last,--mother of gods and men. As deep as is my
mystery, so deep is my sorrow. For, lo! all generations are mine. But
the fairest fruit of my Holy Garden was plucked by my mortal children;
since which, Apollo among men and Artemis among women have raged with
their fearful arrows. My fairest children, whom I have brought forth and
nourished in the light, have been stolen by the children of darkness. By
the Flood they were taken; and I wandered forty days and forty nights
upon the waters, ere again I saw the face of the earth. Then, wherever I
went, I brought joy; at Cyprus the grasses sprang up beneath my feet,
the golden-filleted Horæ crowned me with a wreath of gold and clothed me
in immortal robes. Then, also, was renewed my grief; for Adonis, whom I
had chosen, was slain in the chase and carried to Hades. Six months I
wept his loss, when he rose again and I triumphed. Thus in Egypt I
mourned for Osiris, for Atys in Phrygia, and for Proserpina at
Eleusis,--all of whom passed to the underworld, were restored for a
season, and then retaken. Thus is my sorrow repeated without end. All
things are taken from me. Night treads upon the heels of Day, the
desolation of Winter wastes the fair fruit of Summer, and Death walks in
the ways of Life with inexorable claims. But at the last, through Him,
my First-begotten and my Best-beloved, who also died and descended into