Jason, having killed Absyrthe his step-brother, comes, it is said, with
Medea, more guilty than he, to have himself absolved by Circe, queen and
priestess of Aea, who ever after passed for a great magician. Circe
absolves them with a sucking-pig and salt cakes. That may make a fairly
good dish, but can barely either pay for Absyrthe's blood or render
Jason and Medea more honourable people, unless they avow a sincere
repentance while eating their sucking-pig.

Orestes' expiation (he had avenged his father by murdering his mother)
was to go to steal a statue from the Tartars of Crimea. The statue must
have been very badly made, and there was nothing to gain on such an
effect. Since then we have done better, we have invented the mysteries;
the guilty might there receive their absolution by undergoing painful
ordeals, and by swearing that they would lead a new life. It is from
this oath that the new members were called among all nations by a name
which corresponds to initiates, _qui ineunt vitam novam_, who began a
new career, who entered into the path of virtue.

The Christian catechumens were called _initiates_ only when they were
baptised.

It is undoubted that in these mysteries one was washed of one's faults
only by the oath to be virtuous; that is so true that the hierophant in
all the Greek mysteries, in sending away the assembly, pronounced these
two Egyptian words--"_Koth_, _ompheth_, watch, be pure"; which is a
proof at once that the mysteries came originally from Egypt, and that
they were invented only to make men better.

The sages in all times did what they could, therefore, to inspire
virtue, and not to reduce human frailty to despair; but also there are