day of sacrifices, that the heart also may be made pure, when are offered barley from the fields of Eleusis and a mullet.  All other sacrifices may be tasted; but this is for Demeter alone, and not to be touched by mortal lips.  On the fourth day, we join the procession bearing the sacred basket of the goddess, filled with curious symbols, grains of salt, carded wool, sesame, pomegranates, and poppies,—­symbols of the gifts of our Great Mother and of her mighty sorrow.  On the night of the fifth, we are lost in the hurrying tumult of the torch-light processions.  Then there is the sixth day, the great day of all, when from Athens the statue of Iacchus (Bacchus) is borne, crowned with myrtle, tumultuously through the sacred gate, along the sacred way, halting by the sacred fig-tree, (all sacred, mark you, from Eleusinian associations,) where the procession rests, and then moves on to the bridge over the Cephissus, where again it rests, and where the expression of the wildest grief gives place to the trifling farce,—­even as Demeter, in the midst of her grief, smiled at the levity of Iambe in the palace of Celeus.  Through the “mystical entrance” we enter Eleusis.  On the seventh day, games are celebrated; and to the victor is given a measure of barley,—­as it were a gift direct from the hand of the goddess.  The eighth is sacred to Aesculapius, the Divine Physician, who heals all diseases; and in the evening is performed the initiatory ritual.

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 Agrae. ("Certamen enim,—­et praeludium certaminis; et mysteria sunt quae praecedunt mysteria.”) We must have been mystae (veiled) before we can become epoptae (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 mystae 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 epoptae forever!