practices Babylon, has been erroneously supposed to have been devoted to astronomy. That is quite inconsistent with what Herodotus tells us of it. He says that the temple above the shrine—the apartment for the living, in fact, above the tomb of the dead-contained a golden table and an elegant bedstead (like the beautiful couch' of the Egyptian god-possessed); and that a chosen priestess lay upon the bed and was there visited by the god Belus (or Baal), by night, which obviously means that the priestess became god-possessed in this 'high-place of Baal,'-this temple of the pyramid,-by night, through entrancement, as an oracle, whose responses, while in 'holy rest,' or (Buddhist) 'repose,' were probably written down, as Sibyline leaves, at the golden table.

"Pyramidal barrows, with temples at the top of which were called the house of the god,' are common even in America; and such barrows, though without the outward temple, are scattered all over Asia and Europe, and are to be found even in this country and in Ireland. Such is the immense one at New Grange, which has one known and curious central chamber, or sorcery-hall, as the similar one at Maeshowe is runically inscribed. This central hall is, in all cases, reached by a long, low, narrow passage, or transe, just such as that of the Egyptian pyramids. The plan in the central chamber, or sorcery-hall, at New Grange, is cruciform; and at one side is a rude stone bason,' as as it has been called, on the earth, with an inscription (in Ogham or in Runic characters) which has been translated as, The tombe of the hero;' (the abode of the dead;) while at the other side of the cross is another stone 'bason,' standing-not on the earth, but on the rock of the site, with an inscription which has been translated as- the house of God' (the abode of the living God). The chamber is dedicated to the Great Mother, Ops.'

เ

"That the Great Pyramid was a temple, or rather, contained a temple, seems to have been a very general idea; and even Professor Smyth himself calls it a temple. A section of the 'consecrated oratory,' as Greaves calls the high chamber, or sorceryhall, has, together with its outer apartment, all the appearance of a section of an Egyptian temple; and the inner chamber has been even called the sanctuary, as well as the oratory. On the supposition that the lowest chamber in the subterranean was devoted to death, and the highest to life in the 'similitude of death,'-or to god-possession, or the oracle, in entrancement,— it is probable that the middle chamber, between these two, had some relationship to that other similitude and 'brother' of death

"For further remarks on this subject, see a letter by J. E. Dove, 'On Wing and other Symbols,' in the Builder of 16th October, 1358."

which is neither the accursed death of corruption nor the holy and blessed death of entrancement, but the natural and daily death of sleep, the 'brother' both of death, on the one hand, and of entrancement, on the other.

6

"Keeping in view the deathlessness to which the god-possessed aspired, as among the Druidical deathless brotherhood,' the Greek and other immortal gods, and the Buddhist undecaying illuminati in the salvation of Nirvana;† the conclusion, as to the origin of the Great Pyramid, to which Professor Smyth comes, from a consideration of historical records, is rather remarkable.

"The Hyksos,' or 'Shepherd Kings,' were an historical race, who invaded Egypt as conquerors at a period of extreme antiquity,-long before the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt.

"Science, genius, and immortality were said to be the fruits of initiation into the mysteries of the Greek Ceres and the Egyptian Isis;-not so much the fruits of the mere initiation into the life of entrancement, or life of the gods,' however, as of the continued and daily or nightly practice of that life, or the often exchanging this life for the blessed life of the gods,' as Iamblichus expresses it. Thus initiation was merely the initiative; and it was this initiative through which Triptolemus, or Demophōōn, was said by Homer to be passing when the divine mother, Ceres, or Isis, was interrupted, by the terror of his natural mother, during the goddess's immortalizing work upon her son's dying body, every night, upon his bed, in her temple, at his father's house. Under the divine influence of the goddess, as Homer's Hymn, 'In Cererem,' has it, the novitiate of the second birth, or Child of the Great Mother,'

'Grew like an offspring of ethereal race:

Health crown'd his frame and beauty deck'd his face:
No mortal food he ate: the Queen, adored,
Around him oft ambrosial odours pour'd,
Oft as the child was on her bosom laid,
She heavenly influence to his soul convey'd.

At night, to purge from earthly dross his frame
She kindled on th' earth th' annealing Flame;
And, like a brand, unmark'd by human view,
Amid the Fire, wide blazing frequent threw
The unconscious Child: his parents wond'ring trace
Something divine,- -a more than mortal grace,-
Shine in his form,'-

until one fatal night,' when his mother saw Consuming flames around his body roll,' and then Wrath seized the goddess,' and she

'Furious thus began: Oh, mortals vain!
Whose folly counteracts what gods ordain:
Who, lost in error's maze, will never know,
Approaching blessings from impending woe!
Long, for the rashness that thy Soul possess'd,
Shall keen reflection agonize thy breast;

For, by that oath which binds the powers supreme,
I swear;-by sable Styx-infernal stream ;-
Else, had thy son, in Youth's perpetual prime,
Shared heavenly joys, and mock'd the rage of Time,
But now 'tis past! from fate he cannot fly;
Man's common lot is his: he breathes to die."

"See On Bird and other Symbols' in the Builder of 15th January, 1859."

Manetho, who lived some centuries after Herodotus, says of these Hyksos, 'There came up from the east, in a strange manner, men of an ignoble race, who had the confidence to invade our country, and easily subdued it by their [magical ?] power, without a battle;' and, after several reigns, they capitulated with a valorous Egyptian monarch, and left the country quickly, and entirely, with all their people and goods; and did so leave it going by way of the Desert, towards Syria, where they built Jerusalem. That these Hyksos were not the Israelites is evident, not only from what Manetho says of their invasion, but also from his separate and subsequent allusion to the Israelites. Still, they would appear to have been of a kindred race; and Professor Smyth ingeniously suggests that that most mysterious character, Melchizedec, King of Salem [or Jerusalem?], King of Peace and Righteousness, to whom Abram did obeisance as to his superior, and who was a high priest of the 'order' to which, according to St. Paul (Hebrews v. 6.), even Jesus himself belonged, was probably the very king who invaded Egypt, and built the Great Pyramid as one of those grievous tasks to which the Hyksos put the Egyptians. And accordingly, Professor Smyth finds allusions to the pyramidal form in scriptural passages such as those which refer to Jesus Christ as the head stone of the corner, the chief corner stone, and the head stone of the great mountain.' That the Great Pyramid was not designed (though it was built) by the Egyptians themselves, Professor Smyth concludes not only from the utter want in this pyramid of those hieroglyphics of which the Egyptians were (afterwards?) so fond, but also from what Herodotus says of its immediate directors or orderers, that they were hated by the native Egyptians.

"Now the origination of the pyramidal form in Egypt from the farther east would be quite in accordance with the numerous traces of the spread of such structures westwards even from India, whence it is probable also that the Egyptian doctrines emanated; and, in reference to the deathless brotherhood' who constructed and used such pyramids or barrows for religious purposes, or as sorcery-halls, in this country,-or at least in Ireland and in Orkney, it is a notable circumstance, of which Professor Smyth takes no account, that it is said of the mysterious Melchizedec, King of Salem, or Jerusalem, that he had 'the power of an endless life' (Hebrews vii.); or was, in fact, of 'the order of that deathless brotherhood' of eternity, and children of the divine mother.'-'children of the light,''children of the evening,' as with the Druids,-or initiated and immortal brothers, as with the Nocturnal Society (Societas Noctis) of more classical times ;-and hence (being a new man

เ

and also a god, or a son of God*) he was without [natural] father or mother.' To this deathless brotherhood' of the order of Melchizedec,' as we have said, even Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, par excellence, belonged."

A LEGEND WITH A LESSON.

THE following legend is found in the writer who goes by the name of Dionysius the Areopagite. A monk who had assailed a priest for dealing too leniently, as he thought, with a penitent, applied to Dionysius for his support. In reply, he rebuked him severely for his want of mercy, and concludes thus:

"If you please, I will recount a divine vision of a saintly man; and smile not at it, for it is a true story. Once upon a time when I visited Crete, I was entertained by the holy Carpus. He was a man qualified beyond all others by the purity of his soul for the vision of God. An unbeliever, so he told me, had once grieved him by leading a Christian astray to godlessness, while the days of rejoicing over his baptism were still being celebrated. And so, when he ought to have prayed for both in sincere charity, that by God's help he might convert the one and overcome the other, though he had never been so affected before, he allowed rancorous enmity and bitterness to sink into his heart. In this evil state he fell asleep, for it was evening, and at midnight, when it was his habit to awake to recite the divine hymns, he rose from trouble and broken slumbers, and even in the midst of his very communion with God was agitated by unholy sorrow and indignation, as he pleaded that it was not right that ungodly men should live, peverting the straight paths of the Lord. And so saying he prayed God to slay both the offenders, without pity, by a bolt from heaven. As soon as the prayer was uttered, he said that he thought that the house in which he stood was suddenly shaken with great violence and cloven in twain from the roof, and that a line of light, exceeding bright, streamed down from heaven to the place where he was and that heaven itself was opened, and that upon its edge was Jesus, with innumerable angels in human shape standing beside him. This was what he saw above, and as he looked in it he marvelled. But when he bent downwards he said that he saw the earth rent asunder with a dark and yawning chasm, and the men whom he cursed standing before him at the edge of the chasm,

* "As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God."

trembling and piteous, and their footing was so unsteady that by reason of that alone they were on the point of falling into it; moreover, snakes crawled up from the gulf below, and gliding about their feet, sought, by every kind of terror and fascination, to cast them into the pit. There were men also among the snakes who at the same time assailed the two guilty ones with violent shakings and thrusts and blows; and it seemed that they were about to fall, half willingly, half unwillingly, as they were gradually constrained or seduced by their evil circumstances. And Carpus said that he was delighted to look down, and forgot what was above; nay, that he was indignant and dissatisfied that, they had not already fallen, and vexed that his repeated efforts to this end had failed of success; and that he cursed them still. And having with difficulty lifted his eyes upward he saw heaven again as he had seen it before, and Jesus in pity rise from his throne, and descend to the wretched men, and reach to them a loving hand, and the angels helping him, and supporting the men on all sides. And he thought that Jesus said to him, when his hand was now stretched out to smite, 'Smite me if you will; for I am ready to suffer again to save men anew; yea, I would gladly endure this to rescue others from sin. But see

if it be well for thee to make thy abode with snakes in the pit, rather than with God and the good angels to whom men are dear!'

"This is what I heard, and I believe that it is true."

THE RATIONALE OF SPIRITUAL

MANIFESTATIONS.

BY A CLERGYMAN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

SEVERAL Consecutive numbers of the Spiritual Magazine have been kindly forwarded to me, for which I desire to express my sincere thanks. The general tone and spirit of this publication are such as entirely approve themselves to my mind. The tone is certainly that of piety and brotherhood. The spirit, free from the narrowness belonging to every kind of sectarianism, and equally free from the darkness and fearfulness which are characteristic of every ecclesiastical organisation, is that of an enlightened faith in the unerring goodness of the Lord, and a stedfast hope that every human being, whatever evils and imperfections may oppress him at present, will sooner or later arrive at his destination in heaven. But although the tone is so

N.S.-III.

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