THE PRIESTESS OF DIANA
Saronia was now a priestess of Diana Triformis, and initiated into the mysteries of Hecate. She had grown rapidly in favour with her companions, and was looked on as one of the most devoted women of Ephesus.
Her great strength of character eminently fitted her for the position in which she had been placed, and those around looked on the beautiful girl as one destined in due time to fill the mightiest position of honour in the great Temple, and prophesied that she would soon reach the proud eminence of High Priestess.
Saronia was not an ordinary being; one look at the rounded forehead which shone over dark eyebrows and the unfathomable eyes would convince the most sceptical. The mysteries had a charm for her, and now that she had been taught the hidden secrets of Nature, she craved to understand the powers which worked the will, to dive deeply into the sympathies governing the soul, and to become skilled in the magical rites observed in the worship of the goddess of the underworld.
Hers was an exceptional case, and her companions, knowing a great spirit was in their midst, hastened her career until, moving rapidly forwards, she stood inferior in knowledge and power to none save the Arch-Priestess of Diana. Thus the slave became a spiritual princess, and won the confidence of the people; they loved her for her goodness. Ever ready with words of kindness, she won the deepest regard from the suffering and the outcast.
Those duties were but one part of her priestly call—that part which reflected the purest nature of her goddess.
She worshipped one goddess, yet three: Luna in heaven, Diana on earth, Hecate in hell—a terrible gathering together of good and evil, a trinity in unity, but not a trinity in purity, a broken circle representing Morn, Noon, Night, Birth, Life, Death.
It was when Saronia moved into the great darkness of Hecate that the gloom and passion of the priestess were aroused, and the constant warring of evil against goodness within awakened new aspirations for another experience when she might revolve in a circle of truth and unsullied purity.
And thus it is that when we would do good, evil will present itself; so men set up the symbol of fire as the symbol of deity. Its active elements represent the bad; the light from the flame, the flower of the fire, designates the good.
The mystery of evil worked mightily on the sensitive mind of the girl, and she stretched forth through the darkness for a solution of this great problem which has harassed the minds of men through the ever-changing past. But no answer came, not a voice was heard, and she settled herself as well as she could to penetrate deeper into the hidden things, that perchance she might emerge into the glories of a nobler life.
She, by virtue of her occupation, believed in the great underworld of Hades—in Tartarus, in the Elysian—and knew that Hecate, her mistress, her goddess, presided over the depths where the unclothed spirits wailed and wandered, and over the starving ones who waited at the sacrifice to drink in the rich aroma arising from the altar fire. She knew of the pleadings of the lost for mercy from those they wronged on earth, and the pitiless refusals they met with from the unforgiving shades. In the dark, mysterious nature of Saronia were deep yearnings to set the unforgiven entombed ones free, that they might move upward on the arc of their ascending life, and go forward until they glistened with a glory of purity.
Frequently there arose within her mind the question, 'Is there a God of perfect goodness? Do I know all? Is there in the great and mighty universe a Central Throne, on which the All Perfect rules? Is there far away in the depths of yon gray-blue a King above all other gods and goddesses? And will He ever reveal Himself to man and teach a rule of life by which we may ascend to hold communion with Him?'
And as she meditated a joy unspeakable overwhelmed her soul, and tears, joyful tears, trickled down her beautiful face. But no voice or light came to say if other than Diana heard, and the great Temple shone before her in the sunlight. She said:
'This joy is from my goddess, Queen of Heaven; there is no goddess or god greater than she who speaks to me, and Hecate will control the evil which exists. I must bow before her and worship at her shrine, be co-worker with her, and afterwards she may explain to me those deep mysteries, things which sadden my soul. I shall know later that which to me is now impenetrable, dark, and lonely. O sweet goddess, hear me! O saviour, Queen, Protectress, hear me! O mighty Luminant, I adore thee! Queen of the Lower World, Queen of the Earth, Queen of the Skies, I adore, I worship thee! My being comes from thee, my life is held and led by thee, my future spreads out before thee. The great unfathomable eternity of the hereafter is known to thee. O mighty Lover, guard me! Generous Dispenser, protect me! Great, far-reaching goddess, lead me through the æons, purify my mind from those thoughts which would reach out after some other love! Wrest from my spirit those dark forebodings, those wild clamourings for light, when thou art the light of the ages, the glory of the visible, the multitudinous glory of the invisible, the great centre on which the universe revolves.'