To Latona the quality of the Greek myth most worthy of commemoration was the spirit of sacrifice, which made of Demeter the Mater Dolorosa of the ancient world. The mother seeking her ravished daughter through all the kingdoms of the world, wresting her at last from the dark god—but for a season only—and during the season of sorrow and solitude finding compensation in caring for the sick child of a woodman in a forest hut—here was a myth for which Latona could stand and through which she could draw men to learn the lesson of progress and happiness through sacrifice. The long hours she spent with Phocas in the study of these things and the strength of his genius inspired her with a love for the man as well as for his art; but as the thought that she was born to a mission slowly dawned upon her she withdrew from his companionship, as, indeed, from the companionship of her neighbors; performed the tasks she owed the state with punctiliousness, and gathered about her a few women who responded to her exalted ideas. Her love for Phocas, about which all her earthly life centered, became to her the consummate sacrifice that she could make to this new religion that was slowly taking shape in her. She drew her votaries chiefly from the conventual order that had gathered about the great cathedral on Morningside Heights; for the Christian religion had experienced a great change since the revolution. The Christian Church, released from the necessity of worldly consideration of wealth, was now sustained by those only who sincerely believed in her principles; and as soon as the city had been rebuilt to suit the new conditions, those who had contributed their leisure to the beautifying of the streets, turned their attention to the neglected foundations on the Heights. They found in the new Christian spirit something of the enthusiasm of the thirteenth century, and ridding the creed of all save the principle of love which Christ had made the foundation of His church, set themselves to embodying this principle with its mystic consequences of sacrifice into gothic arch and deep-stained glass, upon a scale and design heretofore never accomplished. Abandoning the transitional style at first contemplated, they adopted the general scheme of Chartres; but in lieu of the almost discordant steeples of Chartres they substituted a design taken rather from what is left of St. Jean, at Soissons, varying in height and detail, but identical in style, stimulating wonder without shocking it. The entrance porches of the western façade were inspired by Rheims and Bourges, for there were five of them; the nave and choir towered to the heights of Beauvais; and in the center rose the spire of Salisbury. The lateral steeples flanking the north and south approaches were completed with the same bewildering variety as on the west front, and the apse, where rested the sanctuary, terminated the story with a cluster of chapels that equaled, if not excelled, the chevet of Le Mans; and so every part of this tribute to Christ lifted itself up in adoration to heaven like a flame. It rose from a green sward, and adjoining it, on the north side, was a cloister that in the hush of its seclusion brought back hallowed recollections of a bygone age.
It was from this cloister that Latona drew her following; for Latona, with her thoughts turned to Eleusis and not to Galilee, conceived of a worship which—though sorrow had a part in it—partook also of joy and thanksgiving; sacrifice assuredly, but for the happiness of this world, rather than for its mortification; an after life also, but an after life for which preparation in this world might through the great unselfishness of a few assure the happiness of the many. So that while sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice had become the underlying principle of the Christian religion, sacrifice for the making of joy became the central idea of the new cult. And Latona, as indeed every mystic, the more she dwelt upon these things, the more she grew to believe in her mission; she began by dreaming dreams and ended by seeing visions; she found that fasting and asceticism contributed to lengthen and strengthen the moments when, losing consciousness of this world, she seemed to find herself in direct communion with the divine. Her body soon showed the traces of her spiritual life; she lost her beauty, but in the place of it came a happiness so radiant that as she walked in the streets to her allotted task it caused men and women to stand and wonder.
Meanwhile, her fame grew apace. But her personality was at first far more impressive than her cult. The one was clear and striking, the other vague and even obscure. At last on a day that afterward became the great festival of the Demetrian calendar, Latona fell into an ecstasy that lasted from the rising of the sun to the setting. She spent it on her knees, in adoration; rigid and motionless, with her hands held out as though upon a cross; none of those about her dared intrude; when darkness came she swooned, and those watching lifted her to her couch. For a week she lay as it were unconscious. Then she gathered her votaries about her, and for the first time clearly enunciated her gospel to the world. This done, a strange sickness came upon her, she was, as it were, consumed by the fire of her inspiration; she wasted away, and with her dying breath asked that what was left of her be placed in an alembic, the gases into which her body passed be burned and the flame, so lit, be never extinguished.
And it was done. The corpse of Latona gave birth to a new vestal fire tended by new vestals, vowed no longer to barrenness, but to fertility and sacrifice.
Her words were preserved by many of her votaries, but their stories varied, as must indeed all such records vary in a world where minds differ as much as inclinations. But the central idea remained and gave rise to a cult which, unsupported by the state or by law, acquired control over the minds of men, much as did the papacy in the eleventh century. Some, as Ariston, believed it to be founded on reason, but dreaded its power and increase; others, as Chairo, regarded it as an unmitigated despotism. The issue was to be fought out—as, indeed, such issues generally are—through the conflict between personal passions and political beliefs, each using and abusing the other and out of both emerging, after the appeasement to which every struggle eventually tends, into a clearer idea and a popular verdict.
Meanwhile, the followers of Latona had built the temple of Demeter on the old classic lines, and the solemn grove about the temple had not detracted from the cathedral close, perhaps because each cult appealed to different temperaments; perhaps, also, because many found that the two cults appealed to the different sides of character and to the different demands of each.
The cult, though unsupported by any law or statute, had acquired extraordinary power in the state. It undertook to summon before its council all persons charged with offenses against Demeter—Demeter standing amongst other things for the purity of domestic life. If the party summoned refused to appear before the council, the matter was referred to the attorney general, who, under the influence of the cult, prosecuted the charge in the criminal courts with the utmost severity; and whether the person accused was convicted or not, a refusal to appear before the council resulted in a social ostracism so complete that few ventured to incur it. If, on the other hand, the party charged appeared before the council, the case was likely to be treated with leniency, and conviction seldom resulted in more than the imposing of some penitential task. Should it, however, appear that the charge was more serious than could be dealt with by the cult, it was referred to the attorney general.
The cult was careful to abstain from any act or teaching which could tend to encourage idolatry or superstition; thus, the statue of Latona, which had first inspired the Demetrian idea, was not placed in the temple where it might be thought properly to belong, but in the cloister. The temptation to worship it, therefore, was removed. Indeed, it was for the purpose of making the worship of a graven image the more impossible that Latona had asked that her body be consumed and the flame from it perpetuated on the altar. A flame could remain an emblem; it could hardly itself, in our day, ever become an object of worship.
In this way was kept alive the idea that the divine, wherever else it might also exist, exists certainly within each and every one of us, and that by the cultivation of love and usefulness it can be made to prosper and increase in us. For men, the active scope of usefulness lay chiefly in the field of labor; for women, chiefly in the field of fertility—neither field excluding the other—but rather both including all. And so women contributed labor, in so far as labor did not impair their essential function of motherhood, and men contributed continence as the highest male duty in the field of fertility.
The duties of the male, therefore, were grouped into two classes, active and passive; the former were for the most part exercised in willingness to labor for the commonwealth without too grasping a regard for reward; the latter consisted mainly in continence, carefully itself distinguished from abstention—for it was a cardinal maxim of the Demetrian faith—as old, indeed, as the days of Aristotle—that human happiness could but be attained by conditions that permitted the due exercise of all human functions, each according to its laws. Science therefore came to the rescue of human happiness by determining the laws of human functions; and art completed its work by creating an environment which to the highest degree possible enabled every man and woman to exercise all their functions with wisdom, moderation, and delight, to the best happiness of all and the ultimate advancement of the race.