That is, “The time will soon come when you will deliver us from all our cares; the remedy is assured, provided we have a little patience.”
The learned President of the Society of Bengal, unaware of the drift of this beautiful stanza, and without ever having so much as seen the original whence it was quoted, offers to alter its import to the following, viz.: “When our bosoms impart their secrets to you, anguish would almost fix our doom, if we were not mutually to console ourselves!” And the only reason he assigns for this novel interpretation is, that two individuals, neither of whom, he himself admits, knew anything about its meaning, happened, or rather pretended, to put it for him differently into Arabic words!
On the pillar at Buddal, this emanation of the godhead is thus characterised: “He did not exult over the ignorant and ill-favoured: but spent his riches among the needy: in short, he was the wonder of all good men.”[396] Isaiah’s prophecy of the future Messiah would appear a verbatim, though more poetical transcript of this inscription, viz.: “He shall not cry, nor lift up; nor cause His voice to be heard in the street; a bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench: He shall bring forth judgment unto truth.”[397]
At p. 110 of this volume, I have promised to explain the origin of the word Eleusinian, as applied to the celebration of certain religious rites. I have very little doubt but that, when reading the declaration, the reader looked upon its offer as, to say the least, gratuitous—satisfied that the term could have no possible other meaning, than as an adjective formed from the substantive Eleusis!
Well, the rashness of that judgment I very freely forgive; and repay it now by the verification of my contract.
Eleusis, the place, and Eleusinian, as descriptive of the mysteries therein solemnised, were both denominated in honour of that Advent, which all nations awaited; and the fulfilment of which, in the person of one of the Budhas, made him to be recognised on one occasion as the “source of the faith of the three epochs of the world.”[398]
I have already redeemed the character of those ceremonies from the sinister imputations which attached to their secrecy. An apprehension that their publication would subvert the popular belief, or a supposed indelicacy in their tenour, were the mildest constructions which the uninitiated would afford them. Though secure in the sufficiency of my former proofs, I cannot avoid taking support from an article in a very talented publication of our day, in which the writer, wholly uninstructed, while he evidently is, as to the nature of those celebrations, yet confirms the fact of their worth and their purity.
“From the whole concurrent testimony of ancient history,” says he, “we must believe that the Eleusinian mysteries were used for good purposes, for there is not an instance on record that the honour of an initiation was ever obtained by a very bad man. The hierophants—the higher priests of the order—were always exemplary in their morals, and became sanctified in the eyes of the people. The high-priesthood of this order in Greece was continued in one family, the Eumolpidæ, for ages. In this they resembled both the Egyptians and the Jews.
“The Eleusinian mysteries in Rome took another form, and were called the rites of Bona Dea; but she was the same Ceres that was worshipped in Greece. All the distinguished Roman authors speak of these rites and in terms of profound respect. Horace denounces the wretch who should attempt to reveal the secrets of these rites; Virgil mentions these mysteries with great respect; and Cicero alludes to them with a greater reverence than either of the poets we have named. Both the Greeks and Romans punished any insult offered to these mysteries with the most persevering vindictiveness. Alcibiades was charged with insulting these religious rites; and although the proof of his offence was quite doubtful, yet he suffered for it for years in exile and misery; and it must be allowed that he was the most popular man of his age.”[399]
Analogous to these were the solemnities at Carthage, designated by the name of Phiditia; and the import of which, as well in term as in substance, has been no less a riddle to antiquarians, than was the sanctified commemoration which it disguises. During the interval of their celebration, the youths received lessons from their elders of the state, as to the regulation of their conduct in after life; and the lustre of truth, and the comeliness of virtue, as they shone forth in Budha (which solves the mystery of the name), were the invariable ethics they propounded.