This is not all. I must explain exactly how a part of the heathenish religion answered, in the time of Jesus, the wants of the heathen better than the more natural religion of the Christians. At the time of Christ, many Romans did not believe in thirty thousand gods and in all the absurd and indecent history of those thirty thousand deities, but they had a form of worship that had become purer and purer. They had what they called "Mysteries." In Greece, and in Rome also, there were "Mysteries." These were ceremonies in which great philosophic and religious lessons were given. There exists a very touching letter from Plutarch to his wife, written at the time he lost his only daughter, and when they were in the deepest affliction and desolation. He writes to his wife, who was separated from him at that time, a very kind and loving letter, trying to give her comfort and hope. He says to her, "Remember the beautiful things we have seen together in the Mysteries of Bacchus." You must not believe, as many would at first believe, that the Mysteries of Bacchus were nothing but drunkenness and disorder: they were something else. They were like the Mysteries of Ceres, the Goddess of Corn, and like the representations, in other cases, of the immortality of the soul. They were a sort of tragedy in which, less by word than by singing, and by acting especially, was shown to men that, when the body is interred in the ground, the soul lives, and the soul shall rise to fulness of life. A grain of wheat hidden in the ground remained hidden there for weeks before coming to life. That was the emblem of the new life of immortality. Now, this teaching, good in itself, true in itself, but given in dramatic images, was at that time the very best, soundest, most human, and most natural part of heathenism. And then it happened that Mysteries were acted, not only in the heathen churches, but in Christian churches; that the history of Christ, that the death of Christ, that the resurrection of Christ, took the place of the resurrection of Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres, who represented wheat and corn; and then Christianity became a sort of subject of sacred myths, sacred plays, that were very devoutly acted, and that kept their title of "Mysteries." As soon as we see something of the dark ages, and what the practice of worship was, we see this same thing. It is going on in all countries in some measure. You may see it in the Roman Catholic churches during Easter week. You may see then that, when Christ dies, all the lights are put out, save one very small light, because that represents the moment when the sky was covered with darkness at his death. And you hear in a choir some persons sing the words of the people who screamed "Crucify him!" and others repeating the words of Caiaphas and the words of Christ. This "Mystery," this serious, devout play, is acted in all Roman Catholic churches. When Christ is