“And on the second day were gathered together the chief of the fathers of all the people, the priests, and the Levites, unto Ezra the scribe, even to understand the words of the law. And they found written in the law which the Lord had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month. And that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities, and in Jerusalem, saying, “Go forth unto the mount, and fetch olive branches, and pine branches, and myrtle branches, and palm branches, and branches of thick trees, to make booths, as it is written. So the people went forth, and brought them, and made themselves booths, every one upon the roof of his house, and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God, and in the street of the Watergate, and in the street of the gate of Ephraim. And all the congregation of them that were come again out of the captivity made booths, and sat under the booths; for since the day of Joshua, the son of Nun, unto that day, had not the children of Israel done so. And there was very great gladness. Also day by day, from the first day unto the last day, he read in the book of the law of God. And they kept the feast seven days: and on the eighth day was a solemn assembly according unto the manner.” “It is not to be denied,” said Myron, when it was finished, “that the Dionysian festivals of the Greeks have considerable resemblance to the Feast of Tabernacles; the mixt offering of water and wine reminds me of the gift of Bacchus; the bundle of palm, myrtle, and willow branches, of the Thyrsus; the Hosanna, of the Evoe; the procession round the altar, of the Dionysian train; the dance in the court of the Women, of the dances of the Grecian youths. The torch too is in both cases found in the hands of the votary. But the resemblance of the Dionysia of the Greeks to the Feast of the Tabernacles is that of a distorted image to the faithful picture.” “You might have gone further,” said Helon, “and have added that such is the relation generally of heathenism to Judaism. The heathens have mingled poetry and fable with the tradition which they received from the family of Noah; they have disfigured by human inventions the divine truths which they learnt from the Jews. How indeed could it be otherwise, since Jehovah found it necessary to preserve this knowledge pure in Israel, by renewing and impressing more deeply the communication of it by means of the law?” “I understand now,” said Myron, “what you alluded to before, and I see the history of antiquity in an entirely new light. The Greeks differ from the Egyptians only in this, that they have given their distorted images a more graceful form.”