pretended revelations; and bravery having crowned his efforts, he is a favorite of fortune, and the idol of a superstitious veneration. What did not Mohammed accomplish in the same manner? But, in illustration of the opposite effect, so well known to the sad experience of all, hath not a mightier One testified that, "a prophet hath no honor in his own country?"[3] But doth not also common prudence in worldly affairs demand the use of secrecy? What good general will detail, even to his own forces, and still less make public for the use of his adversary, his plans and intentions for an ensuing campaign?--what business man communicate to the public or to his rivals his hard thought and well-planned speculation?--what inventor publish his new machine or discovery until he has secured his patent-right? In what follows, then, let us discriminate between the use and abuse of secrecy; so that, by the lessons of the past and the present, we may be safely guided in our course through the future. Before going into matters of historic detail, it were well to understand the definition of the word "mystery." {13} Many suppose it to mean "something which is incomprehensible." This is all a mistake. "[Greek: Musterion]" means simply "a revealed secret." In other words, "mystery," which we derive from the Greek word quoted, means neither more nor less than a secret revealed and explained to us. A man of mature years and finished education knows that which no school-boy can comprehend. To the elder a secret has been revealed. He is in possession of the mystery. To the younger it is yet a secret, not incomprehensible, but which can only be attained in the progress of learning. To the scientific many of the mysteries of nature are unfolded, but they are a secret to the world at large. To those Christians in the earlier days of the church, who had attained its highest instruction, and after the "Ite, missa est" had dismissed the rest of the congregation, remained to participate in the "pure offering" (or "clean oblation") prophesied by Malachi[4] to be thereafter offered in every place to Him whose name thenceforth should be great among the Gentiles--to them "it was given to know the mysteries of God:"[5] not to understand things incomprehensible. That would be a contradiction in terms: a thing impossible. How can a person comprehend that which passeth all understanding? But it may be said, there are things which are incomprehensible. Not so. They may be a secret to us while, in this school-house, the earth, the {14} pedagogue Necessity is teaching us only the rudiments of the laws of God as developed in nature or in mind; but, when the _scintilla divinitatis_, hidden in these "earthen vessels,"[6] shall have been set free, and (while "the dust returns to the earth as it was") rises unto Him that breathed into us that "spiritus" or "breath of life"--when we shall hereafter have been "newly born" into a