attend at the sacrifices and initiations. For the mind is not then sorrowful, demiss, and heavy, as she would be if she were addressing to certain tyrants or cruel torturers; but on the contrary, where she is most apprehensive and fullest persuaded the Divinity is present, there she most of all throws off sorrows, tears, and pensiveness, and lets herself loose to what is pleasing and agreeable, to the very degree of tipsiness, frolic, and laughter. In amorous concerns, as the poet said once, When old man and old wife think of love’s fires, Their frozen breasts will swell with new desires; but now in the public processions and sacrifices not only the old man and the old wife, nor yet the poor and mean man only, but also The dusty thick-legged drab that turns the mill, and household-slaves and day-laborers, are strangely elevated and transported with mirth and jovialty. Rich men as well as princes are used at certain times to make public entertainments and to keep open houses; but the feasts they make at the solemnities and sacrifices, when they now apprehend their minds to approach nearest the Divinity, have conjoined with the honor and veneration which they pay him a much more transcending pleasure and satisfaction. Of this, he that hath renounced God’s providence hath not the least share; for what recreates and cheers us at the festivals is not the store of good wine and roast meat, but the good hope and persuasion that God is there present and propitious to us, and kindly accepts of what we do. From some of our festivals we exclude the flute and garland; but if God be not present at the sacrifice, as the solemnity of the banquet, the rest is but unhallowed, unfeast-like, and uninspired. Indeed the whole is but ungrateful and irksome to such a man; for he asks for nothing at all, but only acts his prayers and adorations for fear of the public, and utters expressions contradictory to his philosophy. And when he sacrifices, he stands by and looks upon the priest as he kills the offering but as he doth upon a butcher; and when he hath done, he goes his way, saying with Menander, To bribe the Gods I sacrificed my best, But they ne’er minded me nor my request. For such a mien Epicurus would have us to put on, and neither to envy nor to incur the hatred of the common sort by doing ourselves with displeasure what others do with delight. For, as Evenus saith, No man can love what he is made to do. For which very reason they think the superstitious are not pleased in their minds but in fear while they attend at the sacrifices and mysteries; though they themselves are in no better condition, if they do the same things out of fear, and partake not either of as great good hope as the others do, but are only fearful and uneasy lest they should come to be discovered cheating and abusing the public, upon whose account it is that they compose the books they write about the Gods and the Divine Nature,