expectancy,[30\6] performed according to an archaic ritual of ever-increasing perfection and attended by the whole of Greece, an unusual sympathy was felt. It offered something to the eye and the ear which was attractive to all men, and they exerted themselves to find a satisfactory meaning in its sights and sounds. Finally, it is likely enough that the "meaning" which they themselves had arbitrarily bestowed upon them was what made the mysteries specially attractive to many. To this extent it is legitimate to say that symbolism was a real and historical factor in the constitution of the mysteries. Even supposing, however, that much in the presentation of this mystic festival was consciously ordered and disposed by the founders of it with a view to symbolic interpretation, and consequently to the possibility of an ever-increasing idealization of its significance, yet this cannot have extended to the hopes of a blessed immortality revealed to the Mystai. Symbolist or allegorizing modes of interpretation must always have been the private concern of individuals and therefore liable to much uncertainty and variety.[31\6] Our authorities, however, from the most diverse periods, speak with far too great distinctness and unanimity about the blessed hereafter vouchsafed to the initiated in the mysteries, for it to be credible that this can have been the outcome of any interpretation of complexities, or of any metaphorical application of the hopes derived from events in the life of the gods to a quite different province, the life of the human soul. What every witness speaks of in the plainest and simplest language without any special "mystery"--the hope of future blessedness--must have been offered to the participants in the mysteries in the most unequivocal fashion. It is natural, above all, to suppose that the exhibition of the "mystic drama" included particularly the final scene as it is sketched in the 2nd Homeric Hymn: the foundation of the Eleusinian festival by the goddess herself--what had once been revealed to the little city-community must have been proclaimed to the great company of those admitted to the common festival of Eleusis:[32\6] the highest reward of participation in this unparalleled act of worship is what the Homeric Hymn distinctly puts forth as such--the peculiar favour of the gods of the lower world and a future life of blessedness within their kingdom. The statues of the goddesses were seen radiantly illuminated;[33\6] at this festival of grace in remembrance of their trials, their happiness, and their beneficent acts, they {228} themselves--as it seemed to the faithful believer--were invisibly present. What further need of warrant was there for the promises of future blessedness? § 5