The Neo-Platonists taught that these occult rites were a form of representing philosophic and religious dogmas as if in scenes of common life by living persons, and of shadowing them by ceremonies and processions. This is more than hinted by Plato himself, and is undoubtedly true. The candidates were prepared for participation by long periods of fasting and various purifications, moral and physical. The Eleusinia consisted of a drama of several days in duration, in which the abduction, or rather death, of Persephoné and the wanderings of her mother Demeter served as the veil or _myesis_ to the doctrine of resurrection and life of eternity. The author of _The Great Dionysiak Myth_ has ably presented the various forms of the Bacchic rites with the same basis and dénouement. Even the Hebrew Scriptures allude to the matter. The “mourning for the only one” is mentioned by Jeremiah, Amos, and Zechariah. That the story of Jesus was in like manner a drama for religious ends, consisting of a miraculous parentage, a career of goodness, a passion, death, resurrection, and ascension, is, to say the least, no improbable solution of the question. It has also been noticed that the events of the seasons were denoted by the mystic symbolism. The sun, stars, constellations, and earth are commemorated in regard to their annual careers by these observances; whether because they were essential to the physical well-being of man or were especially appropriate for symbology different writers have conjectured differently, according to their own mental peculiarities. Probably both are right, so far as their views extend. It becomes us now to investigate the drama of the Gospels more carefully. The mythologic story of Mithras was probably Assyrian in detail, though Persian in first conception. It embraced the same notions as were denoted by the mysteries of the Western peoples, and hence the Mithraic worship in a very great degree superseded the arcane religions of Asia Minor and Europe. Very naturally, as may easily be perceived, the _framework of the Gospel narrative is on the basis of these rites._ The influence of the other ancient faiths is also conspicuously manifest. The physical, and particularly the astronomic, features are everywhere present in the external structure of Christianity. Sir Isaac Newton was quick to perceive that the festivals of the Church had been fixed and arranged upon the observed phenomena of the heavens, and gave a detailed list of correspondences. It was not prudent, however, even in his time, for a man to say all he knew, and he carefully avoided the drawing of any conclusions which might encourage further inquiry in that direction.