The domain of humbug reaches back to the Garden of Eden, where the Father of lies practised it upon our poor, innocent first grandmother, Eve. This was the first and worst of all humbugs. But from that eventful day to the present moment, falsehood, hypocrisy, deception, imposition, cant, bigotry, false appearances and false pretences, superstitions, and all conceivable sorts of humbugs, have had a full swing, and he or she who watches these things most closely, and reflects most deeply upon these various peculiarities, bearings, and results, will be best qualified to detect and to avoid them. For this reason, I should look upon myself as somewhat of a public benefactor, in exposing the humbugs of the world, if I felt competent to do the subject full justice. Next to the fearful humbug practiced upon our first parents, came heathen humbugs generally. All heathenism and idolatry are one grand complex humbug to begin with. All the heathen religions always were, and are still, audacious, colossal, yet shallow and foolish, humbugs. The heathen humbugs were played off by the priests, the shrewdest men then alive. It is a curious fact that the heathen humbugs were all solemn. This was because they were intended to maintain the existing religions, which, like all false religions, could not endure ridicule. They always appealed to the pious terrors of the public, as well as to its ignorance and appetite for marvels. They offered nothing pleasant, nothing to love, nothing to gladden the heart and lift it up in joyful gratitude, true adoration, and childlike confidence, prayer, and thanksgiving. On the contrary, awful noises, fearful sights, frightful threats, foaming at the mouth, dark sayings, secret processions, bloody sacrifices, grim priests, costly offerings, sleeps in darksome caverns to wait for a dream from the god--these were the machineries of the ancient heathen. They were as crude and as ferocious as those of the King of Dahomey, or of the barbarous negroes of the Guinea coast. But they often show a cunning as keen and effective as that of any quack, or Philadelphia lawyer, or Davenport Brother, or Jackson Davis of to-day. The most prominent of the heathen humbugs were the mysteries, the oracles, the sibyls (N. B., the word is often mis-spelled sybils,) and augury. Every respectable Pagan religion had some mysteries, just as every respectable Christian family has a bible--and, as an ill-natured proverb has it, a skeleton. It was considered a poor religion--a one horse religion, so to speak--that had no mysteries. The chief mysteries were those of the Cabiri, of Eleusis, and of Isis. These mysteries used exactly the same kind of machinery which proves so effective every day in modern mysteries, viz., shows, processions, voices, lights, dark rooms, frightful sights, solemn mummeries, striking costumes, big talks and preachments, threats, gabbles of nonsense, etc., etc.