As such they appear in the Eleusinia; and in all mythology they furnish the only possible key for the interpretation of its mystic symbolism, its hieroglyphic records, and its ill-defined traditions.

The Eleusinia, collecting together, as it did, all the prominent elements of mythology, furnishes, in its dramatic evolution through Demeter and Dionysus, the highest and most complete representation of ancient faith in both of its developments.

Thus was the sixth day of the Eleusinia,when the ivy-crowned Dionysus was borne in triumph through the mystic entrance of Eleusis, and from the Eleusinian plains, as from our choirs to-day, ascended the jubilant Hosannas of the countless multitude;this was the Palm Sunday of Greece.

Besides, Dionysus must not be too closely identified with the Bacchanalian orgies, which were only a perversion of rites which retained their original purity in the Eleusinia: and this latter institution, it must be remembered, was from the first under the control of the state,and that state at the time the most refined on the face of the earth.

But most certainly the Greeks gave a profound spiritual meaning to the Eleusinia, as also to the mystic connection of Demeter with Dionysus.

What was it, then, which saved the Eleusinia from this defeat,which kept the movement of the Dionysiac procession from the ruin inevitably consequent upon all intemperate joy?

But certainly it is plain that the Eleusinia, as being more central, more purely spiritual, must in the thought of Greece have risen high above the drama.

Then, three or four years later, came "The Eleusinia," two articles printed in the Atlantic Monthly.