P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY 



283 



the examinations are completed, the devils 

 are called in, and, while they are not allowed 

 to annoy the good children, they are per- 

 mitted to tease the naughty ones as much 

 as they hke. The performance passes at 

 last into an hour of jollity and romping. 

 The children having returned to their own 

 homes, and said their prayers previously to 

 going to bed, place dishes or baskets upon 

 the window-sills, with their names written 

 within them, for the presents which St. 

 Nicholas is to bring. 



Bitbraism. — The religion of Mithra, or, 

 rather, ideas and forms connected with it, 

 played an important part in the thought 

 of the early centuries of the Christian era, 

 yet little is known of Mithraism at the 

 present time, and the discussions of it are 

 largely speculative. It has been generally 

 treated as having been a mere form of sun- 

 worship ; but that accomplished anticjuary, 

 Mr. J. A. Farrer, has expressed the belief that 

 it was at bottom the worship of Ormuzd, 

 the Persian conception of the Deity, which 

 answers e:sactly to the Jewish conception of 

 ■Jehovah. While we may never know what 

 its actual rites or mysteries were, it is evi- 

 dent that they enforced a high and severe 

 standard of morality through a symbolism 

 which now seems ridiculous. Candidates 

 for initiation went through some twelve or, 

 perhaps, eighty trials of physical endur- 

 ance, by fire, water, fasting, etc., in order 

 to present themselves holy and free from 

 passion. They passed through several de- 

 grees, and were called, according to their 

 sex or advancement, lions, hyenas, ravens, 

 eagles, and hawks. There were ceremonies 

 of baptism and absolution, an oblation of 

 bread and water, and a teaching of the res- 

 urrection. Symbolical representations were 

 made of the passage of emancipated souls 

 through the fixed stars. But little more 

 is known of the service. The interesting 

 point in the Mithraic rites is their resem- 

 blance, as attested by the Christian fathers, 

 to the early Christian rites. This fact sug- 

 gests a question which controversialists 

 have not neglected — whether the Chris- 

 tians borrowed from the Mithraists or the 

 Mitliraists from the Christians, or whether 

 the coincidences are casual. The mysteries 

 of Mithra have also their analogues in the 



mysteries of ancient India ; and it may be 

 that the Christians yielded to the temptation 

 to compromise in order to make the passage 

 of conversion easier ; as it is tolerably clear 

 that they did in the appointment of a num- 

 ber of the church festivals. While these 

 resemblances and relations must make this 

 religion a matter of perpetual interest, its 

 origin and nature are in fact " little less ob- 

 scure than the caverns in which its mys- 

 terious rites were once performed. . . . That 

 it was monotheistic in doctrine, and taught 

 the belief in a future life ; that it inculcated 

 a code of morality, in which truth, justice, 

 and temperance formed the principal vir- 

 tues, is all that at present seems clear from 

 the scanty evidence that remains of it." 



The Sensations of freezing to Death. — 



The question, Is death from intense cold 

 painless ? is answered by a writer in " Cham- 

 bers's Journal " from his own experience 

 one day in the Pennine Alps. After a hot 

 July climb to the snow-line, in which the 

 traveler went out of his way in frequent 

 excursions for beautiful objects, and did not 

 eat, the sunset and the rapid change to in- 

 tense cold took place. Poorly prepared to 

 endure the transition, the writer felt a pe- 

 culiar appearance in all bis surroundings. 

 "Everything looked hazy to my vision — 

 even the snow and the rocks lying about 

 looked as if enveloped in a fog, although 

 the afternoon was beautifully clear. Then 

 I felt that I must sit down and enjoy it; 

 but the guide's flask of Kirschwasser set me 

 going again. Very soon, however, the for- 

 mer feeling returned ; but the same treat- 

 ment temporarily recovered me. At last I 

 took to stumbling along, fell down several 

 times, and at length could not help myself. 

 My companions urged me in vain to arouse 

 to one more effort ; but it was useless." 

 Two monks from the hospice were brought 

 to the rescue, and they and the guide " took 

 me in hand, and, shaking me up, made my 

 hands clasp a belt round the guide's waist, 

 and each of the monks took an arm," and 

 thus pulled him through the seven and a 

 half miles to the hospice. " The sensations 

 of that journey, during occasional gleams of 

 consciousness," the writer continues, " will 

 never be erased from my mind. Is there 

 such an essence of ecstatic delight as elixir 



