ARTIFICES OF THE PAGAN PRIESTS. 125 



ESTHER. 



Thank you, mamma. I suppose many of the tricks of the 

 ancient priests may now be explained by natural causes.. 



MRS. F. 



Yes; there seems to be little doubt but that the Pagan priest- 

 hood kept all the mysteries of science confined to the recesses 

 of their temples, and employed them to delude, with apparent 

 miracles, the rest of mankind, who, unsuspicious of fraud, 

 and unacquainted with the powers of nature, regarded as 

 supernatural, that which was the effect of human agency. 

 In the trials to which they subjected the initiated, or candi- 

 dates for the priesthood, " we cannot mistake at first sight an 

 ingenious application of the secrets of mechanics and acoustics; 

 the scientific illusions of optics, perspective, and phantasma- 

 goria; different inventions belonging to hydrostatics and 

 chemistry; the skilful exercise of practical observations on the 

 habits and sensation of animals; lastly, the employment of 

 secrets, used in every age, by means of which the human frame 

 is preserved and rendered invulnerable to the action of fire.* 



ESTHER. 



But we find no positive accounts of the knowledge of all 

 these sciences in the writings of the ancients? 



MRS. F. 



No; because the writers of antiquity either belonged to the 

 priesthood and were interested in perpetuating the delusion; 

 or, as more frequently happened, were deceived themselves. 

 But the effects speak, and oblige us to admit the existence of 

 the causes. What the ancients state they have done, we 

 possess the means of doing. Equally available methods 

 therefore, were known to them. 



FREDERICK. 



Thank you, aunt; but how are all the wonders of the Cave 

 of Trophonius accounted for? 



* Salverte, des Sciences Occultes des Anciens. 

 11* 



