Britain ... - Blue-Lite

452 ORIGIN, ANTIQUITY, AND
tianity. Davies, speaking of Y Meineu Herion, a circle on one
of the loftiest heights of Snowdon, says, " Such was the sanc-
tuary which was held sacred to Ceridwen and Llywy, or Ceres
and Proserpine, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY,
an age in which the honours of those characters were not for-
for we have plainly seen that their Mysteries, strange
gotten ,
as the fact may appear, were still celebrated, not only with
toleration, but also under the patronage of the British princes."
Here we see then, beyond all contradiction, that the Cabiric
or Masonic Mysteries were celebrated in Wales, and patronised
by Christian princes, who were no doubt among the initiated,
down even to the reign of our English Stephen !
And now what were these Cabiric rites ? Were they a mass
of depravity and superstition, degrading to the honourable
name of our noble Order ?
" Eleus the place, and Eleusinian descriptive of the mysteries
therein solemnized, were both denominated in honour of
the Advent, which all nations awaited. Under the name of
Proserpine was typified the Virgin, which was to conceive and
bare a son." (O'Brien.) Among the Gauls, who sent their
sons hither to be instructed in all the learning and mysteries of
the British Druids ages before Christianity, in the district of
Chartres, a festival was celebrated in honour of the Virgin,
Virgini pariturse. (Vide Pillout Hist, des Celtes, t. iii., p. 51.
In the year 1747> a Mithratic monument was found at
Oxford, on which was exhibited a female nursing an infant.
Dr. Stukeley, in his dissertation on this piece of antiquity, says,
" It is a memorial of the birth of Mithra in the night of light."
We all know that Mithra was the second person of the heathen
Trinity, the Mediator, the Saviour. The same Virgin and
Child may be seen among the Etruscan antiquities in Gorius; and
Epiphanius asserts, that the prophecy " Ecce virgo concipient
et pariet filium," was known to the ancient Egyptians. It was
this knowledge of an expected Redeemer, a crucified Saviour,
with which, as Dr. Stukeley very justly observes, the Druids
were acquainted, that led them to erect in the secret recesses
of their groves, the sacred Cross, inscribed with their names of
the Triune Deity. The Sybilline verses were no Christian