l, which the Greeks called
Thesmophoria and which is derived from the more ancient festival of
Ceres (the goddess of Life and Law), which we are anxious to have
noted here, because it marks a golden thread which runs throughout the
entire fabric of the sex-problem. This point is the fact, that the
rites and ceremonies of this festival were performed by "virgins
distinguished for their purity of life." Very rarely were men admitted
to the inner secrets of the Eleusirians.

Another important point is that this ceremony was performed in honor
of the androgynous character of the goddess, as it was declared that
the power to bring forth a child without the co-operation of the male
belonged exclusively to the exalted or perfected woman, which is to
say the goddess. Another translation and interpretation of this
ceremony claims that it was prophecied in these festivals, that a time
would come in the history of the world when a woman would so conceive
and bring forth a child and that when that time should come the
question as to which sex was supreme would be forever settled and that
purity and peace would reign upon earth.

This part of the record may easily have been either an interpolation
to sustain the claim of the miraculous birth of Jesus, or it may have
been simply the defiant fling of the vanquished to the victor, because
phallic worship was in the ascendant. It is, however, recorded, that
not an instance can be cited in which the honor of initiation into the
Eleusirian mysteries was conferred upon a bad man; nor of any man
violating the secrets of the inner temples of the Eleusirians. This
gives rise to the hope that the ideal of this spiritually exalted
sect, in the midst of almost universal degeneracy, was not so much
that of female supremacy, as of purity; that their ideal included the
pure and perfect union of male and female--the only ideal that will,
or can, redeem the world to a life of peace and love.

The festivals of Carthage were said to be similar to those of Eleusis.
For a period of several days during the time set apart for the
festivities, public feasts were prepared in honor of the deific nature
of Man, which, it was pointed out, was his prerogative only by virtue
of inward purity and strict adherence to high ideals of truth and
honor.

Crowning all the religious observances of the Ancients, whether
expressed in the legends of the sun-myths or of star and serpent
worship, we find the universally r