STORY OF ALĒTHE.

“The mother of this maiden was the beautiful Theora of Alexandria, who, though a native of that city, was descended from Grecian parents. When very young, Theora was one of the seven maidens selected, to note down the discourses of the eloquent Origen, who, at that period, presided over the School of Alexandria, and was in all the fulness of his fame, both among Pagans and Christians. Endowed richly with the learning of both creeds, he brought the natural light of philosophy to elucidate the mysteries of faith, and was only proud of his knowledge of the wisdom of this world, inasmuch as it ministered to the triumph of divine truth.

“Though he had courted in vain the crown of martyrdom, it was held, throughout his life, suspended over his head, and in more than one persecution, he had evinced his readiness to die for that faith which he [pg 173]lived but to testify and adorn. On one of these occasions, his tormentors, having habited him like an Egyptian priest, placed him upon the steps of the Temple of Serapis, and commanded that he should, in the manner of the Pagan ministers, present palm-branches to the multitude who went up to the shrine. But the courageous Christian disappointed their views. Holding forth the branches with an unshrinking hand, he cried aloud, ‘Come hither and take the branch, not of an Idol Temple, but of Christ.’

“So indefatigable was this learned Father in his studies, that, while composing his Commentary on the Scriptures, he was attended by seven scribes or notaries, who relieved each other in taking down the dictates of his eloquent tongue; while the same number of young females, selected for the beauty of their penmanship, were employed in arranging and transcribing the precious leaves.

“Among the scribes so selected, was the [pg 174]fair young Theora, whose parents, though attached to the Pagan worship, were not unwilling to profit by the accomplishments of their daughter, thus devoted to a task which they considered purely mechanical. To the maid herself, however, her task brought far other feelings and consequences. She read anxiously as she wrote, and the divine truths, so eloquently illustrated, found their way, by degrees, from the page to her heart. Deeply, too, as the written words affected her, the discourses from the lips of the great teacher himself, which she had frequent opportunities of hearing, sunk still more deeply into her mind. There was, at once, a sublimity and gentleness in his views of religion, which, to the tender hearts and lively imaginations of women, never failed to appeal with convincing power. Accordingly, the list of his female pupils was numerous; and the names of Barbara, Juliana, Heraïs, and others, bear honourable testimony to his influence over that sex.

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“To Theora the feeling, with which his discourses inspired her, was like a new soul,—a consciousness of spiritual existence, unfelt before. By the eloquence of the comment she was awakened into admiration of the text; and when, by the kindness of a Catechumen of the school, who had been struck by her innocent zeal, she, for the first time, became possessor of a copy of the Scriptures, she could not sleep for thinking of her sacred treasure. With a mixture of pleasure and fear she hid it from all eyes, and was like one who had received a divine guest under her roof, and felt fearful of betraying its divinity to the world.

“A heart so awake would have been easily secured to the faith, had her opportunities of hearing the sacred word continued. But circumstances arose to deprive her of this advantage. The mild Origen, long harassed and thwarted in his labours by the tyranny of the Bishop of Alexandria, Demetrius, was obliged to [pg 176]relinquish his school and fly from Egypt. The occupation of the fair scribe was, therefore, at an end: her intercourse with the followers of the new faith ceased; and the growing enthusiasm of her heart gave way to more worldly impressions.

“Love, among the rest, had its share in alienating her thoughts from religion. While still very young, she became the wife of a Greek adventurer, who had come to Egypt as a purchaser of that rich tapestry, in which the needles of Persia are rivalled by the looms of the Nile. Having taken his young bride to Memphis, which was still the great mart of this merchandise, he there, in the midst of his speculations, died,—leaving his widow on the point of becoming a mother, while, as yet, but in her nineteenth year.

“For single and unprotected females, it has been, at all times, a favourite resource, to seek admission into the service of some of those great temples, which absorb so much of the wealth and power of Egypt. In most [pg 177]of these institutions there exists an order of Priestesses, which, though not hereditary, like that of the Priests, is provided for by ample endowments, and confers that rank and station, with which, in a government so theocratic, Religion is sure to invest even her humblest handmaids. From the general policy of the Sacred College of Memphis, it may be concluded, that an accomplished female, like Theora, found but little difficulty in being chosen one of the Priestesses of Isis; and it was in the service of the subterranean shrines that her ministry chiefly lay.

“Here, a month or two after her admission, she gave birth to Alethe, who first opened her eyes among the unholy pomps and specious miracles of this mysterious region. Though Theora, as we have seen, had been diverted by other feelings from her first enthusiasm for the Christian faith, she had never wholly forgot the impression then made upon her. The sacred volume, which the pious Catechu[pg 178]men had given her, was still treasured with care; and, though she seldom opened its pages, there was an idea of sanctity associated with it in her memory, and often would she sit to look upon it with reverential pleasure, recalling the happiness she felt when it was first made her own.

“The leisure of her new retreat, and the lone melancholy of widowhood, led her still more frequently to indulge in such thoughts, and to recur to those consoling truths which she had heard in the school of Alexandria. She now began to peruse eagerly the sacred book, drinking deep of the fountain of which she before but tasted, and feeling—what thousands of mourners, since her, have felt—that Christianity is the true religion of the sorrowful.

“This study of her secret hours became still more dear to her, from the peril with which, at that period, it was attended, and the necessity she was under of concealing from those around her the precious light [pg 179]that had been kindled in her heart. Too timid to encounter the fierce persecution, which awaited all who were suspected of a leaning to Christianity, she continued to officiate in the pomps and ceremonies of the Temple;—though, often, with such remorse of soul, that she would pause, in the midst of the rites, and pray inwardly to God, that he would forgive this profanation of his Spirit.

“In the mean time her daughter, the young Alethe, grew up still lovelier than herself, and added, every hour, to her happiness and her fears. When arrived at a sufficient age, she was taught, like the other children of the priestesses, to take a share in the service and ceremonies of the shrines. The duty of some of these young servitors was to look after the flowers for the altar;—of others, to take care that the sacred vases were filled every day with fresh water from the Nile. The task of some was to preserve, in perfect polish, those silver images of the moon [pg 180]which the priests carried in processions; while others were, as we have seen, employed in feeding the consecrated animals, and in keeping their plumes and scales bright, for the admiring eyes of their worshippers.

“The office allotted to Alethe—the most honourable of these minor ministries—was to wait upon the sacred birds of the Moon, to feed them with those eggs from the Nile which they loved, and provide for their use that purest water, which alone these delicate birds will touch. This employment was the delight of her childish hours; and that ibis, which Alciphron (the Epicurean) saw her dance round in the Temple, was her favourite, of all the sacred flock, and had been daily fondled and fed by her from infancy.

“Music, as being one of the chief spells of this enchanted region, was an accomplishment required of all its ministrants; and the harp, the lyre, and the sacred flute, sounded nowhere so sweetly as that [pg 181]through these subterranean gardens. The chief object, indeed, in the education of the youth of the Temple, was to fit them, by every grace of art and nature, to give effect to the illusion of those shows and phantasms, in which the whole charm and secret of Initiation lay.

“Among the means employed to support the old system of superstition, against the infidelity and, still more, the new Faith that menaced it, was an increased display of splendour and marvels in those Mysteries for which Egypt has so long been celebrated. Of these ceremonies so many imitations had, under various names, been multiplied through Europe, that the parent superstition ran a risk of being eclipsed by its progeny; and, in order still to retain their rank of the first Priesthood in the world, those of Egypt found it necessary to continue still the best impostors.

“Accordingly, every contrivance that art could devise, or labour execute—every [pg 182]resource that the wonderful knowledge of the Priests, in pyrotechny, mechanics, and dioptrics, could command, was brought into action to heighten the effect of their Mysteries, and give an air of enchantment to every thing connected with them.

“The final scene of beatification—the Elysium, into which the Initiate was received,—formed, of course, the leading attraction of these ceremonies; and to render it captivating alike to the senses of the man of pleasure, and the imagination of the spiritualist, was the object to which the whole skill and attention of the Sacred College were devoted. By the influence of the Priests of Memphis over those of the other Temples they had succeeded in extending their subterranean frontier, both to the north and south, so as to include, within their ever-lighted Paradise, some of the gardens excavated for the use of the other Twelve Shrines.

“The beauty of the young Alethe, the touching sweetness of her voice, and the [pg 183]sensibility that breathed throughout her every look and movement, rendered her a powerful auxiliary in such appeals to the imagination. She was, accordingly, from her childhood, selected from among her fair companions, as the most worthy representative of spiritual loveliness, in those pictures of Elysium—those scenes of another world—by which not only the fancy, but the reason, of the excited Aspirants was dazzled.

“To the innocent child herself these shows were pastime. But to Theora, who knew too well the imposition to which they were subservient, this profanation of all that she loved was a perpetual source of horror and remorse. Often would she—when Alethe stood smiling before her, arrayed, perhaps, as a spirit of the Elysian world,—turn away, with a shudder, from the happy child, almost fancying that she already saw the shadows of sin descending over that innocent brow, as she gazed on it.

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“As the intellect of the young maid became more active and inquiring, the apprehensions and difficulties of the mother increased. Afraid to communicate her own precious secret, lest she should involve her child in the dangers that encompassed it, she yet felt it to be no less a cruelty than a crime to leave her wholly immersed in the darkness of Paganism. In this dilemma, the only resource that remained to her was to select, and disengage from the dross that surrounded them, those pure particles of truth which lie at the bottom of all religions;—those feelings, rather than doctrines, which God has never left his creatures without, and which, in all ages, have furnished, to those who sought it, some clue to his glory.

“The unity and perfect goodness of the Creator; the fall of the human soul into corruption; its struggles with the darkness of this world, and its final redemption and re-ascent to the source of all spirit;—these natural solutions of the problem of [pg 185]our existence, these elementary grounds of all religion and virtue, which Theora had heard illustrated by her Christian teacher, lay also, she knew, veiled under the theology of Egypt; and to impress them, in all their abstract purity, upon the mind of her susceptible pupil, was, in default of more heavenly lights, her sole ambition and care.

“It was their habit, after devoting their mornings to the service of the Temple, to pass their evenings and nights in one of those small mansions above ground, allotted to some of the most favoured Priestesses, in the precincts of the Sacred College. Here, out of the reach of those gross superstitions, which pursued them, at every step, below, she endeavoured to inform, as far as she might, the mind of her beloved girl; and found it lean as naturally and instinctively to truth, as plants that have been long shut up in darkness will, when light is let in, incline themselves to its ray.

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“Frequently, as they sat together on the terrace at night, contemplating that assembly of glorious stars, whose beauty first misled mankind into idolatry, she would explain to the young listener by what gradations it was that the worship, thus transferred from the Creator to the creature, sunk lower and lower in the scale of being, till man, at length, presumed to deify man, and by the most monstrous of inversions, heaven was made the mirror of earth, reflecting all its most earthly features.

“Even in the Temple itself, the anxious mother would endeavour to interpose her purer lessons among the idolatrous ceremonies in which they were engaged. When the favourite ibis of Alethe took its station on the shrine, and the young maiden was seen approaching, with all the gravity of worship, the very bird which she had played with but an hour before,—when the acacia-bough, which she herself had plucked, seemed to acquire a sudden sacredness in [pg 187]her eyes, as soon as the priest had breathed on it,—on all such occasions Theora, though with fear and trembling, would venture to suggest to the youthful worshipper the distinction that should be drawn between the sensible object of adoration, and that spiritual, unseen Deity, of which it was but the remembrancer or type.

“With sorrow, however, she soon discovered that, in thus but partially enlightening a mind too ardent to be satisfied with such glimmerings, she only bewildered the heart that she meant to guide, and cut down the hope round which its faith twined, without substituting any other support in its place. As the beauty, too, of Alethe began to attract all eyes, new fears crowded upon the mother’s heart;—fears, in which she was but too much justified by the characters of some of those around her.

“In this sacred abode, as may easily be conceived, morality did not always [pg 188]go hand in hand with religion. The hypocritical and ambitious Orcus, who was, at this period, High Priest of Memphis, was a man, in every respect, qualified to preside over a system of such splendid fraud. He had reached that effective time of life, when enough of the warmth of youth remains to give animation to the counsels of age. But, in his instance, youth had only the baser passions to bequeath, while age but contributed a more refined maturity of mischief. The advantages of a faith appealing so wholly to the senses, were well understood by him; nor was he ignorant that the only way of making religion subservient to his own interests was by shaping it adroitly to the passions of others.

“The state of misery and remorse in which the mind of Theora was kept by the scenes, however veiled by hypocrisy, which she witnessed around her, became at length intolerable. No perils that the cause of truth could bring with it would [pg 189]be half so dreadful as this endurance of sinfulness and deceit. Her child was, as yet, pure and innocent;—but, without that sentinel of the soul, Religion, how long might she continue so?

“This thought at once decided her;—all other fears vanished before it. She resolved instantly to lay open to Alethe the whole secret of her soul; to make her, who was her only hope on earth, the sharer of all her hopes in heaven, and then fly with her, as soon as possible, from this unhallowed place, to the desert—to the mountains—to any place, however desolate, where God and the consciousness of innocence might be with them.

“The promptitude with which her young pupil caught from her the divine truths, was even beyond what she expected. It was like the lighting of one torch at another,—so prepared was Alethe’s mind for the illumination. Amply was the mother now repaid for all her misery, by this perfect communion of love and faith, [pg 190]and by the delight with which she saw her beloved child—like the young antelope, when first led by her dam to the well,—drink thirstily by her side, at the source of all life and truth.

“But such happiness was not long to last. The anxieties that Theora had suffered preyed upon her health. She felt her strength daily decline; and the thoughts of leaving, alone and unguarded in the world, that treasure which she had just devoted to heaven, gave her a feeling of despair which but hastened the ebb of life. Had she put in practice her resolution of flying from this place, her child might have been now beyond the reach of all she dreaded, and in the solitude of the wilderness would have found at least safety from wrong. But the very happiness she had felt in her new task diverted her from this project;—and it was now too late, for she was already dying.

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“She concealed, however, her state from the tender and sanguine girl, who, though she saw the traces of disease on her mother’s cheek, little knew that they were the hastening footsteps of death, nor thought even of the possibility of losing what was so dear to her. Too soon, however, the moment of separation arrived; and while the anguish and dismay of Alethe were in proportion to the security in which she had indulged, Theora, too, felt, with bitter regret, that she had sacrificed to her fond consideration much precious time, and that there now remained but a few brief and painful moments, for the communication of all those wishes and instructions, on which the future destiny of the young orphan depended.

“She had, indeed, time for little more than to place the sacred volume solemnly in her hands, to implore that she would, at all risks, fly from this unholy place, and, pointing in the direction of the mountains of the Saïd, to name, with her last [pg 192]breath, the holy man, to whom, under heaven, she trusted for the protection and salvation of her child.

“The first violence of feeling to which Alethe gave way was succeeded by a fixed and tearless grief, which rendered her insensible, for some time, to the dangers of her situation. Her only comfort was in visiting that monumental chapel, where the beautiful remains of Theora lay. There, night after night, in contemplation of those placid features, and in prayers for the peace of the departed spirit, did she pass her lonely, and—sad as they were—happiest hours. Though the mystic emblems that decorated that chapel were but ill suited to the slumber of a Christian saint, there was one among them, the Cross, which, by a remarkable coincidence, is an emblem common alike to the Gentile and the Christian,—being, to the former, a shadowy type of that immortality, of which, to the latter, it is a substantial and assuring pledge.

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“Nightly, upon this cross, which she had often seen her lost mother kiss, did she breathe forth a solemn and heartfelt vow, never to abandon the faith which that departed spirit had bequeathed to her. To such enthusiasm, indeed, did her heart at such moments rise, that, but for the last injunctions from those pallid lips, she would, at once, have avowed her perilous secret, and spoken out the words, ‘I am a Christian,’ among those benighted shrines!

“But the will of her, to whom she owed more than life, was to be obeyed. To escape from this haunt of superstition must now, she felt, be her first object; and, in devising the means of effecting it, her mind, day and night, was employed. It was with a loathing not to be concealed she now found herself compelled to resume her idolatrous services at the shrine. To some of the offices of Theora she succeeded, as is the custom, by inheritance; and in the performance of these[pg 194]—sanctified as they were in her eyes by the pure spirit she had seen engaged in them—there was a sort of melancholy pleasure in which her sorrow found relief. But the part she was again forced to take, in the scenic shows of the Mysteries, brought with it a sense of wrong and degradation which she could no longer bear.

“She had already formed, in her own mind, a plan of escape, in which her knowledge of all the windings of this subterranean realm gave her confidence, when the reception of Alciphron, as an Initiate, took place.

“From the first moment of the landing of that philosopher at Alexandria, he had become an object of suspicion and watchfulness to the inquisitorial Orcus, whom philosophy, in any shape, naturally alarmed, but to whom the sect over which the young Athenian presided was particularly obnoxious. The accomplishments of Alciphron, his popularity, wherever he [pg 195]went, and the freedom with which he indulged his wit at the expense of religion, was all faithfully reported to the High Priest by his spies, and stirred up within him no kindly feelings towards the stranger. In dealing with an infidel, such a personage as Orcus could know no alternative but that of either converting or destroying him; and though his spite, as a man, would have been more gratified by the latter proceeding, his pride, as a priest, led him to prefer the triumph of the former.

“The first descent of the Epicurean into the pyramid was speedily known, and the alarm immediately given to the Priests below. As soon as it was discovered that the young philosopher of Athens was the intruder, and that he still continued to linger round the pyramid, looking often and wistfully towards the portal, it was concluded that his curiosity would impel him to try a second descent; and Orcus, blessing the good chance which had thus [pg 196]brought the wild bird to his net, determined not to allow an opportunity so precious to be wasted.

“Instantly, the whole of that wonderful machinery, by which the phantasms and illusions of Initiation are produced, were put in active preparation throughout that subterranean realm; and the increased stir and watchfulness excited among its inmates, by this more than ordinary display of all the resources of priestcraft, rendered the accomplishment of Alethe’s design, at such a moment, peculiarly difficult. Wholly ignorant of the share which had fallen to herself in attracting the young philosopher down to this region, she but heard of him vaguely, as the Chief of a great Grecian sect, who had been led, by either curiosity or accident, to expose himself to the first trials of Initiation, and whom the priests, she saw, were endeavouring to ensnare in their toils, by every art and skill with which their science of darkness had gifted them.

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“To her mind, the image of a philosopher, such as Alciphron had been represented to her, came associated with ideas of age and reverence; and, more than once, the possibility of his being made instrumental to her deliverance flashed a hope across her heart in which she could not help indulging. Often had she been told by Theora of the many Gentile sages, who had laid their wisdom down humbly at the foot of the Cross; and though this Initiate, she feared, could hardly be among the number, yet the rumours which she had gathered from the servants of the Temple, of his undisguised contempt for the errors of heathenism, led her to hope she might find tolerance, if not sympathy, in her appeal to him.

“Nor was it solely with a view to her own chance of deliverance that she thus connected him in her thoughts with the plan which she meditated. The look of [pg 198]proud and self-gratulating malice, with which the High Priest had mentioned this ‘infidel,’ as he styled him, when instructing her in the scene she was to enact before the philosopher in the valley, but too plainly informed her of the destiny that hung over him. She knew how many were the hapless candidates for Initiation, who had been doomed to a durance worse than that of the grave, for but a word, a whisper breathed against the sacred absurdities which they witnessed; and it was evident to her that the venerable Greek (for such her fancy represented Alciphron) was no less interested in escaping from this region than herself.

“Her own resolution was, at all events, fixed. That visionary scene, in which she had appeared before Alciphron,—little knowing how ardent were the heart and imagination, over which her beauty, at that moment, shed its whole influence,—was, she solemnly resolved, the very last un[pg 199]holy service, that superstition or imposture should ever command of her.

“On the following night the Aspirant was to watch in the Great Temple of Isis. Such an opportunity of approaching and addressing him might never come again. Should he, from compassion for her situation, or a sense of the danger of his own, consent to lend his aid to her flight, most gladly would she accept it,—assured that no danger or treachery she might risk could be half so dreadful as those she left behind. Should he, on the contrary, refuse, her determination was equally fixed—to trust to that God, who watches over the innocent, and go forth alone.

“To reach the island in Lake Mœris was her first object, and there occurred luckily, at this time, a mode of accomplishing it, by which the difficulty and dangers of the attempt would be, in a great degree, diminished. The day of [pg 200]the annual visitation of the High Priest to the Place of Weeping—as that island in the centre of the lake is called—was now fast approaching; and Alethe well knew that the self-moving car, by which the High Priest and one of the Hierophants are conveyed to the chambers under the lake, stood waiting in readiness. By availing herself of this expedient, she would gain the double advantage both of facilitating her own flight and retarding the speed of her pursuers.

“Having paid a last visit to the tomb of her beloved mother, and wept there, long and passionately, till her heart almost failed in the struggle,—having paused, too, to give a kiss to her favourite ibis, which, though too much a Christian to worship, she was still child enough to love,—with a trembling step she went early to the Sanctuary, and hid herself in one of the recesses of the Shrine. Her intention was to steal out from thence to Alciphron, while it was yet dark, and be[pg 201]fore the illumination of the great Statue behind the Veils had begun. But her fears delayed her till it was almost too late;—already was the image lighted up, and still she remained trembling in her hiding place.

“In a few minutes more the mighty Veils would have been withdrawn, and the glories of that scene of enchantment laid open,—when, at length, summoning up courage, and taking advantage of a momentary absence of those employed in the preparations of this splendid mockery, she stole from under the Veil and found her way, through the gloom, to the Epicurean. There was then no time for explanation;—she had but to trust to the simple words, ‘Follow, and be silent;’ and the implicit readiness with which she found them obeyed filled her with no less surprise than the philosopher himself felt in hearing them.

“In a second or two they were on their way through the subterranean windings, [pg 202]leaving the ministers of Isis to waste their splendours on vacancy, through a long series of miracles and visions which they now exhibited,—unconscious that he, whom they took such pains to dazzle, was already, under the guidance of the young Christian, removed beyond the reach of their spells.”

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