Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 1.djvu/544

 his mysteries, accommodating my account to thine own fashions. Here is the mount, beloved of, not the scene of tragic miseries, as Cithæron but a stage for truth to act upon, a holy mount, overshadowed with chaste and temperate groves. No Bacchantes revel here, with cruel rites, but the daughters of hold festival, the pure, the gracious, divine songstresses of the awful mysteries of the Word, with their modest band of worshippers. That band are the just ones: the song is a hymn in honour of the Almighty King. Virgins are singing it, angels are heralding it, prophets are repeating it. The chant sounds abroad; those who are called hurry to the gathering, they hasten on, desiring to regain their Father. Thou, too, aged one, thou too must join us, leaving thy Thebes, abjuring thy sooth-saying; put out thy hand, and let us lead thee to the truth. Hasten, O Tiresias, believe. He shall shine upon thy blind eyes more cheerily than the sun, through whom the eyes of the blind see. O mysteries of truest holiness! O unsullied Light! The sacred torches go before me, while I am brought into the presence of the heavens and himself; my initiation places me among the holy ones. The instructs me in his sacred rites; he seals his teachers with his illuminating guidance, and delivers over such as trust him to his Father, to be preserved for ever. He is everlasting, the one, the Great High Priest of the one  his Father, who intercedes for men, and who is their teacher.