everywhere destitute of devotion. The Roman religion was a lifeless ritualism, a punctilious repetition of liturgical formulas, although the language used had ceased to be intelligible. Among the Greeks raillery and jests were practised in connection with their most solemn processions. When, at the celebration of the greater Eleusinian mysteries, the mystæ marched in procession to Eleusis, they were greeted at the bridge over the Cephissus with all sorts of jokes and gibes, many of them exceedingly