sign or symbol.' It is also the symobl of the Babylonian god Bal.' A cross hangs on the breast of Tiglath Pileser, in the colossal tablet from Nimroud, now in the British Museum. Another king, from the ruins of Ninevah, wears a Maltese cross on his bosom. And another, from the hall of Nisroch, carries an emblematic necklace, to which a Maltese cross is attached.' The most common of crosses, the crux ansata (Fig. No. 21) was also a sacred symbol among the Babylonians. It occurs repeatedly on their cylinders, bricks and gems.* The ensigns and standards carried by the Persians during their wars with Alexander the Great (B. c. 335), were made in the form of a cross—as we shall presently see was the style of the ancient Roman standards-and representations of these cross-standards have been handed down to the present day. Sir Robert Ker Porter, in his very valuable work entitled: "Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, and Ancient Babylonia," shows the representation of a bas-relief, of very ancient antiquity, which he found at Nashi-Roustam, or the Mountain of Sepulchres. It represents a combat between two horsemen-Baharam-Gour, one of the old Persian kings, and a Tartar prince. Baharam-Gour is in the act of charging his opponent with a spear, and behind him, scarcely visible, appears an almost effaced form, which must have been his standard-bearer, as the ensign is very plainly to be seen. This ensign is a cross. There is another representation of the same subject to be seen in a bas-relief, which shows the standard-bearer and his cross ensign very plainly. This bas-relief belongs to a period when the Arsacedian kings governed Persia,' which was within a century after the time of Alexander, and consequently more than two centuries B. C. Sir Robert also found at this place, sculptures cut in the solid rock, which are in the form of crosses. These belong to the early race of Persian monarchs, whose dynasty terminated under the sword of Alexander the Great." At the foot of Mount Nakshi-Rajab, . he also found bas-reliefs, among which were two figures carrying a cross-standard. Fig. No. 26 is a representation of this. It is coeval with the sculptures found at Nashi-Roustam," and therefore belongs to a period before the time of Alexander's invasion. The cross is represented frequently and prominently on the coins 1 Bonwick: Egyptian Belief, p. 218, and Smith's Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 54. 2 Egyptian Belief, p. 218. Bonomi Ninevah and Its Palaces, in Curious Myths, p. 287. • Curious Myths, p. 287. Vol. i. p. 337, pl. xx. Travels in Persia, vol. i. p. 545, pl. xxl. 7 Ibid. p. 529, and pl. xvi. Ibid., and pl. xvii. Ibid. pl. xxvii. 10 Ibid. p. 573. of Asia Minor. Several have a ram or lamb on one side, and a cross on the other.' On some of the early coins of the Phenicians, the cross is found attached to a chaplet of beads placed in a circle, so as FIG. 26 to form a complete rosary, such as the Lamas of Thibet and China, the Hindoos, and the Roman Catholics, now tell over while they pray." On a Phenician medal, found in the ruins of Citium, in Cyprus, and printed in Dr. Clark's "Travels" (vol. ii. c. xi.), are engraved a cross, a rosary, and a lamb. This is the "Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world." The ancient Etruscans revered the cross as a religious emblem. This sacred sign, accompanied with the heart, is to be seen on their monu ments. Fig. No. 27, taken from the work of Gorrio (Tab. xxxv.), shows an ancient tomb with angels and the cross thereon. It would answer perfectly for a Chris FIG. 28 An ancient inscription in The cross was adored by the ancient Greeks and Romans for centuries before the Augustan era. Thessaly is accompanied by a Calvary cross (Fig. No. 28); and Greek crosses of equal arms adorn the tomb of Midas (one of the ancient kings), in Phrygia.* 1 Curious Myths, p. 290. Knight: Anct. Art and Mytho., p. 31. See Illustration in Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 224. 4 Baring-Gould: Curious Myths, p. 291. The adoration of the cross by the Romans is spoken of by the Christian Father Minucius Felix, when denying the charge of idolatry which was made against his sect. "As for the adoration of cross," (says he to the Romans), "which you object against us, I must tell you that we neither adore crosses nor desire them. You it is, ye Pagans, who worship wooden gods, who are the most likely people to adore wooden crosses, as being part of the same substance with your deities. For what else are your ensigns, flags, and standards, but crosses, gilt and beautiful. Your victorious trophies not only represent a cross, but a cross with a man upon it." The principal silver coin among the Romans, called the denarius, had on one side a personification of Rome as a warrior with a helmet, and on the reverse, a chariot drawn by four horses. The driver had a cross-standard in one hand. This is a representation of a denarius of the earliest kind, which was first coined 296 в. c.' The cross was used on the roll of the Roman soldiery as the sign of life. But, long before the Romans, long before the Etruscans, there lived in the plains of Northern Italy a people to whom the cross was a religious symbol, the sign beneath which they laid their dead to rest; a people of whom history tells nothing, knowing not their name; but of whom antiquarian research has learned this, that they lived in ignorance of the arts of civilization, that they dwelt in villages built on platforms over lakes, and that they trusted to the cross to guard, and may be to revive, their loved ones whom they committed to the dust. The examination of the tombs of Golasecca proves, in a most convincing, positive, and precise manner that which the terramares of Emilia had only indicated, but which had been confirmed by the cemetery of Villanova, that above a thousand years B. c., the cross was already a religious emblem of frequent employment.* "It is more than a coincidence," (says the Rev. S. Baring-Gould), "that Osiris by the cross should give life eternal to the spirits of the just; that with the cross Thor should smite the head of the great Serpent, and bring to life those who were slain; that beneath the cross the Muysca mothers should lay their babes, trusting to that sign to secure them from the power of evil spirits; that with that symbol to protect them, the ancient people of Northern Italy should lay them down in the dust."5 The cross was also found among the ruins of Pompeii." 1 Octavius, ch. xxix. 2 See Chambers's Encyclo., art. "Denarius." Curious Myths, p. 291. 4 Ibid. pp. 291, 296. • Ibid. p. 311. The Pentateuch Examined, vol. vi. p. 115. "It occurs (says Mr. R. Payne Knight), "on many Runic monuments found in Sweden and Denmark, which are of an age long anterior to the ap proach of Christianity to those countries, and, probably, to its appearance in the world." Their god Thor, son of the Supreme god Odin, and the goddess Freyga, had the hammer for his symbol. It was with this hammer that Thor crushed the head of the great Mitgard serpent, that he destroyed the giants, that he restored the dead goats to life, which drew his car, that he consecrated the pyre of Baldur. This hammer was a cross.2 The cross of Thor is still used in Iceland as a magical sign in connection with storms of wind and rain. King Olaf, Longfellow tells us, when keeping Christmas at Drontheim: "O'er his drinking-horn, the sign He made of the Cross Divine, And he drank, and mutter'd his prayers; Made the sign of the hammer of Thor Over theirs." Actually, they both made the same symbol. This we are told by Snorro Sturleson, in the Heimskringla (Saga iv. c. 18), when he describes the sacrifice at Lade, at which King Hakon, Athelstan's foster-son, was present: "Now when the first full goblet was filled, Earl Sigurd spoke some words over it, and blessed it in Odin's name, and drank to the king out of the horn; and the king then took it, and made the sign of the cross over it. Then said Kaare of Greyting, 'What does the king mean by doing so? will he not sacrifice?' But Earl Sigurd replied, 'The King is doing what all of you do who trust in your power and strength; for he is blessing the full goblet in the name of Thor, by making the sign of his hammer over it before he drinks it." The cross was also a sacred emblem among the Laplanders. "In solemn sacrifices, all the Lapland idols were marked with it from the blood of the victims." 994 It was adored by the ancient Druids of Britain, and is to be seen on the so-called "fire towers" of Ireland and Scotland. The 66 consecrated trees" of the Druids had a cross beam attached to them, making the figure of a cross. On several of the most curious and most ancient monuments of Britain, the cross is to be seen, evidently cut thereon by the Druids. Many large stones throughout Ireland have these Druid crosses cut in them." 1 Anct. Art and Mytho., p. 30. Curious Myths, pp. 280, 281. Ibid. pp. 281, 282. Knight: Ancient Art and Mytho., p. 30. Cleland observes, in his " Attempt to Revive Celtic Literature," that the Druids taught the doctrine of an overruling providence, and the immortality of the soul: that they had also their Lent, their Purgatory, their Paradise, their Hell, their Sanctuaries, and the similitude of the May-pole in form to the cross.' "In the Island of I-com-kill, at the monastery of the Culdees, at the time of the Reformation, there were three hundred and sixty crosses.' The Caaba at Mecca was surrounded by three hundred and sixty crosses." This number has nothing whatever to do with Christianity, but is to be found everywhere among the ancients. It represents the number of days of the ancient year.* When the Spanish missionaries first set foot upon the soil of America, in the fifteenth century, they were amazed to find that the cross was as devoutly worshiped by the red Indians as by themselves. The hallowed symbol challenged their attention on every hand, and in almost every variety of form. And, what is still more remarkable, the cross was not only associated with other objects corresponding in every particular with those delineated on Babylonian monuments; but it was also distinguished by the Catholic appellations, "the tree of subsistence," "the wood of health," "the emblem of life," &c." When the Spanish missionaries found that the cross was no new object of veneration to the red men, they were in doubt whether to ascribe the fact to the pious labors of St. Thomas, whom they thought might have found his way to America, or the sacrilegious subtlety of Satan. It was the central object in the great temple of Cozamel, and is still preserved on the bas-reliefs of the ruined city of Palenque. From time immemorial it had received the prayers and sacrifices of the Aztecs and Toltecs, and was suspended as an august emblem from the walls of temples in Popogan and Cundin amarca." The ruined city of Palenque is in the depths of the forests of Central America. It was not inhabited at the time of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. They discovered the temples and palaces of Chiapa, but of Palenque they knew nothing. According to tradition it was founded by Votan in the ninth century before the Christian era. The principal building in this ruined city is the palace. A noble tower rises above the courtyard in the centre. In |