Irish Druids And Old Irish Religions

IRISH CROSSES.

WHO could write the history of the Cross? It is the most ancient, and the most deeply reverenced of all religious symbols. To the men dwelling beside the Nile or the Euphrates, to the inhabitants of India to the East and of Mexico to the West, to those sojourners in Egypt before the Great Pyramid was built, not less than to modern Christians, the Cross, whatever may have been the meaning attached to it, in the ever-changing systems of faith, has been a source of wonder, of mystery, and of comfort.

When the Christians assaulted the Osirian temple at Alexandria, and with destructive force entered its sacred precincts, they saw a huge cross occupying the marble pavement. Great, too, was the surprise of the Spaniards to find the same emblem in the temples of aboriginal America. The Tau or Cross meets one's view in the ornamental relics of many lands.

Ancient Ireland was no exception in the display of cruciform objects.

The Edinburgh Review of 1870 truly said, "It appears to have been the possession of every people in antiquity; the elastic girdle, so to speak, which embraced the most widely-separated heathen communities; the most significant token of a universal brotherhood." It can, it adds, be traced "to the remotest antiquity, and is still recognized as a military and national badge of distinction."

The Rev. A. Hisrop, in his Two Babylons, boldly asserts

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