Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

Irish Crosses. 247
Glasgow fame. It is singular that in the ruins of Zimbahwe,
of Mashona Land, travellers have found some
double iron bells. No bell has any charming power until
duly consecrated by the priest of some faith.
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 O'^j-i", 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 Tan 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 Revieiv 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. Hislop, in his Two BabyIons, boldly asserts