Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

Lrish Crosses. 249
its use in their day. Processions in its honour were known
in the fifth century. Cyprian records its use on the brow
in baptism. The first Protestant Prayer-book (Edward
VI.) ordered its mark on the infant's breast and forehead.
The whole Christian world has either bowed to it, or raised
but a feeble voice against its use.
Ireland has been, and is, the very land of crosses. Long
before St. Patrick came to its shores, wise men from the
East had brought it in Mediterranean galleys.
What did the Irish think of the Cross } What elevatine
ideas did it convey to them } Was the Pre-Christian
emblem anything to the mass of the natives, or pertaining
only to the foreign settlers encamped upon their coast }
Did Irish Druids, mixing more with the people, adore the
Cross, as was the custom with British Druids 1
To the Christianized Irish, whether Culdees or not, it
was the symbol of the once suffering but now exalted
One. In bowing to it they beheld the image of their
Saviour, and indulged the hope of a happier Home Beyond.
If the heathen cross came to them from the East, it was
from the East it afterwards approached them with a higher
and nobler faith.
The pagan crosses being just the same in appearance as
those subsequently introduced by Christian missionaries,
we may reasonably be puzzled to distinguish one class from
the other. Dr. Graves, Bishop of Limerick, compared
Irish and Coptic crosses.
" These," said he, " were brought
into both Egypt and Ireland from Palestine, Syria, Asia
Minor, Byzantium." He found oriental crosses with or
without circles
on Ogham Irish monuments.
Wakeman, in his IrisJi Inscribed Crosses, believes they
" were used by the people of Erin as a symbol of some
significance, at a period long antecedent to the mission of
St. Patrick." Rubbines from the stones on the Island of