Vaux.] 4b0 [May 17, 



Prehistoric and pagan traditions show that in man a spiritual conscious- 

 ness existed. 



Aristotle, in his subdivision of the Nutrient, the Sensitive, and the 

 Intelligent or Rational, as indicating the growth from the material to the 

 spiritual, portrays the highest form of this growth to be religious thought. 

 It may be from the different effects of the senses and sensations arising 

 out of the four causes, — the body, represented by the material ; the soul, 

 comprising the formal ; movent, or efficient, and the final, or spir- 

 itual. 



This philosophy of growth is the explanation of the relation between 

 what is the mental, moral, and physical trinity in our nature. In the 

 earliest days in the life of man this spiritual faculty existed. The fact that 

 symbols were then known, and that they emanated from this spiritual 

 faculty, sustains the contention that a religion was a revelation to every 

 people, and that under some form a supernatural Divine Power was wor- 

 shiped. The Circle symbol of the Sun God, to which a cross was added, 

 must be regarded as significant of the primitive principle of this worship. 

 A Cross appears among all the peoples of whom any knowledge is obtaina- 

 ble from traditions. 



The Crux Ansata, or the Cross of Horus, or Tau, fifteen centuries before 

 our era, the Cross Cramponne, the Thor's Hammer, Fylfot, Croix Patte, 

 the Swastika, the Maltese Cross, the Handled Cross, are associated with 

 worship as a symbol. The hieroglyphics in tlie Temple of Serapis indi- 

 cate that the Cross there is interpreted, "Life to come." The Maltese 

 Cross was found in the ruins of Nineveh, another in the flail of Nisroch. 

 The Handled Cross was a sacred symbol among the Babylonians. 



The authorities consulted justify the contention that the Cross in its 

 various forms was a spiritual symbol of religion. In Europe a people is 

 reported to have lived more than fifteen hundred years before our era, ot 

 whom nothing is now known. Quarries are found, called terramares, on 

 the site of the locality of these people, and the researches in these quarries 

 showed that the Cross was a religious symbol among them. The tombs of 

 Golasecca show the fact that one thousand years before our era the Cross 

 was a like symbol. In a ruined city in South America, not inhabited at 

 the time of the conquest, a palace has been discovered, and in it a slab of 

 gypsum on which a sculptured Cross was found. And also another co- 

 lossal Cross represents on it a bleeding deity, with a Tau Cross, sur- 

 rounded by figures. The city existed nine hundred j'ears before our era. 

 The palace in Palenque was 128 feet long, 180 wide, and 40 high, in 

 which are temples, chapels and altars. The same Cross is found in pre- 

 Mexican writings, as in the Dresden Codex. 



In Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, among the ]\Iaya race in Central America, 

 and the Azteks, Quinamies, Zapatecas, and the inhabitants of the ruined 

 cities of Zaputero and St. Ulloa, the Cross was venerated as a sacred 

 symbol. 



