54 WILD FLOWERS. 



oxalic acid made from sugar. Ten pounds of the 

 leaves of woodsorrel afford rather more than one 

 ounce of the salt, which crystallizes in small white 

 iieedle-like masses. 



Gerarde is, however, wrong with regard to the 

 origin of the name alleluja. This arose from the 

 veneration formerly paid to the plant ; for even 

 among the Druids it was an emblem of the mys- 

 terious Three in One, which they claimed as their 

 own peculiar secret, and endeavoured to illustrate 

 in every possible particular of their worship. And 

 their reverence for the plant was doubtless increased 

 by the fact that each leaflet of the trifid leaf, is 

 marked by a pale crescent, the emblem of the moon, 

 and another of their sacred symbols. So too St. 

 Patrick, in accordance with the usual policy of the 

 early preachers of the gospel, chose a trefoil leaf to 

 illustrate his doctrine, and to prove that he preached 

 to them "no new thing/' but that "the God whom 

 they ignorantly worshipped " he " declared unto 

 them ;" and when he won over to Christianity the 

 multitudes on Tara's hill, by illustrating to them by 

 the plant they already held sacred, the truth of the 

 great doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, it is not 

 wonderful that the word of praise, ever on the lips 

 of those early and enthusiastic converts, should 

 gradually become the name of the plant, which 

 thus, at once, illustrated, and justified their belief. 

 It had also from long antiquity been the emblem 

 of hope. The general expression, that St. Patrick 

 converted these multitudes by exhibiting to them 

 the uniting of the three in one in a shamrock leaf, 



