MISCELLANEOUS. 265 



elaborate pattern for a splendid Turkey carpet. When 

 transverse sections of this object are viewed by polarized 

 light, each particle is seen to be marked with a cross, 

 somewhat resembling starch-grains, and the lights and 

 shadows of this cross are replaced by contrasted colours, 

 when the selenite plate is interposed. 



The cross : its lights and shadows! I have already 

 taught you in a former work, " The Starry Cross," that 

 we see the " shadow " repeated in almost every part of 

 natural history ; not only is there a " natural law in the 

 spiritual world," but the sign of the cross which, to the 

 earliest of the human race, and ages before the Prince of 

 life was lifted up upon it, was, it is said, the sign of 

 perfection is, by a spiritual law, imprinted, as if it were 

 God's sacred mark, in every part of the natural world. 



In this transverse section of a remarkable tree as 

 seen under polarized light, not only is the cross visible 

 exactly as represented by the early painters, but it is 

 fixed in a mound of supporting earth ; and the medullary 

 rays, starting from the head of the cross, very much re- 

 semble the rays of glory, which we have seen in the 

 most costly of pictures, and which gives a new colour to 

 the motto of a very dear friend 



" Christi crux est mea lux." 

 (Christ's cross is my light.) 



This unique specimen is called Bauhinia Chinensis, after 

 two botanists, John and Casper Bauhin, who discovered 

 the plant last century. It is a native of Ceylon, and 

 flowers on St. Thomas's Day, and, because its petals are 

 spotted with crimson, it was said by the superstitious to 

 be sprinkled with the blood of the saint, who is said to 

 have suffered martyrdom in India. Could they have 

 known that a transverse section, when seen with the 



