THE CANADIAN JOURNAL. 



NEW SERI ES. 



No. LXXIX.— NOVEMBER, 1873. 



ANCIENT CARVED STONE, 



FOUND AT CHESTERHOLM, NORTHUMBERLAND, ENGLAND. 



BY THE REV. JOHN McCAUL, LL.D., 



PRESIDENT OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, TORONTO. 



In tlie Gentleman's Magazine for 1833, p. 597, a stone, whicli is 

 placed in the wall of tlie farm-house of Low Foggerish, about half-a- 

 mile south of Chesterliolm, is figured, and the following remarks are 

 given by Mr. Urban's correspondent V. W.=Ilev. John Hodgson: — 



Here we have the umbilicated moon ia her state of opposition to the sun, and 

 the sign of fruitfulness. She was also, in the doct ines of Sabaism, the northern 

 gate, by which Mercury conducted souls to birth, as n e tioned by Homer in 

 his description of the Cave of tlie Nymp 9, and upon which there remains a 

 commentary by Porphyry. Of this cave Homer says : 



Fountains it had eternal, and two gates. 

 The northern one to men admittance gives ; 

 That to the south is more divine— a way 

 Untrod by men — t' Immortals only known. 



The Cross, in gentile rites, was the symbol of reproduction and resurrection. 

 It was, as Shaw remarks, " the same with the ineffable image of eternity that ia 

 taken notice of by Suidas." The crescent ^ as the lunar ship or ark that bore, in 

 Mr. Faber's language, the Great Father and the Great Mother over the waters 

 of the deluge ; and it was also the emblem of thi boat or ship which took aspi- 

 rants over the lak^s or arms of the sea to the Sacred Islands, to which they re- 

 sorted for initiation into the mysteries; and over the river of death to the man- 

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