[Illustration: Prehistoric Crosses Discovered in Pagan Sepulchres
(Italy).]

THE ORIGIN OF THE CROSS



Only the uninformed, of whom, we regret to say, there are a great
many, and who are the main support of the old religions, still believe
that the cross originated with Christianity. Like the dogmas of the
Trinity, the virgin birth, and the resurrection, the sign of the cross
or the cross as an emblem or a symbol was borrowed from the more
ancient faiths of Asia. Perhaps one of the most important discoveries
which primitive man felt obliged never to be ungrateful enough to
forget, was the production of fire by the friction of two sticks
placed across each other in the form of a cross. As early as the stone
age we find the cross carved on monuments which have been dug out of
the earth and which can be seen in the museums of Europe. On the coins
of later generations as well as on the altars of prehistoric times we
find the "sacred" symbol of the cross. The dead in ancient cemeteries
slept under the cross as they do in our day in Catholic churchyards.

[Illustration: House of Goodness, with Cross. Egyptian, 2000 B. C.]

In ancient Egypt, as in modern China, India, Corea, the cross is
venerated by the masses as a charm of great power. In the Musee
Guimet, in Paris, we have seen specimens of pre-Christian crosses. In
the Louvre Museum one of the "heathen" gods carries a cross on his
head. During his second journey to New Zealand, Cook was surprised to
find the natives marking the graves of their dead with the cross. We