can continents, while the meaning underlying its
worship was identical. In the west, as in the east, the cross was the
symbol of life--sometimes of life physical, more often of life
eternal.

In like manner in both hemispheres the worship of the sun-disk or
circle, and of the serpent, was universal, and more surprising still
is the similarity of the word signifying "God" in the principal
languages of east and west. Compare the Sanscrit "Dyaus" or
"Dyaus-pitar," the Greek "Theos" and Zeus, the Latin "Deus" and
"Jupiter," the Keltic "Dia" and "Ta," pronounced "Thyah" (seeming to
bear affinity to the Egyptian Tau), the Jewish "Jah" or "Yah" and
lastly the Mexican "Teo" or "Zeo."

Baptismal rites were practised by all nations. In Babylon and Egypt
the candidates for initiation into the Mysteries were first baptized.
Tertullian in his _De Baptismo_ says that they were promised in
consequence "regeneration and the pardon of all their perjuries." The
Scandinavian nations practised baptism of new-born children; and when
we turn to Mexico and Peru we find infant baptism there as a solemn
ceremonial, consisting of water sprinkling, the sign of the cross, and
prayers for the washing away of sin (see Humboldt's _Mexican
Researches_ and Prescott's _Mexico_).

In addition to baptism, the tribes of Mexico, Central America and Peru
resembled the nations of the old world in their rites of confession,
absolution, fasting, and marriage before priests by joining hands. They
had even a ceremony resembling the Eucharist, in which cakes marked with
the Tau (an Egyptian form of cross) were eaten, the people calling them
the flesh of their God. These exactly resemble the sacred cakes of Egypt
and other eastern nations. Like these nations too, the people of the new
world had monastic orders, male and female, in which broken vows were
punished with death. Like the Egyptians they embalmed their dead, they
worshipped sun, moon, and planets, but over and above these adored a
Deity "omnipresent, who knoweth all things ... invisible, incorporeal,
one God of perfect perfection" (see Sahagun's _Historia de Nueva
Espana_, lib. vi.).

They too had their virgin-mother goddess, "Our Lady" whose son, the
"Lord of Light," was called the "Saviour," bearing an accurate
correspondence to Isis, Beltis and the many other virgin-goddesses of
the east with their divine sons.

Their rites of sun and fire worship closely resembled those of the
early Kelts of Br