ecause, says Lee, "its oil is very
useful, in some way or other, in all arts manual which principally
flourish in times of peace." [187]

The quince among the Greeks was the symbol of love and happiness;[188] and
hence, by the laws of Solon, in Athenian marriages, the bride and
bridegroom were required to eat a quince together.

The palm was the symbol of victory;[189] and hence, in the catacombs of
Rome, the burial-place of so many of the early Christians, the palm leaf
is constantly found as an emblem of the Christian's triumph over sin and
death.

The rosemary was a symbol of remembrance, and hence was used both at
marriages and at funerals, the memory of the past being equally
appropriate in both rites.[190]

The parsley was consecrated to grief; and hence all the Greeks decked
their tombs with it; and it was used to crown the conquerors in the Nemean
games, which were of a funereal character.[191]

But it is needless to multiply instances of this symbolism. In adopting
the acacia as a symbol of innocence, Masonry has but extended the
principle of an ancient and universal usage, which thus consecrated
particular plants, by a mystical meaning, to the representation of
particular virtues.

But lastly, the acacia is to be considered as the symbol of INITIATION.
This is by far the most interesting of its interpretations, and was, we
have every reason to believe, the primary and original, the others being
but incidental. It leads us at once to the investigation of that
significant fact to which I have already alluded, that in all the ancient
initiations and religious mysteries there was some plant, peculiar to
each, which was consecrated by its own esoteric meaning, and which
occupied an important position in the celebration of the rites; so that
the plant, whatever it might be, from its constant and prominent use in
the ceremonies of initiation, came at length to be adopted as the symbol
of that initiation.

A reference to some of these _sacred plants_--for such was the character
they assumed--and an investigation of their symbolism will not, perhaps,
be uninteresting or useless, in connection with the subject of the present
article.

In the Mysteries of Adonis, which originated in Phoenicia, and were
afterwards transferred to Greece, the death and resurrection of Adonis was
represented. A part of the legend accompanying these mysteries was, that
when Adonis was slain by a wild boar, Venus laid out the body on