nd when
any one died the water was sprinkled on him. Finally Rome conquered
Greece physically, but Greece conquered Rome intellectually. This is
the myth of holy water, and with it grew up the idea of baptism, and I
presume that that is as old as water and dirt. The cross is another
universal symbol. There was once an ancient people in Italy before the
Romans, before the Etruscans. They faded from the world, and history
does not even know the name of that nation. We find where they buried
the ashes of their dead, and we find chiseled, hundreds of years before
Christ, the cross, a symbol of a hope of another life. We find the
cross in Egypt, in the cylinders from Babylon, and, more than that, we
find them in Central America. On the temples of the Aztecs we find the
cross, and on it a bleeding, dying god. Our cross was built in the
middle ages.

When Adam was very sick he sent Seth, his son, to the garden of Eden.
He told him he would have no trouble in finding it; all he had to do
was to follow the tracks made by his mother and father when they left
it. He wanted a little balsam from the tree of life that he might not
die. Seth found there a cherub, with flaming sword, who would not let
him pass the door. He moved his wings so that he could see in, and he
saw the tree of life, with its roots running down to hell, and among
them Cain, the murderer. The angel gave Seth three seeds, and told him
to put them in his father's mouth when he was buried and to watch the
effect. The result was that these trees grew up--one pine, one cedar,
and on cypress. Solomon cut down one of these trees to put in the
temple, but it grew through the roof and he threw it into the pool of
Bethesda. When the soldiers went for a beam on which to crucify Christ
they took this tree and made a cross of it. Helen, the mother of
Constantine, went to Jerusalem to find this cross. She found the two
crosses, also, that the thieves were crucified on. They could not tell
which was which, so they called a sick woman who touched them, and when
she touched the right one she was immediately made whole.

Such is myth and fable. The history of one religion is substantially
the history of all religions. In embryo man lives all lives. The man
of genius knows within himself the history of the human race; he knows
the history of all religions. The man of imagination, genius, having
seen a leaf and a drop of water, can construct the forests, the