There are some authors who have treated of tree and serpent worship, and of its prevalence in ancient times, without having, so far as I can see, any idea of that which the two things typify. The tree of knowledge, the tree of life, the serpent that tempted Eve, and still tempts man by his subtlety, are so many figures of speech which the wise understand, but which to the vulgar are simply trees and snakes. In a fine old bas-relief over the door of the Cathedral at Berne, we see an ancient representation of the last judgment. An angel is dividing the sheep from the goats, and devils are drawing men and women to perdition, by fixing hooks or pincers on the portions of the body whence their sins sprang. One fat priest, nude as our risen bodies must be, is being savagely pulled to hell by the part symbolised by tree and serpent, whilst she whom he has adored and vainly sought to disgrace, is rising to take her place amongst the blest. It is not those of the sex of Eve alone that are inveigled to destruction by the serpent. * For those who have not an opportunity of consulting the work referred to, I may observe that the Assyrian godhead consisted of four persons, three being male and one female. The principal god was Asher, the upright one, the equivalent of the Hindoo Mahadeva, the great holy one, and of the more modern Priapus. He was associated with Anu, lord of solids and of the lower world, equivalent to the "testis," or egg on the right side. Hea was lord of waters, and represented the left "stone." The three formed the trinity or triad. The female was named Ishtar or Astarte, and was equivalent to the female organ, the yoni or vulva--the [Greek] of the Greeks. The male god in Egypt was Osiris, the female Isis, and these names are frequently used as being euphemistic, and preferable to the names which are in vulgar use to describe the male and female parts. PLATE X. Contains pagan symbols of the trinity or linga, with or without the unity or yoni. Fig. 1 represents a symbol frequently met with in ancient architecture, etc. It represents the male and female elements, the pillar and the half moon. Fig. 2 represents the mystic letters said to have been placed on the portal of the oracle of Delphi. By some it is proposed to read the two letters as signifying "he or she is;" by others the letters are taken to be symbolic of the triad and the unit. If they be, the pillar is a very unusual form for the yoni. An ingenious friend of mine regards the upright portion as a "slit," but I cannot wholly agree with him, for in Fig. 1 the pillar cannot be looked upon as an aperture. Fig. 3 is a Hindoo sectarial mark, copied from Moor's Hindu Pantheon, and is one out of many indicating the union of the male and female.