Very pretty, no doubt! but, unlike the Wayside Cross, this kind of writing leads nowhere. We want Mr. Hawker's authority for what 'the forefathers said, in their simplicity'; without that, what the forefathers said resembles what the soldier said in being inadmissible as evidence. We want Mr. Hawker's authority for saying that these paths '_in truth_, were trodden, and worn by religious men.' Nay we want his authority for saying that there were any paths at all! The hypotheses of symbolism are even worse; for these may lead to anything. Mr. Langdon was seriously told on one occasion that the four holes of a cross represented the four evangelists. "This," says he plaintively, "it will be admitted, is going a little too far, as nothing else but four holes could be the result of a ring and cross combined." At Phillack, in the west of Cornwall, there is _part_ of a coped stone having a rude cable mounting along the top of the ridge. Two sapient young archaeologists counted the remaining notches of this cable, and, finding they came to _thirty-two_, decided at once that they represented our Lord's age! They were quite certain, having counted them twice. In fact, there seems to be nothing that symbolism will not prove. Do you meet with a pentacle? Its five points are the fingers of Omnipotence. With a six-pointed star? Then Omnipotence has taken an extra finger, to include the human nature of the Messiah: and so on. It reminds one of the Dilly Song:-- "I will sing you Five, O!" "What is your Five, O?" "Five it is the Dilly Bird that's never seen but heard, O!" "I will sing you Six, O! . . ." And six is 'The Cherubim Watchers,' or 'The Crucifix,' or 'The Cheerful Waiters,' or 'The Ploughboys under the Bowl,' or whatever local fancy may have hit on and made traditional.