The same attribute was on other occasions signified by a dove or pigeon, by the sparrow, and perhaps by the polypus, which often appears upon coins with the head of the goddess, and which was accounted an aphrodisiac, though it is likewise of the androgynous class. The fig was a still more common symbol, the statue of Priapus being made of the tree, and the fruit being carried with the Phallus in the ancient processions in honour of Bacchus, and still continuing among the common people of Italy to be an emblem of what it anciently meant: whence we often see portraits of persons of that country painted with it in one hand, to signify their orthodox elevation to the fair sex. Hence, also arose the Italian expression _far la fica_, which was done by putting the thumb between the middle and fore-fingers, as it appears in many Priapic ornaments extant; or by putting the finger or thumb into the corner of the mouth and drawing it down, of which there is a representation in a small Priapic figure of exquisite sculpture, engraved among the _Antiquities of Herculaneum_. LIBERALITY AND SAMENESS OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS The same liberal and humane spirit still prevails among those nations whose religion is founded on the same principles. “The Siamese,” says a traveller of the seventeenth century, “shun disputes and believe that almost all religions are good” (“Journal du Voyage de Siam”). When the ambassador of Louis XIV asked their king, in his master’s name, to embrace Christianity, he replied, “that it was strange that the king of France should interest himself so much in an affair which concerns only God, whilst He, whom it did concern, seemed to leave it wholly to our discretion. Had it been agreeable to the Creator that all nations should have had the same form of worship, would it not have been as easy to His omnipotence to have created all men with the same sentiments and dispositions, and to have inspired them with the same notions of the True Religion, as to endow them with such different tempers and inclinations? Ought they not rather to believe that the true God has as much pleasure in being honoured by a variety of forms and ceremonies, as in being praised and glorified by a number of different creatures? Or why should that beauty and variety, so admirable in the natural order of things, be less admirable or less worthy of the wisdom of God in the supernatural?” The Hindus profess exactly the same opinion. “They would readily admit the truth of the Gospel,” says a very learned writer long resident among them, “but they contend that it is perfectly consistent with their Shastras. The Deity, they say, has appeared innumerable times in many parts of this world and in all worlds, for the salvation of his creatures; and we adore, they say, the same God, to whom our several worships, though different in form, are equally acceptable if they be sincere in substance.”