Among the monuments of Christianity in Iona, none are more conspicuous and eloquent than the numerous crosses, of which the original number is said to have been three hundred and sixty. Most of them have been ruthlessly carried away or demolished. For myself, much as I deplore the Vandalism which has mutilated nearly all these sacred memorials, I can well dispense with the other three hundred and fifty-nine crosses for the sake of the vivid recollection, I may almost say consciousness, I have of one, that of St. Martin, which stands upright and in good preservation just at the entrance of the cathedral inclosure, and produces a solemn effect upon the mind of every reverential beholder. It consists of a solid column of mica schist, fourteen feet in height, fixed in a massive pedestal of red granite, and is of substantial rather than graceful proportions. It is carved in high relief, and on one side is sculptured with emblematic devices, of which the Virgin and Child, surrounded by cherubs, occupy the central place. But its most characteristic feature is its antiquity, enhanced to the eye by the gray lichens and the rust of time, with which it is so incrusted that it presents a hoary and venerable aspect, and seems the embodiment of that ancient faith to which the whole island is consecrated. Here saints and abbots of distant ages have knelt and wept and prayed, and caught the inspiration for their labor of love, and here still, if we listen to the voices in our hearts, we may hear the Spirit's whisper, and he who runs may read the everliving sermon written on the old gray stone. We have now gained the Cathedral, by far the best preserved and most imposing of the ruined edifices of Iona,--a building which exhibits various styles of architecture, and which is probably of more recent construction than the other monastic or ecclesiastical monuments. It is cruciform, and the square tower at the intersection, about seventy feet in height, remains entire. The building is unroofed: for here, as in the case of every other ancient structure on the island, every particle of wood-work has been carried away, that material being too precious in Iona to escape being converted to utilitarian purposes. The dimensions of the cathedral or abbey church are spacious, and it boasted, even in recent centuries, a noble altar and many other decorations, of which it has been despoiled,--partly, no doubt, by the inhabitants of the island; but tourists and pilgrims to the place are in no slight degree responsible for these depredations, since, in their eagerness for mementos, they have mercilessly robbed and mutilated it, and it is prophesied, that, in spite of every possible precaution, many of the interesting memorials of antiquity in Iona will soon be unrecognizable or will have ceased to exist.