This connection of the encircling ring with the heart’s blood, is of very ancient origin, and of general, if not of universal, application. Wilkinson (_Anc. Egypt._, III., 420) cites Macrobius as saying, that “those Egyptian priests who were called prophets, when engaged in the temple near the altars of the gods, moistened [anointed] the ring-finger of the left hand (which was that next to the smallest) with various sweet ointments, in the belief that a certain nerve communicated with it from the heart.” He also says, that among the Egyptian women, many finger rings were worn, and that “the left was considered the hand peculiarly privileged to wear these ornaments; and it is remarkable that its third finger [next to the little finger] was considered by them, as by us, _par excellence_ the ring finger; though there is no evidence [to his knowledge] of its having been so honored at the marriage ceremony.” Birch adds (_Ibid._, II., 340), that “it is very difficult to distinguish between the ring worn for mere ornament, and the signet [standing for the wearer’s very life] employed to seal [and to sign] epistles and other things.” The evidence is, in fact, ample, that the ring, in ancient Egypt, as elsewhere, was not a mere ornament, nor yet a superstitious amulet, but represented one’s heart, or one’s life, as a symbol and pledge of personal fidelity. In South Australia, the rite of circumcision is one of the steps by which a lad enters into the sphere of manhood. This involves his covenanting with his new god-father, and with his new fellows in the sphere of his entering. In this ceremony, the very ring of flesh itself is placed “on the third finger of the boy’s left hand” (Angas’s _Sav. Life_, I., 99). What stronger proof than this could be given, that the finger-ring is a vestige of the primitive blood-covenant token? An instance of the use of a large ring, or bracelet, encircling the two hands of persons joining in the marriage covenant, is reported to me from the North of Ireland, in the present century. It was in the county Donegal. The Roman Catholic priest was a French exile. In marrying the people of the poorer class, who could not afford to purchase a ring, he “would take the large ring from his old-fashioned double-cased watch, and hold it on the hands, or the thumbs, of the contracting parties, while he blessed their union.” Yet another illustration of the universal symbolism of the ring, as a token of sacred covenant, is its common use as a pledge of friendship, even unto death. The ring given by Queen Elizabeth to the unfortunate Earl of Essex, is an instance in point. Had that covenant-token reached her, her covenant promises would have been redeemed.