Over and above the idea that this holy sign recalled to Christians their obligation to glorify their Master in all their doings, the thought early sprang up that in the sign itself was provided a defence against the assaults of evil. S. Athanasius asserts most emphatically that "if only the sign of the cross, which the Gentiles ridicule, be used, if Christ be but named, devils will instantly be put to flight, and all the arts of magic be reduced to nothing." S. Ephrem calls the sign "the invincible armour of Christians, the vanquisher of death, the hope of the faithful, the downfall of heresies, the bulwark of the true faith." While Tertullian, who was quoted in this connection in a former chapter, tells us in his "Antidote for a Scorpion's Sting," that "we have faith for a defence, if we are not smitten also with distrust itself, in immediately making the sign of the cross over the wounded part, and adjuring that part in the name of Jesus." One wonders whether from some similar hope the custom arose of marking plague-stricken houses with a red cross and the words "Lord have mercy." Tertullian's Apologies give us strong proof of the prevalence of the sign, and the reverence felt for it, in his day, in that he more than once finds it needful to repel the heathen charge that the Christians worshipped the cross, and were indeed merely a "priesthood of the cross, _crucis antistites_." The "Myrroure of our Lady" (published in 1530) thus quaintly describes and explains the manner of making the sign:--"Ye begin with the hand at the head downward, and then to the left side and after to the right side, in token and belief our Lord Jesus Christ came down from the Head, that is from the Father, unto earth by His holy Incarnation, and from the earth unto the left side, that is Hell, by His bitter Passion, and from thence unto His Father's right side by His glorious Ascension; and after this ye bring your hand to your breast, in token that ye are come to thank Him and praise Him in the utmost of your heart for His benefits." The sign was not, however, invariably made in the same way. The whole hand was sometimes employed (the usual method in the present day) signifying the five wounds of Christ; but sometimes three fingers only, as an invocation of the Holy Trinity; or two fingers emblematic of the two natures of the Saviour. In the east it is made from left to right. The usages referred to in the passages quoted above are all of the private kind, and their employment, although common to all, must always have depended as to their frequency upon the taste or the habits of individuals. The very earliest liturgical forms, however, give ample proof of their use also in the stated ritual of the Church.