A few years later, in 1192, we hear of the Cross as still in Saladin's possession, and as shewn by his permission to some favoured pilgrims, among whom was the Bishop of Salisbury, and then it disappears from history; the sacred wood that thousands had braved the perils of seas and Alpine passes to gaze upon, that myriads had gladly died to protect, vanished from the eyes of men, whither none can say. Nothing now remains of the most highly-prized relic which the world has ever held, except numerous fragments of the wood preserved in cathedrals and elsewhere throughout Europe, some score or more of nails purporting to be those which fixed the hands and feet of the Lord, and the board with its trilingual inscription. The sneer that there is enough wood of the true Cross to build a man-of-war has become a common-place, but it proves only the ignorance of those who repeat it; the fragments being all of the smallest dimensions, few as large as a pin, many no larger than a pin's head. The nails were probably most of them made as copies of the originals, and in course of time have come to be regarded as genuine. The famous iron crown of Lombardy has been said to enshrine a holy nail, but the claim is no older than the sixteenth century. The inscription is in the church of Santa Croce at Rome, and the question of its genuineness stands exactly on a level with that of the Cross itself: whether or no it be the veritable board which hung above the head of the Crucified, there can be little doubt that it is the one unearthed by S. Helena more than fifteen hundred years ago. It is from the period of the Crusades especially that we must date the wide-spread erection of crosses and use of cross-forms throughout Europe. Worn as a badge or charm, worked in silk or chaced in metal, towering in stone by the wayside or overshadowing the busy market, gleaming on banners, or resplendent in jewels in the solemnity of the Church,--everywhere the holy sign met the eye. One use of the Christian emblem was directly due to Crusading influence. The union in the expeditions against the infidels of knights of many lands and different languages gave its origin, or at any rate its organized form, to the science of heraldry; and the spirit which presided at its birth is shown in the immense variety of crosses recognised in its vocabulary. We have the Latin Cross, the ordinary cross of suffering; the Greek Cross with its equal arms; the Cross of S. Andrew, or the saltire (=X=); the Maltese, or eight-pointed cross; the Tau, or Egyptian Cross (=T=); and others which a persistent ingenuity of invention has almost endlessly varied.