In Peru in the Temple of the Sun an upright pillar has been described covered with gold leaf, very similar to those existing elsewhere and to which has been ascribed similar significance. A number of writers have expressed the belief that the May-pole is an emblem of ancient phallic worship. We know that May-day festivals are of the most remote antiquity. We are indebted to R. P. Knight for a description of what May-day was like about four centuries ago in England. The festival started the evening before. Men and women went out into the woods in search of a tree and brought it back to the village in the early morning. The night was spent in sexual excesses comparable to those of the Roman Bacchanalia. A procession was formed, garlands were added to the May-pole, which was set up in the village square. The Puritans referred to it as an idol, and they did not approve of the festivities. Until comparatively recent years there was a May-pole in one of the squares of London, and Samuel Pepys,[7] writing of his time, speaks of seeing May-poles in the front yards of the prominent citizens of Holland. A festival much the same as this was held in Ancient Rome and also in India. The May-pole properly pierces a disc and thus conforms with the lingam-yoni of India. We also know that the first of May was a favorite time for all nature worship with the ancients. For a number of interesting suggestions the reader is referred to R. P. Knight, Worship of Priapus, and Hargrave Jennings, Indian Religions (Page 66.) [7] Pepys Diary. Tree worship is frequently mentioned in the religions of antiquity. We are told that the mystic powers of the mistletoe comes from the fact that it grows on the oak, a once sacred tree. The pine of the North, the palm and the fig tree of the South, were sacred trees at one time. John Newton made a study of tree worship, especially the Ancient Grove Worship of Assyria. He shows that the object of veneration was a male date palm, which represented the Assyrian god Baal. Sex was worshipped under this deity, and it is shown that the tree of the Assyrian grove was a phallic symbol. Palm Sunday appears to be a relic of this worship. In France, until comparatively recent times, there was a festival, "La Fete des Pinnes," in which palms were carried in procession, and with the palms were carried phalli of bread which had been blessed by the priests.