church received her novices into the Sisterhood a sapphire ring blessed by a Bishop was given as a holy symbol of the mystical marriage. In the famous Pulsky Collection—mentioned by Mr. C. W. King—there is a wonderful intaglio on a fine sapphire of Pope Paul III by the great Alessandro Cesati, three-quarters of an inch square. St. Jerome (4th and 5th centuries) wrote that the sapphire saved its wearer from captivity and pacified his enemies, also that it gained the favour of princes. Some old authors recommend the sapphire as a stone for the hands of Kings. It is a stone rather of Democracy. Perhaps, however, the symbolic idea was that the King as the servant of the people could adorn his hand with no more fitting emblem. It is traditionally reported that the ring of King Solomon was a sapphire, which stone was believed by some of the masters to be the special talisman of the Jews. One kept in the Holy of Holies as a holy emblem is said to have been saved and concealed for the people of Israel when Titus sacked Jerusalem. Moses was born with the Sun rising in the ascending Aquarius, hence the adoption of either the sapphire as we know it today or the lapis lazuli as national gems is perfectly natural. The sapphire in the signet of Constantine, weighing 53 carats, which now lies amongst the treasures in the Rinuccini Cabinet at Florence, is cut in intaglio with a portrait of the Emperor in the guise of Nimrod attacking a great boar with his spear in the Cæsarean plains. As a gem of heavenly and beautiful thoughts the sapphire was regarded as a scare against devils, evil forces, witchcraft, sorcery and all forms of villainy. The Buddhists symbolically say that a sapphire opens a closed door, brings prayerful feelings and sounds the sweet bells of peace. It is a stone of truth, constancy, friendship, goodness and angelic help; it warns against hidden dangers and heightens the imagination and psychic forces. It rebels against intoxication and refuses to adorn the hand of a drunkard; it helps hopes and wishes that are truly just and right. It was the third stone of the Nao-rattan and the fourth of the seven rings which Iarchus brought down from the angelic spheres as a gift to Apollonius of Tyana. It was the fourth stone of the magical necklace of Vishnu, and according to the Ramayana sapphires fell from the eyes of the slain god Maha Bali.