The phallic idea alluded to again and again in the preceding pages as entering into the heathen conception of a trinity, the practice of circumcision, and the use of the cross as a symbol, branches out in a great variety of directions; at some of these we must cast a brief glance in order that we may form a correct estimate of the subject. Reference has been made to the androgynous nature ascribed to the Deity by different nations, and here at once is opened up the whole subject of sex worship. It is impossible to say how far back we should have to retrace our footsteps in seeking for men's first ideas upon this matter; many ages, it is certain. Forlong, speaking of a remote age and our forefathers, says: "They began to see in life and all nature a God, a Force, a Spirit; or, I should rather say, some nameless thing which no language of those early days, if indeed of present, can describe. They gave to the outward creative organs those devotional thoughts, time, and praise which belonged to the Creator; they figured the living spirit in the cold bodily forms of stone and tree, and so worshipped it. As we read in early Jewish writings, their tribes, like all other early races, bowed before Ashar and Ashe'ra, as others had long before that period worshipped Belus and Uranus, Orus and Isis, Mahadeva, Siva, Sakti, and Parvati. Jupiter and Yuno, or Juno, or rather the first ideas of these, must have arisen in days long subsequent to this. All such steps in civilisation are very slow indeed, and here they had to penetrate the hearts of millions who could neither read nor write, nor yet follow the reader or the preacher; so centuries would fleet past over such rude infantile populations, acting no more on the inert pulpy mass than years, or even months, now do; and if this were so after they began to realise the ideas of a Bel and Ouranos, how much slower before that far-back stage was won. Their first symbolisation seems clearly to have been the simple line, pillar, or a stroke, as their male god; and a cup or circle as their female; and lo! the dual and mystic =10= which early became a trinity, and has stood before the world from that unknown time to this. In this mystic male and female we have the first great androgynous god." Alluding to this subject, an anonymous writer, believed to be a Roman Catholic priest, some sixteen years ago, said:--"The primitive doctrine that God created man in his own image, male and female, and consequently that the divine nature comprised the two sexes within itself, fulfils all the conditions requisite to constitute a catholic theological dogma, inasmuch as it may truly be affirmed of it, that it has been held 'semper, ubique, et ab omnibus,' being universal as the phenomenon to which it owes its existence.