The origin, then, of this _badge_ appearing amongst the _habiliments_ of our ancient priests, is developed by the _name_ which those priests themselves bore, viz. _Luamh_, which, being but a direct formative from _lambh_, a _cross_, _unlocks_ the _secret_ of their being its _ministers_.[573] The _Idæi-Dactyli_, who superintended the mysteries of Ceres, obtained their designation from the very same cause, and corresponded literally with our _Luamhs_: for the _Iod_ of the Chaldeans being equivalent to the _lambh_ or _hand_ of the Irish, the number of fingers thereon were made religiously significant of the X, or _cross_! And,--what cannot fail to excite astonishment, as to the _immutability_ of a nation’s _character_,--_to this very hour, the symbolical oath of the Irish peasant is a transverse placing of the forefinger of one hand over that of the other_, and then uttering the words, “_By the cross_”! Are not the opposers of my _truths_, then, as yet satisfied? or will they still persist in saying that it was the _Pope_ that sent over our Tuath-de-danaan crosses?[574] in the ship _Argho_! some thousands of years before ever Pope was born. I wonder was it His Holiness that transported emissaries also to that ancient city in America, lately discovered in ruins, near Palenque; amongst the sculptures of which we discover a _cross_! And the _priority_ of which to the times of _Christianity_ is borne witness to by the gentleman who has published the “Description” of those ruins,[575] though _glaringly ignorant as to what was commemorated thereby_. “Upon one point, however,” he says, “it is deemed essentially necessary to lay a stress, which is the _representation of a Greek cross_, in the largest plate illustrative of the present work, from whence the _casual_ observer might be prompted to infer that the Palencian city flourished at a period _subsequent_ to the Christian era; whereas it is _perfectly well known to all those conversant_ with the mythology _of the ancients_, that the figure of a _cross_ constituted the leading symbol of their religious worship: for instance, the augural _staff_ or wand of the Romans was an exact resemblance of a _cross_, being borne as the ensign of authority by the community of the augurs of Rome, where they were held in such high veneration that, although guilty of flagrant crimes, they could not be deposed from their offices; and with the Egyptians the _staff_ of Bootes or Osiris is similar to the _crosier_ of Catholic bishops, which terminated at the top with a cross.”