The names of the stars would also be more appropriate, for it is the Sacrifice of Christ which they foreshadowed, and here it was that the price which covered was paid, and outweighed the price which was deficient. What that price was to be, and how it was to be paid, and what was to be the result in the Person of the Redeemer, is set forth in detail in the three sections of this chapter by the constellations of _The Cross_ endured, _The Victim_ slain, and _The Crown_ bestowed. 1. CRUX (The Cross). _The Cross Endured_. The Hebrew name was _Adom_, which means _cutting off_, as in Dan. ix. 26:—“After threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off.” The last letter of the Hebrew alphabet was called _Tau_, which was anciently made in the form of a cross. The ancient _Phœnician_ was [Symbol: right‐tilted cross]; the ancient _Hebrew_, as found on coins, was [Symbol: right‐tilted cross] and [Symbol: vertical cross]; the _Aramaic_, as found on Egyptian monuments, was a transition [Symbol: tilted cross] or [Symbol: stretched cross], which passed into the present square Hebrew character ת. This letter is called _Tau_, and means _a mark_; especially _a boundary‐mark, a limit or finish_. And it is the last letter, which finishes the Hebrew alphabet to this day. [Illustration] Plate 6: Crux (the Cross) The Southern Cross was just visible in the latitude of Jerusalem at the time of the first coming of our Lord to die. Since then, through the gradual recession of the Polar Star, it has not been seen in northern latitudes. It gradually disappeared and became invisible at Jerusalem when the Real Sacrifice was offered there; and tradition, which preserved its memory, assured travellers that if they could go far enough south it would be again seen. Dante sang of “the four stars never beheld but by the early race of men.” It was not until the sixteenth century had dawned that missionaries and voyagers, doubling the Cape for the first time, and visiting the tropics and southern seas, brought back the news of “a wonderful cross more glorious than all the constellations of the heavens.” It is a small asterism, containing only about five stars, _viz._, one of the 1st magnitude, two of the 2nd, one of the 3rd, and one of the 4th. Four of these are in the form of a cross. Long before the Christian Era this sign of the Cross had lost its true meaning, and had been perverted in Babylon and Egypt as it has since been desecrated by Rome. The Persians and Egyptians worshipped it. The cakes made and eaten in honour of the Queen of Heaven were marked with it. This heathen custom Rome has adopted and adapted in her Good Friday cakes, which are thus stamped. But all are alike ignorant of what it means, _viz._, “IT IS FINISHED.”